The Fosse Way

It should go without saying that a crucial Leicester City victory in the battle against relegation to League One would have been the best outcome imaginable from the visit of Norwich City on the final day of February. 

Sadly, it didn’t happen. Even a battling draw was beyond our brave boys as they hit repeat on any number of home games this season. And so those of us who chose to march behind a King Power Out banner before the game were at least vindicated as the players put in a performance that showed exactly why we are protesting. 

These are the players we have for a reason and it’s time more supporters started putting two and two together to realise how this mess has been allowed to happen.

The chant of the day was an attempt to squash this absolute myth that protesters alone are somehow bringing negative vibes by calling for change at the top. 

Back the team, sack the board. 

It couldn’t have been clearer. Yet the overriding experience of the protest wasn’t so much the feeling of unity among those protesting as the vacant expressions of those watching on as we passed. There was little to no support, anger or outcry. In their place, complete passivity.

Perhaps that is what “supporting” Leicester City has become for a lot of people. The board are passive. The managers are passive. The team is passive. As the club spirals towards the third tier and an uncertain future, let’s not rock the boat, eh?

If you’d been in any doubt about whether the anti-protest posters floating around social media had anything behind them, these 90 minutes confirmed they were just AI slop with no basis in reality.

The behaviour of some protest critics prior to this game would have had you believe we were in for a non-stop cauldron of noise from the home areas, regardless of the scoreline. In truth, these people either aren’t attending or aren’t backing up the bold words it’s so easy to pepper across social media.

In the end, it was much like almost any other home game this season. The Union FS and wider standing section “backed the lads” as always. Then upon the concession of two quick goals in succession, the entire place fell into silence as thousands filed out. For so many, “backing the lads” seems to involve sitting in silence, clapping along to the occasional chant and shuffling home ten minutes before the final whistle

It had been unusually noisy at the start, with plenty of vocal backing for Gary Rowett in his first game as manager. There was support for a returning goalkeeper whose confidence has been fragile, Jakub Stolarczyk restored after Asmir Begovic was stricken in the warmup. The sight of Jordan James on the bench brought further optimism.

Sadly, even the mystical powers of the new manager bounce are not enough to lift this appallingly constructed squad. The underlying problem, buried beneath the surface moans at Patson Daka misses or Caleb Okoli passes, is an inherent lack of desire. The culture created, made evident by Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha chuckling about getting promoted next season, is one of utter complacency.

We’ve seen evidence that almost all of these players are individually capable of competing against Oxford, Charlton or Norwich. Part of the problem is that Oxford, Charlton and Norwich want it more. By and large, their players haven’t experienced Premier League or European football. They haven’t earned big wages, they don’t earn big wages and, on an even more basic level, they want to prove themselves in the second division.

Despite an increasingly miserable season, our players don’t look like they have to prove anything to anyone. As close as we get to an elusive clean sheet, there will always, always, be a mistake ready to put the kibosh on things. Plenty of these players will be off in the summer anyway, one of the many echoes of the 2022/23 relegation.

In Norwich’s case, it would be grossly unfair to label this a victory earned purely through hard work. They looked accomplished and stylish in the way they moved the ball and created space. In Ali Ahmed, plucked from Vancouver Whitecaps, and Edmond-Paris Maghoma, from Brentford’s reserves, they possessed the two standout attacking players on the pitch. Their defence was merely the latest unheralded set of names to comfortably deal with the Leicester “threat”.

There was also a stark difference in midfield between the constant urging, organisation and manoeuvring of 34-year-old Kenny McLean and the Winks and Skipp combo that had functioned so well at Middlesbrough but which clearly lacks the leadership qualities you might expect from experienced players who have competed at the highest level.

Leicester have now won 10 of the past 36 home league games. Following a promising performance at the Riverside, some fans are understandably worried about where the next win will come from. Even if our run-in looks kinder than West Brom’s, this is still a tanker that needs to start turning. Leicester have one league win in 2026 and are now without a victory in nine league games, without a clean sheet in 29.

In contrast, Norwich have won 10 of their 13 games this calendar year. For a team that appeared down and out earlier in the season, they looked like a champion boxer only deigning to turn the screw two-thirds of the way through the bout. Just past the hour mark, the intensity was ratcheted up and, familiarly, the team in blue couldn’t cope.

It was one of Marti Cifuentes’s main failings that he failed to react when the game was clearly getting away from Leicester. Substitutions needed to be made here to freshen up a badly fading side. Fitness is so obviously a major issue with this squad. A lack of reliable substitutes in key positions is another, and how Rowett accommodates the returning Jamaal Lascelles and Jordan James may decide which division we find ourselves in next season.

Four days is a long time in the life of Leicester City Football Club. Things came crashing down after the relative positivity of Middlesbrough. Rowett must already have known the scale of the task but this game underlined it. Where there was a fairly consistent threat in a difficult midweek fixture, Leicester reverted to type here, failing to register a single shot between the 23rd and 61st minutes. 

It was impossible to give a Man of the Match award to any of the home side, a truly sad indictment when you can usually find someone who shone brighter than the rest or battled well in tricky circumstances.

In any other season, this would have felt like a disaster. But a group of opposition players gathering in front of the away end to celebrate wildly at the final whistle is now entirely normalised.

There are several ways you can measure the decline of this football club. Next Saturday we’ll have one of the clearer ways. Leicester and Ipswich have finished in a similar league position for each of the past two seasons, Leicester marginally the better side with a slightly higher points total. This meeting will take place with the gap standing at 26 points but the real chasm is far wider, with the finances of the two clubs a world apart.

This defeat came ten years and one day after the same fixture ended with a goal that caused an earthquake. When you look back at that period now, the sense of unity is overwhelming. There shouldn’t be a single person who doesn’t want that feeling to return. We just disagree about the best chance of that happening. 

But those who decry protests, who claim anyone protesting must have only started supporting Leicester City in 2016, who feel we should be grateful for our recent achievements regardless of the present turmoil, who wrongly assume we weren’t there in the early 1990s when we narrowly avoided relegation to the third tier, or the early 2000s when we had to help save our club, or the late 2000s when we finally did drop to new depths?

These people may not be culpable for relegation and the uncertainty of whether we will have a football club to support, but they deserve it as much as anyone.