Leicester City are reluctant to pay the £27 million St Etienne want for Wesley Fofana, with The Mail reporting Brendan Rodgers’ Foxes were set to offer closer to £18 million.
Les Verts have already lost one teenage centre-back to England this summer and, after a fine breakthrough season on the other side of the Channel, 19-year-old Fofana has been tipped to follow in William Saliba’s footsteps.
However, a big-money move to Leicester wouldn’t go down well with a former Foxes coach.
Claude Puel is sitting in the dugout at St Etienne these days and has made it clear, in his softly spoken tones, that keeping Fofana at the Stade Geoffroy-Guichard is a must.
Especially after one of France’s most historic clubs avoided relegation by the skin of its teeth.
“Wesley has enormous potential with the state of mind of a competitor,” Puel told the Ligue 1 official website, 18 months after he was handed his P45 at the King Power.
St Etienne president Bernard Caiazzo has made it clear he plans to back his coach in the market and resist all offers for the 6ft 3in, Marseille-born powerhouse (Sport).
“No (we will not sell), because Claude Puel is very firm on the subject,” Caiazzo said.
It seems Leicester, not to mention the likes of AC Milan and Everton, have a proverbial mountain to climb.
St Etienne’s £27 million price tag is proving prohibitive too, with the Foxes unwilling to pay a penny over £18 million as things stand.
Puel looks set to get one over his old employers.
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