This should have happened a LONG TIME AGO. Leicester City have finally moved on from manager Brendan Rodgers as the club currently sits in 19th place with just 10 games left in the season.
The end has finally come for Brendan Rodgers at Leicester City.
After another long winless streak, Leicester City have officially moved on from Brendan Rodgers after 4 seasons in charge of the club…and I wish they would have done so earlier. Obviously, there shouldn’t be a Leicester City fan disrespecting the legacy Rodgers left at the club as he’s arguably the most effective manager in the club’s history, if not the greatest.
Yes, the legendary title win by Claudio Ranieri’s 2015/16 Leicester side really can’t be beaten (at least not yet) as he won the first ever top-flight title for the team and brought them to the Champions League for the first time in the club’s history, but there’s also some baggage to Ranieri’s time at the club.
I don’t personally subscribe to this belief, but there are those Leicester fans that would demote Ranieri’s status as the club’s greatest ever manager due to how short his time was at the club.
Ranieri only lasted a year and a half in charge of the Foxes as even though he brought unprecedented greatness (Premier League title, Champions League berth, he was sacked midway through the next season with the club just 1 point above the relegation zone with a baker’s dozen games left.
Rodgers, on the other hand, has led Leicester to two 5th places finishes (2020, 2021), an 8th place finish (2022), won the 2022 FA Community Shield, reached the semi-final of the Europa Conference League in 2022 (the first ever European semi-final in club history), and won the club’s first ever FA Cup in 2021 against Chelsea.
Sure, he never finished in the Champions League spots and infamously fell out of the Top-4 in the later stages of the season twice, but he also was the most consistent Premier League manager the club has ever had. Until this year.
Everything about the start to the season with Leicester felt super off as the Srivaddhanaprabha Family ownership group, the very same owners that funded all of the successes Leicester have had since their return to the Premier League, would not spend in the summer transfer window after building the new stadium and training grounds, key players to the Premier League winning side (ex: Kasper Schmeichel, Jamie Vardy) were either phased out or sold, and Rodgers just seemed tired and dejected with the job.
Honestly, he seemed like a dead man walking during all of his preseason and early season interviews, which really should be no surprise as Leicester went on to lose 7 of their first ten games, the club sat at the bottom of the league at the World Cup break, and Leicester was knocked out of both domestic cup competitions soon after the club campaigns resumed.
Winning a few games after the break to claw out of the relegation zone did keep Rodgers in the job for a little while, but this recent string of 7 results without a win (1 draw, 6 defeats) to fall back into the relegation zone was the final nail in his coffin. Yet, I really believe Leicester wouldn’t be sitting in 19th position on a meager 25 points if they had just sacked Rodgers when the World Cup break hit.
A new manager could have been brought in, get a good month or so with the players not on international duty (which was most of these guys as they were sitting in 20th in the Premier League), and perhaps gotten a decent cup run or jolt up the league to supplicate the Srivaddhanaprabhas.
Moreover, a new voice may have been able to motivate/get through to the star players, such as James Maddison, Kelechi Iheanacho, Harvey Barnes, Patson Daka, etc., and break them out of their scoring slumps. Or at least muster enough points to be ahead of the likes of Nottingham Forrest, Everton, Leeds United, AFC Bournemouth, and Wolves as this Leicester squad is far better (on paper, that is) than the teams currently ahead of them.
We’ll see who Leicester brings in next, but the goal of the new manager is not to win league titles, FA Cups, EFL Cups, or even challenge for Europe as was previously. No, the only task now is one that has been quite familiar with the history of Leicester City: beat off relegation.
Images Source: Featured Image:
