Who’s to blame for Leicester relegation? Part 1: Top and Jon Rudkin

One theory is that the King Power Group were deeply hurt after the way they were criticised across the world when relieving Claudio Ranieri of his duties in 2017. After Rodgers delivered the club their first-ever FA Cup in 2021 and then a (albeit consolatory) European semi-final appearance, did he feel he would face a similar backlash if he acted like that again? This pride and need to be respectful may have clouded the judgment of our chairman. Rodgers couldn’t get his team to defend or win matches consistently for far longer than should be acceptable for a manager on a £10million-a-year salary. In fairness to Top, expecting Rodgers to manage this talented and well-remunerated group of players to mid-table mediocrity was more than reasonable. But failing to acknowledge that the same manager had completely lost his way and needed to leave was incompetent.

Then when they did eventually pull the trigger on the former Liverpool boss, after a two-week international break, they spent over a week finding a replacement whilst placing two goalkeeping coaches in charge so they could take twice as long to make decisions in the technical area. Everything was way too reactive. Why were they not speaking to potential replacements in the two-week break? Why was Rodgers only sacked when we dropped into the relegation zone, would his payout be much less? Then when hiring Dean Smith to get us out of this mess for all his niceness, he failed to get the team going quickly enough nor got results where they should have.

This is Top’s first major failure at Leicester City, which given the previous successes can be forgiven. But more crucially, he has taken a bulletproof reputation and diminished admirers of his on how to run a football club in a concise space of time. I’m behind Top as many at the club are, but if we are to get better he will have to do some very serious soul-searching and ask himself some difficult and honest questions about who he trusts. He’ll also need those around him to be serious about their part in this demise and big decisions will need to be taken on the back of it.