It begins: Arsenal linked with N'Golo Kante

I don't know if you heard, but Leicester City won the Premier League this year. And, because narratives are a thing, now it seems like nobody thinks Leicester can keep its players, because it's Leicester. This, despite the fact that Leicester, like everyone else, will make almost £100 million from TV money alone next season, so they can offer their current players both big ol' raises (their total wage bill this year was just under £50 million) and Champions League football, the two things that we're conditioned to believe players want more than anything else in the whole wide world.

But because people are slow to realize when narratives are dead, there seems to be the assumption that all this season's squad will be sold off for a fat profit, because that's how it used to work when only five teams had tons of money. But now, all teams in the Premier League have at least a ton of money - so what, again, is Leicester's incentive to sell the players that delivered them the title?

That question isn't being asked by, among many other sources, something called bfm.tv, who reported today that Arsenal are in pursuit of Leicester's N'Golo Kante. Depending on whom you believe, PSG has also been kicking Kante's tires, which means this is probably as good a time as any to point you once again to a handy guide to who you can trust as far as transfer reporting goes.

I really don't think there's anything to this - it'll take a while for old tropes to die and for people to realize that the economic landscape of the Premier League has been changed to the point where Leicester, far from being a minnow who will be desperate to try to hold on to their player, can pretty easily say HERE'S A LOT MORE MONEY PLEASE STAY and that should be that.