Leicester City: Should Schmeichel consider moving on?

Reuters/DAMIR SAGOLJ

When Leicester City won the Premier League in 2015/16 they needed their players to perform at their maximum and more.

If you look at that team you will see players that were performing beyond what anyone could have expected in their wildest dreams.

Riyad Mahrez, Jamie Vardy, Wes Morgan, Robert Huth, N’golo Kante, Danny Drinkwater. Danny Simpson, Christian Fuchs, Marc Albrighton and of course Kasper Schmeichel.

At the time Leicester had just narrowly avoided relegation and replaced their manager Nigel Pearson with Claudio Ranieri - a decision that boggled football fans around the country.

Fast forward a year, Leicester were Premier League champions and their players had established themselves as stars. Ranieri was viewed as a genius and Leicester were the talk of the whole sporting world.

The best player from that year? Arguments could be made for many of them, but you can certainly attribute a large portion of their success to the work of goalie Kasper Schmeichel.

Just how good is he?

At 31-years of age, Schmeichel is right in his prime and seems to be getting better and better.

He has now established himself as Denmark’s number one and rightly takes praise as one of the Premier League’s top stoppers.

Reuters/MAX ROSSI 

In 133 Premier League games he has kept a quite astonishing 41 clean sheets, yes those stats are skewed by a Premier League win but Schmeichel also played all 38 games the year Leicester scraped to survival during their first Premier League campaign.

Schmeichel is a goalie who plays without fear and can make the impossible saves. During his time at Leicester, he has come up huge at the big moments and was undoubtedly one of the key players as they romped towards a shocking Premier League title. 

Should he move?

Schmeichel has proven himself at all levels of football. He was superb for Denmark at the World Cup, has won a title with Leicester and played Champions League football.

But is he likely to return to those heady heights with Leicester anytime soon? Probably not. While they are a solid Premier League side, Leicester are hardly competing with the big six regarding transfer fees and finished way off the pace in the race for Europe last season.

Reuters/JASON CAIRNDUFF 

With the goalkeeping positions likely to come up at Chelsea and Arsenal this summer, Schmeichel could be forgiven for thinking he deserves a chance at a top job in net. 

Yes, Leicester are a huge club that have done a lot for him. But maybe it is time for the former Leeds United keeper to move onto a new challenge and compete for major football honours.

This signing would not even be classed as a risk for a big club as Schmeichel already has bundles of experience at all levels of football.

For Leicester, his departure would be a disaster but Schmeichel has earned the right to a top goalkeeping job. 

He has seen Danny Drinkwater, N'golo Kante, and Riyad Mahrez leave the King Power Stadium since that title victory, so maybe it is time that he follows them out of the club and onto something new. 

Do you think Schmeichel should stay? Let us know in the comments below.

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