This evening a team hovering one point outside the relegation zone, and with one win in ten league matches, decided they had a better chance of survival if they changed their manager. Why exactly is this decision so outrageous?
Leicester City are not getting the results they need to stay in the league at the moment. It's as simple as that.
Who's to blame? The players some might say, but what are the Leicester City board supposed to do about the players between now and the end of the season? In reality the only change they could make is to hope that a new manager could liven up a squad which has been sleepwalking its way back down to the Championship, despite the best efforts of Claudio Ranieri.
Many - including most in this office - will disagree but to be honest I'm struggling to understand the anger at his sacking. Yes, winning the league last year was a monumental achievement but what has that got to do with the situation in February 2017? The argument seems to centre around a lack of loyalty but what good is loyalty for loyalty's sake?
If Leicester were to remain loyal to Claudio Ranieri and get relegated what good would come from it? Would the club be better off in the Championship? Would Ranieri's reputation as a manager be enhanced? Would the fans be happier? In all my days of watching football I have yet to see supporters invade a pitch to celebrate a great show of loyalty.
Ranieri deserves huge respect for what he's achieved at the club but you simply cannot run any operation on yesterday, you must pay attention to what is happening today, and today Leicester City are in real trouble. Perhaps he is getting the best any manager could possibly get out of that team but with the money they spent over the summer and given that they were already a side which managed to win a league title, never mind a couple of games in ten, the likelihood is that they're currently underperforming.
It's a damn shame that this fairytale did not have a happier ending but the current reality is one which no amount of nostalgia can save.
