During Leicester’s self-immolation tour of the Championship, we would be critiqued for a sense of entitlement. What gives Leicester City the God-given right to expect to beat Millwall, or Blackburn, or Oxford United?
This would often come from opposition fans. Just as often, it would come from inside the house. This is our level. The last few years were an aberration. You should never expect anything again.
While there has been an increase in criticism of the leadership as the club has plunged new depths, it’s strange how limited this is. A few die hard freedom fighters, daubing ‘sack the board’ on their prized bedsheets, a bit of chanting.
How bad does it have to get before this changes? Where is the line at which we reach a Sheffield Wednesday-esque state of mass protest? Do we hold the line at Burton Albion?
This was only the fifth League defeat Leicester have ever suffered at this level. One wonders how many there will have been by May.
The Evils of Okoli
Calamity and disaster has taken such deep root that only a deep cleansing has any chance of reversing the course we’re on. This was the fourth time in a year Leicester have had a man sent off before half time and the sixth time they have gone two goals down in the first half over that period.
What was once happening in the Premier League happened in the Championship and is now happening in League One. The club cannot stabilise itself.
The systemic failures and individual evils coalesce in the person of Caleb Okoli. For sheer longevity, he must be one of the worst players ever to pull on the shirt. This is a player signed for 12 million pounds to play in the Premier League who would have been hooked in disgrace against a League One side were there literally a single other human being at the club available to replace him.
Our Italian Stallion set the tone for this game inside a minute, when he lost out to a bouncing ball to the Burton midfielder, Charlie Webster, and then clumsily brought him down. He continued to set the tone by getting dragged out of position and failing to win a tackle for the first goal, then giving the ball away for the second.
Okoli should obviously not be playing for Leicester City any more. If you are Russell Martin, however, your options to replace him are Wout Faes, who we suspect might not be ready to die for the cause, and Kevon Gray, whose entire professional career is comprised of an 88th minute substitute appearance. Needless to say, this is not a great demonstration of squad-building.
Look elsewhere on the pitch and the same thing applies. Oliver Skipp, another Premier Leaguesman, has been absolutely rubbish throughout his Leicester career, almost certainly doesn’t want to be here either, and cost his team at the worst possible moment again. For as much as his red card was a tad harsh, if the ostensibly senior players routinely hurt the team as much as this, we have got no chance.
Skipp, Okoli, and Bobby De Cordova Reid have all been sent off this year now in games that Leicester lost. Yet this remains the cornerstone of the team because of the lack of options. Skipp’s only plausible replacement is Hamza Choudhury. De Cordova Reid’s competition in the forward line is a man who has been in the country for a week. There has been, and can be, no accountability for these mental errors.
Brussball
Already the pressure is ramping up on the manager, who desperately needs a couple of wins to buy some breathing space. Particularly at home, where a crowd that has only witnessed two league wins in 2026 is restless.
The restlessness is mostly about results, but everyone is clearly fed up with a style of play that isn’t suited to the players available. On numerous occasions in the three league and cup games so far Leicester have given the ball away passing across their own box. When Luke Thomas, another of the “get this man out of my sight” brigade, did it to start the second half here it was greeted with a cascade of fury worse than when the team actually conceded a goal.
Even playing with 10 men for an hour, Leicester had 75% possession. Once again it all largely came to nothing. All that possession generated a grand total of three shots on target, the same number as Webster had on his own for Burton. Wes Burns’ equaliser made up the majority of the 1.1 xG the Foxes created. The only even vaguely reasonable chances came from Harry Souttar headers or a couple of tame free kicks.
The fact his team were a man down for so long is some mitigation for those statistics. But the problem is that Martin has a reputation for exactly this sort of performance. Even when players make individual mistakes, his whole aura is so built into the style of play that they rebound on him. When Olabade Aluko wasted numerous attacks in the first half with dreadful passes out of play, it was his fault. but also kind of Martin’s fault. Because for all that there were brief moments of good football, Leicester passing the ball around aimlessly for the whole game while the other team scores every breakaway is both too much like what we have watched for years and entirely on brand for the manager.
Martin also has the Brendan Rodgers trait of making ill-advised, bizarre statements when he’s under the pump. Asked why he took Admir Bristric off inside an hour when chasing a goal – a decision that was greeted with more howls of derision – he talked about his lack of fitness and then said “By the way, Admir’s not a guy who’s going to head it, it’s not his game.” Bristric is a 6’2″ centre forward, who was replaced by a 5’7″ winger.
Martin is not responsible for the mad squad he has been given, nor for the utter lack of transfer activity. He does though need to prove he isn’t just a deluded demagogue who’s damaged goods after his emasculation at Rangers. There are players with his stamp on who have not started well – Alex McCarthy, Liam Cullen – and decisions he’s making that are not helping matters. Whether that’s the Bristric sub, choosing Thomas over Christian McFarlane, even picking Okoli over Gray.
This is even more true because where he has freshened up the team there are flickers of something. Jayden Joseph last week repaid the trust Martin has shown in him, while shifting Will Alves to the left has made him look a significantly more dangerous player. His cutting inside created Joseph’s goal against Notts County and Burns’ goal here, while you can easily imagine a few goals into the far corner for Alves himself from that position.
As has been the case for too long, this was all drowned out by the failures of senior figures. This, obviously, extends well beyond the pitch, where Jon Rudkin et al had four months to prepare the team for this season and have begun it with a squad nowhere near ready to compete.
This was a bad defeat that feels worse because of the prospect of what this season could become if there is not serious work done over the next week. Leicester have needed the spine of a new team for years, now they have to find one in a few days.
