Seven years after Leicester City produced one of the greatest sporting stories of all time, Foxes fans were left dejected, as their Premier League relegation was confirmed.
Despite winning their final game of the 2022/23 season, at home to Europa Conference League finalists West Ham, Everton's narrow 1-0 victory over Bournemouth ensured their own safety at the expense of the Foxes, who were doomed to the Championship.
Weeks before that final sentence as handed to them, Leicester had opted to sack long-serving manager Brendan Rodgers, as their poor form in 2023 escalated. Dean Smith was appointed to replace him on a short-term deal, but the former Aston Villa boss could not save them from the drop.
So, what has gone wrong for Leicester? How did the club go from a Premier League triumph in 2015-16 to crisis mode just a few years later? The Sporting News takes a detailed look.
Premier League champions to relegation: An inevitable demise?
The most commonly cited symbol of Leicester's feat in that glorious 2015/16 season is the 5,000/1 odds bookmakers had offered on them to finish top of the table. It would be hard to overstate the achievement, which must feel less like seven years ago and more like a dimension away to supporters right now.
Leicester are a large club with an immense history, but their achievements until then had been modest, appearing in major European competition three times and completing the last of five successive years in the second-tier Championship two seasons earlier. They won the third tier title in 2008/09.
Over-achievers usually suffer a hangover in a division where the ceiling of the top six tends to be sealed off by the financial gulf advantaging the established contenders. It is unsurprising to reflect that 2016/17 was Leicester's worst campaign before the 2023 relegation, such was the drop-off after winning the league.
Inimitable title-winning manager Claudio Ranieri was sacked after a 2-0 defeat at Swansea that left them a place above the relegation zone, but Leicester hovered in the middle of the bottom half for much of the season and never dropped into the bottom three, finishing 12th with the help of five wins in a row to start successor Craig Shakespeare's reign.
If a fall-off was inevitable, a long-term demise was not expected. If anything, a return to midtable felt about on par after the potentially destabilising effect of a feat that any observer would have deemed unthinkable, if not impossible.
Europe, the FA Cup... and no hint of Leicester being relegated
Since winning the league, the only time Leicester have found themselves in the bottom three places before this season came at the cost of Shakespeare's job. The long-serving former assistant suffered the sack after overseeing a slump of one win in eight matches at the start of the following season, 2017/18.
There had already been one shrewd signing to help the club reach the next level by then. Nigeria international Wilfred Ndidi arrived from Gent for around £15.3 million ($19m) and went on to establish himself as a defensive midfielder with the invaluable ability to seemingly cover the ground of several players at a time — replacing the departure of N'Golo Kante — and consistently putting in an impressive volume of tackles and interceptions to keep Leicester out of trouble and launch counterattacks.
Kelechi Iheanacho has directly contributed to 50 goals since signing from Manchester City for £25m ($31.1m) in 2017/18, while Harry Maguire joined from Hull City for £17m ($21.1m) before the start of the same season and went on to entice Manchester United to part with £80m ($99.5m) for him two years later.
The list of strong signings made by Leicester goes on and does little to account for their recent slide: England playmaker James Maddison, captain Jonny Evans and much-coveted midfielder Youri Tielemans are among the names to have helped the club become a force in the top half of the Premier League, while Caglar Soyuncu and Wesley Fofana helped to ensure the loss of Maguire was not keenly felt.
Jamie Vardy scored at least 15 league goals in each season between 2017/18 and 2021/22, helping Leicester to successive ninth-placed finishes before former Chelsea and Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers upped the stakes by securing fifth place in each of his first two full seasons, with Vardy the Premier League top scorer in 2019/20.
Leicester fans need no reminding of how recently they had happier concerns than avoiding disaster. They watched their team win their UEFA Europa League group in 2020/21 and reach the Conference League semifinals a season later, although their meek exits — first to Slavia Prague, then to Roma — were underwhelming for a team who beat Chelsea in accomplished style to win the 2021 FA Cup, with Tielemans (below) scoring the winner that day.
Leicester 2022/23: What went wrong?
Most Premier League teams below the 'big six' begin the season knowing relegation is always a possibility. Leicester remained an outside bet to be in danger at the start of 2022/23, but there were warning signs.
While the clubs who had finished above them the previous May continued serious investment in their squads, Rodgers did not make any signings in the summer of 2022 despite Leicester playing a total of 58 games in 2021/22.
Three days before the start of the season, Denmark goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel ended his 11-year stay at the club. More than wearing the No. 1 jersey, Schmeichel was affectionately known as a 'moaner' in the dressing room by his team-mates, reflecting his influential status as a loud voice and a surveillance system for any drop in standards.
Schmeichel's replacements at goalkeeper, Danny Ward and Daniel Iversen, have made fans nervous. Ward, in particular, has been maligned as much for his mistakes as his lack of commanding presence, backed up by the underlying numbers.
Both goalkeepers, in mitigation, have been hindered by a lack of protection in front of them, with Ndidi and Tielemans uncharacteristically wasteful in possession during 2022/23, or limply losing challenges. The Foxes may wish they had sold Tielemans for what would have been a huge fee after that FA Cup final.
| Season | Weeks spent at top of the table |
Weeks in Top 3 |
Weeks in Top 10 |
Weeks in Bottom 3 |
Final position |
| 2015-16 | 24 | 34 | 38 | 0 | 1st |
| 2016-17 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 12th |
| 2017-18 | 0 | 0 | 26 | 1 | 9th |
| 2018-19 | 0 | 0 | 28 | 0 | 9th |
| 2019-20 | 0 | 28 | 30 | 0 | 5th |
| 2020-21 | 3 | 28 | 28 | 0 | 5th |
| 2021-22 | 0 | 0 | 21 | 0 | 8th |
| 2022-23 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 18 | 18th |
Fofana did not play for the club in the build-up to his August 2022 move to Chelsea for £75m ($93.3m) and that proved a painful loss on the pitch, although it should help the club deal with the record £92.5m ($115m) loss it posted in March, largely caused by spending £100m ($124.4m) on a new training complex.
It is obviously reductive to call out Wout Faes — the defender signed from Reims in September — as emblematic of Leicester's problems at the back, but the hapless Belgian's pair of own-goals in eight minutes seemed to sum up Leicester's plight when they spurned a lead at Liverpool in their final game of the 2022 calendar year.
Since then, there have been attempts to bolster the back line with the signings of Premier League newcomers Victor Kristiansen and Harry Souttar, but both clearly needed time to adapt to the league.
Vardy, now 36, appears no longer capable of producing regular goals, with a measly goal return of six by mid-May 2023, while Maddison — in between occasionally reacting spikily to criticism on social media — has spent too much of his time in his own half covering for teammates.
Jamie Vardy's Leicester City goals and assists (all competitions)
| Season | Matches | Goals | Assists |
| 2015-16 | 38 | 24 | 8 |
| 2016-17 | 48 | 16 | 7 |
| 2017-18 | 42 | 23 | 1 |
| 2018-19 | 36 | 18 | 4 |
| 2019-20 | 40 | 23 | 7 |
| 2020-21 | 42 | 17 | 9 |
| 2021-22 | 33 | 17 | 2 |
| 2022-23* | 40 | 6 | 5 |
Return ticket: Will Leicester be promoted from the Championship?
When Leicester finished top of the second-tier Championship with 102 points in 2013-14, they did so under the guidance of a manager with considerable experience in the English Football League in Nigel Pearson.
Dean Smith, their current manager who succeeded the sacked Rodgers in April, also has Championship credentials: the 52-year-old won praise for his attractive style of play with Brentford in the division before taking Aston Villa up through the playoffs, but he was also sacked in December 2022 by Norwich City because his bosses did not believe he would win them promotion.
Smith's contract is up after showing he was unable to improve Leicester's fortunes following the abrupt and somewhat unexpected removal of Rodgers, who would likely argue that a 1-1 draw at Brentford and a last-gasp defeat at Crystal Palace did not justify his exit.
Top scorer Harvey Barnes and Maddison, who has contributed to 19 goals this season, will probably be among a procession of players to leave now that they are relegated, which may make a new manager known for developing players the key to their chances of immediate promotion in 2023/24.