It was almost spontaneous. As the roar from the travelling Fulham fans started to fade after Emile Smith Rowe’s goal three minutes after the restart, the familiar chants began.
“We want Rudkin out, say we want Rudkin out.”
It has become a sporadic part of the chanting repertoire for some Leicester City supporters over the past three years as their club has gone from one that has challenged the elite of the Premier League to one that is just sinking in the quicksand to the Championship for the second time in three seasons.
Jon Rudkin, the club’s director of football for the past 10 years, is seen as a key figure in that decline.
The glory years of the Premier League title win in 2016, the Champions League, two more European campaigns and winning the FA Cup will never be forgotten, but they feel like a distant memory for the supporters who headed for the exits after Adama Traore drilled home the second goal to dampen Leicester’s fading survival hopes.
Ruud van Nistelrooy’s side have lost seven consecutive league games for only the fourth time in their history. They have failed to score in four consecutive home league games for the first time since September 1983 (run of five) while they have drawn a blank in five of their nine Premier League games under Van Nistelrooy. They did so in just one of their first 13 matches of the season under Steve Cooper and caretaker Ben Dawson.
With those numbers, it was not just Rudkin who was targeted by the chanting.
There were chants for “Sack the board” and, when Van Nistelrooy took off the popular figure of Bilal El Khannouss just four minutes before Traore’s strike, there was a chorus of boos and chants of: “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
Van Nistelrooy’s side have lost seven league games in a row (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
Leicester have gone from being a model of how to compete with the top clubs to being characterised by poor decision-making and a lack of accountability.
The supporters have every right to demand answers and action as they watch their club become a fading shadow of what it once was.
Ten years ago, after a 1-0 home defeat to Stoke City, Leicester were bottom of the Premier League, three points from safety but three points better off than they are today.
The managerial structure was generally as it is now, but there was one huge difference — the inspirational, much-mourned figure of Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha was at the helm.
Back then, his son, Aiyawatt, worked closely at the club, reporting back to his father who looked over the King Power Empire from Thailand. He worked with Rudkin, who had just been promoted to director of football, while chief executive officer Susan Whelan managed the club’s general affairs.
It was a winning formula at the time. Now, the gulf left by Khun Vichai’s tragic death in the 2018 helicopter crash has never seemed bigger.
Khun Top has stepped into his father’s role to manage the entire King Power portfolio and has also started a family. Away from football, the family has also filed a £2.15billion fatal accident claim against the manufacturer of the helicopter in which his father died. An inquest into the deaths of the five people killed in the crash also began last week.
Khun Top has much more on his plate than just Leicester, but he remains the chief decision-maker of its affairs. He needs more help.
Rudkin is in charge of football affairs, although he delegates major decisions to Khun Top. But managing Leicester’s football matters has become a huge concern. Other clubs have appointed people to assist the director of football to manage the workload and speed up the decision-making, which has become too slow at Leicester.
Recruitment has been a huge issue. It has become scattergun, with no clear vision.
Rudkin, left, delegates the bigger decisions to Khun Top (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
With five managers in the past three years, the ultimate decision on which players are brought in has been left to each of the individual managers. But with managers as diverse as Brendan Rodgers, Enzo Maresca, Steve Cooper and now Van Nistelrooy (Dean Smith did not get a transfer window), all have had different opinions on players, leading to no clearly defined philosophy on who is the right fit for the club.
One check on signings has been profitability and sustainability rules (PSR). While no Premier League club has been charged with PSR breaches in the most recent assessment, Leicester remain in a legal battle with the Premier League over club losses incurred during the three-year accounting period ending in 2023-24.
Instead of the club challenging a manager’s decision on a signing, it appears as though they have been given carte blanche.
Jannik Vestergaard is a classic example. Wanted by Rodgers, and then unwanted, he was rewarded with a new three-year contract by Maresca, unused by Cooper, but is now back at the heart of Van Nistelrooy’s defence.
Funds are precious with Leicester’s profit and sustainability concerns, but they tried to back Cooper last summer with an £80million gross spend. Only two of those signings started against Fulham — El Khannouss and Jordan Ayew.
Caleb Okoli and Oliver Skipp were recruited for a combined total of £33million. They may prove to be sound investments, but right now they are squad players and for a challenge as great as remaining in the Premier League, Leicester needed players who can overwhelmingly improve the starting XI.
The decision to use up one of Leicester’s two Premier League loan spots on striker Odsonne Edouard has been a disaster. He cannot even get into the matchday squad and would be extremely expensive to send back to Crystal Palace.
They need reinforcements desperately in this January transfer window. With two weeks to go, only one has arrived: full-back Woyo Coulibaly, for £3million, from Parma.
With PSR still potentially an issue, Leicester are struggling to do any other deals without generating more funds.
Tom Cannon was recalled from his loan at Stoke City and Leicester are trying to sell him to generate funds to be reinvested. Several clubs have expressed an interest in taking Cannon on loan, and Van Nistelrooy has said Leicester are “looking in this window at his situation, what would be best for him and for the club”. But Leicester need to move much quicker. But to many, there appears to be a lethargy that is out of place with the club’s precarious predicament.
Unlike in 2014-15, when Leicester signed Robert Huth on loan and Andrej Kramaric for £9million, there are no funds to play with. Leicester need to conjure up something special or Van Nistelrooy, who said funds and the January window were part of his negotiations with the club when he agreed to join, will be left to play the hand he has been dealt. He stressed publicly after the Fulham game nothing had changed.
In 2015, Nigel Pearson decided to make changes in his approach and personnel. It paid off. Leicester survived and so began an incredible era in the club’s history.
Ten years on, it feels very different. But changes are needed at Leicester City just as much if they are to survive.
(Top photo: Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images)
