For Brendan Rodgers, it had been business as usual on Sunday. The Leicester manager called his players into the club’s Seagrave training ground to analyse the bitterly disappointing last-minute defeat at Crystal Palace that left them in the bottom three and he was fully expecting to take charge of the meeting with Aston Villa on Tuesday until the bad news was delivered by the chairman, Aiyawatt “Top” Srivaddhanaprabha.
But if the timing of Rodgers’s departure four years after he succeeded Claude Puel came as something of a surprise, even he must have expected it would eventually end like this given the way things have unravelled since the start of the season. One win and seven defeats from the opening 10 Premier League games after a summer of only two signings – the defender Wout Faes for £17m on deadline day, to replace the £75m Chelsea-bound Wesley Fofana, and the third-choice goalkeeper, Alex Smithies – were followed by signs before the World Cup that Leicester might have turned a corner.
But their regression since has culminated in six defeats and no wins in their past seven games and forced Srivaddhanaprabha’s hand.
The 37-year-old Srivaddhanaprabha, who became chairman in 2018 after the death of his father, Vichai, in a helicopter crash, wrote off nearly £200m of debt owed by Leicester to the owner, King Power, in February and clearly felt his faith in the manager who led the club to a first FA Cup success less than two years ago had run dry with relegation looking increasingly likely.
“He is an amazing guy and I will say the same when I leave here,” Rodgers said of his chairman’s generosity when that debt was cleared.
After the fairytale Premier League title triumph in 2016, Srivaddhanaprabha has overseen the most sustained spell of success in the club’s history that included a run to the Champions League quarter-finals, two fifth-place finishes and the FA Cup triumph over Chelsea, albeit in front of only about 6,000 of their supporters because of Covid restrictions at Wembley. Last month, however, Leicester posted pre-tax losses of £92.5m for the year to 31 May 2022 – an increase of £61.3m on the previous season – despite reaching the Europa Conference semi-finals and finishing eighth.
Those losses coupled with financial fair play regulations meant Srivaddhanaprabha had to rethink his approach and he admitted in September they could no longer afford to spend heavily on recruits. “This summer, we couldn’t risk unbalancing that equation further, so we decided space would need to be made in the squad before new additions could be brought in,” he said. “The visible growth of our commercial revenue streams demonstrates that we are moving in the right direction, but the impact of the pandemic has been undeniable.”
Of those clubs who have been in the Premier League since the 2018-19 season, only Brighton have a net spend lower than Leicester’s £92m. Leicester have sold four players – Harry Maguire, Fofana, Riyad Mahrez and Ben Chilwell – for more than £50m in that time and are hoping for a similar fee for James Maddison from Newcastle or other suitors this summer, even though the England player has only one year on his contract.
In the short term, Srivaddhanaprabha – whose late father wiped out £103m in debts in December 2013 when the club was still in the Championship – must decide whether to entrust the caretakers Adam Sadler and Mike Stowell with taking the team beyond the Villa game and Saturday’s visit of Bournemouth. Sadler was hired as a tactical analyst under Nigel Pearson in 2014 and is a highly regarded coach, while Stowell is embarking on a sixth stint as caretaker having been in charge after the sackings of Martin Allen, Paulo Sousa, Sven‑Göran Eriksson, Claudio Ranieri and Puel.
There could be a nostalgic temptation to call on Pearson to return for a third spell after his heroics in 2015 when Leicester became only the third team to escape relegation after being bottom at Christmas – a run that provided the springboard for the title win 12 months later under Ranieri. The 59-year-old has a year on his Bristol City contract and would surely be tempted if asked. The Austrian Adi Hütter, out of work since he left Borussia Mönchengladbach last May, and Rafa Benítez could be alternative options. Graham Potter was linked with the job earlier in the season and is the bookmakers’ favourite after he was sacked by Chelsea on the day Rodgers went, but he is understood to want a break.
Leicester’s supporters have largely welcomed the end of Rodgers’s longest spell as a manager. The 50-year-old will be on the shortlists of several other clubs looking for new direction this summer but Srivaddhanaprabha can only hope his instinct is right.
