O’Neill slams Foxes’ player power game

TWO days had passed before those once-average but now legendary title winners made public their gratitude to Claudio Ranieri.

His sacking killed the magic of Leicester’s fairy tale stone dead. But while you could argue it was for the good of a club hurtling at breakneck speed towards relegation, the suggestion those players bit the hand that fed them rankles in all corners of football.

“It has been mentioned that some players went to the owners to talk about whatever – but why should players go to the owner, even in this day and age?” said former Leicester manager Martin O’Neill, hitting the nail on the head in his interview with Radio 5 Live’s Sportsweek on Sunday.

“If things are not going well, you try to sort that out in the dressing room.

“While the players took an awful lot of credit last year – and rightly so – somewhere along the way you have to take a little bit of criticism.

“I played in the days when players had no power. You could walk in one day and find out you were being transferred and had very little say in it and that was the way it was.

“Players should have had more power in those days, but now it has gone completely in the other direction and the players are really powerful – including a lot of ordinary players.”

The players, of course, denied they had anything to do with Ranieri’s sacking. They are hardly REPORTS likely to come out with a smile saying they had clutched the knife which was plunged into his back though, are they?

Leicester’s first game without their Premier League title-winning manager comes tonight, against Liverpool, at the King Power Stadium. How many of us are now wishing for a thumping Liverpool win, instead of once fearing for the Foxes?

“With the exploits there last year under him, Ranieri had the right, in my opinion, to see it through this season,” said O’Neill, who ruled himself out of combining the Leicester job with his role as Republic of Ireland manager. “It is not as if there are three games left and they are adrift – a couple of wins will take them out of trouble.

“Leicester won the Premier League last year by quite a number of points – a phenomenal achievement that will not be done again in Premier League history. The players took an awful lot of credit for that and, in many aspects, Ranieri dropped into the background.

“It is only two months ago that I voted for him for the FIFA manager of the year.

“I know that there is pressure on, that clubs have to win football matches, how important it is financially to stay in the Premier League. But Leicester, while in trouble, were not the only team losing matches.”

Not the only team but the team in perhaps the worst Premier League form, with their last victory coming on New Year’s Eve against West Ham – seven league games ago.

And with Crystal Palace beating Middlesbrough on Saturday it means the reigning champions are now in the bottom three.

Quite who will be tasked with steering them clear of the danger of becoming the first team since Manchester City in 1938 to get relegated the year after winning the league remains a mystery.

Roberto Mancini has distanced himself from the role and reports the club could return to former manager Nigel Pearson are thought to be wide of the mark.

Caretaker manager Craig Shakespeare wants the job and will tell his players to take their anger out on Liverpool tonight, with the club’s owners keeping a watchful eye on the crowd reaction.

Riyad Mahrez, player of the season last term but a shadow of his former self this campaign, could be accused of telling a white lie when talk of relegation raises its ugly head.

“There are 13 games to go and there is no pressure,” he said. “We know it is a bad moment but we have the quality to stay in the Premier League. We believe in ourselves.”

Ultimately, that belief could turn out to be their downfall.