Heard the one about the club who sold their most prized centre-back for £80m, did not buy a replacement and ended up with the best defence in the Premier League? Well, keep it to yourselves for a while because it is too early for punchlines and you do not want to advise Leicester to go laughing all the way to the bank just yet. But they are certainly entitled to smile as they prepare for Saturday’s trip to Liverpool, the only team in the league with a plausible claim to have a better back four than Brendan Rodgers’s side.

To say that Leicester have looked stronger since the departure of Harry Maguire is not to besmirch the England defender, a deserved high-achiever. Rather it is to celebrate two positives: the impact made at Leicester by his direct successor, Caglar Soyuncu; and the fact Soyuncu has stepped into a much more helpful environment than the one that Maguire is trying to make sense of at Old Trafford.

Dennis Praet: ‘I started at Leicester with somebody else’s boots’ Read more

That, of course, leads to another point, which is that of the many bad decisions made by Manchester United in recent years, selling Jonny Evans to West Brom for £6m in 2015 was among the worst. Buying the Northern Ireland international from West Brom for £3.5m last year was one of many shrewd ones made by Leicester. A month after that purchase they bought Soyuncu for £19m from Freiburg and now that, too, looks a canny deal. Ricardo Pereira arrived around the same time as Evans and Soyuncu and can now be ranked with Ben Chilwell as one the best full-backs in the Premier League. Leicester have a rearguard to be reckoned with.

It was not obvious that things would play out so well. If United had not waited until just before the closure of the transfer window to stump up the money for Maguire, Leicester would probably have signed another centre-back. Instead, rather than rush to buy, they decided to give Soyuncu a chance to prove his worth. He has seized it.

During his four league starts last season it was clear he had a lot of potential but also a certain erraticism. After his first match this term – the 0-0 draw with Wolves – he was flawless and returned to the dressing room to be greeted with a standing ovation from his teammates. The other players knew the pressure that the 23-year-old had been under as the world watched to see how Leicester would cope without Maguire. Their applause showed he had earned the players’ confidence and they wanted to give him some back.

The Fiver: sign up and get our daily football email.

There has been no trace of impostor syndrome from Soyuncu. On the contrary, the young Turk has defended with admirable assertiveness, commanding in the air and vigilant in his marking and tackling. And his elan on the ball flirts with the outrageous. Rodgers said this season that the player needs to measure his risk-taking but, at the same time, the manager could not help grinning as he referred to the “wee maverick things” that Soyuncu likes to do: highlights from this season include dribbling past Bournemouth’s Callum and Harry Wilson in his own area or dancing around Tanguy Ndombélé in a way that left Tottenham’s record signing sprawled on the grass like a sprinter who trod on a roller skate. Leicester fans have fallen in love.

Soyuncu still needs a little refinement, of course. The only game Leicester have lost this season was, ironically, to Manchester United, where Marcus Rashford lured Soyuncu into conceding a penalty. The evidence so far suggests that Rodgers and Evans will help the centre-back to become more accomplished without losing his personality. The Leicester coach Kolo Touré will surely also have good counsel to give on that front.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ricardo Pereira celebrates his goal against Newcastle. The right-back has found defensive astuteness to go with his attacking flair. Photograph: Robbie Stephenson/JMP/Shutterstock

Of course, even before the arrival of Rodgers in February, Leicester was a place where players progressed quickly. Chilwell, at 22, is an exceptionally mature left-back, assured in defence and constantly dangerous going forward. Pereira, too, has quickly proven to be top class. A year ago, right-back was a problem position for Leicester, and Pereira, a £21m recruit from Porto, did not look like the solution. He was so much at sea during a 4-2 defeat at Bournemouth in September 2018 that one could have concluded that if he were to have a future in the Premier League, it would only be as a wing-back or a midfielder. But the Portuguese soon adapted, demonstrated defensive nous to go with his offensive excellence, and ended up being voted Leicester’s player of the season.

Quick guide Being: Brendan: the Liverpool years Show Hide 2012-13 Rodgers tells fans he’ll “leave no stone unturned in my quest. And that quest will be relentless.” Fly-on-the-wall TV series Being:Liverpool later charts how he settled in during his first pre-season, with big speeches – “I use a quote with the players, ‘Per aspera ad astra’, which is Latin for ‘through adversity to the stars’” – and with his mind-games. Footage shows Rodgers telling the squad how he had written three names in sealed envelopes of players who will “let us down this year … Make sure you are not in the envelope.” They lose their first game 3-0. The series also visits his house, where viewers spot he has a giant portrait of himself hanging on the wall. Later that season Rodgers expands on his tactical approach, with a nod to a well-known pudding brand. “When you’ve got the ball 65-70% of the time, it’s a football death for the other team. It’s death by football.” They finish seventh. 2013-14

An emotional season ends with the Manager of the Year award, despite “Crystanbul” – losing a 3-0 lead, and the title, at Selhurst Park. “We just got carried away.” 2014-15 Becomes the first Liverpool manager since the 1950s not to win a trophy after three seasons in charge. The season ends on a low: a 6-1 defeat to Stoke, and a sixth-place finish. “I’ve always said if the owners want me to go, I will go. But I still have a lot to offer them.” The owners back him. 2015-16 Then they sack him, eight games into the new season. Insiders say Rodgers reacted to the news with “incredible dignity”, then offered to let his successor Jürgen Klopp move into his house. Rodgers: “I told them, ‘Listen, I’m moving to London for a bit, so Jürgen can move in’. And he did. I was never going to be bitter. I wanted him to succeed. I want the club to succeed.” Photograph: Régis Duvignau/X00095

That vindicated Claude Puel, Rodgers’s predecessor who had worked with Pereira at Nice before bringing him to Leicester. But the style introduced by the former Celtic manager, and the increased fitness he has demanded, are even more suited to Pereira and the rest of Leicester’s young team. The aggressive, co-ordinated pressing – “defending forward”, as Rodgers often calls it – allows the whole team to work in sync and usually on the front foot. That is part what makes them, and Liverpool, so exciting to watch and so formidable to play against.

Saturday’s showdown at Anfield promises to be an all-action contest between two creative and devoutly attacking teams, yet each defence is so strong that there may not be many goals.