SHAKE-UP & SHAKEDOWN

It’s the final curtain for Shakespeare as ruthless owners axe Foxes boss

IT IS just 17 months since Leicester wrote football’s most fantastic fairytale. But now it is almost as if that wonderful episode never happened. A Champions League adventure last season enabled the believers to cling on to the notion that English football had a new and unexpected member of the elite. However, following two managerial sackings and £175million spent in the transfer market attempting to maintain the magic, the Foxes appear to have resumed their position in the sport’s natural order. Yes, after eight matches and just one victory, they lie 18th in the Premier League. And for ambitious, monied and ruthless owners what they had seen from Craig Shakespeare was not enough to convince them that he was the man to not only arrest that slide, but to turn it into upwards momentum once more. It was strange that the club’s owners, the Srivaddhanaprabha family, took until three weeks after the end of last season to confirm the 53-year-old as Claudio Ranieri’s replacement, despite a successful 16-game audition. Shakespeare agreed a three-year deal and then embarked on a spending spree of £90m.

But, just six weeks after the transfer window closed, the likeable Brummie has been axed.

In one respect, Shakespeare was a victim of circumstance.

How much more successful would his tenure have been if Chelsea had not signed influential midfielder Danny Drinkwater on the final day of August?

And Shakespeare never even saw his replacement, Adrien Silva, play as the suits never registered his transfer in time.

With £25m striker Kelechi Iheanacho also taking time to bed in, it was clear that the stardust sprinkled on the Foxes was diluted.

The seeds of doubt were planted in the owners’ minds after a goalless draw at Bournemouth at the end of September in which the Foxes were decidedly second-best.

And the near-silence greeting the final whistle at the King Power after the 1-1 draw with West Brom on Monday sealed the deal.

Former boss Claudio Ranieri was sacked en route back to Blighty after setting up a route into the last eight of the Champions League. How is that for gratitude?

It was far easier for the owners to axe Shakespeare, despite the time-frame. Sadly for him, they lived up to their reputation.