Chelsea target says he'll be 'out of his mind' if he leaves current club - 'kid isn't ready'

Leicester City defender Wesley Fofana has been told he is 'not ready' to move to a bigger club despite interest from Chelsea.

The young centre-back was one of Leicester's star signings ahead of the 2020/21 campaign. They paid Saint-Etienne around £36.5million to sign him.

Fofana went straight into their first team and he was one of the stars of the Premier League in his first season.

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Unfortunately, his progress was hampered last year as he suffered a serious knee injury. He returned before the end of the season and is now linked with a move to Chelsea.

Fofana is said to be happy at Leicester and they don't want to sell him this summer. Still, they would consider letting him go if Chelsea offered £80-85m for him.

Former Liverpool player Steve Nicol took the opportunity to claim that the defender is not yet ready to join Chelsea:

"If Fofana goes to Chelsea, he loses his mind," Nicol told ESPN FC.

"The kid isn't ready, he burst onto the scene - you might say - but he's not far from the finished article.

"His biggest problem is his starting position. Playing for Leicester week after week, even if you make mistakes, you will learn faster and then you will be the finished article.

"You're not going to do that at Chelsea if you don't play regularly, he has to play regularly and he's going to lose his mind to go to Chelsea."

Ex-Chelsea Frank Leboeuf also waded in, suggesting Fofana better stay at Leicester for now:

"It's always a bet you make because you never know when the defender is going to set up," added Leboeuf.

"With Fofana it's a tricky situation, you want to have a young player, I think he's going to be one of the best central defenders in the world, now to say you have to spend 80 million euros to bring him to where the guy isn't even international, only plays for St Etienne and Leicester, got injured last season, even though he's been absolutely fantastic it's hard to say 'ok, we'll spend that'.

"For the players, he plays at Leicester, he has a great future and he knows Koulibaly has just signed, Thiago Silva is there, Chalobah is still there so where is he going to be put in this situation? There will be there a rotation system?

"How many games am I going to play? I don't know if I want to take this bet, I'm not sure I'm going to play. I'm going to play for Leicester, it's not for Chelsea, but at least I going to play and show the world and maybe sign for a club that will give me a better place than Chelsea can't be able to do.