My head is at Leicester, says Manchester City target Ben Chilwell

Ben Chilwell insists his focus remains on Leicester despite being linked with a big-money move to Manchester City.

The England left-back is preparing for Thursday’s Nations League semi-final with the Netherlands in Portugal.

He was promoted with the move to the champions and City boss Pep Guardiola was filmed speaking to the 22-year-old on the pitch after Leicester lost 1-0 at the Etihad in May.

But Chilwell played down the link and said he was only thinking about Leicester.

“It was nice for such a successful manager to say I’m a good player,” he said of meeting Guardiola.

“I’m at Leicester and with Brendan (Rodgers) coming in, we all like him there and obviously that’s where my head is.

“He (Guardiola) just said he thinks I’m a really talented player and he wants me to keep playing well, going up and down the pitch and never going away from him.

“That was it and then he went to the next person he wanted to talk to.”

The speculation follows Chilwell’s impressive season with the Foxes and the international breakthrough, who made his Three Lions debut in September.

He has six caps for Gareth Southgate’s side after coming through from the under-21s and moving ahead of Manchester United’s Luke Shaw in the pecking order.

“Obviously there’s a lot that comes with playing for England,” Chilwell said. “There’s a lot of pressure we put on ourselves because we want to do well for ourselves and obviously do well for your country.

“The only pressure at the moment is the pressure we put on ourselves to do well because we know how good the team is.

“Personally, I feel the guys are very comfortable with each other, we know the talent in the dressing room.”

Chilwell returns to Portugal for the first time since playing in Leicester’s 5-0 Champions League thrashing of Porto in December 2016.

The Foxes had already qualified from the group but Chilwell admits it was a humbling experience.

“I was 18 and I got on the coach after that and saw the amount of abuse I was getting, which at the time was difficult,” he said.

“When you’re young, you look up your name on Twitter to see what everyone is saying about you, it was one of those things I had to deal with.

“I trained the following week and continued to work hard. That’s all you can do.

“It’s something that probably helped me a lot. I got a lot of beatings after the game when I was a young lad and it probably taught me to be thick-skinned and not listen to that sort of thing.”