In the last decade, Leicester City have won the Premier League title, hoisted aloft the FA Cup, reached the Champions League quarter-finals and, as recently as 2022, were in the semi-finals of the Conference League. Now though, in just 44 days time, they could be a third-tier club, and supporters think they know why.
According to one Leicester supporter on Reddit, manager Gary Rowett should "ban our wingers from cutting inside, or at least have overlapping full backs to get the crosses in". They add that the Foxes simply are not putting "decent crosses into the box.... endlessly cutting inside and getting shots blocked".
Well, to support this assertion, Leicester have produced 590 crosses in the EFL Championship this season, according to Player Stats. This puts them second-bottom for this metric across the entire division, above only rock-bottom Sheffield Wednesday, who have -6 points on the board, have won only one game all season and have suffered the earliest relegation in English football history.
Of the 50 players with the most crosses in the Championship, the Foxes' only representatives are Abdul Fatawu on 147, thereby ranked 21st, and Jordan James on 109, ranked 40th.
Like the aforementioned Sheffield Wednesday, Leicester have had a point deduction this season, docked six points for breaching Profit and Sustainability Rules, which has plunged them into real danger. With only eight fixtures remaining, they sit second bottom, two points from safety.
Leicester City's remaining fixtures
- Saturday 21 March: Watford - Vicarage Road. Kick off 3pm.
- Friday 3 April: Preston North End - King Power Stadium. Kick off 3pm.
- Monday 6 April: Sheffield Wednesday - Hillsborough. Kick off 3pm.
- Saturday 11 April: Swansea City - King Power Stadium. Kick off 3pm.
- Saturday 18 April: Portsmouth - Fratton Park. Kick off 3pm.
- Wednesday 22 April: Hull City - King Power Stadium. Kick off 7:45pm.
- Saturday 25 April: Millwall - King Power Stadium. Kick off 3pm.
- Saturday 2 May: Blackburn Rovers - Ewood Park. Kick off 12:30pm.
Rowett's team do travel to Hillsborough on Easter Monday, which should be about as much of a banker as one could get, while Leicester also still have to face fellow strugglers Portsmouth and Blackburn on the final day. How crucial could that clash in Lancarshire prove to be?
Conversely, their final two home games of the campaign are against promotion-chasing Hull and Millwall, currently both in the play-off positions, so you can't see the Foxes winning either of those. Thus, things are looking pretty bleak on Filbert Way right now, and the club could be about to slip into League One for the first time since 2009.
Two seasons ago, under Enzo Maresca, Leicester romped to the EFL Championship title, accumulating 97 points, but that must feel like a distant memory, let alone all their Premier League success under Claudio Ranieri and Brendan Rodgers.