Leicester City’s Ranieri Decision and the Cost of Constant Change
When Leicester City owner Khun Vichai decided to sack Claudio Ranieri, I lost a great deal of respect for that decision. Looking back, it remains one of the most difficult choices to understand given everything Ranieri had achieved with the club.
N’Golo Kanté’s emergence was one of the clearest examples of Ranieri’s ability to identify a player’s qualities and get the best out of him. Under Ranieri, Kanté developed into one of the most important midfielders in the Premier League and played a major role in Leicester’s extraordinary title-winning campaign.
However, the club’s handling of Kanté’s contract left Leicester vulnerable. Had the ownership managed the situation differently, the club might have had a better opportunity to keep the midfielder and build on the success of the 2015/16 season. His departure eventually created problems that Leicester had to deal with in the Premier League.
Ranieri also deserves credit for giving Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez and Danny Drinkwater greater importance. All three became key players in the title-winning side after previously spending significant periods on the bench under Nigel Pearson.
After my previous article about Ranieri’s dismissal, I read comments from people who believed that certain individuals within the club may have protected him from even greater humiliation. We will probably never know exactly what happened behind the scenes. What is clear, however, is that Wilfred Ndidi, who arrived during Ranieri’s time, became an important part of the rebuilding process. The Nigerian midfielder was able to replace a significant proportion of what Kanté had provided.
There were also questions surrounding Leicester’s transfer strategy after their remarkable 5000/1 title triumph. Ranieri himself suggested that many of the club’s recruitment decisions were made without his involvement. That raises obvious questions about the decision to sign players such as Islam Slimani and Ahmed Musa when Leicester already had options including Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez and Leonardo Ulloa.
Ranieri later made it clear that the signings of Slimani and Musa were decisions made by the club rather than by him.
Musa has also explained that he was told he had been brought in to replace Mahrez. Yet neither Musa nor Slimani managed to establish themselves as regular solutions. Both eventually went out on loan, first under Ranieri and later under Craig Shakespeare. Their struggles suggested that there were deeper problems with Leicester’s recruitment strategy.
Despite those issues, Leicester began showing signs of recovery in the Champions League during the 2016/17 campaign. They topped their group before meeting Sevilla in the last 16. Although they suffered a 2-1 defeat in Spain, there were signs that Ranieri had begun finding a formula capable of restoring momentum.
Instead of giving him more time, however, the club decided to dismiss him and promote his assistant, Craig Shakespeare.
Shakespeare subsequently helped revive Leicester’s season. In many ways, he appeared to rebuild the side around principles and ideas that had already been established during Ranieri’s time in charge. Leicester eventually produced a strong finish to the campaign.
Some supporters had already turned against Ranieri because of the team’s short-term decline in results. Football fans can understandably become frustrated when performances drop, but constant negativity and pressure can also influence ownership decisions. When clubs begin reacting to every difficult spell by changing managers, instability can quickly become part of the culture.
In my view, Ranieri’s dismissal was a major mistake and demonstrated a lack of appreciation for the long-term process required to build a successful football team.
Ranieri was also not the first manager to experience a lack of patience at Leicester. Before him, Nigel Pearson, Sven-Göran Eriksson and Paulo Sousa had all left the club. These were managers with considerable reputations in football, yet Leicester repeatedly moved from one appointment to another in search of immediate improvement.
Following Ranieri, Shakespeare remained in charge from February until October 2017. Claude Puel then managed the team until February 2019, before Brendan Rodgers took over and remained until April 2023.
Rodgers’ period at Leicester was also surrounded by uncertainty, including speculation about his future and links with other clubs. Questions continued to emerge about the direction and ambitions of the club.
Since Rodgers departed, Leicester have gone through an extraordinary number of managerial changes, appointing Dean Smith, Enzo Maresca, Steve Cooper, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Marti Cifuentes, Gary Rowett and Russell Martin.
Such constant changes make it difficult to establish a clear identity. Instead of allowing one manager to develop a squad, establish a playing philosophy and build something over time, the club repeatedly starts again.
Constantly changing managers is rarely a reliable route to long-term success. A financially powerful club can sometimes spend its way out of problems, but sustainable success normally requires patience, planning and continuity.
Burnley provide an example of what can happen when a club continues to believe in its manager. Sean Dyche experienced relegation with Burnley, yet the club did not immediately abandon him. They allowed him time to rebuild and strengthen the team, eventually experiencing one of the strongest periods in their modern history.
There are also examples from Norway. Bodø/Glimt and Viking have developed successful structures built on continuity, including periods when the clubs were outside the top flight. Kjetil Knutsen progressed from assistant to head coach at Bodø/Glimt, while Viking developed a similar leadership structure around Morten Jensen and Bjarte Lunde Aarsheim.
Both clubs have also placed considerable importance on developing local talent and maintaining a strong connection with their communities. Aarsheim, in particular, is regarded as a club legend because of his playing career.
Norway national team manager Ståle Solbakken has also experienced setbacks during his tenure. Norway missed out on qualification for several major tournaments before finally reaching the 2026 World Cup, where their campaign ended in the quarter-finals against England. Norway created opportunities in that match and could reasonably feel that they had deserved more from the game.
The wider lesson is that successful football projects rarely happen overnight.
Brian Clough and Sir Alex Ferguson demonstrated the impact that long-term managerial stability can have. Arsène Wenger, Mikel Arteta, Jürgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola have also been given time to establish their methods, develop their squads and create the structures that eventually produced success.
We have seen a similar approach elsewhere this season with Henrik Pedersen at Sheffield Wednesday. Despite a difficult previous campaign that ended in relegation, points deductions and disappointing performances, the club chose to continue with the same manager and allow him to begin again at a lower level.
That kind of patience can be extremely important when trying to rebuild a football club.
And that is why Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester story remains so difficult to accept.
Ranieri took a group of players who had been written off by many people and guided them to one of the most extraordinary Premier League title victories in history. His achievement should have earned him enormous credit and, arguably, the opportunity to continue developing the team rather than being dismissed only months after their historic triumph.
At the time of his departure, Leicester were still competing in the Champions League and had a manager who had already delivered the greatest achievement in the club’s history. Instead of giving him the opportunity to recover the team, the club chose a quick change.
Since leaving Leicester, Ranieri has continued to demonstrate his ability. He produced important work at Cagliari, had a significant spell with Roma and also managed Fulham and Watford, although both appointments ultimately ended with his dismissal.
He later returned to Italian football and became part of the Italian national-team setup, working alongside former Leicester player Roberto Mancini in senior roles within the Italian football structure.
Ranieri’s relationship with Leicester has never completely disappeared either. He returned to the club during the summer for the 10th-anniversary celebration of their Premier League title victory.
It was a reminder of the special relationship he built with the club, the players and the supporters during that unforgettable period.
You cannot help but wonder what Leicester might have achieved had Ranieri been trusted for longer.
Leicester City are now in League One, and the club’s decline has raised serious questions about how it has been managed over the years. Constant managerial changes, inconsistent recruitment strategies and a lack of continuity have all contributed to the instability surrounding the club.
Ranieri should be remembered as one of the great figures in Leicester City’s history. He achieved something that few people believed was possible and created a moment that will remain part of football history forever.
The lesson for Leicester should be clear: building a successful football club requires more than constantly searching for the next manager.
Sometimes, the greatest progress comes from trusting the people who have already proved what they can do.
Wake up, Leicester City.
The club’s history deserves better than endless cycles of change.
And Claudio Ranieri deserved far more trust after giving Leicester City the greatest achievement in its history.
“Disastrous” Leicester City’s Claudio Ranieri Sacking Exposed as a Huge Mistake That Changed Everything
