‘Inexplicable, unforgivable and gut-wrenchingly sad’, ‘nobody can delete the history you wrote’, ‘Shocked after last night’s display!’. No, these aren’t reactions to Paul Nuttall losing in Stoke, they’re the commiserations of Gary Lineker, Jose Mourinho and Rio Ferdinand after Claudio Ranieri, the title-winning Leicester manager, was sacked yesterday evening.
Having led his team to the Premiership trophy last season, Ranieri leaves the King Power stadium with the Foxes a point above the drop. There was a sense among football pundits that Ranieri would be given time, even allowed to take Leicester down to the Championship, as a reward for his stellar first season at the club. Instead, the club acted decisively, and so the Bambi-eyed Italian journeyman was sent packing by the club’s Thai owners.
I wrote back in May that Leicester’s title success would end badly, and so it has. This time last year they were preparing for the biggest moment in the club’s history, but this year’s run-in will be just as important. The looming prospect of the abyss of lower league football has prompted a ruthless decision that will upset sentimentalists. But as Ranieri’s critics have been quick to point out, this is one of the harsh realities of the modern game. There’s also a harsher point to be made here: we should ignore the mawkish grief at Ranieri’s departure and remember that he’s not actually a particularly good manager; nor was he particularly instrumental in Leicester’s success.
The so-called ‘Tinkerman’ has journeyed around half a dozen of Europe’s best clubs without ever having won a top division title. Much was made of this during the romance of Leicester’s journey, but failing to win titles at Valencia, Atlético, Chelsea, Juventus, Roma, Inter (the list goes on), isn’t a calling card many managers would envy. In his previous appointment before joining Leicester, Ranieri destroyed Greece’s prospects of qualifying for Euro 2016 by constantly changing his tactics, leading Greece to a bottom place finish behind the Faroe Islands.
When Ranieri arrived at Leicester, he also did little to change the squad that was already there. Of the team that won the title, the only key members signed by Ranieri were Kanté (very important) and Okazaki (less important). The rest of the squad was pure Pearson. Leicester started that season in the same form they had ended the previous one, with 12 points through 6 games and no defeats. Ranieri, the Tinkerman, stopped making changes and over the whole season Leicester used fewer players than any other team. The formula was already there, the players were confident, and he had merely to stand on the touchline and give charming post-match press conferences. For once, the Tinkerman didn’t tinker, and the team went into a barnstorming autopilot.
One swallow does not make a summer, and one miraculous season does not make Ranieri a good manager. We feel sorry for him because he looks perpetually on the verge of tears, but rumours about his temper and man management ought to make us more cautious. The Leicester fairytale is in tatters, and only N’Golo Kanté, sensible enough to jump ship for presumptive champions Chelsea, has come out of this well. Ranieri will always be worshipped by Leicester fans for his mysterious stewardship of that 2015/16 season but the club now have the chance to bring in a more capable manager who might be able to steer them back to safety.
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