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Questions for Ranieri
- Updated: December 8, 2016
After Leicester’s record-breaking 5-0 Champions League defeat to Porto, Claudio Ranieri finds himself facing new questions about the team’s stuttering season. Adam Bate was at the Estadio do Dragao to witness a sorry night for the Premier League champions…
Leicester had already qualified for the knockout stages of the Champions League as Group G winners with a game to spare. Some achievement and one that the travelling supporters really had to force themselves to remember as Porto utterly dismantled a weakened Foxes team 5-0 in the Estadio do Dragao on Wednesday. Context is everything.
Champions League qualification. Another dream city break for the fans. Bruges and Copenhagen had already been ticked off so add another to the list. In one sense at least, Leicester’s fairy-tale continues. After all, just to be in this competition at all acts as a tangible reminder of the club’s extraordinary title triumph just seven months ago.
But there is another context to this. There’s the Premier League table. The five-game winless streak that includes defeats to West Brom, Watford and Sunderland. The fact that they are two points above the drop zone. Leicester are making Chelsea’s title defence seem serene. Such is the predicament that Saturday’s visit of Manchester City can no longer be seen as a free hit.
With that in mind, Claudio Ranieri left sluggers such as Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez at home in the hope that a break might reinvigorate some of the characters who so lit up last season. But in doing so he robbed Leicester of the chance for their European escapades to provide a fillip for fans and sustain any semblance of confidence in this squad.
“If we had to win, maybe all my players would be here, but I can choose,” Ranieri has said beforehand. “Always I have said we have a very good team. There are some players who didn’t play so far – they deserve their chance to show their potential.” If that was the plan it could be deemed an utter failure within 45 minutes of the kick off.
By that stage, Porto were three up, scoring …
