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What to Expect From Leicester City’s Claudio Ranieri

By Ryan Wrenn

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Leicester City, after having parted ways with Nigel Pearson late last month, have appointed Claudio Ranieri manager ahead of the upcoming 2015/16 Premier League season.

It’s hard to say how much buzz the appointment would have made even without some of the bigger stories recently. Not because it’s not an exceptional appointment – it is – but because the particulars and the reasoning are not easy to unpack.

Leicester City enter their second season in the Premier League after a campaign that seemed dead to rights by March. For much of the season the three promoted teams were lacking in the quality necessary to stick around in England’s top flight. It felt inevitable that, for the first time in 17 years and only the second time ever in the Premier League’s history, all three promoted sides would be unceremoniously relegated back to the Championship.

Then, beginning with their win over West Ham at the start of April, something changed at Leicester. Pearson found some as-yet-untapped verve in his squad and rode it all the way to survival. They won seven of their nine remaining fixtures, only losing to eventual Premier League champions Chelsea. They finished the season in 14th place.

What should have happened next was for Leicester City to double down on Pearson, solidify what made that late-season winning streak possible and add what quality they could to sustain their Premier League run. Instead, the Foxes were treated to a particularly outrageous scandal. The details aren’t worth getting into – Playing for 90 is a family site, after all – but suffice it to say that three Leicester players were dishonorably released from the club after an embarrassing incident during the club’s post-season friendly tour of the ownership’s native Thailand.

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As it happened, among those three players was Pearson’s son, James. It’s unclear how connected James’ release and Pearson’s ultimate termination weeks later actually were, but it seems reasonable to assume a connection of some sort. Nevertheless, Leicester City were suddenly without the man who had led them through promotion and a surprisingly successful first campaign in the Premier League.

Which brings us to the Tinkerman. Claudio Ranieri was appointed manager of Leicester City Monday after nearly two weeks of speculation over who would take over Pearson’s seat on the sidelines. It’s safe to say that Ranieri’s name was not near the top of the list of expected appointments, or even on the list at all.

Leicester is the Italian’s sixteenth club in nearly 30 years of management. He’s plied his trade in four different national leagues and most recently took the helm of the Greek national team. His tenures have been relatively short; his four year stint at Chelsea from 2000 to 2004 is thus far his longest. That high turnover rate comes down to Ranieri’s tendency to reside just on the inside edges of the extremes in the quality spectrum. He’s either been just good enough to earn a move to another club, as he was with Fiorentina, Valencia and Chelsea around the turn of the millennium, or he’s been just lacking enough to be let go.

That timeline shouldn’t suggest a drop off in form over the last decade however. His most recent success was the promotion of Monaco from France’s Ligue 2 in 2013 and then securing a Champions League place finish for the club in their first season back in the top flight. It’s his most recent job that has likely inspired the most confusion and/or dread from the Leicester faithful. He was sacked by Greece after four losses and no wins in his first five games.

So then it’s no surprise that Ranieri’s return to English football has been met with something resembling indifference. Slightly older fans might remember him fondly though. His time with Chelsea was undoubtedly a modest success – he improved point totals year over year and recruited some of the club’s now all-time best players – but his legacy has been mostly overshadowed by that of the club’s subsequent appointment, Jose Mourinho.

He earned a reputation in southwest London as a micro-manager, constantly shifting starting XIs or subtly changing formations week to week. That’s a trait not always valued at the top level, where managers often don’t have a strong enough hand to convince club ownership to not start the star players they’ve likely paid so much for. Hence Ranieri has, by accident or design, mostly fit in with clubs either just below the top tier in terms of quality and squad strength or simply in desperate need of a steady hand.

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With that tendency in mind, it’s easy then to guess why Leicester felt that Ranieri would be a good fit. He provides, at the very least, a reliable means to stay above water. In all honesty, without serious investment the ceiling for Leicester’s improvement is pretty low. The best they might hope for as of right now is another finish just above the drop zone. If Ranieri’s proven anything in his career, it’s that he knows how to keep a club alive without necessarily thriving.

It’s hard to figure what Ranieri expects from a move to the East Midlands. What glory he might achieve is likely to be limited to triumphantly avoiding relegation. That might just be enough though. After his failed attempt at the international level with Greece, he is in desperate need of some redemption. The Premier League isn’t always an easy place to find it, but if Ranieri can he’ll up his chances for another shot at a bigger club considerably.

Leicester City’s fate next season might then fall somewhere between reason and Ranieri’s ambition. If the club can retain Esteban Cambiasso for another season, their chances at survival increase dramatically. Shoring up some key areas, as the club has already done with the transfers of fullback Christian Fuchs and centre-back Robert Huth, could also help the club’s cause.

With some of his trademark tinkering and a little luck, Ranieri could find that Leicester’s and his own survival aren’t all that distinct from one another.

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