Greatest Leicester City Players Of All Time – Top 10 Legends
Leicester City defied expectations when they won the Premier League in 2015-16. It was a great team effort and players like N’golo Kante, Riyad Mahrez, Jamie Vardy & Wes Morgan, were the standout performers. But how many of them have made it into this list of ‘Greatest Leicester City Players of all Time? Check out yourself, this list also includes players from the pre-Premier League era.
Considering impact, consistency, performances, longevity, loyalty, and success, here are the ten greatest Leicester City players of all time.
10. Wes Morgan
Wes Morgan has to go down as one of the most influential City players ever to play the game. He joined from arch-rivals Nottingham Forest for an undisclosed fee in January 2012 and went on to make over 320 appearances for the Foxes.
Morgan captained the club to both second-tier and Premier League titles as well as led the way in the “Great Escape” of 2014-15, where the Foxes won seven of their last nine Premier League games to ensure survival. He also won the FA Cup with the Foxes in 2021. Leicester City supporters will never forget Morgan’s photo of lifting the Premier League trophy at the King Power stadium in 2016.
9. Gordan Banks
Regarded as one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time, Banks was signed from Chesterfield for £7,000 in July 1959. He was part of the side that reached the 1961 and 1963 FA Cup finals before going on to lose to Tottenham and Manchester United respectively.
He would clinch silverware with the Foxes in 1964, though, winning the League Cup 4-3 on aggregate over Stoke City before losing 3-2 to Chelsea the following season. Banks was named FWA Footballer of the Year in 1972, and was FIFA Goalkeeper of the Year on six occasions.
8. Arthur Rowley
Rowley holds the club record for the most goals in a single season at Leicester City, scoring 44 goals in 42 league matches in 1956–57. He is Leicester’s second all-time top goalscorer, netting 265 times for the Foxes, 8 goals short of Arthur Chandler’s record. He holds the record for the most goals in the history of English League football, scoring 434 from 619 league games.
7. Steve Walsh
Super Steve Walsh is an undisputed Leicester City legend, hailed by Foxes fans young and old for his time at the club during the 1990s. Walsh was part of the side that won two First Division play-off finals (in 1994 and 1996) as well as two League Cups under Martin O’Neill in 1997 and 2000.
In 1994, he scored two of the most memorable goals in the club’s history as they beat fierce rivals Derby County to achieve promotion to the Premier League. Walsh is one of the greatest Leicester City players ever.
6. Keith Weller
Regarded by the Foxes faithful as the most talented player ever to wear the Foxes badge prior to the 2015/16 season, the winger joined the East Midlands club, having signed in 1971 for £100,000. The only criticism of Weller is the Foxes never finished above seventh place during his eight-year spell.
Saying this, Weller alongside Frank Worthington, Jon Sammels, and Alan Birchenall, City did play the most attractive football Filbert Street has ever seen. Weller suffered from a rare form of cancer and sadly passed away in 2004, aged 58.
5. Graham Cross
Cross spent most of his career playing for Leicester City originally as an inside forward, then later as a center-half and occasionally a right half. At Leicester, he holds the record for the most appearances for the club with 599 between 1961 and 1975. He went on to join Brighton & Hove Albion and then Preston North End. He made a record number of appearances for the England Under 23 side but never made a full international appearance. Cross is one of the greatest Leicester City players of all time.
4. Gary Lineker
Leicester-born forward Gary Lineker joined his hometown club after leaving City of Leicester Boys’ Grammar School in 1977 and went on to make 194 appearances for the club, scoring 95 goals.
He made his senior debut for the club on New Year’s Day in 1979 in a 2-0 win over Oldham Athletic and earned a Second Division winners medal a year later under Jock Wallace. However, Lineker featured just nine times in the top-flight as City were relegated, but they did reach the semi-final of the FA Cup the following season before losing to Tottenham.
3. Arthur Chandler
Arthur Chandler joined Leicester from QPR in 1923 and went on to play with the Foxes until 1935. Leicester’s record goalscorer, Chandler also holds the club records for, scoring the most goals in a single top-flight season, scoring the most top-flight goals for the club (203), scoring the most hat-tricks or greater (17 and the joint record for the most goals in a single game (6 goals vs Portsmouth on 20 October 1928). Chandler notably held the record of being Leicester’s oldest goalscorer (aged 39 years and 34 days) from 1935 through to 2014.
He was part of the Leicester side which finished in the club’s highest-ever league finishes of First Division runners-up in 1928–29 and third place in 1927–28.
2. Muzzy Izzet
Turkish midfielder Muzzy Izzet signed on loan for Leicester in March 1996 under Martin O’Neill and made an immediate impact, scoring a vital goal against Watford to guarantee a play-off place on the final day of the season. He made the move permanent for £800,000 from Chelsea following City’s promotion and went on to make a total of 269 appearances for the club.
A dynamic midfielder, Izzet formed a formidable partnership in the Leicester midfield alongside Neil Lennon and Robbie Savage and helped the club to four successive top 10 finishes in the Premier League as well as clinching two League Cups.
1. Jamie Vardy
The Jamie Vardy party begun all those years ago in May 2012 when he made his £1 million move from Fleetwood Town. The 31-year-old talisman first struggled to make an impact in England’s second tier of football before helping Nigel Pearson’s side clinch promotion with 16 goals in the Championship title-winning campaign of 2013/14.
In Vardy’s first Premier League season he only found the net on five occasions. Then hell froze over the following season as Leicester defied all the odds to win the Premier League and the England international went on to break former Manchester United striker Ruud Van Nistelrooy’s record of scoring in 11 consecutive games. After being crowned as champions of England at that season, he was voted as the Premier League Player of the Season and also the FWA Footballer of the Year.
During the 2019-20 season, he also managed to win the English Golden Boot award after scoring 23 goals for his team. He is currently the oldest player to win the Golden Boot. He also won the FA Cup with the team in 2021, beating Chelsea in the final. Vardy suffered relegation with the team in 2023 but stayed loyal to the club only to bounce back into the Premier League in 2024.