Martí Cifuentes: Six months of holding on

It’s 25th November 2025 - Martí Cifuentes stands on the edge of his technical area at St Mary’s Stadium, Southampton. He glances down at the painted white line, shuffles inch by inch closer to the painted mystical border. A line which he should not pass, or else the referee's head will do an Exorcist style 360 degree spin and detect the war crime that he’s just committed from 70 yards, even though the obvious handball just a few feet in front of him minutes earlier seemed to pass him by.

It must be so frustrating for a football manager to watch his team collapse in front of him because he’s not allowed to physically do anything about it. Weeks of planning, scouting, video analysis, quiet words with players during training, all blowing up in his face in front of 30,000 people - not forgetting that the match is also live on Sky Sports.

And that’s the predicament we have when looking back at Marti’s first six months in charge at Leicester. The big question: ‘is it actually his fault?’