No fairytaleending forRanieri thistime
HARSH CALL Nine months after guiding Leicester to Premier League crown, the Italian is shown the door with Foxes near the bottom of the table
won the Premier League last season by hitting on the break, Leicester City manager Claudio Ranieri, it seems, has been caught on the counter. The manner of his sacking, nine months after defying 5000-1 odds to win the world’s toughest football league, is also symptomatic of how team owners play the media and more through statements that mean exactly the opposite of what they are supposed to.
Claudio Ranieri went because mortals fulfil great expectations only once. He got Leicester to believe in a new normal: that they could be champions. This, to a team that has been up and down six times in the past 15 seasons.
Indeed, Ranieri came with the modest ambition of keeping Leicester in the Premiership. He then got the team to overreach itself. Or, as he put it: “The god of football said Leicester must win.”
The god of football may have also decided that the usual contenders also implode at once. “We cannot compare the Premier League of last year with this year,” said fellow Italian and Watford manager Walter Mazzarri.
Whatever it was, the divine intervention led to new dreams. But for a team that will now be managed by a Shakespeare, it is perhaps appropriate to point out that such ambition usually ends up falling on the other side, as Macbeth said.
Many reasons will be put forward now. That Ranieri lost the dressing room — sacked coaches always do; look at how it went downhill for Jose Mourinho with Chelsea last term — lost a key player and then other key players lost form. And that their defence isn’t as difficult to break down any more.
All of that would be true. Report of dressing room rift started circulating earlier this year. N’Golo Kante proved irreplaceable — his 86 tackles for Chelsea puts him third on the list this term — and they haven’t been able to defend set-pieces as well as they did possibly because referees have been stricter in the Premiership. Then, Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez couldn’t recapture their Cinderella season.That could be an important
Manchester United
Two days after he won the FA Cup in 2016, United announced his sacking and named Jose Mourinho as the new manager. But the major reason for his sacking was his failure to guide Red Devils to a Premier League title. Swansea sacked the Italian on his 61st birthday after just over nine months in charge — having saved them from relegation in the 2015-16 campaign — and appointed Bob Bradley as his replacement.
Chelsea
Six months after helping Chelsea win the Champions League/FA Cup double, the former Blues player was sacked in November 2012 after a defeat to Juventus in the Champions League. At that point they were third in the Premiership. Crystal Palace booted out Pardew months after he led them to within minutes of lifting the FA Cup only to lose to Man United in extra time. However, only six wins in 36 matches in the calendar year ended the Englishman's tenure. reason. Players now get scrutinised every second and the good ones stay ahead by evolving into different, better ones. Unless you are Arjen Robben because even though everyone knows when he would cut in and where he would shoot, he often still can’t be stopped. The example of Philipp Lahm would be an extreme one but this season Vardy and Mahrez seem like Yusuf Pathan in cricket’s short and shorter versions.
With that came Ranieri’s inability to find another way. Leicester haven’t got the space for those fast transitions that caught teams by surprise last season. It took a 0-3 defeat for Antonio Conte to
Real Madrid
After winning the La Liga in 2003, Real decided to not renew his contract. Under him, Real won two Champions Leagues (2000, 2002), two La
Ligas (2001, 2003), the Spanish Super Cup (2001), a UEFA Super Cup and the Intercontinental Cup. With Swansea struggling to get out of the relegation zone, the club decided sever to ties with the American after just 85 days. On January 3 they name highly-regarded Paul Clement as his full-time replacement. switch to three centre-backs. But though Ranieri tinkered with the team, he couldn’t find another effective way of playing.
The way Leicester’s season has panned out also shows why it is so difficult to break the stranglehold top clubs have on trophies. Or why there have been eight winners in 20 World Cups. Soon after a comeback win against Monaco, Manchester City’s Yaya Toure spoke about history not being behind them and that it would take a few years for them to be like, well, Manchester United.
Ranieri won’t have to be the first Premier League manager to supervise relegation of the reigning champions. But as Mourinho has said: no one can delete the history he wrote.
Chelsea
It was a 1-2 defeat to Leicester in Dec 2015 that sealed the Special One’s fate months after he won the Premiership and the League Cup. The dismissal, in his second term, came when Chelsea was 16th and one point above the drop zone. Hull sacked him after 82 days in his full-time role. He had previously been caretaker manager since Steve Bruce resigned a few days before the beginning of the campaign. Portuguese Marco Silva was hired to save Hull’s season. Oct 20, 1951 Rome
Defender Roma, Catanzaro, Catania and Palermo
Campania (ITA), Cagliari (ITA), Napoli (ITA),
Fiorentina (ITA), Valencia (ESP), Atletico Madrid (ESP), Chelsea (ENG), Parma (ITA), Juventus (ITA), Roma (ITA), Inter Milan (ITA), Monaco (FRA), Leicester City (ENG)
UEFA Intertoto Cup Copa del Rey UEFA Super Cup
Ligue 2