Long term factors
As I have written before, numerous mistakes have been made by Leicester’s hierarchy in recent years which have contributed to the current malaise. It should also be pointed out that football’s profit and sustainability rules have also played their part as have chronic underperformance by the Brendan Rodgers team that should not have been relegated in 2023.
Mistakes
The mistakes made over the past few years have included the poor player and management recruitment in recent seasons, the eye-wateringly high basic salaries paid to many Foxes’ players resulting in the wage bill exceeding revenue, and the increasing tendency – as with Youri Tielemans and Caglar Soyunchu – to allow highly-valued players to run down their contracts and leave for nothing. All of this represents significant financial mismanagement for which no-one at the club has been held accountable.
The fan’s hate figure here is Jon Rudkin, the former Director of Football and now Chief Football Officer. What is staggering is that, despite the important role he has played at the club, he never speaks to the fans. He has never been held responsible for the mistakes made. And to add fuel to the fire, what are widely seen as his failures were rewarded, earlier this season, with promotion in a board reshuffle.
2023 relegation
Perhaps the biggest, reasons for Leicester’s current plight was relegation from the Premier League in 2023. This was a financial disaster for the Foxes from which the club hasn’t yet recovered.
As I wrote in a previous post:
‘It is difficult to blame the City’s hierarchy for that season’s disaster. Hand on heart, should a Leicester team - containing players such as James Maddison, Youri Tielemans, Harvey Barnes, Wilfred Ndidi, Jamie Vardy and Jonny Evans – have been anywhere near the bottom of the table? The Foxes had the most expensively assembled squad and the highest wage bill of any club relegated from the Premier League, ever. The club had spent excessively and, ultimately, been let down by the players and the manager.’
PSR
There have been other longer-term factors that were outside the control of the club. Most notably, one effect of the PSR rules – which limit what clubs can spend over and above what they raise from football activities such as broadcast income, gate receipts and commercial activities – is to constrain clubs seeking to challenge the ‘big’ clubs in the Premier League.
As I document in my book on Leicester City, the club – in attempting to compete at the top end of the Premier League after winning the title on a shoestring budget in 2016 – got too close to the sun and burnt because their football revenue was never going to be high enough to compete without a substantial, and illegitimate according to PSR rules, sum coming from the owners.
The financial rules continue to haunt Leicester. In terms of this season, it meant that in a desperate attempt to bolster their PSR position there was a prohibition on buying players. Ultimately, the attempt failed and the six-point deduction followed. Without the penalty, the Foxes might have survived.
Short term factors
Of course, these longer-term factors can’t totally account for Leicester’s predicament – a second successive relegation and demotion to the third tier of English football for only the second time in the club’s 142-year history. In short, it has been the worst season in the club’s history. For a fuller explanation we must also look at what has gone on this season.
Poor recruitment again
In the first place, whilst true that the Foxes’ transfer budget was constrained by financial decisions made in the past, the loan signings which did happen this season were largely a failure. Yes, the recruitment of Jordan James, although injury prone, was a good move as, to a lesser extent, was the capture of Divine Makasa from Manchester City.
The other recruits, however, have offered little. Most notably, it soon became apparent that Julian Carranza, brought in to bolster the attack following the departure of Jamie Vardy, was totally unsuited to English football and his loan move was cut short in January. Even more shocking is that the club then didn’t replace the Argentinian, meaning goal-shy duo Patson Daka and Jordan Ayew were the only remaining strikers. Of the other loan signings, Aaron Ramsey has been injured for the bulk of the season, and Joe Aribo and Dujuan Richards, both recruited in January, have hardly featured.
And then there is the management situation. Sacking Steve Cooper when the club was 16th in the Premier League was regarded by many as a mistake, as was the appointment of Ruud van Nistelrooy, who had next to no experience managing in English football, as his replacement.
To add to the litany of failures, the decision to wait until July 2025, for financial reasons apparently, to get rid of the Dutchman and bring in Marti Cifuentes was disadvantageous to the club just about to go into a Championship season. Once again – there is a pattern of abject failure here – it took weeks to replace the Spaniard when he was sacked in February this year despite the fact that Gary Rowett was available immediately. Under Andy King, who was adamant he didn’t want the job, the Foxes lost all four matches.
Player underperformance and lack of quality
Allegations have been swirling around that the players don’t care enough and/or have inflated egos which prohibit criticism. I was struck by Gary Rowett’s comments after the home Swansea defeat which just about sealed the Foxes’ fate when he said that those out on the pitch need to take responsibility and fight harder. ‘We have to start fighting like it really matters’ he said. This was a remarkable statement for obvious reasons. Had they not being playing like it really mattered up to that point then?!
At times, it has looked like Leicester players haven't cared or haven't cared enough, and there is statistical evidence - in terms, for instance, of distance run, number of sprints and so on - that points to that conclusion. It is said too that some of them wanted to leave in the summer and therefore were treading water at best. Harry Winks was one who seemed to be disillusioned after Enzo Maresca left. He must have been removed from the first team squad by successive managers Ruud van Nistlerooy and Marti Cifuentes for a reason.
Of course, this is only circumstantial evidence for the claim that Leicester players don’t care. It is impossible to prove such a claim conclusively. I’m not entirely convinced by the ‘don’t care’ narrative. A more likely explanation is that the Foxes’ squad, built to challenge for promotion playing a possession-based game, lacked the physicality and athleticism necessary to compete in a bruising relegation battle. In addition, the squad, largely the same players who suffered relegation last season, have become used to losing and almost expect it. Hence, the apparent apathy and depression when they went behind in games.
There may be something in the 'don't care' narrative, as well as the physicality and mentality explanations for Leicester's demise. I think too though that fans have been blindsided by pundits many of whom have insisted that Leicester has a talented group of players who are much too good to be in the position that the club finds itself in.
This ignores, however, the players the Foxes have lost in the recent past. Losing Kiernan-Dewsbury Hall to Chelsea before the start of the 2024-25 season was a big blow. A year later, a host of important players – including Wilfred Ndidi, Mads Hermansen, James Justin and, to a lesser extent, Kasey McAteer – also left the club. The most important loss was, of course Jamie Vardy. And if I was to give one key reason why Leicester have struggled so badly this year it is the failure to adequately replace a player who had been the team's chief goal scorer for a decade.
For Leicester fans, what matters now is the immediate future. This is the subject of my next post coming soon.
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