Leicester City Board Under Pressure to Get Next Managerial Appointment Right

BBC Sport senior football news reporter Nick Mashiter, speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Monday Night Club, discussed Leicester City’s decision to sack manager Steve Cooper on Sunday. Mashiter remarked, “The board have put themselves under an awful lot of pressure now because they’re now looking for their fourth manager in 19 months.” Dean Smith had taken over from Brendan Rodgers last April. Mashiter commented on this period, stating, “you could argue that wasn’t an appointment that worked because they went down. They were heading down at the time but that didn’t work.” Conversely, Enzo Maresca’s tenure was successful, with Mashiter observing, “of course that worked because he got them back up straight away.” Steve Cooper’s management lasted for 157 days. Mashiter concluded by reiterating the current challenge: “So the board have put themselves under an awful lot of pressure to get this right.” He further explained, “There’s not a point in going down the wrong road, if you feel you’re going down that road, any longer. You should just nip it in the bud and make that decision, so in those terms I think they deserve credit for deciding that’s the way they want to go, but I think there needs to be more spotlight on the board now in terms of how they’ve handled things and appointed their managers over the past 18 months.”