Leicester City are having a torrid time of late. The Foxes are bottom of the Premier League table after 14 games, and manager Nigel Pearson has landed himself in hot water after an altercation with a supporter. They recently lost a relegation six-pointer against fellow strugglers Queens Park Rangers at the end of November, which saw them drop to the foot of the table, and their subsequent defeat to Liverpool has many tipping them for the drop.
City are winless in their last nine Premier League games, losing seven and drawing two. They have failed to score in six of their nine outings, and have the second-worst defence in the division. While expected to struggle after their promotion from the Championship, the Midlands club broke their transfer record this summer so the overseers were certainly expecting more of a fight to stay in the division.
When things aren’t going for you on the pitch, the last thing a manager wants to do is alienate themselves from the supporters, and the recent incident between Pearson and the unhappy fan threatens to boil over into something serious. The City boss was quoted as saying: “’I replied to one idiot in the stands and if he doesn’t like what he sees, then don’t bother coming.”
The club’s supporters’ trust have demanded an apology from Pearson, and it’s perhaps unsurprising that odds on him to be the next manager sacked have been slashed overnight. Leicester City have a very ambitious owner in Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, who wants the club to become an elite Premier League side chasing for a European place in the future.
“It will take a huge amount of money, possibly (£180m), to get (into Europe). That doesn’t put us off. I am asking for three years, and we’ll be there. We won’t take the huge leap to challenge the league’s top five clubs immediately. I think we need to establish our foothold in the league first and then we think about our next step,” he said back in May following promotion to the top flight.
The Foxes chairman certainly won’t want to see the club at the bottom of the table, and if the relationship continues to sour between Nigel Pearson and the supporters, coupled with poor results on the pitch, he will have little choice but to part company. So could the 51-year-old find himself as the first Premier League manager sacked this season?
