I'm not quite sure what is going on at Leicester, but it looks suspiciously like the owners have pulled the plug on Brendan Rodgers.
And you also suspect that he’s feeling that. He’s not feeling the love at all. When he raised more than £70m in the summer transfer window, and got precious little of it to spend, he’s most definitely not going to feel the love.
From the outside, it seems pretty obvious there has been a big spending cut at the club, and you don’t have to scratch far below the surface to see why. They’ve been operating at the level of a top six club - with wage spending to match, but without the Champions League football that is a must to sustain such salaries.
Financial Fair Play and the Premier League’s own sustainability rules come into it too, and I get the feeling there are some strings being pulled in relation to these regulations, like so many clubs in the top flight right now.
I look at the departure of Kasper Schmeichel, and it’s a puzzling one. He has been a top keeper for a decade, and such an important part of the team and their success under Rodgers. Yet he was allowed to leave for virtually nothing, and in his absence they’ve conceded a lot of bad goals this season, which you suspect wouldn’t have happened with his presence at the back.
To me, it looks like they were getting rid of his wages off the payroll. But that is short sighted if it puts you in trouble…and they’re deep in trouble at the foot of the table. Rodgers has every right to believe he deserves better backing. He’s only had one season where he spent serious money, and in his time at the club he’s basically broken even in the transfer market, while twice coming so close to the top four, delivering Europe and a trophy.
Can he turn things around? He’ll believe he can of course. I worked at Liverpool for a time in a mentor role when he was manager, and I saw close hand how positive a person he is, and the belief he has in his methods. They’ve worked with these players, and he has to stick to those beliefs, stick to the methods that were successful, and try to use his ability to motivate them.
He has experience of these situations in his career now too, so it won’t be a complete culture shock for him. But at the same time, he won’t be naive. He knows he’s got problems. The loss of Wesley Fofana to Chelsea is a huge blow, and the guy they bought to replace him, Wout Faes, has only played one game so far.
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That was the 6-2 thrashing by Spurs, but I don’t think it was his problem. There was a problem with conceding bad goals for sure, but the mistakes were elsewhere, in midfield and in goal. That suggests a loss of confidence, and possibly belief.
Maybe the international break came at the right time, because it gives the manager time to work on that, work with the team on structure and organisation. I’ve been in these positions before. As a player, you don’t think you’ve lost confidence, you think you have what it takes, and yet slowly, almost imperceptibly, you stop showing for the pass, stop taking the more difficult option, or the risk, in case it doesn’t come off.
This is where the crowd has to play a part. The groans you get, the booing, the dissatisfaction from the terraces, they massively affect performance. So I can’t stress how important it is that stops. The players have to show a bit of b******s too, if you’ll excuse my language. Yeah, the confidence may be low, and they may feel the need to play safe, but a crunching tackle, some real energy and aggression, that can lift everything.
That’s why Monday night’s game is so important. It’s against local rivals who are also in trouble, there’ll be a big crowd, a real atmosphere. Go back to basics. Be brave, be aggressive, and be strong.
Rodgers will have been saying this all week. But he’ll know he has issues. Without watching them much this season I can’t say why, but no goals from Jamie Vardy all season, and just one from Kelechi Iheanacho looks a real problem. He’s got to get them scoring. And fast, as in now, because defeat in this game doesn’t bear thinking about. If they lose, then you can see questions being asked at the very top. But where do Leicester go if they sack the manager?
They seem to be cutting back massively, there’s no window to spend, and apparently no money anyway, even if the window was open. It looks pretty bleak. But one big win can still set things off and running. It just takes a bit of direction, and a lot of courage.
