Do we deserve this?: Leicester City's mentality is a tanker that must start turning
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall’s Instagram post wishing James Maddison well after his departure from Leicester City divided the Foxes fanbase. David Bevan picks a side and joins the seething masses.
There are so many more important things in life than what Leicester City players are posting on Instagram in the middle of summer.
But like a man stalking through the alleys in Grand Theft Auto, here we go again. I hesitate to do this, because the last time I tried writing about Leicester player’s social media post, I ended up on the wrong side of history. As much as I hate to go down the same route once more, I am left with no choice. When something makes me this angry, I have to start writing.
Yesterday, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall greeted the news of James Maddison's move to Tottenham Hotspur with a gushing Instagram post that included the words "You deserve this and I couldn't be prouder".
Rage against the malaise
Let’s put aside the comic element of him sounding like the beaming spouse of an Oscar winner for a second.
I live 30 miles south of Leicester and even I could see the red glow of anger that rose up above the city when our supporters read those words. Not everyone, of course. There were a lot of people playing it down and leaping to Dewsbury-Hall’s defence.
But I was firmly with the exploding heads on this one. Every time I started to wonder if I was making too much of it, I’d go back and re-read it and I’d be straight back to halfway on the dial between Furious and Apoplectic.
Dewsbury-Hall might seem a strange candidate to pick a fight with given that he’s one of very few members of our squad who probably do care a lot. But isn’t that the worrying part? Who can we rely on here to be pro-Leicester? Even our returning local hero Hamza might be off before he gets the chance to put a reducer in on Maddison in pre-season.
On this site this week, James Knight's response to Maddison's departure was a balanced look at his legacy. I will hold my hands up that what follows is not quite as considered.
“It’s just someone being happy for their friend”. On one level, yes. On another, come on. If respect for the hard-working values of the club was ingrained in the current squad like it was in the late 90s or the middle of the last decade then yes, there’s no problem. But we’re pretty far from that right now.
It’s time we saw some evidence of a change in how footballers treat this football club. In the absence of any actual football, of course we want to see a bit of that on social media.
It's utterly ridiculous for any current Leicester City player to say one of their team-mates "deserves" a move to another club.
If we were in a much better place, perhaps there would be a tiny molecule of understanding.
But we're not.
We've just been relegated with an extortionate wage bill and, while there's a bit of optimism around the fanbase at the appointment of a new manager and the prospect of some new players, it's not based on anything solid yet. Unless they're on the verge of a move themselves, our players should still be in the mindset that there's a huge amount of work to do to put things right.
What they should not be doing is congratulating those leaving the sinking ship as if they’ve won a prize.
Mentality monsters
Obviously a lot of fans have picked up on the fact that the prize is, in this case, Tottenham - despite the fact we've won a series of trophies since they last did anything, despite the fact they aren't even in Europe next season, despite the fact we beat them 4-1 only four months ago.
I don’t really care about any of that, as much as I enjoyed having those digs.
Ultimately, even if Maddison was off to Manchester City it would still be unacceptable for any of our players to say he'd deserved a move there and they were proud of him. These are things that shouldn’t happen to any football club that places any kind of value on itself.
This is about the mentality. If you play for Leicester City, you've either got to show enough ability and workrate not to be questioned or it's got to mean something.
Despite the ongoing exodus, we're still jam-packed with players to whom none of those criteria apply. The Praets, Soumares, Vestergaards of this world. I wouldn't question Dewsbury-Hall's workrate and I think it does mean something to him to play for the club, but if you don't want the fanbase to analyse what you say publicly then maybe it would have been better to drop old Madders a DM instead?
Words like these expose the mentality and bring out in plain sight what we fear too many of our players actually think. Our problems last season were rooted in this idea that it was fine to just drift along until something better came up. Rodgers. Fofana. Tielemans. Maddison. They were all fairly openly waiting for a better offer. In most cases, better than they ended up taking.
But while they were here, nobody did anything about the effect it had on the club. Nobody in the boardroom suggested it was a problem that our most talented players were all completely uninvested in the long-term success of the football club because they knew they’d be somewhere else next season. "We'll be fine". Until we weren't.
Put an Enzo to it
Now we look to be showing a modicum of ambition in the transfer market and I am optimistic but I'm also trying desperately hard not to be frustrated that we didn't do this at any point in the past few years, when a bit more ambition might have tipped us over the edge into Champions League qualification or staying up.
Instead we just drifted along and while we definitely need to put all that behind us now, it's difficult to do that when there are still remnants of this pathetic mentality cropping up.
This is a time of opportunity, and that applies to players who were already here as much as the ones coming in. The reset brought about by relegation is the perfect time to re-connect with the supporters, draw a line under what’s gone on before and stop saying things which drive a wedge into the heart of the fanbase.
My hope is that Enzo Maresca puts an end to it, and the early signs have been promising in that regard. Maybe at some point the communications department cottons onto the fact stuff like this infuriates elements of the fanbase and puts on a little player education programme too.
What I expect from a Leicester City player is incredibly basic. I don't think it's too much. I want them to work hard and show some respect for the club and the shirt and the badge and the fans. That's it. I don't demand brilliance. Just show us that it means something to you.
There’s already a sense that will be the least of Enzo’s demands, and I can’t wait.
Because I think that’s what we deserve.
So let’s end on a positive with some of Enzo’s own words about who deserves what.
“First of all, we're going to give 100 per cent, absolutely, because the club deserves this. It's our job, our duty to do that.”
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