Ricardo Pereira is being targeted by Nice – but the role given to the Portuguese full-back by Enzo Maresca is central to the new manager’s plans for Leicester City

So far in Leicester City’s summer of change, none of the player departures so far seen have been surprising.

The eight out-of-contract stars were unlikely to get renewals, firstly because City needed to slash their wage bill, but also because asking established Premier League players to sign up for a Championship club was always going to be a difficult sell

The big-money exits of James Maddison and Harvey Barnes did not come out of the blue either. Their performances in a struggling team showed they were more than capable of joining a top-half Premier League side, while they were also valuable and so could be sold for good fees that could bring in a handful of new players.

But if Ricardo Pereira was to now go, it would raise eyebrows. Reports in France and Portugal say the right-back is of interest to Ligue 1 side Nice, where he spent a couple of seasons in his younger years, and that a loan offer has been submitted.

If a deal had been struck at the end of June or beginning of July, before Enzo Maresca had got stuck into pre-season training and friendlies, it would have made sense.

At his peak, Ricardo is one of the best attacking full-backs in European football, his level way above the Championship. So if City needed to offload, he would have been a contender because interest in the Portuguese would not be hard to muster.

Plus, he’s just a few months from turning 30, is paid well and has had injury problems. An ACL tear, a broken leg and an Achilles rupture, as well as a handful of muscle issues, mean he has started just 28 of City’s last 123 league matches. Unfortunately, he is not reliable. Add all of those factors together, and a sale would be understandable.

However, selling Ricardo now would be a bizarre move. Maresca has come into the club and introduced a specific style of play with the Portuguese at the heart of it.

Out of possession, Ricardo is a right-back, his usual position. On the ball, he steps up into midfield, linking with Harry Winks to form a bridge from the defence to the attack.

It’s not an easy role to play. It’s two different positions in one, both requiring different skillsets. He needs to be defensively strong to keep opposition wingers at bay, but also needs technical qualities to play quick passes and forward balls, all while having the tactical awareness to know when to switch between the two roles without ever getting caught out of position.

It is probably the most highly-skilled, difficult role in Maresca’s set-up, but Ricardo has made it look fairly simple. He does have all of those required qualities, plus the dribbling ability to carry the ball forward as well as an eye for a final pass or a finish.

On the basis of the first few pre-season outings under Maresca, Ricardo would be ranked alongside new recruits Winks and Conor Coady as the most important players in the team. To let him go would undo their plans.

Maresca has been using the likes of Timothy Castagne and Dennis Praet in his team, and their futures are in doubt too, but their roles are not quite so integral to the team’s success. With the way Maresca has used Ricardo, he is vital. He was due to be captain against Spurs.

Sell Ricardo and City either replace him internally with someone who won’t be able to do the job as effectively, spend a significant amount of money finding a player capable of performing such an intricate role, or change to a different style – one they have not been working on as often.

When Maresca discussed Ricardo’s importance after the win over Northampton, he said he wanted more players of his type, not fewer. He told BBC Radio Leicester: “Ricardo technically is a very good player. He’s a player who knows how to play in small spaces, he knows how to move in small spaces. The idea comes from there. Probably we need some more profiles like Ricardo just in case we need to change something.”

As mentioned, Ricardo’s injury history means banking on him playing all 46 matches next season is risky. Bringing in a player as a rotation option for him would be helpful.

Right now, letting Ricardo move on would be a step backwards, and would risk repeating last summer. Brendan Rodgers also had grand plans for the full-back, using him in a similar way, but on the eve of the campaign he ruptured his Achilles and didn’t play for six months.

City had to change the way they played without him, and made a disastrous start to the season. Letting Ricardo leave at this point would mean there is potential for the club to inflict the same fate upon themselves again.