Leicester City were robbed blind by Newcastle United - Ex-Fox scored 22 goals last season | OneFootball

Ayoze Perez failed to live up to his significant price-tag at the King Power

The fortunes of Leicester City within the past decade have been extremely tumultuous, and arguably, more dramatic than many other sides within the Premier League and EFL.

In the last 10 years, the Foxes have seen themselves crowned as the most unexpected of Premier League champions at well-documented odds of 5000/1 under the management of Claudio Ranieri, experiencing campaigns in all three major UEFA competitions, as well as two campaigns back in the Championship.

The latter predicament is where the club currently find themselves after a handful of years of instability, leaving mass sections of supporters bitterly frustrated with the ownership structure in this part of the East Midlands, as they beg for a change which, in their eyes, will hopefully see the Blues return to their previous standpoint as an established and competitive Premier League side.

Unsurprisingly, with Foxes supporters enduring two relegation campaigns within the past three seasons, many players who have donned the famous blue and white strips during said timeframe have failed to endear themselves to those on the terraces due to a lack of strong performances on an individual and collective level.

It also comes as no real surprise that such circumstances have led to such a high amount of player turnover, which began in the summer of 2023 under Enzo Maresca.

And, it's fair to say that one of the figures who departed two years ago will go down as one of Leicester's biggest transfer mishaps in recent times.

That is, of course, in reference to the signing of Ayoze Perez, who moved to Leicester from Newcastle United for what is now viewed as an eye-watering £30m.

The Spaniard had firmly aclimatised to English football by the time he swapped St James' Park for the King Power in the summer of 2019 under Brendan Rodgers, having previously netted 48 times in 195 appearances for the Magpies, which included a Championship title-winning season under Rafael Benitez in 2016/17.

There was hope that the Spanish forward would build on a 13-goal haul for a Leicester side looking to assert themselves as European regulars under the Northern Irishman.

Yet, whilst that certainly played out as the Foxes featured in the UEFA Europa League and UEFA Europa Conference League during Perez's three-and-a-half year stint at the King Power, his goal returns were extremely below-par for the aforementioned fee.

The striker's best return for the club came through a total of eight goals across his first 33 appearances in 2019/20 as Leicester remarkably blew a shot at the UEFA Champions League on the final day of the season, before scoring just seven times throughout his remaining 81 appearances.

After a short loan stint with La Liga side, Real Betis, throughout the second-half of the 2022/23 campaign, during which Leicester's nine-year stint in the Premier League came to an end under Dean Smith, Perez departed the club at the end of his four-year contract, leaving the club £30m down and with a sense of major transfer regret.

During his one full season with Betis, Perez's total of nine goals in 31 appearances was enough to land the Seville-based club a seventh-place finish, a feat which would start Manuel Pellegrini's side's run to last season's UEFA Europa Conference League final, where they would be defeated by Chelsea.

Their experienced forward would play no part in such exploits, though, instead moving across the Spanish top flight to join Villarreal on a four-year contract.

With Marcelino's side not involved in any form of European competition, they saw the signing of the 33-year-old as a statement, and one which could see them eventually return to the Champions League.

In truth, that is exactly what transpired, with Perez ending his first campaign with the 'Yellow Submarine' having netted 22 goals in all competitions.

19 of those would come in the league - a total only bettered by Kylian Mbappé, Robert Lewandowski, Ante Budimir and Alexander Sorloth, marking a real return to form for the striker.

However, as they now sit in the Championship whilst Perez has already featured against Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City on the European stage in 2025/26, Foxes supporters may find it hard to believe the same player was indeed on their books.