It was the final question of the press conference, framed around the fact the Premier League is celebrating its 25th anniversary, and for Craig Shakespeare it was hard to suppress a smile as he contemplated whether Leicester City could be crowned champions again during the next quarter of a century. “Why not?” he said. “Everyone has to have that belief.”
Speaking in a room decorated with the headlines and back pages that greeted Leicester’s extraordinary triumph 15 months ago, Shakespeare talked about a rollercoaster ride as he reflected on the highs and lows of the past few years and, at the same time, tried to gaze into the future. “Who knows?” said the 53-year-old with a chuckle when asked what was in store for his team this season after a great escape, Premier League title and qualification for the last eight of the Champions League during the past three seasons.
Leicester’s owners have been more up front in outlining their own expectations. Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, the vice-chairman, said last month that Leicester are aiming for a top-10 position and “will expand our focus to cup competitions” if the team get off to a good start. All of which appears realistic on the back of a summer of transfer activity that puts Leicester behind only Manchester City and Manchester United when it comes to net spend.
The transfer balance at the King Power Stadium since the end of last season shows a £53.8m deficit following the signings of the Sevilla midfielder Vicente Iborra, Kelechi Iheanacho from Manchester City and Harry Maguire and Eldin Jakupovic from Hull City. “I’m really pleased with what we’ve got,” Shakespeare said.
It is a recruitment drive that promises to be much more successful than last year, when Leicester splurged more than £60m on Islam Slimani, Ahmed Musa, Nampalys Mendy and Bartosz Kapustka among others and, in terms of performances on the pitch, got precious little in return. Kapustka has since joined Freiburg on a season-long loan and it is quite conceivable the other three players will also leave before the end of this window.
Whether Riyad Mahrez will still be at Leicester remains to be seen. He has made it clear he wants to move, yet no club have met Leicester’s valuation for the player – believed to be around £50m – and in the meantime the 26-year-old remains an integral part of the manager’s plans, with the Algerian expected to be in the starting lineup against Arsenal on Friday for the opening game. A move to Arsenal would have appealed to Mahrez but a deal has never been close, with Arsène Wenger deciding he had enough options in that area already, including Mesut Özil and Alex Iwobi.
Although Leicester accept Mahrez may well depart, they are determined to hold on to their other key players, including Kasper Schmeichel and Danny Drinkwater, who will miss the Arsenal game through injury along with Iborra. The speculation linking Drinkwater with Chelsea has not gone away and Shakespeare was reluctant to discuss that situation in any depth. “We’re a club that don’t need to sell, which is vitally important,” he said. “We’ve got owners that want to keep their best players. We don’t want to be a selling club. We want to add to what we’ve got.”
The spine of the Leicester team certainly looks a lot stronger thanks to this summer’s signings and it will be fascinating to see how Iheanacho fares now he has an opportunity to play regularly. His 12 top-flight goals for City came at an average of one every 107 minutes – the best ratio of any player who has made it into double figures in the Premier League – yet the Nigerian was never going to get an extended run at the Etihad Stadium. “What I’ve seen so far I’m really impressed with,” said Shakespeare, who sees no reason why Iheanacho and Jamie Vardy cannot play up front together. “I like his character and his quality of play has been there for all to see. Hopefully we’re sitting here in 12 months’ time and he’s got a hatful of goals.”
Either way, the spotlight will be off Leicester this season now their Premier League crown has been handed over and a sense of normality has returned. They got off to an inauspicious start in the opening game of last season, when Hull inflicted a surprise defeat that provided a sign of things to come for a team who were deep in relegation trouble by the time Shakespeare took over from the sacked Claudio Ranieri.
Shakespeare, who was given a three-year contract after turning Leicester’s fortunes around, hopes to lay down a marker of a different kind at Arsenal.
