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Leicester City have a proud tradition of beating the odds. At the start of the 2015-16 Premier League season, the bookies rated them as no better than 5,000-1 long shots to win the title, only for the Foxes to send shockwaves around the world by doing exactly that in what is regarded as one of the greatest upsets in the history of sport. Five years later, they lifted the FA Cup despite having been priced up at the comparatively miserly – but still hefty – odds of 16-1. Earlier this week they were at it again, somehow contriving to defy the laws of probability by surrendering a three-goal half-time lead at home against Southampton and snatching the most unlikely of defeats from jaws of victory that weren’t so much gaping as unhinged like that of a snake. A capitulation that came just four days after they had been docked six points for financial shenanigans, it left them just one place above the drop zone and staring down the barrel of back-to-back relegations to League One.
A title-winning midfielder with Leicester, Andy King has been in interim charge since the sacking of Martí Cifuentes last month but insists he doesn’t want the job on a full-time basis despite his legendary status at the club. It’s just as well as he probably won’t be offered it after masterminding three successive defeats, but both Steven Gerrard and Sean Dyche have been tenuously linked with the gig. Heavy has been the head that has worn the crown at Leicester since their promotion to the Premier League in 2024. Having proved too weighty for Steve Cooper, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Cifuentes, now it seems too much of a burden even for a man named King. “It was a horrible night,” he said of his side’s surrender to Southampton, on a night when home fans told his players they’re not fit to wear the club’s shirt. “[The players] are angry, they share the frustration and they’re working hard to put it right.”
