No drama as Tielemans has simply outgrown Leicester City

Despite attempts to stir things up in some corners of the media, Leicester and Youri Tielemans can still part on mutually beneficial terms.

Considering that he is still just 24, Youri Tielemans has packed an awful lot into his career. He made his debut for Anderlecht at 16 and was voted the Belgian Player of the Year at 19. Now 24, he has already played almost 400 club games for Anderlecht, Monaco and Leicester City, and a further 47 for Belgium. He’s played in the World Cup finals, has won the Belgian league twice and the FA Cup in England. He’s already achieved more by 24 than most players achieve in their entire careers.

But of course Tielemans wants more. He is the youngest Belgian ever to play in the Champions League, having made his debut for Anderlecht at just 16, but although Leicester City have made the Europa League since he’s been at The King Power Stadium, this is far from the elite European competition he craves. It’s not that time is running out; it’s more that if he is to spend the peak period of his career playing at that level, he needs to make a decision soon.

Tielemans’ contract runs out in the summer of 2023, at which point he could leave Leicester as a free agent. As such, his transfer value is already starting to drop, and manager Brendan Rodgers has admitted that he has to be a “realist” about the situation regarding players wanting to move on from the club. It is, for all clubs bar three or four, merely a fact of life. There is now a sense of inevitability about the fact that Youri Tielemans’ time with the club must come to an end, even if the exact route this takes from here isn’t yet clear.

Of course, amicable departures are of little use to the tabloid press. You don’t sell newspapers – or,