Where it went wrong
Changes at the top Oct 3 — Dec 22 — Dec 27 — Jan 3 — Feb 23 —
LONDON — Nine months ago, Claudio Ranieri was being hailed as a miracle worker and serenaded by Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli after guiding 5,000-1 longshot Leicester to the English Premier League title.
As of Thursday, the charming Italian is out of a job after the Leicester fairytale turned sour quicker than anyone could have expected.
Here’s a look at where it went wrong for Ranieri and Leicester:
Complacency Kante sale
Rarely has the departure of one player had such a profound effect on a team.
N’Golo Kante — a dynamic, diminutive central midfielder — was one of the driving forces behind Leicester’s title success. His teammates and Ranieri said he did the work of two players with his energy and reading of the game.
Kante left Leicester for Chelsea in July and has proved irreplaceable. Ranieri signed Nampalys Mendy and Daniel Amartey in the off- season and Wilfred Ndidi in January, but none of the holding midfielders come close to matching Kante.
Leicester’s defense lost its screener and its aging centerbacks, Robert Huth and Wes Morgan, have been exposed. The team has been unable to switch defense into attack as quick without Kante.
Big spending
Ranieri tried to build on an unlikely position of strength by twice breaking Leicester’s record for a transfer fee in the offseason, signing forward Ahmed Musa and then Islam Slimani for a combined $58 million.
Like Mendy and Amartey, they have struggled to make any impression and Ranieri often simply returned to his title-winners of last season to get the team firing again. It hasn’t happened.
Fading stars
Along with Kante, striker Jamie Vardy and winger Riyad Mahrez were Leicester’s star players last season, scoring crucial goals and bringing an element of surprise to opponents who knew little about them at the start of the campaign.
Understandably, given their achievement, Leicester’s players were rewarded handsomely for winning the Premier League. Richer contracts were handed out and the club’s Thai owner bought each player a BMW i8 worth around $135,000.
Did success go to the players’ heads?
It certainly seemed so on the field.
The work rate appears to have dipped this season. The determination to bounce back from going a goal down just hasn’t been there.
The main focus appeared to be the Champions League, not the Premier League, and Vardy scored 24 goals, the it showed in the results: second-highest in the league, Leicester qualified for the and netted in a Premier knockout stage in Europe League-record 11 straight with a game to spare and games. This season, he has slipped closer to the relegafive goals, three of which tion zone in the league each came in one game against passing week. Manchester City in December.
Mahrez scored 16 last season, many of them matchwinning strikes, and was voted English soccer’s player of the year. This season, he has three goals and has appeared disinterested in some games.
Here are all the managerial casualties in the English top-flight so far in the 2016-17 season:
Swansea fired Italian Francesco Guidolin on his 61st birthday after just over nine months in charge — having saved the Swans from relegation in the 2015-16 campaign. American Bob Bradley was named as his replacement.
Crystal Palace fired Alan Pardew months after he led it to within minutes of lifting the FA Cup only to lose to Manchester United in extra time. However, only six wins in 36 matches in the calendar year and one in its past 11 brought to an end the Englishman’s tenure. Palace appointed Sam Allardyce to replace Pardew on Dec 23.
Swansea ended Bradley’s 85-day tenure, comprising just two wins in 11 matches, and on Jan 3 named highly-regarded English coach Paul Clement as his replacement.
Hull fired Mike Phelan 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 coach Marco Silva was hired to save lowly Hull from relegation.
Team turmoil
By the start of February, reports of growing unrest in the Leicester dressing room started to emerge in the British media. Unhappiness with Ranieri’s tactics, team selections, and managerial style was apparently behind it, although the players showed a united front in public and backed their coach after each bad result.
The board of directors gave Ranieri a vote of confidence in a statement this month, but he was fired barely two weeks later.
With champions Leicester hovering precariously above the relegation zone after losing five successive league matches without scoring a goal, Claudio Ranieri paid the price. The Italian was unable to stem the tide and an embarrassing FA Cup loss at third-tier Millwall served as the final blow to his reputation amid reports of player unrest at his tactics and team selection. He was fired less than 24 hours after Wednesday’s 2-1 Champions League loss at Sevilla.