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Leicester City are growing increasingly confident of bringing in a new centre-back before Friday’s transfer deadline.

Bolstering the back-line has been City’s priority this January window, and progress is now being made with the clock ticking.

City hold an interest in Southampton’s Jannik Vestergaard, while links to Preston’s Ben Davies have emerged over the weekend.

Speaking on Saturday, City manager Brendan Rodgers said two deals were being negotiated, one loan and one permanent, with the club hoping to get one over the line before 11pm on Friday.

With the Saints reportedly wanting at least £18m for Vestergaard, City may prefer a loan for the 6ft 6in Denmark international to try him out before potentially doing a deal in the summer.

Davies, at 24 and three years younger than Vestergaard, would be more tempting as a permanent buy.

“We had one towards the end of the week that hit a stumbling block in terms of loan, so we’ll see how that develops,” Rodgers said, without confirming names.

“We also had in mind another one, which would have been to buy, so we’ll see how that goes over the early part of the week.”

City’s increased confidence in a centre-back arriving is shown by the potential loan departure of Filip Benkovic.

Rodgers has said that Croatian would only be allowed to leave to get more game-time if City could bring in a fresh face, and the manager revealed that Benkovic almost made a switch last week.

Championship sides Derby, Bristol City, and Middlesbrough are keen on the 22-year-old, who was not in the squad for Saturday’s 1-0 FA Cup win at Brentford.

“It was just selection,” said Rodgers, explaining Benkovic’s absence at Griffin Park. “I’ve got the two centre-halves who were playing, and then I only need one centre-half on the bench.

“Coming to a place like this here, if I needed Jonny Evans to bring on his experience to see the game through, then he was there.

“With Filip, it’s just a case of him being patient. We were hoping he could go out last week, but it didn’t happen, so hopefully it will be this week.”