The sack race is in full swing in English football, and with only four wins in 12 Premier League games, Brendan Rodgers’ tenure at the King Power Stadium is starting to look a little shaky – just as he is being touted as a potential new manager at Manchester United. Despite guiding Leicester City to the first FA Cup triumph in the club’s history, a succession of listless, almost lifeless performances by a team with one of the leakiest defences in the league have left the fans divided. Season ticket holder Alice Wright weighs up the pros and cons of a managerial shake-up on Filbert Way.
It’s not the best time to be a Leicester City fan.
The last time Brendan Rodgers’ men won in the league game was a narrow victory over Brentford towards the end of October. But it’s the manner of the performances that has really vexed the fans. The team has been sucking the life out of us. A game starts and we’re all excited, hoping this time it will be different … and then we leave feeling drained after another passionless shift.
With their Europa League form not being much better, it’s fair to say many fans aren’t holding up much hope for the home game against Legia Warsaw tomorrow evening. So it is it time for a change?
Yes: Brendan out
Rodgers has often mentioned his preferred system of a defensive back four but for some reason decided to play three against Chelsea, which quite obviously did not pay off. That devastating 3-0 defeat could easily have been much worse. His tactics for the game were all wrong, not just for this game but for many of the previous ones too. I sit next to my dad at every home game and I told him he’d be better off pitchside at the minute.
Just to put it into perspective of how badly the game went, Chelsea had more goals disallowed than Leicester had shots on target. Embarrassing.
Leicester’s set-piece problems grew worse on Saturday after Antonio Rüdiger headed one in from a corner, taking their tally up to eight conceded from dead balls, the worst in the league. It makes you wonder what they focus on in training, as there has been no improvement.
Rodgers didn’t do himself any favours with his post-match comments after the Chelsea game when he said City were a team that had “totally overachieved” in the last couple of years.
This remark has caused a lot of controversy among the City fans, and I can see why. I’m sure it wasn’t long ago that Rodgers came out and said Leicester were challenging for the top four, so to hear that now we’re overachieving, well, it simply seems he is just creating excuses.
No: Brendan in
Well, I think the most obvious reason to keep him must be he won us the FA Cup and Community Shield. Not to mention the two consecutive top-five finishes. I might not have been at the FA Cup game but watching it with my dad on TV as Youri Tieleman’s absolute screamer went in at the 63rd minute and we jumped around the living room hugging is a moment I’ll never forget. It was certainly added to some of my favourite memories, and for that I can’t thank Brendan enough.
I think sometimes managers are scapegoats and it’s not always their fault, it’s easy to just blame the manager because they will just come and go and there will be a time where Rodgers moves on, but it doesn’t mean it has to be now.
I think the mentality of missing out on Champions League football for two years in a row has affected the players and that could be why they aren’t playing so well – or maybe they are doing it on purpose to get the manager out.
It also can’t have been easy for the players’ mentality with the speculation of Rodgers to United leaving a question mark above his head. Hopefully, now Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has been sacked and Mauricio Pochettino is favourite for the job the players will no longer have this uncertainty in their heads, and I guess time will tell if this is the reason for their poor performances.
All in all, time will tell, and maybe soon: tomorrow’s home game against Legia Warsaw – who are currently in their worst slump in living memory – is followed by the potentially the make-or-break game on Sunday against Claudio Ranieri’s Watford.
So: should he stay, or should he go? We’ll see.
