Leicester had no choice as Claudio Ranieri lost trust of his players

Leicester had no choice as Claudio Ranieri lost trust of his players

Relive Claudio Ranieri's best moments during his unforgettable season that saw Leicester City crowned league champions.

Adversity often reveals a side of a manager that you never knew existed. Since Claudio Ranieri's dismissal by Leicester City less than a year since he orchestrated the most captivating Premier League title success in history, the charge that he had "lost the dressing room" has been uttered more than most in an attempt to make sense of it all.

Reports that some senior players spoke to the club's Thai owners about their issues with Ranieri's methods after the 2-1 defeat to Sevilla in the Champions League make unhappy reading for a club still basking in the afterglow of last season, whatever the results have been like in their title defence.

But when players' confidence and trust in their manager disappears, it rarely, if ever, returns. It is not the result of a few choice words after a loss, or a player being told something he doesn't want to hear. Nor does it stem from a solitary error of judgement, which comes with the territory.

More often than not a series of baffling decisions, wild swings in strategy and a lack of consistency are why belief in a manager wilts and eventually dies. Eventually it is a feeling within the dressing room that the manager makes winning harder to achieve.

Players want to win more than anything. Leicester's haven't reached the upper echelons of their sport without professional pride. They will be hurting, and willing to shoulder much of the blame for the club's shortcomings this season.

Jamie Vardy and Claudio Ranieri talk tactics.

So it is too simplistic to portray them as listless and lazy, letting down the man who led them to glory last season. They are flawed, human, just as Ranieri has been shown to be. Trying to match the unheralded heights of last season was always likely to prove testing, as was the management of that inevitable descent. Success is a collective effort -- as Leicester's triumph epitomised -- but so too is failure.

During a bad run of form, with the threat of relegation looming menacingly, the atmosphere becomes more weighty and morose each day. It is hard to break free from and, as you tumble down the league, managers often flit between good cop and bad: exasperation, frustration and anger are vented after a defeat; then follows a desperate attempt to lighten the mood. Fun-filled training sessions with even more laughs than the good times suddenly appear one day, followed by long hours and fitness work in a desperate attempt to find a cure for failure.

A manager knows he needs his players with him. But sometimes the pressure, the sense of helplessness, makes that fact easy to forget.

It is an eternal mystery that managers, many of whom were once players themselves, so easily forget what would have riled them during their own playing days. A manager I played for once called the whole squad in for training at 7 a.m. the day after a defeat, much like Sam Allardyce did after Crystal Palace's 4-0 loss to Sunderland recently. Allardyce made his players watch the game on DVD; my manager decided to make us run around the pitch for 45 minutes. Not a little jog. Timed laps, continuously: a running session a matter of hours after a game.

If a manager preaches the importance of professionalism, recovery and refuelling, then runs you ragged the day after a bad defeat, you don't quite see him in the same light thereafter. He was smart though: he knew he had run out of ideas so, a couple of weeks later, when January arrived, he got rid of half a dozen players and brought in half a dozen more. He reminded us who the boss was. Ranieri may wish he had been similarly ruthless.

Steve Nicol says too much has gone wrong for Leicester this season for Claudio Ranieri to continue as manager.

At the start of last season Ranieri was celebrated for not making changes to a set-up where little change was needed. He heeded the advice of those around him, coaches and staff who knew the players well and how to get the best from them. This season, in adversity, he has ramped up the intensity of training to levels that have left players exhausted and exacerbated, with little time away from the club to refresh the body or mind.

Ignoring the advice of your staff, punishing your players, is counterproductive, as we've seen. Poor form provides a very different challenge to a manager and in that respect, this season Ranieri has failed, either to get the best out of his players or, to replace them adequately if he could not.

Fans around the world fell in love with the charming and jovial Italian last season, and the miracle he oversaw will forever be remembered. The statement of Leicester owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha in offering his "unwavering support" to Ranieri a fortnight ago before sacking him on Wednesday, leaves a bad taste in the mouth but the decision should not be a surprise.

In a spiral of discontent, with so much at stake -- financially, most of all -- to leave Ranieri in charge of a sinking ship, no matter what, would have been a decision grounded in nostalgia. In a business where loyalty has all but disappeared, it is surprising he lasted this long. In the end, there was no other option once he lost trust of the players. It's just that nobody wanted it to end this way.

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