On 2nd April 2023, Brendan Rodgers was finally pushed out of the door. This after guiding Leicester City into the relegation zone on the back of a fifth defeat in six games, stubbornly doing the same things over and over.
Those unlucky enough (myself included) to have been at Crystal Palace for the April Fool’s Day loss having made their voices clear and angrier than ever. Leicester had taken a 56th minute lead only to squander it soon after, an own goal just 3 minutes later. A draw would have helped but in 90+4, we crumbled with essentially the last kick of the game. Another loss, Brendan’s last.
Our board didn’t exactly have the next man lined up and appointed mere moments after his predecessor’s sacking. But proving that memory is an unreliable narrator, while it felt like a long time before we did get a replacement, it was in fact only an 8 day wait before the club appointed Dean Smith.
His appointment came after a failed attempt to onboard Jesse Marsch. Smith was given a short-term deal until the end of the season, 8 games left to try and save us. Starting with an away trip to Manchester City wasn’t ideal but the damage was already mostly done.
Between allowing Rodgers too much time, about three months longer than any manager should have lasted, and after allowing him to oversee a January transfer window; the week of dead time just added to the sense of watching a train crash play out in slow motion and not being able to stop it. The hammer blow was that Leicester played two home games in quick succession between Rodgers and Smith.
Two big chances to get much needed points, possibly winnable games, Bournemouth first and Aston Villa after. With caretaker managers Mike Stowell and Adam Sadler, we lost both and it felt like an entirely wasted week. When relegation was confirmed, we were only two points off safety. It’s hard not to lament that entire four month spell as a series of ‘what if’ moments.
History repeating
It only took us 17 days to replace Enzo Maresca with Steve Cooper. Yes, we had just been promoted so our stock was arguably a lot higher but we apparently had very little to no money to spend and the PSR charges still loomed large. We’d wasted most of that time allegedly pursuing a manager who had no intent of joining us.
There’s a sense of history repeating, and why wouldn’t it? Those above us still haven’t come to understand what caused that relegation, so how can they properly prepare or prevent the current threat of one? No lessons, if learned at all, have been shared.
22 days after sacking Marti Cifuentes following the loss to Oxford, it was largely silence until John Percy broke the news of advanced talks with Gary Rowett. All we’d had before this was an alarming rumour that we’d tried to get Maresca back, followed by the gambling companies jumping on internet rumours to shorten odds.
This delay left poor old Andy King to pick up the remaining crumbs of the squad, become the spokesperson for the deduction, the injuries and erm, try to be the motivator overseeing three games. But at last, assuming Percy’s intel is solid, Leicester City appear to have finally got their a manager.
To modify the line from Batman, if Andy King is the future (once he’s got some experience under his belt) manager we deserve but (definitely) not the one we need right now, does that make Gary Rowett the latter? Rowett has managed more than 400 games at this level and has been in relegation battles before, so maybe.
Rowett is another former player, although in very different circumstances and a much shorter tenure than King: 49 appearances between 2000 and 2002, leaving just before our last major financial crisis. Some fans may not like it, but this is where we are right now and of the names available who are realistic, he’s one of the better candidates.
From the horse’s mouth
Whatever you think of it, it doesn’t look like a hugely planned appointment. Last week Rowett was interviewed before we took on another of his former clubs, Birmingham City, and made a prediction for the job:
“I think they’ll make a change as well, managerial wise. I think they’ll be really ambitious with their next appointment. If they are in the top six, I think it’s a very different appeal to the job.”
Either his ego is inflated, which seems unlikely listening to him, or he was interested in the job but felt he wouldn’t be a top candidate. It’s likely given the time that’s elapsed that we’ve had failed attempts to hire others and we’ve got down to the section of the list with Rowett on it. We might be back in Steve Cooper territory of the only man that actually wants the job. At least Rowett is a less loaded name with no Nottingham Forest connections.
However, there was something else interesting in this interview:
“I think the next step for Leicester has to be the right step for them because you can’t go from winning the Premier League to being in League One in a matter of a few seasons, that is very, very poor management, so they’ve got a big month coming up, I believe. I think they’ll be fine but I think they’ve got a big month coming up.“
If the club does decide to hire a man that’s already publicly critiqued us like this, they aren’t getting a yes man. Which does feel like a subtle shift. Rowett is also seemingly more outspoken than others, a reputation of willingness to speak to media, he has appeared on the Second Tier podcast on a couple of occasions including after his sacking recently. Assuming the club don’t slap an NDA on him upon exit, he’s likely to discuss his experiences.
One appearance on another podcast, Not the Top 20 in May 2025, offered insight into how Rowett keeps himself busy away from football (he talked about running the London Marathon for the 5th time, posting a very respectable time) but mainly covered his managerial ethos and how he helped Oxford survive.
To pick out one section that will interest Leicester fans, he talked about coming into a club midway through a season and why he felt he could turn it around with them:
“If you look at coming into a club around that time, you have two choices in some ways. You’re either a head coach, manager who’s wedded to a system and you’re going to try and deliver and coach that system, regardless of the players and regardless of where they’re at.
Or you’re a manager that comes in and you try to look at the capabilities of the players, you look at the division, you look at your experiences and you’re trying to find a way to get the very best out of those individuals within a system that suits and that’s what I’ve always tried to do.”
The 30 minute podcast is worth a listen if you want to hear from the man directly and get a sense of his character and how he feels about the game. It’s also very clear what his approach is and how he wanted things to unfold at Oxford. The sort of clear communication we pine for.
He comes across well, not arrogant: useful when thinking of the earlier quote speculating about our next manager, but determined and with clear expectations.
Substance over style?
He seems to have no problem speaking to fans, addressing fans and being honest in his assessments. He doesn’t appear to be wedded to a particular system, he’s unlikely to insist on playing it out from the back and short passes if that’s not working for us.
Having been relieved of his duties at Oxford in December following a series of poor results, he’d been there a year and the style may not have thrilled people, which he acknowledges. This isn’t an appointment that’s going to have a lot of the fanbase happy, and the rest won’t be particularly excited. But that’s okay.
We don’t need excitement currently, we just need somebody that can effect change and get us some results. Any excitement in the process would help, but right now we’d all just settle for a win or the chance of not conceding several games every game.
Having deployed long throws and set pieces, here’s Rowett’s own take on this from his time at Oxford:
“People told me that the team were trying to play an expansive style of football. But the reality is that if that style of football’s not winning you games, and your job is to win, my job’s never been to make myself look good or to make the style of play look attractive to others. It’s basically we want to win games for the fans, but we also short term needed to find a way to win those games.
If that meant being a little more pragmatic, we actually had a meeting with the players with about 10 games to go and the players were asking for a more pragmatic style because they felt like we just needed to get over the line.”
The above is interesting. Offer this up to Leicester fans in a long term environment and you can see it going sour, attendances possibly still dwindling, but in the short term this pragmatism sounds like exactly what we need. The players definitely need the boost of winning a game, however it is achieved.
Rowett is a manager who speaks passionately about looking to the resources available, the young players and balancing when is the right time to bring them in. He’s been around some excellent young players at clubs, Jude Bellingham at Birmingham, Romain Esse at Millwall. While he may have to use them a little more than he’d like, he has a lot to get stuck into at Leicester. It would be great to see him grow the likes of Jeremy Monga, Louis Page and Olabade Aluko.
He is very familiar with one of the pillars of our defence, having had Ben Nelson on loan at Oxford and suitably raving about him. For a club in desperate need of some organisation and stability in defence, Rowett’s record here is of interest. He’s got a 34% clean sheet record from his games managed at Championship level. Perhaps that doesn’t sound hugely impressive until you remember we’re currently working with just 7 clean sheets from the last 72 competitive games.
Fans from his former clubs have been giving some good intel. Oxford fans don’t have much positive to say about watching his football, but again, if we could grind out some results, it would still be an improvement on what we’ve endured of late. Millwall fans seem to speak more of his flexibility, adapting to what he’s got and being defensively solid, backing up what he speaks to.
It’s difficult to have much of an opinion on whether this will be a good or bad appointment or whether it’s already too late again. After the last three appointments, trying to predict how it’ll go seems a little fruitless. It does relieve Andy King and protect his reputation. He could be an asset alongside Rowett, but will take none of the heat should we find ourselves relegated to League One.
Rowett has longer than Smith had. There are still 14 games to avoid relegation. The last thing Rowett will want is to be the manager in charge on the 10th anniversary of the Premier League title, with relegation either already confirmed or in progress. He survived with Oxford in 2024/25, we have to hope he can work some magic and deliver some gritty results to see us over the line.
If we are only bringing Rowett in, initially, until the end of the season, that seems relatively sensible. He’s not had the opportunity to influence a transfer window, and he’s got to shuffle a somewhat limited, very young squad.
The main criticism would be looking at the club again because he’s been available for the last 23 days and it’s taken us this long to act. If the gap at the end does come down to one or two points in true Leicester fashion, this stretch of time and the two league losses will be looked back on with frustration.
The Fosse Way 