Leicester at a low ebb but Russell Martin showing early signs of change
Leicester City have sunk to 10th in League One but produced back-to-back wins this week that have offered an early sign of recovery under head coach Russell Martin, who was appointed on a three-year deal in June.
A decade ago the club were 5,000-1 Premier League champions and five years ago they won the FA Cup, yet Leicester have since endured financial problems, points deductions and a fall to the third tier; the club has been put up for sale after three relegations in four years. The recent victories — a 2-1 win over Doncaster followed by Tuesday's 4-0 win at Bromley — were the first successive league wins since last November and came after a stuttering start to the campaign.
Martin had faced fan criticism following a 17-game spell at Rangers last season and a run of two wins in eight that left Leicester 17th in League One and just a point above the relegation zone, with home defeats by Burton, Oxford and Peterborough intensifying scrutiny. The two wins this week have, according to the club, helped to dampen external noise surrounding the team.
Leicester operated under a five-week transfer embargo in the summer tied to the EFL's Salary Cost Management Protocol; an independent Club Financial Review Panel agreed that future Premier League distributions within Leicester's SCMP calculation could not be used to increase their spending capacity. That embargo prevented the club signing players until they generated incoming funds and disrupted the sequence of summer transfers.
Jeremy Monga and Abdul Fatawu were not sold until the middle of July, with Monga's move to Manchester City completed on 11 July; Conor Chaplin and Alex McCarthy joined five days later. Four of the starting XI on Tuesday signed on deadline day and 66% of the players in the squad joined after the season started; Leicester missed targets unwilling to wait, but Chaplin, McCarthy and Wes Burns agreed to hold on and join Martin.
Martin inherited what is described as a broken, expensive squad and a dressing room that had lost connection with supporters; including loans and academy exits, 34 players left the club in the summer and 16 arrived. Sources told BBC Sport the atmosphere at the club has markedly improved; staff point to the £100m training ground — which includes a herb garden and golf course — as part of the picture and say Martin has imposed new behavioural rules, including a blanket ban on mobile phones in the canteen and a punishment where offenders run the length of the pitch and back in 35 seconds three times, with a 35-second break between each repetition, a penalty also applied for lateness and observed by Martin and his senior staff.
The club appointed James McCarron as sporting director, who watches training most days and works closely with Martin, but fan frustration has focused on chief football officer Jon Rudkin, who has been at the club since 1998. Rudkin's long-standing policy of not speaking to the media until this month drew criticism and he finally addressed supporters in an interview with BBC Radio Leicester before the defeat to Peterborough. "We do have to remember he saw us through the good times as well. He was in when it was all going fantastically," Foxes Trust co-chair Lynn Wyeth told BBC Sport. "But do we know what he does all day, do we know if it's all his fault? That's a good question."
Wyeth also described the depth of supporter disengagement: "It's all very well the fans targeting Russell and Jon but this all goes down to Top (Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, owner) "It's pretty clear that Rudkin has had his time and since the end of last season and it being put up for sale we've seen more people coming round to the idea King Power and Top needs to go as well." She added an anecdote about fan sentiment after the Carabao Cup win at Northampton: "Against Northampton (a 1-0 Carabao Cup win) I sat next to an old chap who has been going for 56 years and at one point he just sighed really loudly and said: 'I'll always support them, but I don't like them at the moment.'"
Despite the unrest, Leicester sold out their 23,500 season-ticket allocation. Staff have not been officially told the club is up for sale and BBC Sport was told Khun Top remains committed; on deadline day he canvassed the views of Martin, Rudkin and McCarron after a £15m bid from Manchester United for midfielder Louis Page, a bid that was rejected because the trio wanted to keep the 18-year-old to help them get promoted.
A pre-season 90 point target remains.
