New Swansea City sensation, twenty two year old Joel Piroe has become the focus of interest by a number of Premier League clubs in the last five weeks. One in particular. We have taken time to review links to Joel, and review the information and the people involved. We now have confirmation he is of serious interest to Leicester City.

These links don’t just include Premier League clubs, Championship managers are extremely keen to find out the players key skill factors. Joel’s goals this season have lit up what has been a stuttering start for his club Swansea City. Signed by sporting director Mark Allen in July Piroe took a while to settle in Swansea. A new manager came in literally weeks after he signed, and the Steve Cooper endorsed player was certainly left out in the cold at the start of the season. Signing for around a million pounds, but in an undisclosed deal from PSV, Joel is now living overlooking the beautiful Swansea coastline, and has more than settled, and he is raising huge interest in the Premier League.

Today we have it confirmed that Callum Smithson, head of technical scouting at Leicester City put in place a scouting fact finding agenda on Joel some weeks ago. This means a club is more than interested in a player, and see’s them as a possible new recruit to the club. John Rudkin who works in a similar role to Mark Allen at Swansea endorsed the move which has seen Leicester not only continue with their in depth research on the player - they have attended four games recently to watch Joel Piroe. Of course, there is far more to this than we know. Leicester are not big spenders, but are carefully researching players of the right profile to bring in to the club.

Joel Piroe is one of them.

What makes Joel Piroe even more desirable is the fact he is young, and is only in this country to further his footballing career. He has a very close relationship with his father who is regularly in Swansea, and has little outside influences affecting his career path. So Smithson at Leicester is keen to establish hard facts on the player. Having now notched up twelve goals this season, let’s be honest not many of Joel’s goals are tap ins. He isn’t your obvious centre forward. He plays in a slightly more withdrawn role picking up balls in to his feet, and he has the ability to take on a player and score. He has done this countless times this season. However, it is unlikely you will find him challenging a keeper for the ball or going in hard in the six yard area. This is an area Leicester will be interested in.

Jamie Vardy is coming to the end of his illustrious career, maybe he has one further season on the Foxes books. So Rudkin especially is keen to evaluate what is out there in the January window. There is no information on a bid or any talks, but what we do know is Leicester have most certainly not only watched the player, they are talking about him as well. At the highest level. Parson Daka is currently keeping Vardy out of the Leicester side, a player who has been a complete success since signing from Salzburg in June. However, Leicester want strength in depth and Piroe is one of a number of strikers of interest. You don’t watch a player for weeks and invoke a serious intelligence gathering exercise on a player for no reason.

The main skills base that attracts clubs is goals, but Piroe ticks all the boxes for Leicester in finishing ability, composure, technical ability and off-the-ball intelligence. He is certainly lacking in heading ability, and isn’t the quickest of players but these are areas only the finest players in the world possess in abundance along with the basic requirements.

Whether Piroe is the subject of a bid or not we don’t know, unlike some of the information we get and investigate this could be a serious deal for the foxes with the swans reluctance to sell an issue. This will mean the player would be valued at around ten million pounds, and the salary Leicester would put him is far, far higher than he is on at Swansea.

Another factor is Lee Congerton. Brendan Rodgers employed him at Leicester due to the pair's long-standing relationship. They first met at Chelsea, where Congerton was chief scout, and Rodgers was managing the reserves. Their careers then took separate paths before they were reunited at Celtic in 2017 when Congerton landed the Head of Recruitment role. Rodgers has a trusted companion in Congerton who scouted and brought to Chelsea Scott Sinclair and Fabio Borini. There’s a link there too as we know. Rodgers, Congerton and Smithson have been questioned about new recruits but have remained tight lipped. Rodgers stating recently "Of course we’re having regular meetings, but we’ll leave that for a bit later on.” Rodgers won’t give anything away as he presides over a tricky season for Leicester.

Swans fans will be hoping that the foxes look elsewhere for their next big purchase, but it’s unlikely this will go away in the interim. Players like Piroe don’t grow on trees, he is a class act in a promising player development set up. And will no doubt will create more interest elsewhere as the weeks go by.

Photographs licensed from Reuters

Walrus added 20:46 - Dec 14 At the very least, Swansea City would need to be in touch with the play off spots to be able to hang on to any player being offered EPL wages. 16th spot is not going to be a strong reason to stay. The outcome of this season will be affected by what happens in the next month; the number of points gained and transfer activity.
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