Leicester City Reveal The Ugly Truth England Refuses To Accept

Forbes

20-04-2025

Perhaps it was a blessing for Leicester City that the result sealing relegation would come in a match filled with other distractions.
Liverpool could have been crowned champions at the King Power stadium had Arsenal dropped points earlier in the day. But the Gunners' routing of Ipswich meant the club had to make do with a win, putting them on the precipice of glory.
The fact that Trent Alexander-Arnold scored the goal, as talk swirls of him leaving for Real Madrid, only added to the visitor's domination of the postgame headlines.
There was also the fact that for Leicester City, demotion has become a matter of when, not if, a long, long time ago. The previous 20 games have yielded just one win and two draws, which the term 'relegation form' doesn't even really begin to cover.
Manager Ruud van Nistelrooy reflected as much in his statements after the match.
'I'm very disappointed that it's a definite now,' he said. 'We kept hoping and fighting, but we saw the gap growing over the last weeks.
'Then you see it coming, although we never gave up and we shifted the focus towards the future to use these games and finish the season as best as possible. Next season, the Championship will start, and it is my job to do the best things possible for the club.
'I'm working in the coming weeks; it is my job to do everything in the best interests of Leicester City.'
Despite a dismal run as head coach, van Nistelrooy spoke hopefully about continuing as boss.
'We have to use this time to get better,' he told broadcaster Sky Sports.
'I'm waiting on the clarity of the club and how they want to continue. It is the goal to lead the club. I have to wait on how the club sees things and take it from there.
'The club will continue and it is my job to put the club in the best place possible.'
'I hope [to find out if I will stay] soon. The new season starts very soon and preparation needs to start to move forward. The sooner, the better.'
The question that van Nistelrooy's statement that time is needed to 'get better' is - for what?
Leicester City ran away with the Championship title in the season before this. So, for the 'getting better' to have actual substance, it would need to be about a possible return to the Premier League in a year's time.
That sounds like a bizarre state of affairs. But disturbingly, the Foxes are far from the only team trapped in the limbo of being too good for the division below but way off the top league.
Southampton and Ipswich Town, promoted alongside Leicester City, are already relegated and almost down.
All three sides were promoted from the Championship, looking a class above the rest of the league.
Yet they have rarely looked like even coming close to surviving. The rest of the Premier League's 17 clubs have practically had to plan for another year in the top division since January, so poor have the newly elected clubs been.
Even the players have felt it.
'We've got to look at ourselves as players in the mirror,' reflected Leicester City's Conor Coady postgame.
'We have to now, what's happened has happened. We have to try and put this club in a better position come the summer because we haven't been good enough.
'We've took a bit of stick and we'll continue to take stick because it's deserved. From minute one this season, we haven't been at a level to fully compete in the Premier League and you have to be because it'll chew you up and spit you out.
'It's something we have to look at because we're absolutely devastated.'
The shameful thing about Leicester City deteriorating into a club trapped in purgatory is that the club has been the shining example of English soccer meritocracy for the past decade.
Next season marks 10 years since the club did the impossible by turning a narrow relegation escape following promotion into an incredible title-winning campaign during the second campaign.
A series of top-six finishes and an FA Cup win followed that mind-blowing achievement.
If the team's success was impossible, it's hard to quantify the difficulty level now. The chasm they bridged in fairytale fashion has widened to such an extent that Premier League survival alone is starting to look miraculous for promoted teams.
At the top of the division, competition has rarely been so healthy. The battle for the Champions League cascades down the table, and next season promises to have one of the most open title races in decades.
But for the three new teams arriving in the league, the gap has widened, and so far, it's already hard to see how a promoted side will survive.
Leicester, on the other hand, must reassess and look to rebuild.
As ex-Manchester United player Roy Keane pointed out 'it's a big few months coming for them - what to do with the recruitment, which players to hold on to and what to do with the manager.
'But they are a good club. They have a brilliant training ground, and they have won the league and the FA Cup. They have had a rollercoaster ride in the past few seasons. But they can bounce back.
'The key is that if they do come back up.'
It's hard to argue with the Irishman's logic-but the question remains: what does it even mean to do that anymore?