It is not the anger that really sticks with you at the King Power Stadium, nor the sadness or angst. It is not the groans and boos or the catcalls against sporting director Jon Rudkin or the style of play.
It is the silence; long periods of ghostly nothingness where something used to exist because everybody has forgotten what it is like to watch a team that they are proud of. They trudge in, fearing the worst, and too often trudge away dissecting it. There are roars before the match, but only out of habit really. They soon dissipate into an air of displeasure.
You can see why; you can hardly blame anyone present for the misery. Five years ago this week, Leicester City were third in the Premier League, five points off the top and 11 points ahead of Arsenal. No club in England has fallen from such a height to where Leicester are now. The silence reflects the disbelief at the breadth and length of the decline.
Last week, owner Aiyawatt “Top” Srivaddhanaprabha gave his first sit down interview in years to a number of journalists. The timing was predictable, given the latest on-pitch nadir and the sacking of manager Marti Cifuentes.
In amongst the typical soundbites about taking responsibility, needing to fight and focusing on making better decisions, almost all of which has been evident for three years, Top said that he was still baffled by how Leicester got relegated.
It was a worrying thing to hear from supporters, because they could all tell Topp: a powder puff midfield and a leaky defence; illogical managerial appointments; gross wastage on players despite financial limitations; failing to keep a clean sheet away from home and only scoring 15 times at home. That will do it.
In the same interview, Top responded to the sustained criticism of Rudkin’s work by insisting that there should not be a culture of blame and revealing that Rudkin would be moving further up the food chain with a new sporting director on the way.
But why shouldn’t there be blame? This is a supposedly elite football club, not a school sports day. If systemic issues have been identified and a series of significant mistakes made that have undermined previous progress and doubled down on decline, it is not enough to say “We will do better” without evidence that the root causes of that decline are addressed.
Leicester spent money so badly – on transfer fees and wages – that it caused them to fail profitability and sustainability rules. They are a bottom-half Championship club with two £15m-plus signings out on loan and another six in a first-team squad that is still light on depth in key areas. Their last three managerial appointments, in order, did not fit the club (Steve Cooper), never had the experience for the task (Ruud van Nistelrooy) and were never likely to implement their style with the squad inherited (Cifuentes).
If there is too little accountability within the club’s management, do not act surprised when the same happens on the pitch. Leicester have forgotten how to win games, forgotten how to show fight and steel and forgotten how to defend without making daft mistakes. The third worst defence in the Premier League last year is the third worst in the Championship this year.
The financial limitations have clearly hit hard here; the only route out of the strife is through sustainability and the Championship is hardly its natural habitat. But it is the continued threat of points deduction, Leicester’s own sword of Damocles, that creates the most reason for fear.
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Leicester’s argument, although effective, that they existed in a hinterland between Premier League and EFL and therefore that any punishment could not be applied, has become counterproductive. The Foxes are living in a scenario where their league position is false and the eventual punishment not yet confirmed; neither is its timing. Were it to be nine points, say, Leicester would be in the bottom three.
And so now longer-term good intentions meet with understandable short-term panic. Andy King has taken over as caretaker, but lost 2-0 at home to Charlton Athletic in his first game. Leicester supporters are desperate to see meaningful change but the only noticeable shift is their team getting worse and worse.
Uncertainty is the whole of their truth: Leicester need a new manager, sporting director, chief executive, commercial director. They need to know what their punishment will be for past failings and need to know if that places them in a battle to go up or a battle to stay up. You can have a decent stadium, a wealthy owner, a sizeable fanbase in a one-club city and recent success. None of it provides a VIP pass to jump the queue to avoid calamity.
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