The Fosse Way

On the assumption that we’re about to get hit by a points deduction, this season becomes about survival and nothing else. In some ways, this simplifies things. Leicester are not in a position to appoint a manager based on their long term vision or tactical approach. This is the moment for a purely vibes-based appointment.

You can’t sign anyone or do anything to improve the team. Rather than choosing between crap left backs, the job is to glue the shattered remnants of the club back together for a few months and get everyone pointing in the right direction. As much as I personally agree with those who are chanting against the board and sympathise with those howls of anger every time we concede, it’s pretty obvious that sort of atmosphere is not helping the team on the pitch.

The only way to stop that from happening is by doing something drastic and hiring someone based on what they mean to the club rather than whether they are necessarily a brilliant manager at this moment. We have followed good managers we didn’t like with increasingly crap managers we didn’t like. Now is the time for a manager we definitely do like and we go from there.

Give it Big Nige until the end of the season.

James Knight

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There’s an inevitable pragmatism that has to come into the process of thinking about who Leicester City’s next manager should be. We could barely afford to sack and pay off Cifuentes, we’re certainly not going to be poaching anybody who’s already in role. If we could afford to poach them, we probably don’t want them. So you’re looking at the list of available managers filling up the back of the managerial merry go round who haven’t already been chosen by clubs who have acted quicker and been more decisive than Leicester.

It’s not a list that’s going to thrill many people. The obvious choice, if you cosplay as our leadership and don’t acknowledge any bad decisions and continue as you’ve been doing, is Russell Martin now that Michael Carrick has fallen upwards. But that’s a type of manager for a Leicester team who haven’t kicked off the season yet, who aren’t staring down a relegation battle after a point deduction and who have a squad that could play the Russ way. Maybe a club whose fanbase don’t already dislike the bloke would help too.

Whoever takes the job, if it’s for anything less than a favour to a club they still love (Nigel Pearson, Andy King), they likely needs a check-in from family because even on paper, this looks like a tough gig. There’s no money to spend, there’s still players in the midst of the club earning big wages who checked out months ago, there’s some promising kids but we’ll probably sell them if anybody offers and they’ll get precisely no public backing.

The arguments for a third Nigel Pearson tenure make sense, and few could be unhappy. This club needs a man who isn’t afraid to get stuck in and to make his voice heard, to kick a few into action.

If not him, a Tony Mowbray type could have the same effect. It doesn’t need to be inspirational as such, it just needs to make an impact and be willing to work with very little. For financial reasons, just keeping us up seems to be the bare minimum we need. Anybody but Russell for me, please.

Helen Thompson

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Who do I want next? Realistically, a new DOF would be top of my list but I digress.

Let’s be honest, Cifuentes wasn’t great, but the hand he was dealt set him up for failure and this hand has not been shuffled by removing Marti. Whoever we get will still have to deal with the fallout from several years of horrendous mismanagement, and a fanbase that is now so disconnected and frankly, toxic, that even our own youth players are coming in for criticism from the stands.

We now need to be realistic. Despite being only 6 points off the play-offs, a relegation battle seems much more likely. The goal is simple: avoid the drop. On this front there are only two, viable options when you take into account that the likes of Mark Robins are unobtainable thanks to our inexplicably-still-horrendous financial situation.

One would be someone akin to Gary Rowett, a defensive-minded coach able to hopefully stop this barren run without a clean sheet. Admittedly Rowett’s most recent stint at Oxford was hardly brilliant, but I’ve seen shouts for Tony Mowbray too and while deeply uninspiring, he would provide this sort of change also.

The other option would be Nigel Pearson, with Andy King as a number 2. King is very early in his coaching career, and the full-time gig feels too soon. But Nige. If there was ever a man to fix the fractured relationship between the club and the stands, it would be him. Adored by Leicester fans, he would be given full backing from the word go and that much-maligned player power that has been so much of an issue at the club for several seasons would surely baulk under the pressure of a manager such as Pearson.

It is not a move without it’s drawbacks but as an option until the end of the season, it might provide the stability we are desperately craving.

Jamie Thorpe

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The major point here is, does it matter? All the problems at board level remain, regardless of who’s on the touchline. It’s miles past the time the hierarchy fell on their swords and accepted responsibility for our outrageous decline.

Looking ahead, the reality is, we’re not able to spend any money, which will rule out compensation for a manager currently in work. To be honest, who would want to come here at this point anyway? The situation is bad and may well be much worse by the time we play Charlton.

Some of the available managers are pretty scary too. If Top and Rudkin really do want to pour petrol on the fire, they’ll appoint Russell Martin which would be the final straw for many. Sideways and Backwards? More like Backwards full stop. Personally, I’m sick of these ‘trendy’ possession without a purpose managers and he’s the worst of the lot.

With all of the above in mind, I think we should stick with Andy King and see if Sir Nigel can come in above him (like Dave Bassett did with Micky Adams 20 odd years ago). I genuinely don’t want another manager to have to deal with this squad, so a fresh start all-round in the summer would be preferable (assuming we don’t start handing out new contracts!) I know King and Pearson is a ridiculous suggestion, considering it’s not that long ago I was calling for Unai Emery to replace Brendan Rodgers, but we’re a ridiculous club.

If we survive this season and are still in the Championship, there would be far better options in the summer, plus the possibility of King continuing if he’d done well. If not King, Robbie Keane is a name on the up and has been doing some exceptional work at Ferencváros and will inevitably end up somewhere in the summer. But that’s for another day, surviving this season is the priority and I feel the Kingy/Pearson combo is the best chance of creating the sort of atmosphere that may allow that.

Iain Wright

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We’ve had plenty of practice in the past few years talking about who should be the next Leicester City manager. And while the past three have all been unmitigated failures, you can see the logic behind each appointment.

First, following an ideologue in Enzo Maresca with a supposedly more pragmatic manager with experience of keeping a team in the Premier League.

Second, replacing Steve Cooper with someone more closely aligned (to use his favourite word) with Maresca: a big name in the football world who should have been able to command authority in the dressing room, who talked about the game in a similar way to Enzo.

Third, a manager with a blend of Championship experience and a tactical approach that matches what our hierarchy supposedly want – at a stage of his career that meant Leicester City could provide either his defining spell in charge of a club or the stepping stone so many managers crave, while bringing success during his stay.

The issue is that the only opportunity for player recruitment over the past two years came during Cooper’s brief reign, which lumbered us with numerous players incapable of playing the modern, dynamic football craved by the fanbase.

In our current scenario, it’s not about the specific name but about the ownership being open to changing the style of football and the admission of mistakes being followed by a new approach.

As part of his charm offensive on the fans, Marti Cifuentes talked a lot about how he liked the club’s “Fearless” and “Foxes Never Quit” taglines of the past. What we saw from his football was completely at odds with that, a total lack of identity and no strength of character either from the manager or his players.

You can see the desire both in the answers on this page and among the wider fanbase for Leicester to truly return to what made us so good in the past. Whether this squad is even capable of putting in the hard yards is difficult to tell. Perhaps they think it’s beneath them. There have been fewer and fewer teams beneath us every week though, and reality should be hitting home for everyone now.

David Bevan