Seven years and 13 days after Leicester City produced one of the greatest sporting stories of all time, there was an understandable sense of dejection around their King Power Stadium home as the floundering Foxes lost 3-0 at home to Liverpool.
Leicester may yet save themselves, or at least perform more valiantly during the games that will confirm whether they remain in the Premier League. But the defeat in their penultimate home game – a result that might have been acceptable in other seasons against an in-form Liverpool, but wasn't because of Leicester's performance – will be seen as one of several occasions when they lost with a whimper during a dismal campaign.
Less than a year earlier, the home fans had serenaded Leicester's squad around the same pitch after they closed the season with a 4-1 win over Southampton to finish eighth.
So, what has gone wrong for Leicester? Has this crisis been on the cards since their Premier League triumph in 2015-16? The Sporting News takes a detailed look.
Premier League champions to Championship: an inevitable demise?
The most commonly cited symbol of Leicester's feat in that glorious 2015/16 season is the 5,000/1 odds bookmakers had offered on them to finish top of the table. It would be hard to overstate the achievement, which must feel less like seven years ago and more like a dimension away to supporters right now.
Leicester are a large club with an immense history but their achievements until then had been modest, appearing in major European competition three times and completing the last of five successive years in the Championship two seasons earlier, having won the third tier in 2008/09.
Over-achievers usually suffer a hangover in a division where the ceiling of the top six tends to be sealed off by the financial gulf advantaging the established contenders. It is unsurprising to reflect that 2016/17 was Leicester's worst campaign, such was the drop-off after winning the league.
Inimitable title-winning manager Claudio Ranieri was sacked after a 2-0 defeat at Swansea that left them a place above the relegation zone, but Leicester hovered in the middle of the bottom half for much of the season and never dropped in to the bottom three, finishing 12th with the help of five wins in a row to start successor Craig Shakespeare's reign.
If a fall-off was inevitable, a long-term demise was not expected. If anything, a return to midtable felt about on par after the potentially destabilising effect of a feat that any observer would have deemed unthinkable, if not impossible.
Europe, the FA Cup... and no hint of Leicester being relegated
The only time since winning the league when Leicester have been in the bottom three before this season came at the cost of Shakespeare's job, the long-serving former assistant suffering the sack after overseeing a run of one win in eight matches at the start of the following season, 2017/18.
There had already been one shrewd signing to help the club reach the next level by then. Nigeria international Wilfred Ndidi arrived from Gent for around £15.3 million ($19m) and went on to establish himself as a defensive midfielder with the invaluable ability to seemingly cover the ground of several players at a time – replacing the exited N'Golo Kante – and consistently putting in an impressive volume of tackles and interceptions to keep Leicester out of trouble and launch counterattacks.
Kelechi Iheanacho has directly contributed to 50 goals since signing from Manchester City for £25m ($31.1m) in 2017/18, while Harry Maguire joined from Hull City for £17m ($21.1m) before the start of the same season and went on to entice Manchester United to part with £80m ($99.5m) for him two years later.
The list of strong signings made by Leicester goes on and does little to account for their recent slide: England playmaker James Maddison, captain Jonny Evans and much-coveted midfielder Youri Tielemans are among the names to have helped the club become a force in the top half of the Premier League, while Caglar Soyuncu and Wesley Fofana helped to ensure the loss of Maguire was not keenly felt.
Jamie Vardy scored at least 15 league goals in each season between 2017/18 and 2021/22, helping Leicester to successive ninth-placed finishes before former Chelsea and Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers upped the stakes by securing fifth place in each of his first two full seasons, with Vardy the Premier League top scorer in 2019/20.
Leicester fans need no reminding of how recently they had happier concerns than avoiding disaster. They watched their team win their UEFA Europa League group in 2020/21 and reach the Conference League semifinals a season later, although their meek exits – first to Slavia Prague, then to Roma – were underwhelming for a team who beat Chelsea in accomplished style to win the 2021 FA Cup, with Tielemans scoring the winner that day.
Leicester 2022/23: What went wrong?
Most Premier League teams below the 'big six' begin the season knowing relegation is a possibility. Leicester remained an outside bet to be in danger at the start of 2022/23, but there were warning signs.
While the clubs who had finished above them the previous May continued serious investment in their squads, Rodgers did not make any signings during the summer despite Leicester playing a total of 58 games in 2021/22.
Three days before the start of the season, Denmark goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel ended his 11-year stay at the club. More than a number one, Schmeichel was affectionately known as a 'moaner' in the dressing room by his team-mates, reflecting his influential status as a loud voice and a surveillance system for any drop in standards.
Schmeichel's replacements, Danny Ward and Daniel Iversen, have made fans nervous. Ward, in particular, has been maligned as much for his mistakes as his lack of commanding presence, backed up by the underlying numbers.
Both goalkeepers, in mitigation, have been hindered by a lack of protection in front of them, with Ndidi and Tielemans uncharacteristically wasteful in possession this season, or limply losing challenges. The Foxes may wish they had sold Tielemans for what would have been a huge fee after that FA Cup final.
| Season | Weeks spent at top of table | In top three | Top 10 | Bottom three | Final position |
| 2015-16 | 24 | 34 | 38 | 0 | 1st |
| 2016-17 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 12th |
| 2017-18 | 0 | 0 | 26 | 1 | 9th |
| 2018-19 | 0 | 0 | 28 | 0 | 9th |
| 2019-20 | 0 | 28 | 30 | 0 | 5th |
| 2020-21 | 3 | 28 | 28 | 0 | 5th |
| 2021-22 | 0 | 0 | 21 | 0 | 8th |
| 2022-23* | 0 | 0 | 0 | 17 | 19th |
* As of Matchday 36
Fofana did not play for the club in the build-up to his August move to Chelsea for £75m ($93.3m) and that proved a painful loss on the pitch, although it should help the club deal with the record £92.5m ($115m) loss it posted in March, largely caused by spending £100m ($124.4m) on a new training complex.
It is obviously reductive to call out Wout Faes – the defender signed from Reims in September – as emblematic of Leicester's problems at the back, but the hapless Belgian's pair of own-goals in eight minutes seemed to sum up Leicester's plight when they spurned a lead at Liverpool in their final game of 2022.
Since then, there have been attempts to bolster the back line with the signings of Premier League newcomers Victor Kristiansen and Harry Souttar, but both clearly need time to adapt to the league.
Vardy, now 36, appears no longer capable of producing regular goals, with a measly goal return of six by mid-May, while Maddison – in between occasionally reacting spikily to criticism on social media – has spent too much of his time in his own half covering for teammates.
Jamie Vardy goals and assists in all competitions for Leicester since 2015/16 season:
| Season | Appearances | Goals | Assists |
| 2015-16 | 38 | 24 | 8 |
| 2016-17 | 48 | 16 | 7 |
| 2017-18 | 42 | 23 | 1 |
| 2018-19 | 36 | 18 | 4 |
| 2019-20 | 40 | 23 | 7 |
| 2020-21 | 42 | 17 | 9 |
| 2021-22 | 33 | 17 | 2 |
| 2022-23* | 40 | 6 | 5 |
* After Matchday 36
Leicester will not match the 25 defeats they sustained during their previous worst season in the Premier League, when they were relegated in 1994-95 – but their 22nd loss of the season in that lacklustre beating by Liverpool means they will run it close. They are the only team in a major European league without a clean sheet in the entire division since the 2022 World Cup in December.
Several of those setbacks have been comically inept: 5-2 at Brighton, 6-2 at Tottenham Hotspur, 5-3 at Fulham and two defeats to relegated Southampton stand out, although there is ample competition for their worst result and performance of the season.
Return ticket: Would Leicester be promoted from the Championship?
When Leicester finished top of the Championship with 102 points in 2013-14, they did so under the guidance of a manager with considerable experience in the English Football League in Nigel Pearson.
Dean Smith, their current manager who succeeded the sacked Rodgers in April, also has Championship credentials: the 52-year-old won praise for his attractive style of play with Brentford in the division before taking Aston Villa up through the playoffs, but was also sacked in December 2022 by Norwich City because his bosses did not believe he would win them promotion.
Smith has a contract until the end of the season and has been unable to improve Leicester's fortunes following the abrupt and somewhat unexpected removal of Rodgers, who would likely argue that a 1-1 draw at Brentford and a last-gasp defeat at Crystal Palace did not justify his exit.
In Smith's first eight games, Leicester collected five points and just one win. Rodgers averaged 0.3 more points per game this season, his average of 0.9 per match would give him little credible cause to contest his dismissal.
Perhaps more worrying for Leicester is their apparent lack of resolve and confidence. They have dropped 22 points from winning positions this season and twice went more than 30 minutes without attempting a shot against Liverpool.
Top scorer Harvey Barnes and Maddison, who has contributed to 19 goals this season, will be among a procession of players to leave if they are relegated, which may make a manager known for developing players key to their chances of immediate promotion.
As of May 15 2023, Leicester were one of 11 teams to have had fewer than 800 touches in their opponents' box across the season – only the Foxes and Forest had not managed more than 700. Here's the bottom six:
| Team | Touches inside opposition penalty area |
| West Ham | 737 |
| Southampton | 723 |
| Bournemouth | 706 |
| Wolves | 701 |
| Leicester | 696 |
| Nottingham Forest | 617 |
If they are relegated and do not persist with Smith – whose chances of keeping the job may be in doubt even if they stay up – ex-Chelsea manager Graham Potter may fit the profile of coach Leicester are likely to want, although the same could be said for a lot of teams. Impressive within the constraints of a limited budget at former club Brighton & Hove Albion, Potter's brief Stamford Bridge tenure ended on the same day as Rodgers was sacked, and he was immediately linked with Leicester.
Should Potter not relish a return to work in the Championship, Leicester's potential could tempt Ange Postecoglou. The attack-minded Australian is routinely linked with roles in England and may feel he has achieved all he can at Celtic after winning a second Scottish Premiership in emphatic fashion this season. The move from Celtic to Leicester is one well-trodden, after Rodgers did it.
Whoever they turn to, Leicester will hope that the short, sharp shock of their collapse does not make them an oddity for miserable reasons: 1994-95 champions Blackburn Rovers are the only club so far to have been relegated after winning the modern Premier League. They are still trying to return more than a decade on.