Panic buys and transfer flops – Leicester City must buck their own trend on late-window deals

There are seven weeks remaining in the summer transfer window and so there is time yet for Leicester City to make the signings they want. It also means there are plenty more days left to get increasingly concerned at the slow rate of business at the King Power Stadium.

In short, anything could happen. It is still possible that come the morning of September 2, City will have six new players through the door and the club will have completed the “healthy shake-up” that manager Brendan Rodgers had hoped for. Happy days.

But City are behind the curve, that’s already well-established. Not only are they trailing by Premier League standards as the only club yet to make a single signing, but by their own usual process. In every summer since returning to the Premier League, they had at least one new recruit signed up before July began.

So even if City get their transfers done, those deals will come under the banner of ‘late business’. While transfers can go through until 11pm on September 1, clubs have been wheeling and dealing since May. On the other side of the Midlands, for example, Aston Villa had four players signed by June 4.

And the success of a club’s window is often judged on when the business is conducted. Really, the season needs to play out before full assessments can be made, but it is accepted that those clubs who do their business early are organised, and those who leave it until later in the window, are not.

Any signings City make now, and particularly any they do in August, are more likely to be deemed panic buys than patient deals. But is that an unfair assumption? Are signings really more likely to be hits the earlier they are bought in the window?

The evidence at City suggests yes. Since 2015, City have made