Leicester Cityhit a new lowafter going into administration in 2002. The Foxes were previously an established Premier League team under Martin O’Neill before the club dropped into the English Football League (EFL). The Foxes dropped from the heights of the Premier League and into League One after a few disastrous seasons. Leicester City came out of administration and were still a struggling club until they were snapped up by the late VichaiSrivaddahanaprabha.
Vichai was a Thai duty-free billionaire who bought Leicester City while they were struggling in the English Championship in 2010. Since his £39m takeover, Leicester City have grown to become one of the top teams in English football.Also, Vichai was a unique owner in comparison to what was obtainable with the other club owners in English football as he was very close to the people of Leicester City. The late Leicester City owner embrace both the club and the people. Until his death, he donated over £2m to the Leicester Children Hospital.
Leicester City owner Vichaiprovided his employees with a conducive platform and an enabling environment to undergo one of the most rapid rises to the top of English football, including the Premier League title triumph at the end of the 2015/16 campaign. Leicester City won the Premier League against all odds (5000/1) and ahead of the traditional teams such as Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool and Manchester City. The title win came in the Foxes’ second season back in the Premier League having come close to suffering relegation in their first season back with the big boys of English football.
The Premier League title win at Leicester City was partly due to the magnificent input of manager Claudio Ranieri and a sound technical team who spotted a lot of quality players for little money. Leicester City know how to spot quality talents as evident with players such as Jamie Vardy, N’GoloKante and Riyad Mahrez who contributed immensely to their title win.
Since winning the Premier League title, the Foxes have become one of the best teams in the Premier League. The appointment of Brendan Rodgers as the Leicester City manager has been able to elevate the club to a permanent fixture on the European football and the club had to recover from the death of owner, Vichai to achieve this feat. The Leicester City owner lost his life in an unfortunate plane crash in 2018.
Ex-Liverpool, Watford and Swansea City boss Brendan Rodgers has not been able to hit the heights of a Premier League title win like what was witnessed in 2016. However, the Northern Ireland man has been able to build a team that qualifies for European football every season and has the potential to improve further.
In his first full season as the Leicester City manager, Rodgers came close to securing Champions League football for his team before a 2-0 defeat at home to Manchester United ensured that they were only able to qualify for Europa League football via fifth place on the standings. In his second season, Rodgers and Leicester City repeated the cycle as the lost 4-2 at home to North London team Tottenham Hotspur to ensure that they qualified for the Europa League and not the Champions League via fifth position on the standings.
The Leicester City fans were compensated for a late collapse in the bid for Champions League football with the FA Cup win achieved at the expense of Chelsea in the final thanks to the world class strike from Belgian international YouriTielemans. His goal gave the Foxes the FA Cup title last season via the 1-0 win over alight favourites Chelsea. Rodgers and his players were able to build on that FA Cup title win by adding the Community Shield this season. Super Eagles of Nigeria player Kelechi Iheanacho came off the bench to score the goal that sealed the win over Premier League champions Manchester City in the Community Shield at the weekend. His late penalty gave the Foxes a 1-0 win over the Citizens.
The aforementioned FA Cup and Community Shield wins highlighted Leicester City as a formidable team in the English topflight thanks to the input of manager Brendan Rodgers and his coaching staff. Ahead of the new season starting on Friday, Leicester City are not favourites forChampions League qualification just like the last two seasons, but the Foxes have shown in those two seasons that they can push the favourite teams closely in the race to seal one of the four available Champions League spots. To this effect, Brendan Rodgers and his Leicester City players will most likely be in the Champions League qualification conversation by the end of the new Premier League campaign.