Into The Foxes' Den: Moving Forward For The Foxes' Sake

Despite the length of time we’ve been waiting (and that’s another story for perhaps another time), the clarity we’ve been craving for too long sits starkly staring us in the face. Whichever way we look at it - either positively that it's only six points, or negatively that it's finally come to this - we can now look to move forward. 

That’s the million dollar question, however, just how do we move forward? How do we become the side that everybody begrudgingly admired again? How do we get ourselves back on that firm footing that allows those green shoots of positivity to flourish once again?

It’s a question that isn’t easy to answer. Of course we’ll give it a good old go, but first of all there is a need to accept just who or what we have become and that’s the difficult part; we don’t want to do it, but like when you are asked to go and clean your room as a kid, we know it needs to be done. 

On the whole, judging by the plethora of opinions across social media on Thursday night and into Friday morning, the Foxes fans seem resigned to that fate with a varied mood board ranging from sad acceptance to volcanic anger at just what has happened to their beloved club. We still have no idea how this will pan out despite the clarity we now have.

That acceptance doesn’t seem to have found its way down Filbert Way however, with the deaf tone emanating out of the club ringing significant alarm bells that have left a fan base confused. How are the blatantly obvious issues yet to fully resonate with the hierarchy? To paraphrase legendary City boss Nigel Pearson, they seem to be ostriches with their heads firmly in the sand. 

‘Out Of His Depth’

That very comment has been thrown around by Leicester fans far too much recently, with it being one of the charges aimed at former boss Marti Cifuentes, but it has become increasingly apparent that the ‘Out of Depth’ moniker is a particular facet that eludes our esteemed decision makers.

The family tragedy that ripped a family of their beloved father, grandfather, mentor and many other superlatives that described Khun Vichai was just that, tragic. To us as fans, the feeling of the loss of our chairman pales in comparison to that of the family, and their loss that will forever cloud their lives. Talking past that is difficult but it’s a conversation, however inappropriate when considering those events, that needs to happen. 

Thrust into the spotlight prematurely upon the death of his father, Khun Top has had to adjust his life, not only to run a football club but also to run a multi-billion dollar duty free entity as the figurehead. As we’ve mentioned before, whether it was always planned to happen down the line was arguably questionable considering the utter magnitude of these unforgiving industries.

Leicester City under the Srivaddhanaprabha family, led by the shrewdness of Khun Vichai, was a dream. Here we lived that very dream as we went from the sublime to the ridiculous as the unthinkable happened. Premier League champions - a saying that, if we as Leicester fans were honest, was never likely to be in our vocabulary. But it happened. 

By the time of the tragic helicopter crash that robbed a family of their patriarch, along with four other needless deaths, whom we must never forget, the Foxes were admired throughout the footballing world. We were a club that bucked the trend that befell so many others before it, a club that was trending upwards, perhaps never to get to the elite level it craved, but ran with the effortlessness that would offer hope to others looking for that success. 

The sensible running of the football club looked like it could never go wrong. Here we had a club that knew its place. When it didn’t work, things changed and there was a plan to make it work. Players came and went, managers came and went and the financials looked after themselves with a prudence that even the most ambitious amongst us could admire.

This was to be Khun Top’s legacy, building on his father’s legacy and creating his own path as Leicester City owner. For those early days, everything was tickety-boo and those heady days felt like they would never end.

On the pitch, the club continued its dreamy path, winning its first ever FA Cup, only marred by the Covid-19 pandemic. But that’s exactly where the underbelly of trouble began to rear its ugly head.

Those within the club wanted more and if we’re honest as fans, we all went with it. Why couldn’t Leicester City be a part of the elite? Why couldn’t we challenge the status-quo of the beautiful game that was now so sadly controlled by the stink of money?

We can all sit there and condemn the merits of PSR or indeed the lack of them, but that’s the football we know today. It’s not exclusive to the Foxes: it’s a facet of the modern game that we all knew was there and we can sit and moan about them all we want, perhaps we always will. 

But this was Leicester’s world now: the club was dreaming big but had lost its fiscal identity chasing that unicorn at the end of a rainbow and by god, we almost reached the end of that rainbow.

Two consecutive fifth place finishes saw a Champions League return elude us. The second one was particularly jarring, with three defeats in the final four games costing the club in more ways than it ever imagined as it entered its downward spiral. It is perhaps only today that we are finally able to see the light at the end of this dark period. 

We can argue all day about the merits of ambition and that is probably the charge aimed at former manager Brendan Rodgers. He will forever be tainted as the man whose ego got the better of the club, steering us towards disaster, despite delivering that elusive first FA Cup win in 2021.

If you go down the devil’s advocate route, we were a mere 90 minutes away from a different destiny and Rodgers had arguably earned the right to chase a dream that we all backed. Unbeknownst to us, that dream was actually a nightmare. 

Oh hello Jon Rudkin, welcome to the Spanish inquisition!

We’ve got a good chunk of the way through this article without mentioning ‘ol JR, Jon Rudkin or any of the other names that have been anointed to him by the Foxes fanbase. I won’t go down that route of discussing each one; we’ll call him JR. Instead, the objective here is to dissect just how much his influence has actually contributed to our current predicament.

Let’s get some facts out of the way: JR was a part of the success we had and not a small part either. Here is a man that was a faithful lieutenant of the much lauded Khun Vichai, who trusted him implicitly. When we were having the success, he was very much in the background and he was very much a part of that success.

So why is there such a distinct vitriol towards JR considering the above? It's a good question, and perhaps he is the scapegoat that we all needed to have, when fingers should be pointed elsewhere. Or, is he the man that has taken advantage of a situation without ever having the best interests of the club at heart?

For many, me included, this is the case. What Khun Top needed was a trusty lieutenant that knew the perils of the football industry having made a career in the game, and had a realism that was centred around fiscal responsibility and building a club that knew its place, rather than what can only now be described as a plaything with somebody else’s money.

Whilst we won’t discuss his qualifications for the role - some may argue that his time in the game gave him the experience to be in the role that he still holds today - what we can see with our own eyes is the dismantling of a club without an ounce of humility as to where we sit today, and where we will probably be for a long time yet.

The hierarchy at the club has, over the past three years, made mistake after mistake, not learning from them but building on top of them, making things not gradually worse but much quicker than that. Going from FA Cup success and near Champions League qualification, to being on the verge of another stint in England’s third tier in just five years, is quite something. 

Inflated wages, an eroding culture, the forgotten traditions of the Leicester way, poor decision making… the list goes on.

How these charges cannot be understood or realised by the hierarchy is actually quite astounding. The charge of Khun Top being out of his depth is sadly real; you only have to have seen the recent interviews to see this. 

Add in some of the frankly ridiculous statements seen last night, both in the report that was released by the authorities but also the tone deaf statement from the club upon the announcement of the six point deduction, it doesn’t take a degree in bleeding obvious to see that it is far more likely to get worse before it gets better. 

Can we take today as hitting rock bottom? For sure, we may well not yet be at that point, but the argument it can’t get much worse could equally be true. The six point deduction is light considering the charges and if the club don’t take them and move on, then we’re quite literally on the floor.

But am I confident that they won’t make it worse and challenge the charges and consequences? 

Hell no!

However, we are nearly there as a united fanbase, if we're not already. What we have seen over the past couple of months is that fanbase coming almost together, though there are a few that continue to bury their heads in the sand. Fans have had enough; they can see a club failing, they can see the perpetrators and their lack of humility and understanding, and enough is enough.

Whether this ends peacefully with a humbleness from the owners that is yet to even faintly be detected, remains to be seen. Sadly, and I do mean sadly, I see a time in the not so distant future where the owners get to that realisation that the relationship will forever be tainted, and they have little choice but to move on.

The football romantic in me says I don’t want to see it, I really want to give Khun Top time, but I don’t see that happening. The legacy is hanging by a thread. There is a redemption story that is waiting to be written but the fabled writers' block is in full swing.