Time to do a Ranieri

THIS week, Claudio Ranieri, the manager who pulled off one of the most astonishing feats in English football by guiding nohopers Leicester City to the Premier League title, was fired after a slump in form which, not even a year later, sees the club in a battle to avoid relegation.

There was no sentiment involved. Ranieri had, as they say, lost the dressing room, and was rapidly losing the support of fans as well. Contrast that with the fairytale world of Irish politics. Enda Kenny too has lost the dressing room, yet the players who have been most vocal that his time is up now seem happy to let him choose the moment of his departure. When even the plotters can’t draw blood, it speaks to a system that is overly sentimental when it should be as ruthlessly efficient as that of Leicester City.