Exclusive: Leicester City plotting £0 swoop for ex-Ipswich Town star | OneFootball

The Foxes are looking for bargains ahead of their League One campaign

Leicester City are preparing for life back in League One after back-to-back relegations, and they are eyeing up a recently released Ipswich Town player who has had great success at the level in the past, Football League World can exclusively reveal.

Just two years after winning the Championship title under Enzo Maresca, the Foxes now find themselves in the third tier of English football for the first time since 2009 after the undignifying experience of two relegations in succession.

The East Midlands outfit have sunk into somewhat of a rot, and there's expected to be big changes at the King Power Stadium this summer, with a number of first-teamers expected to be sold in a bid to balance the books, with Abdul Fatawu one of the leading contenders for that.

One positive though has been the appointment of ex-Southampton and Rangers boss Russell Martin as the new City head coach, and he soon needs to get to work to bring some new faces through the door ahead of the August start-date for the EFL season.

Leicester City eyeing free transfer deal for Conor Chaplin

And FLW understands that one player who is on Leicester's radar is none other than Conor Chaplin, who is looking for a new club after his Ipswich Town contract came to an end after five years at Portman Road.

A £750,000 buy from Barnsley in 2021, Chaplin has been a modern-day great for the Tractor Boys as they experienced back-to-back promotions from League One to the Premier League, with his second season in the third tier under Kieran McKenna seeing the attacking midfielder strike 26 goals in their promotion-winning campaign.

Chaplin followed that up by finding the back of the net 13 times in the Championship in 2023-24 as Ipswich won another promotion, but regular game-time was hard to find in the top flight, and he subsequently spent the final year of his contract at the Suffolk club out on loan at Portsmouth - where he started his career out at.

And with Chaplin's return to Fratton Park proving to not be particularly fruitful, scoring just twice in the Championship with three assists added, Ipswich chose not to extend the 29-year-old's contract, leaving him unattached ahead of the summer.

Leicester are yet to make an incoming move in the transfer window this summer, although Bilal El Khannouss' permanent transfer to Stuttgart has been confirmed, along with the departure of experienced players such as Patson Daka, Ricardo Pereira and Jordan Ayew on free transfers, shaving a large chunk of wages off the club's finances.

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With a number of player sales expected this summer though, Leicester and new manager Martin will need to recruit smartly in a bid to be in the automatic promotion mix at the first time of asking, with Chaplin one of the first names to be lined up by the new man in charge at the King Power.