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.
Leicester would sign three players that would be brought into the first team. The first player signed was fullback Victor Kristiansen from Danish side FC Copenhagen. Just 19 years old at the time, Kristiansen would have to make a major jump into the Premier League while being an unproven youngster. While having a fantastic start with the foxes, he would eventually see his playing time given to Luke Thomas. This is a pattern that will follow the rest of our January signees.
With the transfer window coming to an end, Leicester would manage to bring in two more players. The first player was Brazilian winger Tetê. His loan deal would be canceled from Olympique Lyon so Shakatar could send him to our side for the rest of the season. Tetê had one of the hottest starts we’ve ever seen from a player freshly signed to our side. He looked invincible against Tottenham Hotspur and Aston Villa. However, he seemingly disappeared after that. He would rarely be in the starting eleven and would just come on as a super sub. He wouldn’t score for the rest of the season.
Then just as the transfer window was about to end, Harry Souttar signed to the club. Leicester signed Souttar from Stoke City for a transfer fee of £17 million. The 24-year-old Australian looked fantastic on our defensive line. He looked to be a real leader and a potential future captain for the club. However, a sudden reemergence of Caglar Söyüncü saw Souttar get moved back to the bench. Three players were brought into the squad and were arguably not good enough for our starting eleven. Sadly for us, this isn’t the end of our money problems.
With us having such massive money problems, contract extensions were not able to be handed out. Now players that were able to bring in big amounts of money are leaving at the cost of nothing. Söyüncü is the first of the contract expires to leave as he’s already signed a contract with Atlético Madrid. He is the first on a long list of players who will be out of contract by the end of the season. Other players include Nampalys Mendy, Jonny Evans, and Daniel Amartey. The biggest name leaving for free is without a doubt Youri Tielemans. The Belgian midfielder was signed in 2019 for a transfer fee of £45 million and he is going to leave us on a free agent deal. That is £45 million down the drain.
This is somehow not the end of Leicester’s financial troubles. With this team getting relegated, star players are going to be sold on tremendously cheap deals. James Maddison was getting offers for £50 million throughout the summer and winter transfer windows. With him now being in the championship and with one year on his contract, it is likely he’ll get sold for half of that value. Harvey Barnes currently has a transfer value of £32 million. Who knows if we’ll get anything close to that. This is an issue we’re going to have for any player that wants to leave this summer.
The delayed sacking of Brendan Rodgers
Leicester City had a terrible run of games to end last season. This awful run caused them to miss out on European football. At this time already, fans including myself were calling for the sacking of Brendan Rodgers. If only we knew how long it would take for this sacking to take place.
After so many terrible games throughout the season, Rodgers was sacked after a 2-1 defeat to Crystal Palace at the start of April. The foxes would play two games with an assistant manager before Dean Smith was appointed before the Manchester City game. They gave Smith eight games to try and save this team. That is not enough for any manager in the world. This delayed sacking without a doubt helped lead Leicester to relegation. Rodgers accomplished many great things with the foxes. It’s too bad that his over extended stay with the club will tarnish his reputation.
Giving up points in stupid ways
A lot of blame is rightfully going towards management and ownership. However, these players are also culpable for our relegation. With the talented players we have, we had no right to be relegated. However, poor play and idiotic mistakes led to our demise.
So many teams were fighting relegation and we gave them the needed points to survive. Bournemouth and Southampton got six out of six possible points from us. Nottingham Forest got three points from us and towards the end of the season we gave Leeds and Everton a point when we needed them the most.
Not only did we lose games we shouldn’t have, we lost points in embarrassing and careless ways. Maddison takes an awful penalty attempt against Everton which would have given us three points and Everton none. Against Aston Villa, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall would make two careless tackles which led to him getting sent off. We just about survived that game with a draw. However, Wilfred Ndidi passed the ball to no one in the 88’ and Villa would go on to score and win the game. Against Crystal Palace, Jean-Philippe Mateta scored with the final kick of the game to secure all three points.
What’s crazy to think about is this all happened in the last month of April or later. In the most crucial run of the season, we lacked character and discipline. This squad had all the talent to stay up but they simply could not have cared enough. If that wasn’t enough evidence, Leicester City dropped the most points from winning positions this season in the Premier League. If this team had enough grit to hold onto their leads, there is an argument to be made that we could have finished mid table. However, we’re now playing in the championship next season.
Lastly, Leicester City owner Top Srivaddhanaprabha
This is all at fault of Aiyawatt ‘Top’ Srivaddhanaprabha. I believe he is the reason we’re here today. He led us to a financial crisis. He held onto Rodgers for far too long. He didn’t bring in good enough players nor was he willing to spend bigger money to sign better players. He let our talented players leave on free deals. He is at blame for all of this. He ran such a great club into the ground. I wish he would sell the club. But, if he can get us back into the Premier League, I’d give him a second chance.