Mission complete - but Leicester City still desperately need changes at the top
“Mission. Complete,” tweeted Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall following last Saturday's trophy celebrations at a gloriously sunny King Power Stadium, and, when focusing solely on the football, it's impossible to disagree.
Since 1996, only 27% of relegated clubs have returned straight back to the Premier League, and let's not forget, ours wasn't just any old relegation. It had been an unexpected fall from a great height. The bigger the fall, the harder the landing, and yet, land we did.
Despite the heavy turnover of players, new management and a fresh style of play, the team hit the ground running and got a difficult job done. It wasn't always easy, nor exhilarating, but a 97-point total, a promotion and a Championship trophy tell the story of a mission very much complete.
But as the confetti settles and Voulez-Vous slips back down our streaming algorithms, a feeling of flatness takes over and anxious thoughts about next season take hold.
How is that even possible?
Post-relegation seasons are an opportunity to learn, heal, and rethink. It's a chance to rebuild the squad and the relationship with the fans. It's a chance for the club to prove that lessons have been learned and that a bright new era is being born out of the ashes. We've nailed this process a number of times, most notably after our relegation to League One.
The relationship between the fans and the club was in a really bad way following relegation, not only due to the entirely avoidable relegation itself but also due to a wider set of off-the-field decisions. The stands were a mixture of apathy, anger and detachment.
So, after a season that featured 31 wins and concluded with the Championship trophy being hoisted into the Leicestershire air, how are we all feeling? Confident that lessons have been learned? Basking in the warm flow of a newfound trust and togetherness with the club?
Despite a mission complete on the pitch, there is no doubting that the wedge between fans and the club is now larger than it was prior to the season, and trust in the decision-makers has taken a further beating. How is that even possible?
We can all fill in our own reasons here and, to be honest, there are far too many to list out. The PSR breach and the £25 loyalty tax have taken the spotlight, and rightly so, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.
The relationship between the club and the fans has been strained for a while, it's just that a lot of us didn't want to admit that a previously blissful marriage had now become one of neglect and resentment.
Heads reappearing from the sand
The celebrations seen over the weekend have been joyous and memorable, if not characteristically slightly badly organised by the club. It has felt great to celebrate again, and also learn some brand new rules for Rock, Paper, Scissors. However, they will do little to appease the King Power FC theorists.
A sea of Thai family members, friends, and, apparently, social media influencers featured heavily during both Saturday's and Sunday's events, as did a photo of Vichai emblazoned with the Straight Back Up logo. Spotting the players in amongst it all was difficult, spotting the trophy was even harder. Even everyone's favourite Director of Football popped up to show his face on a number of occasions. There is nothing alarmingly wrong with any of that, but context is key here. There has been a total lack of visibility and a scratchy radio silence from the club's senior hierarchy over the last year or so, but that seemed to dramatically change once there was something shiny and silvery to grab hold of.
Celebrating success shouldn't really be frowned upon, but when the club's relegation was largely down to a "we'll be fine" attitude and a collective burying of heads in the sand, you can understand fans worrying that this latest trophy might add further buckets of sand on top. This is something to celebrate, and the players and fans should do so to the maximum, but from the board's perspective, this is not a trophy to hold up as proof of a well-run football club. It is not a token of King Power's brilliance. It can't be used to decorate a mere blip in the club's crusade to become an established European qualifier.
The board has to be humble and realistic about the mistakes that led to our relegation, as many of them still persist to this day. They have to be more in tune with how the fans are feeling and they have to care more about how their decisions will be received. They also have to be realistic about where the club is currently at. The landscape has changed drastically over the last couple of years and no amount of ticker tape or confetti is going to cover that up.
“This is fine”
We all know the classic "This is fine" meme of a cartoon dog sipping coffee as the room around him is engulfed in flames; Leicester fans probably know it better than most. Even the club's rumoured new third kit seems to be a homage to it. Well, that meme seems to perfectly encapsulate this football club right now.
A disastrous and entirely preventable relegation resulted in no changes to personnel or structure within the club's senior hierarchy. There was no external communication issued regarding lessons learned or a plan of action to steer the ship back to steadier waters. For the second season running, the club's manager has publicly expressed their frustration at being kept in the dark regarding the club's finances, only to be told the truth once a transfer window was about to open. The PSR breach was met with anger and indignation from the club, with not even a smidgen of self-awareness that perhaps they might be a tiny bit responsible for haemorrhaging £215m over the last three seasons.
Even our Premier League return will be greeted with the welcome home gift of at least one points deduction and the necessity to sell one or two of our prized promotion winners.
So as the long summer break begins (four weeks longer for us than last season) we all wait with bated breath to see what the club does next. There are contracts to renew, players to sell, players to buy and a manager that needs convincing to stay, but before all of that, egos need to be put to one side. There has to be a period of genuine self-reflection if the club are to improve the deep-rooted mood within the fanbase and stand any chance of reestablishing ourselves as a well-run Premier League club.
Mission complete, but this isn't fine. All is not well and that beautiful Championship trophy isn't going to shield us from the flames that are currently engulfing us. The only way to tackle those flames is with genuine changes at the top, alongside both a renewed effort to energise a fatigued fanbase and a sustainable (and relegation-proof) plan for the future.
Do that, and communicate it clearly and transparently to the fans, then maybe we will be fine after all.
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