With just 11 games left to save their Premier League skin, Leicester City are in an almighty mess, but they are not alone, on 17 points alongside Ipswich Town and with Southampton way behind on nine.
Only Wolverhampton Wanderers can be realistically caught. The West Midlanders are five points ahead, with Everton a further 10 points away. So, is there any way Ruud van Nistelrooy’s Foxes can make a great escape? Well, if you had watched them at home to Brentford last week the answer would surely be a resounding “no” as they were spanked 4-0 by the competent Bees, just three weeks after they had been thrashed by the Toffees by the same score.
In between those two hammerings, Leicester City were dumped out of the FA Cup by a woefully out-of-form Manchester United and lost at home to Arsenal, who played without a recognised striker.
And then on Thursday night, the Foxes signed off February with a 2-0 loss at West Ham United to make it 11 league defeats in the last 12. The Hammers didn’t get out of second gear, going 2-0 up by the break and taking the second half off.
So, no, it doesn’t look good for the Foxes. I’d even doubt their ability to get past the Tractor Boys who are at least showing some fight, very unlucky to lose by the odd goal in five away to Manchester United in midweek.
What has gone wrong at the King Power Stadium?
The Foxes won their return to the Premier League under the management of Enzo Maresca after a spectacular season in the Championship, but the highly rated manager hotfooted it off to West London to take charge of Chelsea. That came as a blow to the ownership, if not a great surprise, and they moved to appoint former Nottingham Forest manager Steve Cooper, who they promptly sacked after 12 league games, with the club sitting in 16th place.
Since his arrival at the King Power Stadium, van Nistelrooy’s Premier League 2025 results have simply not been good enough, but he seems to have avoided the blame somehow as, in the aftermath of the defeat to Brentford, the club sacked first-team coaches Ben Dawson and Danny Alcock, who were both appointed by Cooper. Meanwhile, the players who got Cooper sacked so early in the campaign are still failing to perform.
The Foxes are captained by club legend Jamie Vardy, who will forever be a fan-favourite after he was part of the Premier League winning team of 2016. But, at 38 years of age, the artful poacher cannot bring back former successes on his own, and the Leicester team is sadly lacking in quality or firepower. 32-year-old Bobby Decordova-Reid partnered Vardy against the Hammers and, with one goal in 19 games, he is certainly not the answer.
Nistelrooy will hope to get all his best players on the pitch to help his fight. Wing-back Ricardo Pereira has been out with a thigh injury and is still at least two weeks ago. He’s an influential player in defence and on the flank and is one of the players with a good level of top-flight experience.
The gap between the Premier League and the Championship has never been clearer with all three of the promoted teams likely to go straight back down, and two of last season’s relegated group, Burnley and Sheffield United, in good shape to make a quick return.
So, either Ipswich or Leicester will need to put a superb run together to escape the drop. And with Wolves slowly improving and with the impressive Matheus Cunha banging in the goals, 13 in 26 league games, I’d say the Foxes will need to at least double their points total to give themselves a fighting chance.
Having dropped out of the FA Cup, they have a week to prepare to meet their old boss Maresca with an away match to fifth-placed Chelsea. Then they host Manchester United before the international break. In April, they visit Manchester City, host Newcastle United, and then take a trip to the South Coast to face Brighton. And then, it’s a match against runaway leaders Liverpool. By the time they travel way to Wolverhampton Wanderers on 26th April, I fear the Foxes may already be down after such a horrendous set of fixtures.
The Premier League 2025 betting odds say the Foxes are going back to the Championship at SBOTOP odds of 1.05 that’s around 20.00 to survive. But back in 2015, they were priced at 5001.00 to win the league, so for any Leicester fans out there, keep the faith.
Disclaimer: Odds are correct at time of publish.
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