Reasons they bucked Buck out

G

GTIF

Roofer
From the Independent

Written by Miguel Delaney


It was when the Leicester City hierarchy noticed a new disconnect between Brendan Rodgers and his players on the training ground this week that they decided results on the pitch could no longer be tolerated. The realisation was the club’s run was not getting better, and they had to act to save their Premier League status.

If that would appear to suggest the Northern Irishman has reached a ceiling as a coach, it really says much more about the potential of such clubs in the competition. It is also a warning. The widespread expectation, after all, was that Rodgers himself was going to seek to leave in the summer.


Leicester are the latest in a series of well-run Premier League “model clubs” - following Swansea City, Southampton and West Brom - to find they couldn’t keep the idea going indefinitely. Ambition ultimately came up against financial reality, and there are few managers as personally ambitious as Rodgers, or few competitions as economically exacting as the Premier League.

Leicester were the most overachieving “model” club of all. That is down to more than the miracle 2015-16 title, which has been mistakenly used to laud the competitiveness of the Premier League. It was a miracle precisely because the division is so dictated by finances, and was from a series of factors entirely separate from what followed. The real genius was in Leicester initially using that historic success as a launchpad to become one of the most forward-thinking clubs in the game.

Rodgers for a long time seemed the ideal manager for that, a perfect combination. Long is the right word, given his four-plus years makes him one of the longest serving managers in the modern Premier League, as well as in Leicester’s history. He is also one of the most successful, taking them to their second and third highest finishes, and a long-awaited first FA Cup in 2021

That all came from a progressive and sophisticated tactical approach that supremely fitted Leicester’s willingness to bring through the brightest talent. It almost seemed like alchemy that they could so often sell burgeoning stars for big money and already have them replaced twice over and two steps down the line. The ultimate example of that was how they found a fine centre-half pairing in Jonny Evans and Caglar Soyuncu, ready-made, once Harry Maguire was sold. The other side was how the departure of Wesley Fofana indicated they were no longer that club. Industry figures talk of how their recruitment just hasn’t been anywhere near what it was, for the last two years.


As similar clubs like Southampton have found, though, no one - no matter how well run - can keep doing it indefinitely. Constantly losing top talent and needing to get the recruitment right to regenerate eventually has an effect, especially when tactics are as finely tuned as Rodgers’. This is something that had been noted within Leicester the last season and a half. The synchronicity that had been seen for Rodgers’ first two seasons was gone. It didn’t help that Jamie Vardy had inevitably lost his sharpness, or that his relationship with the manager was no longer as warm as it had been given the striker’s legendary status at the club. Leicester gradually became a soft touch, easy to get at and to keep out

They had lost their edge, as happens to all such clubs. That’s a Premier League reality.

It was made much worse by greater realities. Those with knowledge of how the club works talk of a “funding fatigue”, especially as Saudi Arabia took over Newcastle United and took Leicester’s place as the next club outside the “big six”. The owners meanwhile felt mounting costs from losses in other business due to Covid.

The same investment couldn’t be there, which only hastened the decline in recruitment. Many around the club meanwhile talk of how it hastened a decline in the Rodgers’ project. He could see the same potential wasn’t there. It led to that training-ground disconnect. The brightness of his ideas were now met with a staleness, with results then naturally seeing the more debated elements of Rodgers’ man-management irritating players who wouldn’t have previously cared. Rodgers is now a long way from the mantra-repeating figure pilloried earlier in his career, but his ambition can still rub up some the wrong way.

The most relevant point, however, is that his ambition could no longer be met by Leicester.

This had run its course, in so many senses. Leicester now need to ensure their Premier League tenure doesn’t run its course. Their immediate future is arguably less assured than Rodgers’ in that way.

His career may not be on the trajectory it had seemed but a number of Premier League clubs will be interested. Crystal Palace would seem as ideal for the next stop. Tottenham Hotspur would almost seem perfect, except for existing tensions with Daniel Levy. They can be resolved. Rodgers’ record should be persuasive enough, not least at Leicester.

The main lesson of this story is how the Premier League’s model club instead became another example of the competition’s punishing financial realities.
 
A laugh
GTIF said:
From the Independent

Written by Miguel Delaney


It was when the Leicester City hierarchy noticed a new disconnect between Brendan Rodgers and his players on the training ground this week that they decided results on the pitch could no longer be tolerated. The realisation was the club’s run was not getting better, and they had to act to save their Premier League status.

If that would appear to suggest the Northern Irishman has reached a ceiling as a coach, it really says much more about the potential of such clubs in the competition. It is also a warning. The widespread expectation, after all, was that Rodgers himself was going to seek to leave in the summer.


Leicester are the latest in a series of well-run Premier League “model clubs” - following Swansea City, Southampton and West Brom - to find they couldn’t keep the idea going indefinitely. Ambition ultimately came up against financial reality, and there are few managers as personally ambitious as Rodgers, or few competitions as economically exacting as the Premier League.

Leicester were the most overachieving “model” club of all. That is down to more than the miracle 2015-16 title, which has been mistakenly used to laud the competitiveness of the Premier League. It was a miracle precisely because the division is so dictated by finances, and was from a series of factors entirely separate from what followed. The real genius was in Leicester initially using that historic success as a launchpad to become one of the most forward-thinking clubs in the game.

Rodgers for a long time seemed the ideal manager for that, a perfect combination. Long is the right word, given his four-plus years makes him one of the longest serving managers in the modern Premier League, as well as in Leicester’s history. He is also one of the most successful, taking them to their second and third highest finishes, and a long-awaited first FA Cup in 2021

That all came from a progressive and sophisticated tactical approach that supremely fitted Leicester’s willingness to bring through the brightest talent. It almost seemed like alchemy that they could so often sell burgeoning stars for big money and already have them replaced twice over and two steps down the line. The ultimate example of that was how they found a fine centre-half pairing in Jonny Evans and Caglar Soyuncu, ready-made, once Harry Maguire was sold. The other side was how the departure of Wesley Fofana indicated they were no longer that club. Industry figures talk of how their recruitment just hasn’t been anywhere near what it was, for the last two years.


As similar clubs like Southampton have found, though, no one - no matter how well run - can keep doing it indefinitely. Constantly losing top talent and needing to get the recruitment right to regenerate eventually has an effect, especially when tactics are as finely tuned as Rodgers’. This is something that had been noted within Leicester the last season and a half. The synchronicity that had been seen for Rodgers’ first two seasons was gone. It didn’t help that Jamie Vardy had inevitably lost his sharpness, or that his relationship with the manager was no longer as warm as it had been given the striker’s legendary status at the club. Leicester gradually became a soft touch, easy to get at and to keep out

They had lost their edge, as happens to all such clubs. That’s a Premier League reality.

It was made much worse by greater realities. Those with knowledge of how the club works talk of a “funding fatigue”, especially as Saudi Arabia took over Newcastle United and took Leicester’s place as the next club outside the “big six”. The owners meanwhile felt mounting costs from losses in other business due to Covid.

The same investment couldn’t be there, which only hastened the decline in recruitment. Many around the club meanwhile talk of how it hastened a decline in the Rodgers’ project. He could see the same potential wasn’t there. It led to that training-ground disconnect. The brightness of his ideas were now met with a staleness, with results then naturally seeing the more debated elements of Rodgers’ man-management irritating players who wouldn’t have previously cared. Rodgers is now a long way from the mantra-repeating figure pilloried earlier in his career, but his ambition can still rub up some the wrong way.

The most relevant point, however, is that his ambition could no longer be met by Leicester.

This had run its course, in so many senses. Leicester now need to ensure their Premier League tenure doesn’t run its course. Their immediate future is arguably less assured than Rodgers’ in that way.

His career may not be on the trajectory it had seemed but a number of Premier League clubs will be interested. Crystal Palace would seem as ideal for the next stop. Tottenham Hotspur would almost seem perfect, except for existing tensions with Daniel Levy. They can be resolved. Rodgers’ record should be persuasive enough, not least at Leicester.

The main lesson of this story is how the Premier League’s model club instead became another example of the competition’s punishing financial realities.
Click to expand...
A laughable Rodgers puff piece
 
“The most relevant point, however, is that his ambition could no longer be met by Leicester.”

Fuck off, Leicester City had already achieved more than Rodgers had.

These cunts can deliberately misconstrue the facts to their liking can’t they.

The club had made themselves an attractive proposition to talented players, Rodgers was fortunate enough to be the custodian of this group and their success, wrongly attributed to him. Once his malignancy was allowed to pervade through the place, the effects are there to see, along with the truth for those who care for it.
 
An awful generic piece, which draws on the usual cliches about the challenges of ‘breaking the BCC monopoly’, with too few insights into an eighteen month decline, and a too ready dismissal of Rodgers’ recurrent failings. Indeed some of the stuff he’s parroted can be dismissed as pure comedy gold - ‘his ambition can still rub up some the wrong way’. Ambition? We’ve seen next to none of that in recent times.
 
The writers only plausible offer is how the Premier League is so scewed by money to the elite made only by the League's rulings after our magnificent efforts of 2015//16 to make sure upstarts never upset the apple art again.
BRENDAN needs to take a long hard look in the mirror at his attitudes to his team and remember a man who is never wrong has never done anything
 
Outside the mega bucks BCC, isn't Top still one of the leagues wealthier owners ?
 
Why Leicester sacked Brendan Rodgers – player unrest, split fanbase and facing relegation

Rob Tanner
Apr 2, 2023

Brendan Rodgers is one of the most successful managers in Leicester City’s history, but his departure after just over four years felt inevitable in the end.

Even after leading the club to a first FA Cup triumph, a Community Shield win and two fifth-placed Premier League finishes (and one eighth-placed finish), Rodgers was not immune, although it seemed it was the last thing chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha wanted to do.

He may have been responsible for two European campaigns — they have only had six in their history — and reached the Europa Conference League semi-final last season, but the worst opening to a top-flight campaign the club has experienced since 1983, and more poor form that plunged his side back into the relegation zone with ten games to go, proved to be Rodgers’ undoing.

It was a decision the owners took on Saturday night with a heavy heart after all of Rodgers’ achievements. There was the honest assessment that they had been unable to help him refresh the squad as he had wanted because of financial fair play constraints, but they still expected more. They did not expect their Premier League status to be hanging by a thread.

What they witnessed in the 2-1 defeat away to Crystal Palace was the catalyst. They saw a side devoid of confidence, a fanbase drained of belief, split and in some cases resigned to the drop, and they witnessed the bounce that a change of manager could have as Roy Hodgson returned to spark into life a team that had not tasted victory in 2023. Leicester will be hoping for a similar response this week as they face back-to-back home games against Aston Villa and Bournemouth.

Rodgers had credit in the bank that kept him in his job for longer than most had been afforded when going through difficult times. Finally, that credit ran out. Many fans had turned and when that happens, generally the club’s owners listen. Rodgers had been at the training ground on Sunday morning to pore over the Palace defeat as his future was being discussed. He soon discovered his fate.

While there was a lot of sadness when he was told, there was conviction that it was the right call. As they hoped he would turn it around there is not a successor waiting in the wings and all options are on the table. In the meantime, first-team coach Adam Sadler and goalkeeper coach Mike Stowell have been placed in temporary charge.

The pressure had been building on Rodgers from sections of the fanbase even before the season kicked off.

The pressure had been building on Rodgers from sections of the fanbase even before the season kicked off.

After three years together, things were going stale. Nine of the starting line-up at the City Ground for the 4-1 defeat to Forest had been in the first-team squad Rodgers inherited in February 2019.

The club were putting the brakes on their spending under Rodgers, having registered a record net outlay of £55million ($62.8m) on five players during the summer 2021 transfer window — Boubakary Soumare, Patson Daka, Jannik Vestergaard, Ryan Bertrand (free transfer) and Ademola Lookman (loan), without a key asset being sold that summer. That was a major contributory factor in Leicester’s recent record loss of £92.5million.

He was left needing to get more out of a group of players who were upset at his criticism of them after the loss to Forest. Three of those signings were earmarked to be moved on just 12 months after their arrival — Vestergaard, Soumare and Bertrand.

“That’s why a lot of these players are not top players — because they can’t sustain it,” Rodgers said after the FA Cup defeat, telling them he had been embarrassed by their display. There are players here who may have achieved everything they can.”

It was hardly motivational and without the club’s financial support in the next summer window, Rodgers had backed himself into a corner. Now he had to get a tune out of the same fiddle he had complained about.

It was a stinging rebuke and went down in the dressing room like a lead balloon. Many were now looking for the exit door. However, that door was closed to many by Leicester’s asking prices and their contracts.

Youri Tielemans, who refused to sign a new contract, was not the only one who felt he had achieved as much as he could at Leicester. Others such as Caglar Soyuncu and Wilfred Ndidi were now looking at opportunities elsewhere, and their form has suffered.

Then there were the players Rodgers had obviously been referring to, like Vestergaard. Rodgers had chosen the Dane as a signing following Wesley Fofana’s injury, but the centre-back had by now been discarded and continues to be out in the cold. In a recent interview in the Danish media, he stated he did not understand why he wasn’t anywhere near Rodgers’ team. Rodgers was furious, calling Vestergaard into his office at the training ground. His signing and Bertrand have been a disaster. Soumare and Dennis Praet were seemingly on their way out, too, while patience had worn thin with Ayoze Perez.

When Rodgers publicly questioned Soyuncu’s commitment in training, it left no one in any doubt the Turkey international, who is one of seven players who have moved into the last year of their contracts, that his time was up at the club under Rodgers. With so many knowing they had no future at Leicester, it proved difficult to keep them motivated and committed.

Even club captain Kasper Schmeichel was thinking of his own future. He approached Rodgers at the start of pre-season and revealed he had a tempting offer from Nice, a three-year contract Leicester seemed unwilling to match. When Leicester accepted their transfer offer, Schmeichel knew his 11 years with the club were over. He too recently claimed in an interview he did not want to leave.

Schmeichel was a leader on the pitch but could be a challenging character off it, although demanding high standards is not a bad thing and Schmeichel’s absence has been felt within a dressing room now missing its bigger characters. Rodgers was left to search for leadership elsewhere, especially when Jonny Evans was injured.

Schmeichel was one of the highest-paid players at the club, on around £120,000 per week. His departure would help ease the club’s finances as they looked to deal with a rising wage-to-revenue ratio of 85 per cent, which was threatening their ability to conform to UEFA’s financial fair play rules. Those wages and contracts had grown steadily during Rodgers’ tenure and the plump contracts were a major factor in the inability to move on surplus players last summer.

Rodgers was convinced Danny Ward could step up as No 1 after being back-up to Schmeichel for nearly four years and in May, he finally gave the Wales international his first league start since joining the club in 2018. He said it was a mutual decision with Schmeichel and Ward, but Schmeichel was unhappy his run of 149 consecutive league games had come to an end.

The mood has darkened in the squad in the last 12 months with cliques forming, particularly among the Belgium internationals, who are all close having come through similar pathways in their homeland. Praet, Tielemans and new arrival Wout Faes all came through Anderlecht’s Purple Talent Programme. Rodgers has dropped Timothy Castagne and Tielemans this season.

Praet’s experience is an indication of how Rodgers can quickly change his mind. Torino wanted to sign Praet again after his loan spell in Italy last season, but Rodgers had a change of heart when he realised he was not getting the full squad refresh he craved. He said Praet had a big role to play, yet he has been used sparingly. Likewise, he altered his stance over Soumare, but since the turn of the year, he hasn’t completed 90 minutes.

Rodgers had not lost the dressing room totally and players like James Maddison, who he made captain, were fully supportive. Rodgers has had a huge impact on his career, but doubts were starting to creep into the minds of others, even the more experienced like Jamie Vardy, who has been marginalised in recent weeks.

The manager had started making mistakes that were not happening before. Substitutions and tactical switches that he would get right in previous years were now going wrong, such as when he took off Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall on the opening day of the season with his side 2-0 up against Brentford, only for them to slip to a 2-2 draw.

Rodgers has been steadfast in his commitment to his style of play, the patient build-up from the back, looking to play through the lines, probing for the openings. It has not worked with this group of players. They are too prone to losing possession in bad areas and putting themselves under pressure. It has happened in every game this season, but Rodgers was stubborn in his belief.

After the Palace game, Rodgers looked like a man resigned to his fate, drained by the experience and devoid of solutions.

Rodgers has talked about time running out for some players but there was the impression that Rodgers felt he could do little more at Leicester, especially when he discovered the purse strings had been tightened this summer unless he could move on some peripheral figures. Targets had been identified, such as winger Cody Gakpo at PSV Eindhoven before he joined Liverpool, but without departures, there could be no arrivals.

Rodgers has spoken about his ambitions and how he is not a manager for “maintaining” a club that is standing still but is one to build and make progress, while constantly pointing out his squad “needed help” that wasn’t forthcoming. There have been distinct echoes of the last few months of his time as manager at Liverpool, where he felt he needed more help from the board to boost his squad.

It has followed a similar track to his time at Liverpool. After an initial boost when Rodgers arrived, there was a period of success but the decline has been just as rapid as the climb. In Leicester’s case, it has been spectacular.

One source, who asked to remain anonymous to protect relationships, describes Rodgers as a “systems guy” who goes into clubs and lays out his plan but when it stops working and needs evolving, he cannot change it, as Pep Guardiola has been able to do at Manchester City.

His four years at Leicester is his longest period at any club.

That may be why Rodgers has appeared to be preparing for his exit and speaking like a man who has had enough, although he then insisted he was fully committed to turning around the team’s fortunes and owner Khun Top initially backed his beleaguered manager. Even when the fans started to turn, Khun Top kept faith until now. Time will tell if it has come too late.

The club’s statement said they had come to a mutual agreement with Rodgers. He will get a handsome pay-off. He had over two years left to run on his contract worth around £8million a season, the highest ever given to a Leicester manager. The payments are likely to be spread over several years. His stock remains high and the memories of his achievements are still fresh in the memories of clubs who may look to make changes in the summer. He will get offers for a quick return.

As for the next Leicester manager, the priority will be to bring together a talented squad and devise a new game plan they will buy into.

Brentford’s Thomas Frank is admired internally, but it is unlikely they will get him. Likewise, Graham Potter has been the long-term favourite to succeed Rodgers. His situation at Chelsea will be keenly watched internally at Leicester as the pressure mounts after their 2-0 defeat at home to Aston Villa.

Austrian coach Adi Hutter and former Liverpool and Newcastle United manager Rafa Benitez will be in the mix and both are available now. The question will be whether they relish the battle for survival and the task of completely rebuilding a squad.

It could be the fresh start Leicester need, the players require and Rodgers may relish in time.
 
GTIF said:
From the Independent

Written by Miguel Delaney


It was when the Leicester City hierarchy noticed a new disconnect between Brendan Rodgers and his players on the training ground this week that they decided results on the pitch could no longer be tolerated. The realisation was the club’s run was not getting better, and they had to act to save their Premier League status.

If that would appear to suggest the Northern Irishman has reached a ceiling as a coach, it really says much more about the potential of such clubs in the competition. It is also a warning. The widespread expectation, after all, was that Rodgers himself was going to seek to leave in the summer.


Leicester are the latest in a series of well-run Premier League “model clubs” - following Swansea City, Southampton and West Brom - to find they couldn’t keep the idea going indefinitely. Ambition ultimately came up against financial reality, and there are few managers as personally ambitious as Rodgers, or few competitions as economically exacting as the Premier League.

Leicester were the most overachieving “model” club of all. That is down to more than the miracle 2015-16 title, which has been mistakenly used to laud the competitiveness of the Premier League. It was a miracle precisely because the division is so dictated by finances, and was from a series of factors entirely separate from what followed. The real genius was in Leicester initially using that historic success as a launchpad to become one of the most forward-thinking clubs in the game.

Rodgers for a long time seemed the ideal manager for that, a perfect combination. Long is the right word, given his four-plus years makes him one of the longest serving managers in the modern Premier League, as well as in Leicester’s history. He is also one of the most successful, taking them to their second and third highest finishes, and a long-awaited first FA Cup in 2021

That all came from a progressive and sophisticated tactical approach that supremely fitted Leicester’s willingness to bring through the brightest talent. It almost seemed like alchemy that they could so often sell burgeoning stars for big money and already have them replaced twice over and two steps down the line. The ultimate example of that was how they found a fine centre-half pairing in Jonny Evans and Caglar Soyuncu, ready-made, once Harry Maguire was sold. The other side was how the departure of Wesley Fofana indicated they were no longer that club. Industry figures talk of how their recruitment just hasn’t been anywhere near what it was, for the last two years.


As similar clubs like Southampton have found, though, no one - no matter how well run - can keep doing it indefinitely. Constantly losing top talent and needing to get the recruitment right to regenerate eventually has an effect, especially when tactics are as finely tuned as Rodgers’. This is something that had been noted within Leicester the last season and a half. The synchronicity that had been seen for Rodgers’ first two seasons was gone. It didn’t help that Jamie Vardy had inevitably lost his sharpness, or that his relationship with the manager was no longer as warm as it had been given the striker’s legendary status at the club. Leicester gradually became a soft touch, easy to get at and to keep out

They had lost their edge, as happens to all such clubs. That’s a Premier League reality.

It was made much worse by greater realities. Those with knowledge of how the club works talk of a “funding fatigue”, especially as Saudi Arabia took over Newcastle United and took Leicester’s place as the next club outside the “big six”. The owners meanwhile felt mounting costs from losses in other business due to Covid.

The same investment couldn’t be there, which only hastened the decline in recruitment. Many around the club meanwhile talk of how it hastened a decline in the Rodgers’ project. He could see the same potential wasn’t there. It led to that training-ground disconnect. The brightness of his ideas were now met with a staleness, with results then naturally seeing the more debated elements of Rodgers’ man-management irritating players who wouldn’t have previously cared. Rodgers is now a long way from the mantra-repeating figure pilloried earlier in his career, but his ambition can still rub up some the wrong way.

The most relevant point, however, is that his ambition could no longer be met by Leicester.

This had run its course, in so many senses. Leicester now need to ensure their Premier League tenure doesn’t run its course. Their immediate future is arguably less assured than Rodgers’ in that way.

His career may not be on the trajectory it had seemed but a number of Premier League clubs will be interested. Crystal Palace would seem as ideal for the next stop. Tottenham Hotspur would almost seem perfect, except for existing tensions with Daniel Levy. They can be resolved. Rodgers’ record should be persuasive enough, not least at Leicester.

The main lesson of this story is how the Premier League’s model club instead became another example of the competition’s punishing financial realities.
Click to expand...
proper load of crap from someone pretending to know what's been going on,
 
ClaphamFox said:
The club’s statement said they had come to a mutual agreement with Rodgers. He will get a handsome pay-off. He had over two years left to run on his contract worth around £8million a season, the highest ever given to a Leicester manager. The payments are likely to be spread over several years.
Click to expand...
This’d suggest otherwise. Doubt we’ll ever know.
 
I'm sad Brendans gone, I've been one of his "champions" defended him on here, got laughed at,but it got to the stage that we were in a rut and I thought he has lost the plot. I won't forget what he has done for us.
 
ClaphamFox said:
Why Leicester sacked Brendan Rodgers – player unrest, split fanbase and facing relegation

Rob Tanner
Apr 2, 2023

Brendan Rodgers is one of the most successful managers in Leicester City’s history, but his departure after just over four years felt inevitable in the end.

Even after leading the club to a first FA Cup triumph, a Community Shield win and two fifth-placed Premier League finishes (and one eighth-placed finish), Rodgers was not immune, although it seemed it was the last thing chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha wanted to do.

He may have been responsible for two European campaigns — they have only had six in their history — and reached the Europa Conference League semi-final last season, but the worst opening to a top-flight campaign the club has experienced since 1983, and more poor form that plunged his side back into the relegation zone with ten games to go, proved to be Rodgers’ undoing.

It was a decision the owners took on Saturday night with a heavy heart after all of Rodgers’ achievements. There was the honest assessment that they had been unable to help him refresh the squad as he had wanted because of financial fair play constraints, but they still expected more. They did not expect their Premier League status to be hanging by a thread.

What they witnessed in the 2-1 defeat away to Crystal Palace was the catalyst. They saw a side devoid of confidence, a fanbase drained of belief, split and in some cases resigned to the drop, and they witnessed the bounce that a change of manager could have as Roy Hodgson returned to spark into life a team that had not tasted victory in 2023. Leicester will be hoping for a similar response this week as they face back-to-back home games against Aston Villa and Bournemouth.

Rodgers had credit in the bank that kept him in his job for longer than most had been afforded when going through difficult times. Finally, that credit ran out. Many fans had turned and when that happens, generally the club’s owners listen. Rodgers had been at the training ground on Sunday morning to pore over the Palace defeat as his future was being discussed. He soon discovered his fate.

While there was a lot of sadness when he was told, there was conviction that it was the right call. As they hoped he would turn it around there is not a successor waiting in the wings and all options are on the table. In the meantime, first-team coach Adam Sadler and goalkeeper coach Mike Stowell have been placed in temporary charge.

The pressure had been building on Rodgers from sections of the fanbase even before the season kicked off.

The pressure had been building on Rodgers from sections of the fanbase even before the season kicked off.

After three years together, things were going stale. Nine of the starting line-up at the City Ground for the 4-1 defeat to Forest had been in the first-team squad Rodgers inherited in February 2019.

The club were putting the brakes on their spending under Rodgers, having registered a record net outlay of £55million ($62.8m) on five players during the summer 2021 transfer window — Boubakary Soumare, Patson Daka, Jannik Vestergaard, Ryan Bertrand (free transfer) and Ademola Lookman (loan), without a key asset being sold that summer. That was a major contributory factor in Leicester’s recent record loss of £92.5million.

He was left needing to get more out of a group of players who were upset at his criticism of them after the loss to Forest. Three of those signings were earmarked to be moved on just 12 months after their arrival — Vestergaard, Soumare and Bertrand.

“That’s why a lot of these players are not top players — because they can’t sustain it,” Rodgers said after the FA Cup defeat, telling them he had been embarrassed by their display. There are players here who may have achieved everything they can.”

It was hardly motivational and without the club’s financial support in the next summer window, Rodgers had backed himself into a corner. Now he had to get a tune out of the same fiddle he had complained about.

It was a stinging rebuke and went down in the dressing room like a lead balloon. Many were now looking for the exit door. However, that door was closed to many by Leicester’s asking prices and their contracts.

Youri Tielemans, who refused to sign a new contract, was not the only one who felt he had achieved as much as he could at Leicester. Others such as Caglar Soyuncu and Wilfred Ndidi were now looking at opportunities elsewhere, and their form has suffered.

Then there were the players Rodgers had obviously been referring to, like Vestergaard. Rodgers had chosen the Dane as a signing following Wesley Fofana’s injury, but the centre-back had by now been discarded and continues to be out in the cold. In a recent interview in the Danish media, he stated he did not understand why he wasn’t anywhere near Rodgers’ team. Rodgers was furious, calling Vestergaard into his office at the training ground. His signing and Bertrand have been a disaster. Soumare and Dennis Praet were seemingly on their way out, too, while patience had worn thin with Ayoze Perez.

When Rodgers publicly questioned Soyuncu’s commitment in training, it left no one in any doubt the Turkey international, who is one of seven players who have moved into the last year of their contracts, that his time was up at the club under Rodgers. With so many knowing they had no future at Leicester, it proved difficult to keep them motivated and committed.

Even club captain Kasper Schmeichel was thinking of his own future. He approached Rodgers at the start of pre-season and revealed he had a tempting offer from Nice, a three-year contract Leicester seemed unwilling to match. When Leicester accepted their transfer offer, Schmeichel knew his 11 years with the club were over. He too recently claimed in an interview he did not want to leave.

Schmeichel was a leader on the pitch but could be a challenging character off it, although demanding high standards is not a bad thing and Schmeichel’s absence has been felt within a dressing room now missing its bigger characters. Rodgers was left to search for leadership elsewhere, especially when Jonny Evans was injured.

Schmeichel was one of the highest-paid players at the club, on around £120,000 per week. His departure would help ease the club’s finances as they looked to deal with a rising wage-to-revenue ratio of 85 per cent, which was threatening their ability to conform to UEFA’s financial fair play rules. Those wages and contracts had grown steadily during Rodgers’ tenure and the plump contracts were a major factor in the inability to move on surplus players last summer.

Rodgers was convinced Danny Ward could step up as No 1 after being back-up to Schmeichel for nearly four years and in May, he finally gave the Wales international his first league start since joining the club in 2018. He said it was a mutual decision with Schmeichel and Ward, but Schmeichel was unhappy his run of 149 consecutive league games had come to an end.

The mood has darkened in the squad in the last 12 months with cliques forming, particularly among the Belgium internationals, who are all close having come through similar pathways in their homeland. Praet, Tielemans and new arrival Wout Faes all came through Anderlecht’s Purple Talent Programme. Rodgers has dropped Timothy Castagne and Tielemans this season.

Praet’s experience is an indication of how Rodgers can quickly change his mind. Torino wanted to sign Praet again after his loan spell in Italy last season, but Rodgers had a change of heart when he realised he was not getting the full squad refresh he craved. He said Praet had a big role to play, yet he has been used sparingly. Likewise, he altered his stance over Soumare, but since the turn of the year, he hasn’t completed 90 minutes.

Rodgers had not lost the dressing room totally and players like James Maddison, who he made captain, were fully supportive. Rodgers has had a huge impact on his career, but doubts were starting to creep into the minds of others, even the more experienced like Jamie Vardy, who has been marginalised in recent weeks.

The manager had started making mistakes that were not happening before. Substitutions and tactical switches that he would get right in previous years were now going wrong, such as when he took off Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall on the opening day of the season with his side 2-0 up against Brentford, only for them to slip to a 2-2 draw.

Rodgers has been steadfast in his commitment to his style of play, the patient build-up from the back, looking to play through the lines, probing for the openings. It has not worked with this group of players. They are too prone to losing possession in bad areas and putting themselves under pressure. It has happened in every game this season, but Rodgers was stubborn in his belief.

After the Palace game, Rodgers looked like a man resigned to his fate, drained by the experience and devoid of solutions.

Rodgers has talked about time running out for some players but there was the impression that Rodgers felt he could do little more at Leicester, especially when he discovered the purse strings had been tightened this summer unless he could move on some peripheral figures. Targets had been identified, such as winger Cody Gakpo at PSV Eindhoven before he joined Liverpool, but without departures, there could be no arrivals.

Rodgers has spoken about his ambitions and how he is not a manager for “maintaining” a club that is standing still but is one to build and make progress, while constantly pointing out his squad “needed help” that wasn’t forthcoming. There have been distinct echoes of the last few months of his time as manager at Liverpool, where he felt he needed more help from the board to boost his squad.

It has followed a similar track to his time at Liverpool. After an initial boost when Rodgers arrived, there was a period of success but the decline has been just as rapid as the climb. In Leicester’s case, it has been spectacular.

One source, who asked to remain anonymous to protect relationships, describes Rodgers as a “systems guy” who goes into clubs and lays out his plan but when it stops working and needs evolving, he cannot change it, as Pep Guardiola has been able to do at Manchester City.

His four years at Leicester is his longest period at any club.

That may be why Rodgers has appeared to be preparing for his exit and speaking like a man who has had enough, although he then insisted he was fully committed to turning around the team’s fortunes and owner Khun Top initially backed his beleaguered manager. Even when the fans started to turn, Khun Top kept faith until now. Time will tell if it has come too late.

The club’s statement said they had come to a mutual agreement with Rodgers. He will get a handsome pay-off. He had over two years left to run on his contract worth around £8million a season, the highest ever given to a Leicester manager. The payments are likely to be spread over several years. His stock remains high and the memories of his achievements are still fresh in the memories of clubs who may look to make changes in the summer. He will get offers for a quick return.

As for the next Leicester manager, the priority will be to bring together a talented squad and devise a new game plan they will buy into.

Brentford’s Thomas Frank is admired internally, but it is unlikely they will get him. Likewise, Graham Potter has been the long-term favourite to succeed Rodgers. His situation at Chelsea will be keenly watched internally at Leicester as the pressure mounts after their 2-0 defeat at home to Aston Villa.

Austrian coach Adi Hutter and former Liverpool and Newcastle United manager Rafa Benitez will be in the mix and both are available now. The question will be whether they relish the battle for survival and the task of completely rebuilding a squad.

It could be the fresh start Leicester need, the players require and Rodgers may relish in time.
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That’s a lot near the mark compared to that load of tosh from Delaney.
‘Palace would be ideal fit’ for Rodgers ... really ... has Delaney not heard Steve Parish’s view about Rodgers?
 
There is some truth in the unsustainbility of trying to constantly unearth diamonds to enable us to compete against clubs with way bigger finances. It was however his mate who spunked away the vast majority of what we have been able to spend on absolute tosh. Looking at the net spend table for the last five years we are in 17th but that doesnt take into account what talent you have before that. and it's also noticeable that the bottom two clubs Brighton and Brentford seem to be doing just fine

www.football365.com

Premier League net spend table over the last five years

Forget the league table, it's all about the Premier League net spend table. And Chelsea, Man Utd and Arsenal are ahead of the other 17.
www.football365.com www.football365.com
 
In summary:

"the clubs ambition did not match rodgers"

what a load of shite.
 
oxonfox said:
I'm sad Brendans gone, I've been one of his "champions" defended him on here, got laughed at,but it got to the stage that we were in a rut and I thought he has lost the plot. I won't forget what he has done for us.
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He got us the FA cup, and that's it, a big trophy admittedly, and one i was probably more excited about than the PL title.
Everything else was a letdown, we should've been in the top 4 twice and he bottled it both times, and we've had a steady decline since the cup triumph.
 
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Tuz_Not_Tuzz said:
He got us the FA cup, and that's it, a big trophy admittedly, and one i was probably more excited about that the PL title.
Everything else was a letdown, we should've been in the top 4 twice and he bottled it both times, and we've had a steady decline since the cup triumph.
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Even Wimbledon won the cup!!
 
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