Down tools for Ranieri at your peril, Foxes
IF you were under the bizarre impression that fans’ interests concerned UEFA, then wait for them to award the 2019 Champions League Final to Baku.
The Azerbaijan capital will go headto-head with Atletico Madrid’s new stadium for the right to stage the showpiece event in two years’ time.
If you get a direct flight – there are not many – it would be the best part of six hours. And very pricey.
Anyway, the seats would probably be taken by the UEFA fats cats.
For the bigwigs, oil-rich Baku goes lavishly to town. For a humble fan, nothing but logistical hassle to offer.
That’s why it’s probably a shoo-in. YOU might think it hard to imagine a more dramatic swing in year-to-year form than Leicester City’s. It’s not. It’s not even the most dramatic of this season. Going into today ’ s meeting with Manchester United, Leicester City have 21 points from 23 matches. That’s 26 points less than they had at this stage of their title-winning campaign. After yesterday’s game against Arsenal, Chelsea have 59 points from 24 matches. That is 30 points more than they had at this stage of their miserable 2015-16 campaign. Chelsea’s improvement has been greater than Leicester’s deterioration. The reasons for Chelsea’s turnaround? Various, obviously. The acquisition of N’Golo Kante and Antonio Conte has obviously helped, the new system is effective.
But essentially, the players downed tools for Jose Mourinho, who went after 16 games. The damage was done.
It is a fundamental fact of footbal l life. Players get managers the sack.
As unprofessional as it sounds, the downing of tools can be conscious or subconscious.
If a squad loses even a modicum of respect for their manager, it can have calamitous consequences. That is what eventually happened with Mourinho at Chelsea.
Chelsea had to act, players’ fault or not.
The most disconcerting thing about the champions’ struggles – and the loss of Kante is also linked to those – is the continuing whisper that the dynamic between players and Claudio Ranieri, seemingly so utterly fundamental to last season’s remarkable feat, has become troubled. To the outsider, the dissent,
. anger and threat of strike action from Leonardo Ulloa – refused a window move to Sunderland – seems fairly reprehensible.
Not quite on a par with Dimitri Payet’s behaviour but not far off.
The departed Payet clearly @Sjopinion10 “Having electric gates at my house I know you can disable them and open manually player is a lazy slob end of #avfc well done Brucey.” lost the respect of not just the fans but his team-mates as well.
This, apparently, is definitely not the case with Ulloa and his team-mates.
He is a popular character, many do believe he has not been treated brilliantly.
They are certainly not queuing up to slate him.
These players have the fate of the architect of one of the most re m a r k a b l e achievements in club football history in their hands and, by many accounts, they are not getting along thrillingly with their boss right now.
When that happens, there is usually only one outcome.
Mourinho knows that, the last time he visited the King Power was with his disaffected Chelsea team. They lost and he was sacked. Ranieri will probably not be sacked if he loses today … but losing away at Swansea next weekend might have a different fallout.
Maybe the players, though, should remember one thing.
The supporters are unlikely to look on Ranieri as the culpable one.
Instead, they might look at the players’ fat new contracts, the flash cars and the array of commercial distractions and wonder.
Wonder if that remarkable season went to their heads, wonder if they have become big-time, wonder if they have lost their edge and their hunger and are happy to let Ranieri take the blame.
Let’s hope not. Ranieri and his team gave us one of the great sporting stories.
If he has lost the dressing room and loses his job, that dressing room will lose just a jot of respect.
YOU have to love the FA. They go through a thorough recruitment process, sifting through over 100 applications, whittling it down to a five-man shortlist, getting psychologists in to grill the candidates … then appoint the man already with the gig, who also happens to be one of the boss’s best mates.
Congratulations to Aidy Boothroyd (above) on confirmation of his permanent role as England Under-21 manager, but, as predictable and uninspiring appointments go, that’s right up there.