<\/p>\n
It seemed unfathomable.<\/p>\n
They were deemed too big to go down.<\/p>\n
Stream Over 50 Sports Live & On-Demand with Kayo. New to Kayo? Start your free trial now ><\/a><\/b><\/i><\/p>\n After all, they\u2019d overcome 5000-1 odds to win the Premier League seven years prior, made it to a Champions League quarterfinal in 2017 and hoisted the FA Cup in 2021.<\/p>\n But now, Leicester City must face the cold, harsh reality that now stares them in the face: they are a Championship club.<\/p>\n Despite a 2-1 victory over West Ham United on the final day, a long range pile-driver from Everton\u2019s Abdoulaye Doucoure rendered the Foxes\u2019 victory irrelevant and condemned the club to relegation.<\/p>\n An off-season of uncertainty awaits, with no fewer than eight players out of contract and a raft of stars like James Maddison and Harvey Barnes set to be sold.<\/p>\n The wage and transfer budget will have to be slashed to comply with the significantly decreased income due to the vast difference in revenue streams between Premier League and Championship clubs.<\/p>\n It still feels remarkable how steep this decline has been.<\/p>\n But it is the culmination of a mess entirely of the club\u2019s doing.<\/p>\n And it is one former Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers saw coming before a ball had been kicked in anger this season.<\/p>\n Full wrap of final day EPL action | 07:44<\/p>\n MORE COVERAGE<\/b><\/p>\n Stunner saves Everton as famous PL teams get relegated in wild 33-goal finale<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n Star\u2019s wild biting allegation that could have changed Premier League relegation race<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n HOW \u00a350M \u2018COLOSSAL DISAPPOINTMENT\u2019 BEGAN INEVITABLE SLIDE<\/b><\/p>\n The Foxes\u2019 fearsome trio of Jamie Vardy, N\u2019Golo Kante and Riyad Mahrez had been bought for a collective $AUD13 million, highlighting the club\u2019s unrivalled eye for talent.<\/p>\n Although Vardy has remained at the club, Kante and Mahrez were flipped for a combined $142 million.<\/p>\n Over the coming seasons Leicester developed a reputation for selling a player for significant profit and reinvesting it in the squad.<\/p>\n Harry Maguire was bought for $22 million in 2017 and sold two years later to Manchester United for a staggering $142 million, a world record fee for a defender.<\/p>\n Ben Chilwell, who came through Leicester\u2019s academy, moved to Chelsea in the summer of 2019 for $82 million while Wesley Fofana departed to the Blues last August for $131 million.<\/p>\n But, as <\/a>The Telegraph\u2019s <\/a><\/i>John Percy noted,<\/a> Leicester\u2019s greatest weapon soon became its biggest enemy.<\/p>\n \u201cFor many years, Leicester were a well-run club but, equally, recruitment in recent times has been a colossal disappointment,\u201d Percy wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cThe \u00a350 million spent on Patson Daka, Boubakary Soumare and Jannik Vestergaard in the summer of 2021 was a huge waste. Ryan Bertrand also signed as a free agent on big wages and has not started a match since December 21.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter winning the title in 2016, most of the signings who followed were underwhelming.\u201d<\/p>\n The Foxes soon struggled to find homes for players deemed not good enough.<\/p>\n The club also had to deal with players they knew would be out of contract at the end of the 2022\/23 season, but no willing buyers \u2014 well, at the valuation Leicester wanted for them \u2014 emerged.<\/p>\n Percy described the contract farce as \u201cmismanagement on a grand scale\u201d.<\/p>\n Compounding the club\u2019s financial woes further was the vast expenditure on the new training ground at Seagrave.<\/p>\n It is a facility to make most European clubs green with envy, but set the Foxes back an estimated $188 million and is a large and costly operation to continue running.<\/p>\n With the big outlays on players and the training ground and receiving little in the way of transfer fees or European qualification money, it forced Leicester to turn off the money tap for Rodgers.<\/p>\n It was a situation that caught the Northern Irishman, who had already commenced conversations with prospective transfer targets, by serious surprise.<\/p>\n And not for the better.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom that moment onwards, Rodgers adopted a negative tone, talking about a challenging season before a ball was kicked and about the target being 40 points,\u201d The Athletic\u2019s <\/a><\/i>Rob Tanner wrote.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cPeople around the club were genuinely shocked when he placed the bar so low. That message didn\u2019t match Leicester\u2019s ambition or the surrounds of the media suite at Seagrave where he said it.<\/p>\n \u201cUltimately, Rodgers has been proven right, but that negativity had already seeped into the psyche at the club, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.\u201d<\/p>\n In the end, Leicester made just one signing in the summer: centre-back Wout Faes from Reims for $27 million.<\/p>\n But just two players of note went out the exit door in the form of Fofana and former skipper Kasper Schmeichel, who moved to Nice in Ligue 1.<\/p>\n It was the latter\u2019s departure that spun the wheels of relegation faster, even if he was one of the club\u2019s highest earners, with Percy labelling the sale as \u201ca grave mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n The Foxes failed to replace Schmeichel and instead put their faith behind backup goalkeeper Danny Ward, a decision that backfired significantly.<\/p>\n It wouldn\u2019t take long for Leicester\u2019s botched recruitment plans to seep out onto the field as the irreversible decline of the 2015\/16 champions set in.<\/p>\n PROPHETIC RODGERS WARNINGS EVERYONE IGNORED<\/b><\/p>\n Since his arrival from Celtic in February 2019, he guided the Foxes to consecutive fifth-place finishes and an FA Cup triumph in 2021 before dropping back to eighth last season.<\/p>\n The divide between the manager and Leicester\u2019s passionate fanbase slowly crept in last season.<\/p>\n An embarrassing 4-1 thrashing in the fourth round of the FA Cup at the hands of Nottingham Forest, a Championship outfit last season, was a key moment that highlighted the disconnect.<\/p>\n After the defeat, Rodgers claimed the majority of his team \u201chad achieved everything they can\u201d in what was yet another prophetic call from the manager.<\/p>\n If anything, the eighth-place finish glossed over the fact two of Leicester\u2019s three wins in the final four games of the season were big wins against teams who had already been relegated in Norwich City and Watford.<\/p>\n It was a wildly inconsistent season in which they won as many as they lost and failed to string more than two consecutive wins together.<\/p>\n Leicester\u2019s malaise worsened at the start of the 22\/23 season as the Foxes drew its first game against Brentford before losing their next six games in a row, including 5-2 and 6-2 defeats to Brighton and Tottenham Hotspur respectively.<\/p>\n With the Foxes rooted to the bottom of the ladder, Percy felt the Spurs defeat was \u201csurely the time to part ways,\u201d especially since it was around the first international break of the season.<\/p>\n Yet Leicester owner Aiyawatt \u201cKhun Top\u201d Srivaddhanaprabha and director of football Jon Rudkin boldly elected to stick rather than twist.<\/p>\n Percy felt the decision simply proved what many had feared: Leicester had essentially blinded itself from the worst fate possible.<\/p>\n \u201cThe absence of ruthlessness allowed the club to drift,\u201d Percy wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cIt seemed to suggest a mindset of \u2018everything will be OK\u2019, despite all the warning signs.\u201d<\/p>\n However, results turned in Leicester\u2019s favour after the international window with five wins from eight games and went into the mid-season World Cup break sitting in 13th.<\/p>\n But normality for Leicester in terms of their season as a whole quickly resumed post-Qatar.<\/p>\n Four consecutive losses didn\u2019t quite send Leicester plummeting down the table, but it certainly decreased the gap between them and the chasing pack fighting tooth and nail for survival.<\/p>\n A mini-revival of two wins in February over Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur \u2014 in which they scored eight goals \u2014 proved to be nothing more than a false dawn.<\/p>\n Despite several more defeats, including one against rock-bottom Southampton, Rodgers still remained in the dugout at the King Power Stadium.<\/p>\n However, the baffling patience of Khun Top and Rudkin wore out after Leicester\u2019s 2-1 loss to Crystal Palace on April 1 as Rodgers was dismissed the next day with the club sitting 19th.<\/p>\n Although it left Leicester with 10 games to salvage its season, it seemed as if there was no way to halt what felt like the inevitable.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a realisation that things were going in one direction and Leicester\u2019s slide has proven to be irreversible,\u201d Tanner wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cThe damage was done.\u201d<\/p>\n Adam Sadler and Mike Stowell were installed as caretaker managers in the hope of providing a bounce which often accompanies a change in the dugout, but it was not forthcoming.<\/p>\n Sadler and Stowell oversaw two defeats from two before former Aston Villa manager Dean Smith was handed the keys with only eight games left.<\/p>\n Smith had masterminded a miraculous escape once before with Villa during the Covid-affected 19\/20 season and no doubt felt he could do the same again with former Foxes boss Craig Shakespeare and John Terry alongside him.<\/p>\n A win against Wolves and draws against Leeds and Everton provided glimmers of hope, but consecutive defeats to Fulham and Liverpool ultimately proved to be the death knell for Leicester.<\/p>\n Even though the Midlands side did all they could on the final day to survive, their reliance on Bournemouth to get a result against Everton proved fruitless.<\/p>\n An off-season of significant change awaits Leicester.<\/p>\n The likes of Caglar Soyuncu, Ryan Bertrand, Jonny Evans and Youri Tielemans will leave the club as free agents, representing a net loss of $115 million.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the group of Leicester stars who will be forced out the exit door to help finance new signings.<\/p>\n James Maddison, who is also out of contract at the end of next season, is almost certain to depart in a deal estimated to be $65 million.<\/p>\n Electric winger Harvey Barnes is another likely departure too.<\/p>\n But most pressing is which manager will be entrusted with the duty of getting Leicester promoted.<\/p>\n Former Chelsea and Brighton manager Graham Potter is the Foxes\u2019 dream candidate but at this stage it seems highly unlikely he would drop a division.<\/p>\n Regardless, Manchester United legend Roy Keane believes the vacancy is one that will have several parties highly interested.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of managers would love to take that job,\u201d Keane told Sky Sports<\/i>.<\/p>\n \u201cEspecially if you get the backing they\u2019ve had over the last few years \u2014 obviously it\u2019s not been great the last 12 months \u2014 but generally Leicester have had good backing.\u201d<\/p>\n WHY REMARKABLE DECADE HAS FOXES PRIMED FOR PL RETURN<\/b><\/p>\n There\u2019s the great escape of the 2014\/15 season under Nigel Pearson when the Foxes looked dead and buried, only to survive by the skin of their teeth.<\/p>\n It provided the platform for Leicester to complete one of the most remarkable stories in the history of sport when they won the Premier League title.<\/p>\n A memorable run to the Champions League quarter-finals in the following season also provided plenty to sing about.<\/p>\n Unfortunately the period of success was not without a tragedy which rocked the entire football world.<\/p>\n Former Leicester owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha was one of five people who died in a helicopter crash just outside the King Power Stadium after the Foxes\u2019 game against West Ham United on October 27.<\/p>\n His son Khun Top continues to work tirelessly to honour his late father\u2019s vision he had for the club he loved dearly.<\/p>\n There is certainly frustration in the manner with which Leicester went down, especially since it was largely preventable.<\/p>\n But they are no strangers to the Championship and, with the star power they already have in the squad, are primed to bounce straight back.<\/p>\n Socceroos star Harry Souttar, a January signing for the club, could prove to be a key figure in Leicester\u2019s push for an immediate return given Soyuncu and Evans, two fellow centre-backs, will depart in the summer.<\/p>\n It promises to be a massive off-season for the club as they prepare for life in the second division for the first time since 2014.<\/p>\n With a new face in the dugout required and a squad refresh, this moment presents a golden opportunity for Leicester to turn a new page.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s also a timely reminder for other clubs: if you dare to fly too close to the sun, it will end in flames.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n