Leicester City’s Danny Simpson has told Jamie Vardy that he wants him to stay at Leicester as the player continues to be linked with Arsenal.

Just over a week ago (yes, it was just over a week ago) Arsenal activated Vardy’s release clause. Since then, the player has decided to take the odd decision it leave it hanging over him as he concentrates on the Euros. As Granit Xhaka pointed out, it would probably have been better to get it sorted sooner rather than later, but there you go.

With his wife confirming that the player has not yet made a decision, it would seem as if Simpson’s comments back that up. Or they back up him leaving. What they don’t do is confirm the ‘Vardy 80% likely to stay at Leicester’ stories which were doing the rounds last week before his wife spoke again.

Now some are reporting that he’s done another u-turn and we tried to get to the bottom of what is really going on here.

But back to Simpson’s comments.

He told the BBC “I have spoken to Jamie. Everyone wants him to stay. We would like everyone to stay, even if it’s just for one more year.

“It’s his decision, and he says he wants to concentrate on the European Championships. Jamie knows what I think of him as a lad and a player.

“No money can buy the bond that we have got at the club. It’s a special group. Why not carry on and kick on as a group and squad?”

He’s not the first Leicester player to speak about the matter or to urge Jamie to stay. I doubt he will be the last as this story rumbles on until England get knocked out of the Euros.

Then Jamie will probably want a break after a long, hard season.

If Arsenal are still genuinely interested and he does try to delay, I really hope they give him a very strict deadline. We simply cannot allow this to drag on into the summer when we so desperately need to find a player who will score goals regularly next season.