{"id":390975,"date":"2026-04-21T20:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T20:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/390975\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T20:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T20:32:09","slug":"leicester-city-decline-from-premier-league-title-to-league-one-danger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/390975\/","title":{"rendered":"Leicester City decline: From Premier League title to League One danger"},"content":{"rendered":"

But Leicester\u2019s golden era is a distant memory<\/a> as they face the unpalatable prospect of playing the likes of Bromley, Mansfield and Wycombe next season.<\/p>\n

Crashing out of the Premier League in limp fashion three years ago should have been a wake-up call for Leicester\u2019s Thai owner Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha and much-maligned sporting director Jon Rudkin.<\/p>\n

But Leicester\u2019s hierarchy were painfully slow to address numerous flaws on the pitch, while the club\u2019s ruinous finances have cost them with a six-point deduction this season for breaching spending rules.<\/p>\n

Vardy\u2019s departure at the end of last season<\/a> severed the last tie with the title-winning squad.<\/p>\n

Marti Cifuentes, hired to lead a promotion push, struggled to rebuild an unbalanced and inexperienced squad before his sacking in January.<\/p>\n

\u2018A lack of quality\u2019<\/p>\n

Interim boss Andy King was unable to turn the tide and relegation fears began to mount after Leicester blew a 3-0 halftime lead in a dismal 4-3 defeat against Southampton.<\/p>\n

By the time Rowett was hired in February, the Foxes were two points from safety and the former Leicester defender has mustered one win from his 11 matches since.<\/p>\n

But it is his players who have taken the brunt of the blame, with fans chanting \u201cyou\u2019re not fit to wear the shirt\u201d and engaging in an altercation with midfielder Harry Winks after last weekend\u2019s loss at Portsmouth.<\/p>\n

The weekend\u2019s result at Fratton Park elevated in-form Portsmouth to 18th on the table, seven points clear of relegation with three matches in hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lack of fight is something that\u2019s been labelled at the team over the course of a season. I don\u2019t know whether that\u2019s fair, but I think we\u2019ve showed a lack of quality,\u201d Rowett said.<\/p>\n

Boardroom blunders have been the defining influence on Leicester\u2019s plummet towards League One.<\/p>\n

Srivaddhanaprabha has struggled to fill the shoes of his father, Vichai, who was killed in a helicopter crash at the King Power Stadium in 2018.<\/p>\n

Claudio Ranieri, architect of their title-winning campaign, was sacked months after lifting the trophy<\/a>, with Craig Shakespeare and then Claude Puel proving inadequate replacements.<\/p>\n

Brendan Rodgers, who masterminded the club\u2019s FA Cup triumph and two fifth-placed finishes in the Premier League, was dismissed as relegation beckoned in 2023.<\/p>\n

Even when Enzo Maresca led Leicester to promotion in 2024, he immediately departed for Chelsea, necessitating the unpopular and unsuccessful appointment of Steve Cooper, who previously managed rivals Nottingham Forest.<\/p>\n

Rudkin\u2019s recruitment has been no better, with expensive flops Patson Daka, Oliver Skipp, Jannik Vestergaard and Harry Souttar adding to a wage bill that topped \u00a3200 million ($270m) in 2023 and reportedly contained no clauses to reduce salaries upon relegation.<\/p>\n

Foreshadowing Leicester\u2019s descent, Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha said in January: \u201cIn almost 16 years, we have won five trophies, we\u2019ve had two relegations, three times in Europe. It\u2019s like a movie. It\u2019s like a super drama on Netflix.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe grew bigger and bigger and we forgot what we were before. We thought we are here and that is the most dangerous position to be in.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the precipice of relegation, Leicester will hope for another against-the-odds miracle, but the bleak reality of their situation is impossible to ignore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But Leicester\u2019s golden era is a distant memory as they face the unpalatable prospect of playing the likes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[74,202216,28491,31100,2199,10714,29384,89690,2740,71,83883,14731,53436,111,139,69,5270,14730,202217,46453,213,3755,96003,2563,61,46232,1530],"class_list":{"0":"post-390975","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-after","9":"tag-authoring","10":"tag-brink","11":"tag-champions","12":"tag-city","13":"tag-danger","14":"tag-decline","15":"tag-fairytale","16":"tag-former","17":"tag-from","18":"tag-humiliating","19":"tag-league","20":"tag-leicester","21":"tag-new-zealand","22":"tag-newzealand","23":"tag-nz","24":"tag-one","25":"tag-premier","26":"tag-relegation","27":"tag-sporting","28":"tag-sports","29":"tag-third","30":"tag-tier","31":"tag-title","32":"tag-to","33":"tag-ultimate","34":"tag-years"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}