Wilfred Ndidi to Aston Villa transfer news: Rodgers responds, £50m price tag and player stance

Aston Villa have been tipped to make a summer transfer offer for Leicester City midfielder Wilfred Ndidi as Steven Gerrard looks to recruit a quality holding midfielder.

Nigerian international Ndidi has been at Leicester since the summer of 2017, when he was brought in as a replacement for N’Golo Kante, who’d left for Chelsea a summer earlier.

Ndidi, whose Leicester contract expires in 2024, would represent another signing of true ambition by Villa under Gerrard, and it points to what the manager himself said at the end of the January window when discussing the business he and the club had completed.

The Daily Star claim Villa are weighing up a move for Ndidi, who could cost in the region of £50million.

Villa are thinking big in the summer after a January transfer window in which they attracted Philippe Coutinho and Lucas Digne to the club.

Gerrard is expected to be granted further substantial funding in the summer to continue his claret and blue rebuild, and it might be that Villa look away from first-choice midfield target Yves Bissouma of Brighton and Hove Albion.

Bissouma, a Malian international, was the subject of a bid from Villa in January but the Seagulls turned that bid down; he’ll have only 12 months left on his contract once the summer arrives and the competition for his signature then could be stern.

Speaking ahead of the Foxes' Europa Conference League game against Randers, Ndidi was asked if he was settled in Leicester.

“At the moment I am enjoying myself in Leicester," he replied. "My family is here. My business degree is on hold.

"There was lockdown and then my daughter was born. I am looking forward to it maybe next year.”

Ndidi is currently studying a business and management degree at DeMontfort