Leicester City striker Kelechi Iheanacho is set to leave the club upon the expiration of his contract at the end of June.
Leicester City signed Kelechi Iheanacho from Manchester City for £25 million as a 20-year-old in 2017 but the Nigerian will now leave for free after seven years at the club.
Iheanacho is clearly a very talented striker but has struggled to show on a consistent basis that he can be the main striker at Leicester and managed just ten starts in the Championship last season as veteran Jamie Vardy and Patson Daka were preferred.
Where he will go next is unclear at this stage but new Leicester boss Steve Cooper could replace the 27-year-old for free with a player he has worked with before who is proven to score goals at the top level.
Steve Cooper should replace Kelechi Iheanacho with Chris Wood
Iheanacho scored 61 goals and provided 34 assists across 232 games for Leicester and will be best remembered for his remarkable FA Cup record of 13 goals in 19 games.
Despite his limited involvement last season, the 54-cap Nigeria international needs replacing given Vardy is 37 and Daka’s previous failures to be prolific in the top flight.
Leicester will not be able to spend big this summer amid concerns regarding Premier League spending rules but could secure a proven top flight goalscorer for free in Chris Wood.
Wood’s contract at Leicester’s rivals Nottingham Forest is set to end this summer and Cooper should look to secure a reunion for the New Zealand forward he took to Forest.
Fresh off the back of a season in which he scored 15 goals and provided one assist in all competitions, Wood would give Leicester’s survival hopes a massive boost.
Wood perfect for how Cooper wants to play
Cooper is very different from Leicester’s last manager Enzo Maresca in that he is not afraid to play a more direct brand of football.
Whilst Cooper likes his team to get the ball on the floor and play, he does tend to favour a target man up front to allow his midfielders and wingers to play off of.
At Swansea City he had Old McBurnie, whilst at Forest he had both Wood and Taiwo Awoniyi.
Leicester do not currently have this profile in the squad, with Vardy and Daka both preferring to make runs in behind, so it could be that Wood is the perfect striker to come in and be the big man up top Cooper loves.
Following a goalscoring contribution in August 2023 as Forest beat Sheffield United, Cooper hailed Wood a ‘leader’ as he told the Premier League: “He’s a leader in the dressing room, part of the leadership group and we need to get behind these guys because they can make a real difference for us.”
With 69 goals and eight assists in 227 Premier League games for sides that have generally struggled towards the bottom of the table, Wood could just be the player that keeps Leicester in the division.
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