On Thursday evening it became common knowledge that Claudio Ranieri had been relieved of his duty as Leicester City manager. I’d like to claim that my opinion is the opinion that most people have. His sacking is ridiculous. He inherited a team with low morale and other than a few previously unknown gems the team was average. Ranieri managed to change a few average players into world class players. N’golo Kante is debatably the clearest example of the Italian’s work. In came a player from France who very few people have heard of and only a season later, now at Chelsea he’s debatably one of the best holding midfielders in the world. Kante even had the ability to make Morgan and Huth look like world class defenders but realistically given their history it was clear that these players weren’t going to keep playing at this level for the rest of their careers. But two players that have stuck by Leicester and have been possibly permanently transformed are Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy. Vardy, a late developer deserves to keep his spot in the England team regardless of what happens to Leicester and Mahrez is surely destined to be a top player for a fair few years now. It’s just a shame that in my opinion, he has to leave Leicester sooner rather than later to progress his career. But regardless these are players who a few seasons ago were looked over as nothing but Ranieri has brought out the best in them.
With his energetic and charismatic approach, he Italian manager has clearly given his team unbelievable belief in themselves to achieve what they did. I’d imagine the board and everyone who has a connection with Leicester would have been happy with a mid table finish this season .This is a man that deserves everyone’s respect. Don’t get me wrong their league form this season is unacceptable. But who is going to manage a team better than a man who led the incredibly average team to the title? No-one. It’s a simply ludicrous decisions to sack Ranieri. It would have been unacceptable for anyone to presume that Leicester could recreate last season’s antics. At the end of the day Wes Morgan is no Sergio Ramos and Robert Huth isn’t quite on the same level as Jerome Boateng. I think more than anything the whole situation is distorted given last season’s triumph. This is a manager losing his job who got a fairly poor team into the Champions League and then didn’t live up to it a second time it’s just unacceptable really.
It’s a sad day for football really. When you read his statement following his sacking it really hits home that Leicester meant the world to him. He’s managed many sides before but it’s clear that no other team has made him happy like Leicester did. For me the bottom line is that he definitely didn’t deserve to lose his job and that whoever follows him in the managerial position, good luck because you’ll never be as good. If I had to make a prediction I would expect Leicester now to enter a period similar to what we’ve seen at United after Sir Alex Ferguson left. Obviously this will be on a much smaller scale but after a period of massive success nothing but disappointment will follow. If Leicester aren’t careful this could be a very slippery slope but I really hope not. Only time will tell.
