After losing to former manager Enzo Maresca’s Chelsea 2-1, newly promoted Leicester City made the abrupt decision to fire manager Steve Cooper with the Foxes now 16th in the Premier League table.
Here are three burning questions Leicester must answer after a mildly controversial managerial decision.
Why hire Steve Cooper in the first place?
The first question that pops into my head in the aftermath of Cooper’s dismissal is simply, why even hire him in the first place? Leicester City have canned Cooper before Julen Lopetegui – though he could conceivably be fired on Monday if West Ham lose badly enough to Newcastle.
Lopetegui had an even bigger summer of investment to work with than Cooper, and he certainly had greater expectations with the Hammers than Cooper with the Foxes.
So if 16th after about four months played for a team that was relegated the last time they were in their Premier League is a fireable offense, you get the feeling that Leicester didn’t have Cooper on much of a leash to begin with.
And that implies Leicester City were never really believers in Cooper, which jibes with what many fans of the Foxes felt before the season; he was seen as a highly underwhelming candidate and a poor fit, clashing with the more attacking playing style of his predecessor Maresca.
It turns out playing plodding football doesn’t help a manager’s case when the results are poor, but, in Cooper’s case, were the results really that bad? Leicester, after all, are the only promoted team to sit above the drop zone after 12 matches, though a one point advantage over Ipswich Town is hardly impressive.
Still, when Kieran McKenna is touted as the next great thing in English coaching and is still below Cooper in the table, you have to wonder if the timing of the firing is more about the Foxes admitting they made a mistake early and cutting ties with someone they rushed into, rather than Cooper getting fired solely on the basis of the team’s performances.
Do Leicester City realize how bad their squad is?
Because that raises a corollary to the first question. It seems as though Leicester City may be underestimating the job Cooper has done thus far, simply because they are overestimating how poor their squad is.
If Leicester City can avoid relegation, which is where they have stood under Cooper, then their 2024/25 Premier League season has to be taken as a success. That is literally their only goal right now, which, by the way, Cooper is very good at.
The Foxes brought in a lot of new faces this summer, and loanee Facunduo Buonanotte is their best player thus far. After him, Abdul Fatawu is their second most impressive attacking piece, while former Serie A center back Caleb Okoli is having a very good season, too.
Outside of those three, it’s hard to say any of the new additions have materially helped Steve Cooper succeed, and you shudder to think how woeful this squad would be without Fatawu and Bounanotte – not even their player. They’d be in Southampton territory.
A 37-year-old Jamie Vardy is Leicester’s leading goal scorer, and, again, a player who isn’t even theirs is the star man. And they are having to give significant minutes to some of the Premier League’s most derided footballers in Jordan Ayew, Harry Winks, and Wout Faes.
Their squad reads like a “worst of” list of flops and rejects in the English top flight, and Fatawu and Okoli may be the only starters with any long-term value to the Foxes.
Cooper can’t be faulted for any of this, and Leicester shouldn’t exactly pat themselves on the back because a busy summer window does not necessarily equal a great one.
Who is the replacement?
Whoever walks into this mess is apparently going to have to do a lot better than 16th to avoid getting fired, though, I guess if our working hypothesis is the threshold to fire was unusually low for Cooper, the next coach can get away with maintaining a spot above relegation.
Either way, the Leicester job isn’t exactly a premium position right now, especially with how quickly Cooper was dismissed. That doesn’t exactly make a gig look more attractive to a suitor who then has to worry about their own status being scapegoated by an unaccountable board.
The pickings are slim, particularly if managers are waiting for the West Ham job to open up, because, well, who in their right mind would take coaching Fatawu, Vardy, and Buoanonotte for a few months over working with Mohammed Kudus, Jarrod Bowen, and Crysencio Summerville?
Leicester City aren’t operating from a position of strength. David Moyes, funnily enough, might be the best Premier League manager available, and if the Foxes really want to scorch the earth, they could hire an interim coach and bide their time for Jose Mourinho – or even pay Fenerbahce to give them the Chelsea legend.
I jest, but you can’t help but wonder if Leicester City already have a replacement lined up for Cooper, perhaps a bold splash they didn’t have the guts to sign in the summer before settling on the former Nottingham Forest manager in late June.
Graham Potter is the best option available of the serious ones, Frank Lampard is the most established bold manager, and Ruud van Nistelrooy is easily the most high-upside bold managerial hire. Daniele De Rossi and Edin Terzic are two others worth keeping in mind, though Terzic appears to be close to West Ham if Lopetegui is axed.
There are a few other big names like Niko Kovac, Max Allegri, and Maurizio Sarri available, but I doubt Leicester City will be able to attract any of them. If it’s attacking football they want, well, for starters, they’ll need better attacking talent to coax a better attacking coach, but, two, Potter and Van Nistelrooy would be the two dream gets.
