BRENDAN RODGERS has passed the point of no return.
I have no doubt the 49-year-old could use his abilities as an elite manager to turn around Leicester City’s current crisis.
Should he survive the traditional killing zone of the first international break – and it remains a big if – I’d fancy the fighter in Rodgers to restore order in Leicester’s next five fixtures.
Nottingham Forest (H), Bournemouth (A), Crystal Palace (H), Leeds United (H) and Wolves (A) all represent winnable games against lower-half teams.
In normal times I’d expect the Foxes to pocket ten points from those five fixtures.
It’s certainly kinder than Rodgers’ opening seven matches – six of which have been against teams in the top nine.
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But these are not normal times and the Northern Irishman is on borrowed time – unable to look further than the next 90 minutes, which brings us neatly to Nottingham Forest.
It was Leicester’s noisy East Midlands neighbours who exposed the fact all was not well when they humiliated the FA Cup holders 4-1 in February.
Few saw the scale of that disaster looming against a team eighth in the Championship at the time – with hindsight, it’s clear Rodgers did.
He took the FA Cup into a team meeting to remind his squad of the blood, sweat and tears they had shed to seize it for the first time in the club’s 137 year history.
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However they clearly didn’t get the visual memo.
Afterwards a shell-shocked Rodgers couldn’t contain his fury and let rip, claiming his players’ performance was awful, embarrassing and lacked hunger.
A cull was expected.
But his ‘keeper that day, Danny Ward, was again on duty when Leicester crashed 6-2 at Spurs on Saturday – in front of him another EIGHT other survivors from the City Ground massacre.
Two more – Luke Thomas and Daniel Amartey were on the bench.
Of the remaining three, Caglar Soyuncu remains out in the cold, the option to sign Ademola Lookman permanently wasn’t taken up against Rodgers’ advice and Ricardo Pereira is crocked.
Einstein’s definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Leicester’s FFP problems meant Rodgers couldn’t carry out his threat to chop his dead wood – that’s why he is a dead man walking.
He won’t walk away – that really would be insane with three years of a lucrative contract remaining.
But the joy has gone and he must know with the same players, there will be another car crash just around the corner.
It’s why Rafa Benitez has granted Sky Sports a timely interview to remind everyone of his availability.
It’s why Sean Dyche has recently told the world he can operate on a shoe-string budget.
It’s why Leicester’s power-brokers will be looking at Celtic’s swashbuckling Aussie boss Ange Postecoglu and Rangers’ Europa League finalist Giovanni van Bronckhurst deciding if they could do better.
When Leicester chief Top Srivaddhanaprabha does decide to cut his ties, Rodgers will move on and prove his worth again elsewhere.
Players like hearing a new voice with new ideas to them – Rodgers knows that better than anyone.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
