Foxes of Leicester
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What led to Leicester City’s disastrous EPL relegation

By Joey LeMaster

Dejected Leicester City fans at full time of the Premier League match between Leicester City and West Ham United at The King Power Stadium on May 28, 2023 in Leicester, United Kingdom. (Photo by James Williamson - AMA/Getty Images)
Dejected Leicester City fans at full time of the Premier League match between Leicester City and West Ham United at The King Power Stadium on May 28, 2023 in Leicester, United Kingdom. (Photo by James Williamson - AMA/Getty Images) /
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The Leicester City fans tried to stay hopeful this entire season. However, the inevitable happened on Sunday. With Everton being able to sneak a goal past Bournemouth, Leicester was officially relegated from the Premier League. It is a punch in the gut to everyone involved in the team. This includes the players, managers, staff, owners, and fans. No one expected us to be relegated from the Premier League. Now for the first time since 2014, the foxes are in the championship. This season was disastrous to say the least. However, we need to look at what led us to such a disastrous season.

Minimum spending of money

There is no doubt that money plays a massive part in the game of football today. There is an argument to be made that money was the biggest downfall for the East Midlands team. This issue with money dates farther back than just this season.

Leicester was once one of the best financially run clubs in the Premier League. Players were on good contracts with extended lengths and money was coming in consistently. Then in 2020, Leicester invested in a £100 million training ground. Despite this training ground being a thing of beauty, it led the team to its financial downfall. Covid would soon follow after the creation of this expensive training ground. Then all of a sudden, money wasn’t coming in as consistently as it used to. While trying to make up payments for this expensive training ground, we lost funding for two vital parts of this team: transfer budget and player contracts.

When the 2022 summer transfer window ended,  Leicester had spent the least amount of money out of all top tier outfits with just £15 million being spent on defender Wout Faes. Such little money was spent even though the foxes broke the Premier League record for biggest transfer fee for a defender when Wesley Fofana was sold to Chelsea for £80 million. Our only summer transfer deal would go on to have an underwhelming error filled season with Leicester. His most notorious game was against Liverpool where he scored two own goals.

Then the January transfer window would come around and the Leicester side desperately needed some transfers. On January 1st, Leicester were mid-table in the Premier League sitting at 13th place. However their 17 points were just four points clear of 18th place Wolverhampton. With the Foxes needing to desperately make some moves, management decided to act. However, we need to look back and realize this was money not well spent.