Chelsea, Leicester City have NOT agreed €35m deal for N'Golo Kante — report

In a report that possibly sounds like a briefing from the club, the Leicester Mercury have responded to Le Parisien's report that Chelsea have agreed a transfer fee for N'Golo Kante.

Leicester City have NOT agreed a £29million fee with Chelsea for midfielder N'Golo Kante.

[...]

...the Mercury understands no such fee has been agreed with Chelsea and that City are determined to do all they can to keep him at the club.

-source: Leicester Mercury

Who are we to believe then?  I'm not familiar with the Mercury's coverage of Kante's uncertain future, but Le Parisien have been on the Kante-to-Chelsea for a couple months now.  Then again, it's reasonable to believe that the local paper would potentially have a better placed source than some outlet based in Paris (who in turn might have a better source with Kante's representatives?).

Both reports could be true in a sense -- an agreed transfer fee does not actually rule out Kante re-signing with Leicester City, who supposedly have a new and improved contract offer in the works.  The defending Premier League champions are also free to accept as many offers for Kante as they like, so perhaps they're just reminding other teams that the bids can still be placed.  All things being equal, they'd probably prefer if Kante went to, say, Real Madrid, rather than another Premier League team.

One thing's for sure, this is not the last twist in the tale.