The Fosse Way

How Leicester City that the man replacing Ruud van Nistelrooy as Leicester City manager is the man on the receiving end of Ruud van Nistelrooy’s record win as Leicester City manager.

That may be a fact but it’s also completely uncharitable to Martí Cifuentes, whose much-changed QPR team impressed in large spells in the first half of that foggy FA Cup thrashing back in January.

They had impressed even more at the same venue last year when beating Enzo Maresca’s champions-in-waiting, and also in the Loftus Road encounter earlier that season despite Leicester’s victory.

In all three matches, Leicester had the vastly superior squad but there was a sense that Cifuentes was coaxing the absolute maximum out of his players to make them competitive for long periods.

We wait to see what this season’s Leicester squad will look like. At the moment there are almost three full XIs of players you could argue can be competitive at Championship level.

Even if we lose three or four of them, and even if a reasonable points deduction is applied, the prospect of a manager who maximises the impact of the kind of squad we’ll be left with is tantalising.

This is not the narrative among a lot of people. And it’s understandable to see Leicester City as a club in total disarray, with financial issues, takeover talk, a bloated squad, a broken relationship between the supporters and the board.

Does that make Cifuentes the perfect appointment, given his experience of working in challenging conditions at previous clubs? The apparent breakdown in his relationship with QPR’s director of football, Christian Nourry, feels like it should be cause for concern. 

But today’s publication of the Foxes Trust supporter survey results is a reminder, if needed, that the problem was never really going to be whoever took the managerial position. Of 3,214 fans surveyed, only 4% have confidence in the senior management to effectively manage the club day-to-day.

This is the scenario Cifuentes is reportedly not just willingly walking into, but from a financially disadvantageous position.

One of Cifuentes’s main challenges will be to reinvigorate the fanbase. Last season was mentally draining but that weariness didn’t end with relegation and the opportunity to win football matches more often. The club’s total inability to dispatch PSR concerns once and for all takes its toll on many supporters’ enthusiasm. Perhaps a heady mix of a new manager, a young squad and a points deduction will rebuild a sense of togetherness and, crucially, the siege mentality the best Leicester sides have always fostered which has been missing for so long.

Unfortunately, true togetherness seems unachievable while the same power trio who have overseen the club’s decline in recent years retain the keys to the castle – unless the approach changes drastically. There’s been little sign of that so far this summer, with desperately-needed transfer activity yet to begin and the traditional lethargy about big decisions like the managerial situation.

There’s also something of a divide about what success looks like. Promotion, yes, but given last season’s chastening experience, there is also a sense that many supporters would be happy merely to build, get rid of deadwood and set the club back on a more even financial keel. Can that be done without Premier League riches? And once the real thing kicks off, will supporters truly be content not to gain promotion from a league Leicester took 97 points from last time around?

Expectations will be important. Cifuentes managed to retain support from the majority of QPR fans in the midst of a desperate run at the start of last season, which begs the question of historical parallels. A Pearson-esque rebuild feels necessary, although there are no signs it’s imminent. Next summer, however, a whole raft of expensive players’ contracts come to a close. Reshaping the squad and getting it back on track, even if the playing style might not be popular with everyone, sounds more like the Puel days.

Most of all, the need for unity and the Championship setting takes us back to the Enzo era and the issues that many fans had with Maresca’s style of play. There was great joy at Preston in April last year but there had also been furious toxicity at Plymouth 17 days earlier. The buzzword last summer became “pragmatism”, which makes this article by a QPR fan on the Cifuentes approach promising reading – the word “pragmatic” makes several appearances, as does the Cifuentes quote “Adapt or die”.

Maresca, it seemed, would rather have died and Leicester’s promotion hopes nearly died with him until Hamza Choudhury’s goalline heroics against West Bromwich Albion turned the tide and Maresca was practically forced into tactical change by an even greater ideologue when Russell Martin’s Southampton encouraged an endless wave of counter attacks.

It helped that Leeds blew up, nowhere more so than at Loftus Road when Cifuentes masterminded the 4-0 victory that secured promotion for Leicester. But Leicester fans may be hoping Cifuentes, as well as bringing the kind of acumen that helped that night, also learns from what Leeds have done since. The array of attacking talent Leicester’s social media team have been eagerly showcasing at Seagrave over the past couple of weeks is reminiscent of the flying wingers that hauled Leeds to the title last season.

The real question about how pragmatic Cifuentes will be, if the squad remains largely as it is, concerns the defensive phase. Where Maresca had Hermansen and favoured Vestergaard and Faes, it has been largely assumed – or at least hoped – that Leicester will be starting the season with Stolarczyk, Nelson and Okoli. From what we’ve seen, it seems unlikely that Stolarczyk and Okoli in particular would be able to replicate the kind of comfort with the ball demonstrated by Maresca’s goalkeeper and centre-backs.

Cifuentes appears to favour youth, bringing down the average of his previous squads quite significantly despite difficult circumstances, so perhaps we won’t automatically see the most senior centre-backs in situ. Will Cifuentes join supporters in hoping Conor Coady’s much-vaunted move to Rangers materialises?

The full-back positions tell a similar story of varying skillsets – with Ricardo, Justin, Coulibaly, Thomas, Kristiansen and Aluko to choose from at present, Cifuentes has the luxury of shaping the side exactly how he wants. Is that a naive thought? Will clubs suddenly be queueing up to take our most prized defensive assets from us? It seems unlikely at the moment, particularly as most fans probably don’t think we have any.

Midfield is a trickier proposition, with Wilfred Ndidi seemingly the closest to the exit door and the remaining midfielders all in need of repairing their reputation with the supporters for various reasons. But at Championship level, even Boubakary Soumare could end up looking like a superstar in the right setup if he stays. The key is motivation, although it would be ideal to refresh this position as much as possible.

Every manager craves a gamechanger. Leicester arguably have four or five in the positions behind the striker. Bilal El Khannouss feels most likely to leave although solid links have been scant and he could be a late August departure on loan. Cifuentes’s desire to isolate opposition full-backs one-on-one is reminiscent of Maresca and the thought of the likes of Fatawu, Monga and Mavididi given the ball in dangerous positions time and time again is what is keeping us going at the moment.

The problem is the striker for all these exciting players to play behind. Cifuentes may favour more of a physical focal point in attack, which points more to Jordan Ayew than Patson Daka of the current senior options. The question is more whether Leicester need to, or can, “replace” Jamie Vardy. Given the finances, attracting a player capable of taking on that ridiculous mantle seems unlikely. 

Replacing the greatest player in the club’s history is just one item on a very long to-do list. Welcome to Leicester.