Take a bow Sam Wallace...

[TJB-fox]

Must admit, I find it very ironic that fans and pundits across the world that watch Leicester one every two months and on MOTD seem to think they're right about the whole Ranieri fiasco but lcfc fans that watch us every week agree with the decision

[Blue ROI]

2 hours ago, Koke said:

Here's another article by John Giles from the independent. His article is quite harsh saying Ranieri isn't a particularly good manager  (some here night agree IDK).

 

------

 

Sometimes in football, two wrongs actually do make a right.

Popular opinion weighed in behind Claudio Ranieri after he was sacked and a raft of football men who should know better waded into a debate they didn’t know much about.

Nobody can really know what happened between Ranieri and his players other than the people who were in the middle of it.

Jamie Carragher was particularly annoying on the subject when he attacked the players and the owners, suggesting that Ranieri should have been left in position and Leicester fans should just accept relegation as part of the club’s tradition.

 

How patronising a remark was that? For him and the chorus of nonsense which supported Ranieri, the Italian was wronged by the owners and wronged by the Leicester players.

After Leicester hammered Liverpool 3-1 on Monday evening, reality dawned.

The two ‘wrongs’ have produced the right result. Ranieri is gone and on the evidence of this game, the players have been released from some sort of weight.

It’s best when trying to understand what happened to deal with the evidence and for me it’s an open and shut case perfectly illustrated by the attitude the players showed in the game against Liverpool.

If the squad was in disarray as some have claimed, if they were the rabble they appeared to be in Sevilla last week, then how were they able to go back to the well and beat Liverpool?

Surely if this was a bunch of lads riddled by egos, envy and all the bad things that come with unexpected and major success, they would have been just as disorderly and ineffective against Liverpool?

I’m not saying some of those factors were not in play. I would bet that Ranieri had a difficult dressing room to deal with after they won the title.

Nor am I saying that player power is a good thing but in this case, I think the accusation that they were the main reason Ranieri got the sack is over-stated in a very big way.

It was his job to manage the success and he failed to do that.

Ranieri is not a good manager and I think the players knew this better than anyone.

They were able to roll along with him because he adopted a hands off approach and the imprint Nigel Pearson left on them held firm for nine months. It’s still there, Monday proved that. With Craig Shakespeare in temporary control, they were able to travel back in time to a moment when they were very good indeed and reproduce that form to blow a well-rested but very, very poor Liverpool away

It can go both ways in circumstances like that. With Ranieri gone, the spotlight moved immediately to the players and they were on trial against Liverpool.

Carragher’s accusation and many others like it would have stung the players badly.

Put yourself in their shoes and imagine, for a moment, that Ranieri is as I say, a very poor coach. Imagine if you’re a player and you know that too.

By some miracle, you win the title and when the wheels come off in the next campaign, you are getting it in the neck for not performing, not doing your best when you know in your heart and soul that the problem is the manager.

This is the same in any walk of life. You are less likely to work hard for someone who gets all the credit but does none of the hard graft or is quite clearly a passenger in the effort.

The point at which that was no longer sustainable came when Ranieri tried to manage, tried to put his stamp on players who didn’t rate him.

I have no doubt that there was communication between key men in the squad and the owners but I don’t think there was an organised campaign by the players to oust Ranieri.

I think they were asked for their opinion and they gave it.

So while I don’t support in any way the idea that players should virtually have the power of hiring and firing a manager, I can understand what happened at Leicester and why it unfolded in the way it did.

Who should they hire? The safest option now seem to be to leave Shakespeare in control until the end of the season.

He was with the club before Ranieri arrived and knows exactly what makes these players tick.

My bet is Leicester will kick on from here if they do that.

I've never been a big Giles fan over the years. He was dreadful analysing any team outside the Premier League when he covered Champions League matches for RTE in Ireland. He has most of it right in fairness to him this time.

 

Eamon Dunphy agreed with the decision as soon as it was announced.

https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2017/0224/855063-eamon-dunphy-claudio-ranieri-leicester/

[FoxonMaui]

Finally the penny is beginning to drop for the football press. Kasper alluded to it in an oblique way in his interviews. Leicester City is run in a fundamentally different way than most all top football clubs in one basic area. Our owners are very hands on and that includes being present at training often, where they interact with the players and have developed relationships with them. Most professional soccer players do not have that personal relationship with the owners of their club. The players and staff seem to genuinely like our owners and more importantly they respect them. The respect appears to go both ways by the events of the last week. The owners clearly did not need to poll senior players to tell what was going on. They knew from their personal closeness to the inner dynamic of the club that things were not working. I for one think that they made yet another brave decision for this club and the fans. Considering they are from a very different cultural background ( which oddly may have helped them) and with no experience of owning a football club, they have shown a remarkable ability to correct mistakes they have made with managerial choices in the past and learn from it every time. Their cultural and religious beliefs are all about respect , humility, kindness, building lasting relationships and family. It seems that that have fostered a great family  atmosphere at our beloved club and when the difficult decision was made to part ways with Claudio ( at other clubs he would probably have been in December) it was a genuinely hard for them to do. But they made the right decision in my mind and it was great to see on Monday night the fans honor Claudio for his contribution and for being the lovable and decent person he is. It was obvious to the vast majority on this site from the very beginning this season that the balance in the team had gone. It was as if we had lost our identity, our in your face attitude. Monday it was back with a bang and for that we owe our owners and players and Shakey a big "thank you". I for one believed what Kasper said and I can see why the general football world and press misinterpreted things to assume that the players threw Claudio under the "bus" . Daniel Levy of Spurs summed it up perfectly when he said " I never sack managers, results sack managers!!" We lost our identity and our way from the beginning this season. The players, the owners and us fans knew it. We will never forget Claudio and the wonderful human being he is and what he contributed to last season, I for one will never forget it!! But Claudio had to go and now we have our team back!!!

[Dan]

4 hours ago, Koke said:

Here's another article by John Giles from the independent. His article is quite harsh saying Ranieri isn't a particularly good manager  (some here night agree IDK).

 

------

 

Sometimes in football, two wrongs actually do make a right.

Popular opinion weighed in behind Claudio Ranieri after he was sacked and a raft of football men who should know better waded into a debate they didn’t know much about.

Nobody can really know what happened between Ranieri and his players other than the people who were in the middle of it.

Jamie Carragher was particularly annoying on the subject when he attacked the players and the owners, suggesting that Ranieri should have been left in position and Leicester fans should just accept relegation as part of the club’s tradition.

 

How patronising a remark was that? For him and the chorus of nonsense which supported Ranieri, the Italian was wronged by the owners and wronged by the Leicester players.

After Leicester hammered Liverpool 3-1 on Monday evening, reality dawned.

The two ‘wrongs’ have produced the right result. Ranieri is gone and on the evidence of this game, the players have been released from some sort of weight.

It’s best when trying to understand what happened to deal with the evidence and for me it’s an open and shut case perfectly illustrated by the attitude the players showed in the game against Liverpool.

If the squad was in disarray as some have claimed, if they were the rabble they appeared to be in Sevilla last week, then how were they able to go back to the well and beat Liverpool?

Surely if this was a bunch of lads riddled by egos, envy and all the bad things that come with unexpected and major success, they would have been just as disorderly and ineffective against Liverpool?

I’m not saying some of those factors were not in play. I would bet that Ranieri had a difficult dressing room to deal with after they won the title.

Nor am I saying that player power is a good thing but in this case, I think the accusation that they were the main reason Ranieri got the sack is over-stated in a very big way.

It was his job to manage the success and he failed to do that.

Ranieri is not a good manager and I think the players knew this better than anyone.

They were able to roll along with him because he adopted a hands off approach and the imprint Nigel Pearson left on them held firm for nine months. It’s still there, Monday proved that. With Craig Shakespeare in temporary control, they were able to travel back in time to a moment when they were very good indeed and reproduce that form to blow a well-rested but very, very poor Liverpool away

It can go both ways in circumstances like that. With Ranieri gone, the spotlight moved immediately to the players and they were on trial against Liverpool.

Carragher’s accusation and many others like it would have stung the players badly.

Put yourself in their shoes and imagine, for a moment, that Ranieri is as I say, a very poor coach. Imagine if you’re a player and you know that too.

By some miracle, you win the title and when the wheels come off in the next campaign, you are getting it in the neck for not performing, not doing your best when you know in your heart and soul that the problem is the manager.

This is the same in any walk of life. You are less likely to work hard for someone who gets all the credit but does none of the hard graft or is quite clearly a passenger in the effort.

The point at which that was no longer sustainable came when Ranieri tried to manage, tried to put his stamp on players who didn’t rate him.

I have no doubt that there was communication between key men in the squad and the owners but I don’t think there was an organised campaign by the players to oust Ranieri.

I think they were asked for their opinion and they gave it.

So while I don’t support in any way the idea that players should virtually have the power of hiring and firing a manager, I can understand what happened at Leicester and why it unfolded in the way it did.

Who should they hire? The safest option now seem to be to leave Shakespeare in control until the end of the season.

He was with the club before Ranieri arrived and knows exactly what makes these players tick.

My bet is Leicester will kick on from here if they do that.

I've got to be honest, I think there's an awful lot of truth in this.

[Mease]

10 hours ago, Babylon said:

Amazed people think it's so easy to give "100%" and that it's going to give the same results every time.

 

Firstly external forces can impact exactly what that 100% gets you. You get sent out with the wrong players, wrong formation etc, then you're likely to get far less from that 100% than you would with the right players and right formation.

 

Then there are other things like emotions and feelings that can play a part. Likes and dislikes, happy and sad, belief in what your doing or not believing in it etc.

 

If you feel right in every way, you're going to get more from your 100% than you are if you're unhappy, fed up, pissed off and demotivated. Doesn't mean you're not putting your all in, they are humans not robots. You can't turn on a switch and get the same thing every time.

 

A managers job is to manage people. It sounds to me like he's been failing with the fundamental basics of management in keeping your staff happy and motivated.

Bob on want a job?

[cheshamfox17]

13 hours ago, HoustonFox said:

Some good stuff on the Guardian too. Take a look at the first comment at the bottom of this article, FT gets a mention too! 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2017/mar/01/footballers-not-trying-premier-league-leicester-city

 

 

That was me!

[Finnaldo]

I know a lot is said about Leicester City not having much of a 'culture' about the club, but I really do think people undervalue the club's attitude. In my opinion Leicester fans are hereditary tough minded and that really reverberates through the club. 

 

I've only been an active supporter for about 12 years due to my age but in that time and the years preceding it's came over adversary so many times. The challenging early '90s we got through and went on to the O'Neil era despite the low budget, all the problems with Administration we not only survived but got promoted the same year, fought valiantly despite relegation the next year, again on a shoestring. The next few years were underwhelming but even in the mess of the 2007/08 and eventual relegation we had one of the best defensive records in the League and went down after what was a good performance against Stoke on the last day. We romped to one of the notoriously difficult League One title and came straight up to challenge for the play-offs. Then to come back from 'Deeney Day' and win the League with over a hundred points. The Great Escape, The Unbelievables, in either campaign no-one lost hope. Who see every year the kind of reaction Sunderland, Newcastle, Villa, and even the likes of Liverpool, Everton and Man U get when things aren't going their way. Of course we all moan and bitch on this forum when we're shite, especially some of the absolutely turgid displays dished up this season, but the fans never turn against the players when it comes to match day, every one steps up. I can't remember the atmosphere was truly poisonous and caused a detriment.

 

Those journos in the media and fans of other clubs will call us snakes and unloyal, but they'll be the exact same weak-minded fans who'd be booing and hissing if their team had gone goalless in 2017 up to this point. Leicester fans make the most of a bad situation and we've never been a club to step down to adversary. As much as the catchphrase my come across as manufactured to some, 'Forever Fearless' couldn't be truer, as could the old adage 'Foxes Never Quit'. That showed against Liverpool, and I'm gonna stick my neck out and say that it will show for the close of the season. Leicester fans are made of tougher stuff and I'm hoping that formidable culture is ingrained into the players again.

 

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.    

[HoustonFox]

5 hours ago, cheshamfox17 said:

That was me!

Good work!! Tried to credit you on here but you went and confused me with different user names! 

[HighPeakFox]

23 hours ago, cheshamfox17 said:

That was me!

Well done, and well responded to the various efforts to either have a go at you or make vague sweeping statements to dismiss what you said.

[CosbehFox]

I dunno why The Guardian or many of the non-Leicester posters BTL haven't tried covering the alleged reasons for Ranieri's downfall that are coming slowly out. Sure, the players are to blame, it was more than expected that a certain level of complacency would set in after such an enormous achievement.

But it really becomes a much more interesting question if you take into account the reports about Ranieri becoming more distant, more strict, and more importantly, beginning to dismantle a certain back room structure that Leicester players seemed to believe in. Apparently that includes firing the team psychologist, alienating Craig Shakespeare, making the team abandon their high-press tactic and having a certain mean streak that belies the grandfatherly imagem Ranieri gave off last season. When one considers Claudio's usual shelf life at previous clubs he had managed, things start making more sense. It would at least make for a more balanced debate.

It's also very hard for a Brazilian football fan to understand the line of thought that dictates that if a club has spent the larger part of their existence battling relegation, they should be content to keep doing so, forever (under the Top 6 boot). They won an unexpected title that jumpstarted their plans, and they have a talented team. Why should their fans and their board feel comfortable with squandering such an unique opportunity to become a better club? You see the same argument levelled at many other English clubs and it baffles me, which makes me think it's quite the cultural difference between foreign and English fans on here.

 

Thats from some random Brazilian on the comments from a Guardian article. Absolutely spot on IMO

[Pearson_Delight]

On 01/03/2017 at 19:47, Semper Eadem said:

Of course it was not all down to CR and, correct me if I am mistaken, I do not recall that he ever suggested that it was. By the same token neither can he be held totally responsible for our situation (prior to Monday evening.)

 

What is certain is that last last season everyone was pulling in the same direction, took personal responsibility and shared in the success (rightly so.)  What is not so certain is that the same has applied this season (prior to Monday evening.)

 

Nothing is black and white.

Oi Semper

U cud have a degree in talkin shite! Ranieri thot it was all about him and made that quite clear. He hasaid an agenda to contact the British public and make everyone think he's Mr nice guy when actully he's whats been the problem this season. No wunder players don't respect him, hes a conman. Shakey was the reason behind us winning the league last year not claudia, that was obvius Monday night!  I say bring back Nigel and let him and shakey get that winning mentality back.

Enough of this shite protecting renieri! 

 

COYF

[Pearson_Delight]

On 01/03/2017 at 23:40, Blue ROI said:

I've never been a big Giles fan over the years. He was dreadful analysing any team outside the Premier League when he covered Champions League matches for RTE in Ireland. He has most of it right in fairness to him this time.

 

Eamon Dunphy agreed with the decision as soon as it was announced.

https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2017/0224/855063-eamon-dunphy-claudio-ranieri-leicester/

Spot on m8

[davieG]

Another decent report

 

Gerald Sinstadt: Was Claudio Ranieiri's sacking really a surprise?

By The Sentinel  |  Posted: March 06, 2017

   

TIME TO REFLECT: Gerald Sinstadt looks back on Leicester City's decision to sack Claudio Ranieiri.

 

Last week in this space we touched briefly on the dismissal of Leicester City manager, Claudio Ranieri.

This is a subject worth returning to, because it really is not as straightforward an issue as many have suggested.

Initial reaction from other managers, former players and the media in general was harshly critical.

Gary Lineker, who is rarely short of an opinion on anything from Tranmere to Trump, had a topic close to his heart.

 

“Premature, disloyal, gobsmacking", was the headline. The Match of the Day presenter said: "I shed a tear last night. I shed a tear for Claudio, I shed for football and I shed a tear for my club … I just think it's inexplicable."

But managers are frequently sacked, some of them after they have won something, but many more because their team was in trouble.

The only difference here was the fact that last season Ranieri had astonished the football world by taking an unfancied, middle-of-the-road club to the Premier League title.

He had put romance where we were accustomed to seeing only wealthy complacency. Now, after a mere 298 days, he had been bundled out the door.

Pause for a moment and consider some cold facts.

 

“A mere 298 days" is actually two-thirds of a season. Time was running out and Leicester City were in the bottom three.

The cause of the dramatic decline we may never know for certain, but there are plenty of theories. Foreign ownership is one.

But four of the top six Premier League clubs have foreign owners, so that is too simplistic an explanation.

Leicester are owned by a Bangkok company, King Power.

Its founder, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha is City's chairman. Maybe Thais are by nature a sunny, outgoing people, and that is why it was apparently not unusual for one or other of the multi-syllabic family members to take players out to lunch. Conspiracy theorists said this would have been an opportunity to air dressing room discontent. The players have vehemently denied the charge. Who knows?

What can be said is that the during this season the team took to the pitch with several different formations. Tactics changed from game to game, and sometimes within a game. Not for nothing was Ranieri known as the Tinkerman.

 

If there was confusion in the ranks, Kasper Schmeichel has been forthright in claiming that the players never stopped trying. It is an allegation that hangs around football from time to time, but it takes little account of personal pride or the competitive distinct that goes with putting on a pair of boots.

There was, however, another aspect to the Ranieri case. To some observers, it was akin to shooting Bambi. Claudio was the perfect gentleman, impossible to dislike. What you saw was what you got.

My path never crossed Ranieri's but, had it done so, I am sure I would have succumbed to his avuncular charm. But that is not the point. Leicester didn't hire him for that reason. They hired him to win things; the personality was a bonus.

Compare that to the David Moyes story. Successful at Everton, recommended by Sir Alex Ferguson, and an eminently decent man, his reign at Old Trafford was cut short simply by results.

The interim boss at the King Power stadium, Craig Shakespeare, shrewdly began by canvassing dressing room opinion and was rewarded with victory over Liverpool, instantly lifting the club out of the relegation places.

Leicester are still in the Champions League with home advantage in the second leg as they seek to overturn a single goal deficit against Sevilla.

How the rest of the season unfolds will be watched with great interest. Not least by Claudio Ranieri.

Read more at http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/gerald-sinstadt-was-claudio-ranieiri-s-sacking-really-a-surprise/story-30182408-detail/story.html#IMpYm39AjVpjCEOO.99

[bmt]

Just reading that guardian article comments, some of the neutrals are so patronising it's unreal. Many seem to think they know better than people who live and breathe Leicester, and yet these same people clearly haven't been watching us the last few months. Infuriating.

[NewquayFox]

Fantastic write up, get this man in as our new PRO....

[Fox42]

On 01/03/2017 at 18:40, davieG said:

From the 1996-97 season Manchester United have won the most with a combined total of 17 Premier League titles, FA Cups and League Cups. Next come Chelsea (14); Arsenal (9); Manchester City and Liverpool (5) and, in sixth place, are Leicester with three.

This stat excites me a lot. Mind blowing.