Youri Tielemans insists he doesn't regret staying at Leicester

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Youri Tielemans insists he doesn't regret staying at Leicester

Leicester midfielder Youri Tielemans insists he has no regrets about staying at the struggling club during the summer because he wasn’t offered the ‘right project’ elsewhere.

Tielemans is in the final year of the contract he signed with the Foxes in 2019 when his transfer from Monaco was made permanent. That means he could agree a pre-contract with an overseas club as soon as January and leave as a free agent in the summer.

The Belgian has had little desire in signing fresh terms to extend his stay and Leicester were prepared to listen to offers for him during the summer. Arsenal were confident of concluding a deal in June and 90min revealed at the time that Tielemans was interested.

It didn’t materialise in the end and Tielemans stayed put, which hasn’t gone well so far given that Leicester are win-less and bottom of the Premier League table seven games into 2022/23.

But Tielemans, currently away on international duty, has stressed he doesn’t regret it, although is welcoming a break from the difficult situation.

“I’m not going to speak too much about my contract situation at the moment. My family is very happy [in Leicester] and that’s important,” he said.

“I didn’t leave in the summer as I always said the project had to be the right one. Just because things are getting worse now at Leicester doesn’t mean I should regret [staying].

“Whether you are in your last contract year or not, it’s also not the case that I talk to the club every day about my extension or not. That’s work for my agent.

"In the end I will decide. There was talk of different clubs, but I won’t go into that. I'm happy to get a bit of fresh air [with Belgium] because it's tough at Leicester right now. It's clear that things are not going well at the club. We are doing everything we can as a team.

"At Leicester, the consecutive defeats have affected us as a group. We need to benefit from this break to recharge our batteries. It's hard to get it off my mind as it keeps running through my head. Only my kids sometimes prevent me from thinking about it."