Looking on the bright side
Peering ahead to the 2025-26 season
At least we know now. Leicester will be relegated and will once more play in the Championship next season. That’s not a mathematical certainty at this point, but look at the league table (we are in 19th, with 17 points from 27 games, so we realistically need to double our points tally in the next eleven games to have a chance of staying up), and at the fixtures ahead (we still have to play Chelsea today, Man City, Brighton and Forest away, and Man Utd, Newcastle and Liverpool at home), and I can’t see any remotely plausible scenario where we avoid the drop.
Ten years ago, we somehow managed a memorable Great Escape - we had 19 points at the beginning of April 2015 and more than doubled that tally in the final nine games of the season; but the fixtures were much kinder then, and there was plenty to build on, as our problem was that we couldn’t win, not that we couldn’t score. Now we can’t do either: six consecutive home defeats without a goal is apparently a top flight record, and not one you get a medal for. Also my daughter started coming to matches at the start of the Great Escape, and even if I thought she brought us luck last time round, I’m not going to persuade her back now.
There’s no point in sacking Ruud van Nistelrooy now - I don’t know yet whether he’s a good manager (he manages to get us to play better against better teams, but we still lose), or whether we should keep him on next season. But there is no reason to think that any other manager we could realistically get at this point would give us any more chance of being in the Premier League next season.
So hope has drained away, and rather than remaining in despair in the empty hope-bath [note to self - need to think this metaphor through before using], we can go and have a beer and look ahead. Hopefully the rest of the season will give us the odd fleeting moment to smile about - maybe we’ll take the lead against Man Utd, even if only for two minutes, or see Jeremy Monga score a last-minute consolation against Liverpool or something - but mostly the next few weeks will have to be endured through gritted teeth and fingers, doing our bit at the KP, for what it’s worth.
No doubt next season will be difficult. Not only coping with the practical consequences of relegation - loss of players (and possibly of manager) and the need to adjust rapidly to a new division; and the fact we did that with unexpected deftness in 2023 should not give us confidence we will be able to do so again - but also some serious financial chickens are waiting to come home to roost. It appears we may have significantly overspent last season when we were in the Championship, but escaped back to the Premier League before the league could do anything about it. At best we will not be able to spend freely on good players like we did season, when our squad was of a quality that most other teams in the league could only dream of. Possibly we will face transfer bans and points deductions, leaving us feeling relieved if we end up in mid-table rather than ‘doing a Luton’ and plummeting towards a second successive relegation. Goodness knows what XI we will be watching in August, but I suspect it will be an unfamiliar one, though I hope one we can get behind.
Amid all this gloom I decided to find ten reasons to feel positive about next season. Not the easiest of challenges, but here goes.
Leicester women are likely to stay up, and play a fifth consecutive season in the WSL. After a difficult start to the season, this was far from certain a few weeks ago, especially when we lost badly to newly-promoted Crystal Palace, who were pencilled in to go straight back down (as it now looks like they will). We lost our best attackers to injury in the autumn, and hardly scored any goals for the first half of the season (three in the first 11 games), though our defence, led by the increasingly-impressive Sophie Howard, has been solid: only five WSL teams have conceded fewer goals. But manager Amandine Miquel seems to be up and running now, with a battling win against Liverpool and a dismantling of Villa in our last two home games. Ruby Mace (though now possibly injured) is on the fringes of the England squad, and our attack has more teeth with new striker Hlín Eiríksdóttir giving some focus, Cain back, Cayman showing her class, Goodwin getting better every game, and Nelly Las showing great promise for the future. Next season, when Rantala, Petermann and Mouchon will hopefully all be back our attack could be excitingly potent. I hope more people come to watch.
Amandine Miquel during the win against Villa As for the men, there is lots of good young talent coming through the academy. Jeremy Monga (who will be 16 in the summer), if we can keep him, Will Alves, Ben Nelson, Sammy Braybrooke and Jake Evans all have the potential to help make an exciting young team next season, as they step up or return from loan.
We’re likely to lose some expensive players we won’t be that sad to say goodbye to. No names no packdrill.
There is no VAR in the Championship.
We might actually win some games. Don’t knock it, easy to forget but it’s more fun that way.
Fatawu will be back. How we’ve missed him this season.
A 46-game season means season tickets are better value.
We’ll be able to play FPL as neutrals. Saying that I’m doing much better this season than I did last, so not sure this one works in practice.
There’s a chance I might see my second team, Luton, at the KP for the first time, though that will require Luton to get their act together to avoid being in League One next season (maybe I’m fated never to see them).
We’re more likely to get another season out of Vardy in the Championship than if we were in the Premier League. This is a complete guess on my part, and unashamed sentimentality. But wouldn’t it be fun to see him have just one more season in a league where he’d have a chance of bagging a few final goals?
Anything else?
