#360view: Ranieri exit robs Foxes of magic

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  • Claudio Ranieri masterminded and nurtured into reality the perfect football fairy tale. The heart-warming story of a group of Premier League rejects and diamonds in the rough punching above their weight and achieving the impossible dream will inspire sporting romantics for decades to come.

    The Italian will always be synonymous with the epic Leicester narrative that defied logic. Equally, his sacking nine months on from lifting the Premier League title epitomises the cut-throat nature of football as a business.

    He’s not the first Premier League-winning manager to be sacked the following season – Roberto Mancini, Jose Mourinho and Carlo Ancelotti suffered the same fate – and in all probability, he won’t be the last.

    What particularly wrangles with his dismissal is the club’s stance swaying from one end of the spectrum to the other, almost without warning and certainly without the patience someone should be afforded after pulling off a heist as remarkable as Leicester’s.

    The timing is rather curious as well. A crucial away goal in Seville placed Leicester within a 1-0 home win of the Champions League quarter-finals, a moral boosting prospect if ever you’ve seen one. Instead, the team has been rattled by the brutal dismissal of the very man who put them on the map.

    With one swift wield of the axe, they’ve vanquished the magic that endeared them to so many and replaced it with the same sour and uninspiring undertone that plagues European clubs’ pursuit for glory by any means necessary.

    Ranieri's Premier League record with Leicester City

    • Played: 63
    • Won: 28
    • Drawn: 18
    • Lost: 17

    As cold as the decision seems, Ranieri must accept responsibility for failing to devise and implement a wider range of tactics to equip his side with, especially in light of the target drawn on their backs as soon as they lifted that trophy last May.

    His failings even precede the start of the season and were rooted in the club’s transfer business. Leicester’s over-achievers drew significant interest in the summer and Ranieri may have dug his heels in for the wrong prized asset when keeping hold of Riyad Mahrez and allowing N’Golo Kante to leave the club.

    Mahrez is the more extravagant talent and would presumably have gone for more than the £32 million fee Chelsea paid for Kante. Ranieri should’ve had the insight to assign more value to Kante’s overall contribution which was essential to the team instead of Mahrez’s flair and ingenuity which was always a luxury in attack.

    Granted, he made an effort to replace the French midfielder with the signing of Nampalys Mendy but exhausted most of the funds available to him in the summer bolstering what looked an already potent attack with Ahmed Musa and Islam Slimani joining their ranks while retaining the aging central defensive duo of Robert Huth and Wes Morgan.

    Without significant reinforcement at the back, Leicester has struggled to keep clean sheets this term, registering just five in the league so far.

    Nevertheless, the team still possesses sufficient quality to survive the drop. Their set of circumstances admittedly called for a bit of a reshuffle and they would’ve needed to rally strongly but the unceremonious sacking of their inspirational boss who led them into battle and to unlikely victory over and over again last season can hardly do them much good.

    Leicester are in dire need of a miracle now, not too dissimilar to the one they managed last season. And given the ruthlessness with which Ranieri was disposed, you’d think the owners have miracle workers lined up around the corner.

    Regardless of who they appoint as his replacement, it would take some doing to restore the club’s infectious charm.

    Dilly-ding, dilly-dong, the magic’s gone.

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