What happened to Leicester City?

Leicester City were the definition of an Underdog team. In recent years they had won the Premier League, FA Cup, Community Sheild and disrupted the “Big 6” by finishing 5th in consecutive years. But now they face relegation to the Championship.

How has this happened? Leicester’s business model was the envy of many, so how has it gone so wrong so quickly? And who is to blame?

Jon Mackenzie writes, Henry Cooke illustrates.

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[Taizuren]

But I'll always have spot in my heart for Leicester, Vardy, Kante, Mahrez, Ranieri, and of course always....Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha!!! rip

[football.cinema.]

As a neutral it’s actually unbelievable what’s happened to the club in the last 24 months.

Seeing them relegated would feel like reading the cruelest, most surreal ending to one of your favorite fairy tales 😔😔😔

[Teaandephemery]

I think the moment Leicester's decline became baked in was when they lost 4-2 to a diabolical Spurs team at the end of 2020-21, missing out on the champions league in the process. If they'd won that game they'd have finished ahead of Utd and CL revenue would have made up the hole in the accounts caused by the pandemic. However, they lost, and the money issues snowballed from there.

[EighthRobin]

On the topic of downfalls, I'd really like to see one covering the fall of Yeovil Town, from the Championship to National league south in less than a decade.

[uncreative]

It's a tragedy that their chairman passed away in that helicopter accident. It certainly leaves a hole in one's heart and makes an entire fan base wonder what could've been if he didn't die so suddenly.

[bigmitchtv]

Seeing Leicester and Southampton going down, makes me immediately worry about Brighton. Selling your best players will catch up with you at a point. No matter how good your recruitment team is all you need is one bad window, one unfortunate circumstance ( e.g a pandemic) and that's it. This clubs don't have the financial power like the top six to write of one window of huge bad spending. Brighton better be very careful this transfer window, with all the players they might lose, I fear they'll be in line next.

[cokezzz]

They lost their leader Schmeichel who made the saves needed against the big 6 clubs enabling them to be competitive even when they sold many of their key players

[lonestarr]

_"Leicester City have gone from being the exemplar of good practice within football clubs to becoming the next cautionary tale of how it can all go wrong."_
Due to almost no fault of their own. That's the real tragedy here. By Premier League standards, they've been one of the very few sensible sides. Maybe the wages were a bit too high, but apart from that?
It's such a shame, really. Because what will that cautionary tale look like? "You better get yourself some Sheikh from an inhumane regime to finance your ludicrous and short-sighted signings, or else you might go down like good ol' Leicester."

[AdamOBrien]

It would be such a shame to see them go down, the 2016 story was a fantastic fairly tale and was a pleasure to experience

[secla_SC]

At Liverpool Rodgers had the same problem, he wanted full control of transfers and that led to a lot of poor signings.

[joemadden]

As a Leicester fan I'd say sadly this video is an accurate overview of the current issues. Good job as always Tifo

[joeperera]

As a Leicester fan, I think it's also key that BR fell out and then didn't play a number of top players. Playing Amartey ahead of Soyuncu this season for instance. A lot of our players have seemingly just declined as well: Ndidi, Ricardo, Castagne, Dewsbury-Hall, Tielemans have all played below their usual standards this season. Ndidi used to be one of the top defensive midfielders in the league and now just looks like a liability whenever he plays.

[YeTism]

Vardy still has a greater legacy in English football than Kane

[jakelawson]

The one thing missing here is the reason for the change in transfer policy during the summer of 2021: Missing out on the Champions League on the last day of the season two years on the trot (thanks Jack Grealish!), there was a sense that the club were on the verge of being a top 4 side. So, they committed to not selling any top talent and acquiring talent that was ready to help out immediately. Then, disaster struck: Villarreal's Fer Nino snapped Wesley Fofana's leg in a pre-season friendly, hence the panic buy of Vestergaard. The club went all in on trying to reach the CL and finished 8th. This sense that the club's window had closed left top players unwilling to extend their contracts, and the financial problems were compounded by the Fofana drama last summer.

I lied: There was one other point that needed to be made: Rodgers' bizarre refusal to use the players at his disposal, including some he brought on. Vestergaard has barely played at all. Çağlar Söyüncü, arguably the club's best defender, couldn't even get on the bench. Wilfred Ndidi, the only real defensive midfielder in the squad, found himself out of favour with the club leaking goals. The manager might not like the hand he's been dealt (or has dealt himself), but it's his job to make the most of what he has and Rodgers couldn't or wouldn't do this.

[ThaTacoGuy]

Brendan Rodgers made our position in the table worse. Money does play a big factor in table positioning, but he still had most of the players that Leicester City won the FA cup with. He got the tactics all wrong and did not play the best players this season!

[livinginlondon]

Still a brilliant team . They need to be playing with more heart, incredible players . Maddison, Vardy !

[Big_Gulps]

If they'd managed to get into the CL those couple of seasons where they were in top 4 for the vast majority of them, might have gone some way to increase revenue and get more concrete interest in some of their players

[sonny]

Am a Leicester fan and this has been the most heartbreaking season but the most hopeful one I ever witness, we go in each game looking to likely win only to commit one mistake and we down
But I believe we staying up and next season is a different story to write.

[akhanduri]

Nice to hear JJ on this one. Looks like he can sound serious when he wants to 😅

[Detector]

The fall of Vardy was inevitable and they did nothing to replace him.