It must rank among the most squalid decisions ever taken in professional football, and there’s plenty of competition.
No profanity, please, lads and lasses but do have your say on the dismissal of Claudio Ranieri just months after he led Leicester City to its finest hour.
No more comment from me. Let’s just allow the club to fit its own noose:
From the BBC, where you will also find lots of horrified reaction:
Foxes vice-chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha said: “This has been the most difficult decision we have had to make in nearly seven years since King Power took ownership of Leicester City.
“But we are duty-bound to put the club’s long-term interests above all sense of personal sentiment, no matter how strong that might be.
“Claudio has brought outstanding qualities to his office. His skilful management, powers of motivation and measured approach have been reflective of the rich experience we always knew he would bring to Leicester City.”
Srivaddhanaprabha added: “His warmth, charm and charisma have helped transform perceptions of the club and develop its profile on a global scale. We will forever be grateful to him for what he has helped us to achieve.
“It was never our expectation that the extraordinary feats of last season should be replicated this season. Indeed, survival in the Premier League was our first and only target at the start of the campaign.
“But we are now faced with a fight to reach that objective and feel a change is necessary to maximise the opportunity presented by the final 13 games.”
Thanks William. Your kind words are appreciated. Interesting to hear Pearson’s name being mentioned in terms of a return.
I refer you to my earlier comment – ‘by the day my disillusionment with “the beautiful game” is growing.’
Are we any better? The redundancies announced after the New York jolly smack of similar corporate ugliness … http://www.espnfc.us/club/sunderland/366/blog/post/3067403/sunderland-redundancies-after-first-team-us-trip-give-club-pr-headache
It leaves a very bitter taste. The happy crappy clapperboards must be drooping in shame.
The question “what would SAFC fans do in similar circumstances?” is, I hope, the same as Dave mentioned by his son.
The nearest successful manager we can compare is Stokoe. We didn’t call for his head after (just) failing to follow up the Cup win with promotion, and I can’t recall many complaints against him when things went bad once in the top tier, he realised his shortcomings and quit, believing he didn’t have the tactical nous, or cruelty?, to take the team forward.
Or am I looking back through rose tinted specs?
I agree that most fans will want them relegated now.
At least he can scoff a pie on Saturday afternoon with a sense of impunity.
I’m about to have a fishcake in a bun for my dinner if anyone can get odds on that, it will be in about half an hour.
Will it be televised?
No doubt you could have got odds on Wednesday on Ranieri’s sacking. Does this mean that the owners of Leicester City will be investigated by the F.A. for a potential breach of betting regulations?
Leicester’s performances this season are simply the opposite side of the same coin that was last season. What seems to have been forgotten is that Ranieri inherited a team that was on a winning run under Nigel Pearson. There’s a reluctance to credit Pearson at all for recent events at a Leicester because he’s something of a prickly character. Ranieri’s most astute management was to leave the team well alone. Cambiasso left and he was replaced by Kante who has turned out to be an incredible PL player. Arguably, had Cambiasso stayed, then Kante may never have been signed. Maybe there was a bit of luck with that.
Their plummet this season is astounding, not so much by its occurrence but by the manner of it. He’s a likable man, Claudio Ranieri, but he has displayed a startling inability to stop the rot which has been going on for months. His team has only scored once in something like 13 hours of football and they have lost the last 5 league games. Such a capitulation isn’t going to be acceptable to any owners. Had they not had such an incredible season last year he would have been gone a while ago. Last season’s fairy tale will be no consolation to their supporters come August when they face trips to the likes of Brentford, Barnsley and Sunderland 🙂
Ranieri didn’t change a lot when they won the league and he hasn’t changed anything very much this season either. When you look at some of the players featuring in cup games, there are a lot of poor quality players at Leicester, some of whom have been there for some time, and some that Ranieri has wasted a king’s ransom on. It’s easy to be wise in hindsight but his best move in the summer would have been to move on the likes of Vardy and Mahrez so that they could have demonstrated that they were a flash in the pan elsewhere. Watching CR on the touchline this season he has been clearly concerned by performances and results whilst creating the impression that his title win would inoculate him from this current season’s failings which are numerous, blatant and undeniable.
Jeremy, I think this is a masterly summary of the Leicester situation, and none of the pundits that I’ve read or listened to have analysed it so well.
People seem to forget that Ranieri took over a winning side. Their form over the last quarter of the season under Pearson was tremendous. Pearson had found a way to play, and win, and the team spirit was fantastic.
As you say, Leicester actually have some very average players, and I include James Vardy. Their main weakness is having two very limited centre backs, with no pace. Their best player [Kante ] left for Chelsea, and this, and Ranieri’s poor management have shown them up for what they are.
IMO they should sound out Nigel Pearson. They would certainly avoid the drop if they did so.
My son and I discussed this a couple of days ago as to how we would feel if a manager came in and won the premier league at Sunderland and how much grace he would then get.
My son reckoned he could take us to the conference north before he would be calling for a change. I am not as sure as he is but if we were in the same position as Leicester I would like to think that nobody would be calling for the managers head until we were, at least, in Aston Villa’s position.
I have a mate who is a Portsmouth fan and he says he would not change what happened to them because the highs were worth the lows.
If someone offered me the premier league title followed by 2 relegations I would bite their hand off (not to mention away wins in the Champions League!).
Hopefully the other clubs in the league take a stand and decide to help relegate Leicester, starting, of course, with Everton on Saturday.