The £5.6m N'Golo Kante transfer masterstroke that changed Leicester City forever | OneFootball

Leicester City struck gold and changed their history with the £5.6 million signing of N'Golo Kante from Caen in the summer of 2015.

Leicester City gained promotion back to the top-flight of English football in 2014 and then the Foxes produced a magnificent ‘great escape’ to avoid relegation in 2015.

Over that summer, though, Leicester realised that they perhaps needed a minor shake up to ensure they didn’t slip back down to the Championship and former Chelsea boss Claudio Ranieri was appointed manager, to replace Nigel Pearson.

Ranieri, who had recently been sacked by Greece after a woeful stint in charge of the UEFA EURO 2004 winners, embarked upon a reasonably busy summer transfer window that saw Christian Fuchs, Robert Huth and Shinji Okazaki all fundamental players added early on, with eventual fringe players Yohan Benalouane and Gokhan Inler joining later that summer, as well as Nathan Dyer.

In the middle of that summer, though, a few days’ before the start of the Premier League campaign, the Foxes brought in the relatively unknown N’Golo Kante for £5.6 million, and the rest, as they say, is history.

N'Golo Kante drove Leicester City to a miracle

Kante, who arrived after only having played one season in Ligue 1 during his career with Caen, as they managed to finish mid-table following their 2014 promotion largely down to his performances, made his debut on the opening day of the campaign.

He came off the bench to help Leicester defeat Sunderland by four goals to two and get their 2015/16 Premier League season off to a flyer, but it was to be a sign of things to come.

Astonishingly, Leicester won the Premier League title, with Kante making 37 appearances and only missing one game - a 2-2 draw with West Bromwich Albion at the King Power Stadium in early March due to a minor hamstring issue.

Upon his return from injury, Leicester went on a five-match winning streak that saw them keep five successive clean sheets, with the tenacity and defensive aggression of Kante the fundamental reason for their success in grinding out victories in the second-half of the campaign.

Unheard of at the start of the campaign, Kante was often viewed as something of an unsung hero for large parts, until people began to realise he was indeed the foundation of one of sport’s greatest miracles with his tireless running and breaking up of play allowing others in the final third to shine.

N'Golo Kante was the machine at the heart of Leicester City

Leicester won the title and stars had been born over the previous ten months or so, with Jamie Vardy now an England international and set for UEFA EURO 2016, and Riyad Mahrez being recognised as one of the best wingers in world football.

However, only one of their stars actually got themselves a big money move that summer as Kante moved on to Chelsea for the 2016/17 season, where he again was instrumental as the Blues won the Premier League under the management of Antonio Conte. That was a year before Kante went on to win the 2018 FIFA World Cup with France as, of course, a key man again.

There have been legendary figures at Leicester that have emerged in the last ten years and the quality of Mahrez and Vardy can never be spoken down to, especially with what the former has gone on to do at Manchester City, but there is a strong and almost inarguable point to make that Kante is Leicester’s greatest ever footballer.

He was only at the King Power Stadium for one season and Leicester had finished the previous campaign extremely well but, the fact is, Leicester were a team destined for a relegation scrap and his presence in the middle of the park made them title winners.

After his departure, the Foxes had become a regular challenger for the top four eventual FA Cup winners, but they never finished higher than fifth, and are now back in the Championship once again, surely dreaming of another signing of Kante's ilk to kick-start a new period of success.

Kante made 31 more tackles than any other player in the Premier League in the 2015/16 season, and 15 more interceptions, with his energy able to snuff out attacks and set Leicester away on their devastating, eventually title-winning and history-making counter-attacks.

The Frenchman was a genius in the way he played and read the game, with the industry and endeavour to match anyone that has ever played in the Premier League. All of that, as well as changing Leicester’s history forever, came at the cut-price of just £5.6 million.