Ranieri: Drinkwater isn’t leaving Leicester. Full stop.

Daniel Storey

Leicester boss Claudio Ranieri has revealed Danny Drinkwater has no release fee clause in his contract as he warned clubs off the midfielder.

The England international signed a fresh five-year deal last month as the Foxes tied their stars down following last season’s stunning Premier League triumph.

Manchester United were linked with the 26-year-old, who was a trainee at Old Trafford, this week ahead of Leicester’s trip to United on Saturday. The report came from Neil Custis in The Sun, with interesting timing just days before the two sides met. Unsettling, perhaps?

But Ranieri insisted Drinkwater remained key and the Foxes had no desire to lose one of their stars after Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez signed new deals, also without release clauses.

“This is a good process to improve because one year ago nobody was asking about our players,” he said.

“Now there are big, big teams and my players must be very proud of this but maintain their way.

“He signed a new contract and he doesn’t have a clause and if Manchester want him it is okay. We don’t want to sell anybody.

“We only lost [N’Golo] Kante because he had a clause but no other player we lost. We want to keep all the players and all the squad.”