When Leicester City won the Premier League title in 2015/16, it was viewed as one of the greatest achievements in football ever… if not sport in general. They went on to win the FA Cup for the first time in 2020/21 and, having finished fifth in the table in consecutive seasons, the Foxes appeared to have established themselves as a decent top-flight side who could challenge for honours on a regular basis.
Alas, fortunes can change swiftly in football, and by the end of the 2022/23 season, Leicester had been relegated to the Championship. When they bounced back in style at the first time of asking, fans were hopeful their side’s dalliance with the second tier was a mere blip. But, after a 1-0 home defeat to Liverpool on 20th April 2025, the Foxes have once again been relegated to the Championship. Which begs the question, have they become a yo-yo club?
Where Did It Go Wrong for Leicester?
Hindsight is a wonderful thing in life, and perhaps especially in football as fans attempt to explain how their team went from heroes to zeroes in as little time as it takes to brew a good beer. But there is little doubt that the decision to sack manager, Claudio Ranieri, midway through the season after he’d delivered the club’s first-ever top-flight title was, to put it politely, brave. Yes, the Foxes had been flirting with the relegation zone at the time, and had slipped to 17th position in the table after five consecutive league defeats. But one wonders what might have been had the Leicester board kept just a little more faith in Ranieri.
The Season So far
At the time of writing, as the end of the 2024/25 season looms, the Foxes have won just four of their 33 matches in the Premier League and have scored just 27 goals, the second-worst tally in the division. They are also on their second permanent manager of the season, with Ruud van Nistelrooy having replaced the sacked Steve Cooper. The Dutchman hasn’t managed to improve things at the club and actually has a worse win percentage than Cooper (16% compared to Cooper’s 20%). But Leicester’s inability to cut the mustard in the top flight this time around is not so much due to the man in the dugout as wider, structural issues at the club.
Transfer Market Fail
Although the Foxes performed very well in the Championship last term, amassing an impressive total of 97 points, it wasn’t as if they really took the division by storm. They were only crowned champions by a single point ahead of Ipswich, who are also heading back to the second tier, and seven points ahead of third-placed Leeds United. But as tough as the second tier is, the Premier League is a completely different beast and Leicester’s failure to push the boat out in the transfer market is perhaps coming back to haunt them.
Okay, they splashed a bit of cash on midfielders Oliver Skipp and Bilal El Khannouss, but neither have proved to be game-changers, far from it in fact. There were high hopes for young Portuguese winger Issahaku Fatawu, but his haul of two assists and zero goals in the league hardly offers a good return on the investment. Odsonne Edouard and Jordan Ayew have managed just four goals and no assists between them in the Premier League (all of which have come from Ayew) and once again the ageing Jamie Vardy is the top scorer with seven league goals at the time of writing.
The fact that Vardy, who turned 38 in January, is still playing week in and week out for the Foxes is laudable on one level. But the former England man is only the joint-33rd top scorer in the Premier League at the time of writing. Given Vardy has scored more than any other Leicester player, it would certainly seem as though the club ought to have prioritised signing some proven top-flight goalscorers if they were serious about staying in the division. Mind you, they have had more than their fair share off issues at the back as well!
What Next for Leicester?
Ricardo speaks after Sunday’s match 💬
— Leicester City (@LCFC) April 21, 2025
Less than a decade after unexpectedly winning the Premier League title, Leicester City find themselves at something of a crossroads. They may bounce around between the top flight and the second tier like plenty of other clubs in recent times, or they could reinvest, knuckle down and attempt to build for the future.
Squad Overhaul
Whether or not they will keep the faith with the as-yet-unproven Van Nistelrooy remains to be seen. But this relegation might trigger something of a squad overhaul. And as fantastic a servant that Vardy has been to the club, we think it would be in the Foxes’ interests to let him depart for pastures new and bring in younger, more dynamic forwards.
Third Tier Woes
Of course, if Leicester get it wrong, the consequences could be grave. They are not the first club to have won the Premier League only to slip out of the top tier. Blackburn Rovers won the title back in 1994/95, only to get relegated at the end of the 1998/99 campaign. They spent two seasons in the second tier before clawing their way back up, but a decade after that, they got relegated again and this time – a few years after that – slipped down to the third tier!
Just Another Yo-Yo Club?
We are not saying this is likely to be Leicester’s fate, but Blackburn’s is a cautionary tale about what can happen if clubs take their eye off the ball. Whether the owners possess the requisite skill and determination to rejuvenate the Foxes sufficiently, remains to be seen. If things go well, Leicester will bounce back to the Premier League once again and put the players in place to consolidate their position in the top division. If they make the wrong choices in the coming months, Leicester could prove to be just another yo-yo club, or worse.