Danny Drinkwater: from title winner to property developer

The heartbeat of Leicester's miracle

Danny Drinkwater's story is inseparable from Leicester City's astonishing rise. Signed from Manchester United in January 2012 for an undisclosed fee, he became a mainstay of the Foxes' midfield, first driving them out of the Championship as title winners in 2013-14 and then anchoring the side that stunned the football world by winning the Premier League in 2015-16. Alongside N'Golo Kanté, Marc Albrighton and Riyad Mahrez, Drinkwater was central to a Leicester engine room that outworked and outthought richer clubs all season. His performances earned him England recognition, including a senior debut against the Netherlands in March 2016, though he narrowly missed out on a place in the Euro 2016 squad.

The Chelsea years that never took off

That title-winning form persuaded Chelsea to pay £35 million for Drinkwater in September 2017, a fee that in hindsight looks wildly disproportionate to what followed. A thigh injury delayed his debut, and while he did feature in Chelsea's FA Cup-winning campaign in his first season, scoring his only goal for the club in a rout of Stoke City, his opportunities dried up almost entirely once Maurizio Sarri arrived. He made no league appearances at all in 2018-19, and by 2020 ESPN had labelled his move to Stamford Bridge the second-worst transfer in Premier League history.

What followed was a series of loan spells that did little to revive his fortunes. Burnley, Aston Villa, Turkish side Kasımpaşa and Reading all took him in, but each stint was troubled by a mix of injury, lack of playing time and off-field incidents, including an alleged nightclub attack and an altercation with a teammate at Aston Villa's training ground. He also faced legal trouble in 2019, receiving a 20-month driving ban after pleading guilty to drink-driving following a crash in Cheshire.

Retirement and a new direction

Drinkwater left Chelsea when his contract expired in June 2022 and spent more than a year without a club before formally announcing his retirement from football in October 2023, at the age of 33. It brought the curtain down on a career that had taken him from Manchester United's academy through loan spells at Huddersfield, Cardiff, Watford and Barnsley, to genuine Premier League glory with Leicester, and finally to a difficult conclusion at Chelsea.

Away from the pitch, Drinkwater has since moved into property development. As of July 2024, that is how he has been earning his living since stepping away from the game, a considerably quieter existence than the turbulence of his final playing years. For those who remember him as the calm, tireless presence in Leicester's title-winning midfield, it is a reminder that even the unlikeliest champions eventually have to build something new once the football stops.

Whatever difficulties marked the back end of his career, Drinkwater's medals from that remarkable 2015-16 season remain untouchable. Few players who came through Manchester United's academy and several lower-league loan spells could claim to have been champions of England, and that achievement continues to define how he is remembered.