Here’s how AS Monaco have failed ex-manager Leonardo Jardim

Monaco announced on Thursday that, with the club currently residing in Ligue 1’s relegation zone, it would be parting ways with coach Leonardo Jardim.

The announcement shouldn’t be surprising. Tis the season, after all, for struggling clubs to wise up and look for a fresh start with new leadership.

Jardim’s story is different however. The drama surrounding his place at Monaco isn’t the same as the storm broiling around his countryman Jose Mourinho at Manchester United. His isn’t the story of a man who failed to live up to his club’s resources and reputation.

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Nor is this the case of a coach like Claudio Ranieri at Leicester City, who peaked with the Foxes’ Premier League title in 2016 and then regressed toward the mean fairly quickly the following season.

Jardim’s plight at Monaco isn’t unique in soccer though. He hasn’t failed the club so much as the club has failed him.

It was Ranieri who took charge of Monaco and led them back into France’s top flight in 2013 after years in the wilderness. His success was bankrolled by the club’s new Russian owner, Dmitry Rybolovlev. The tycoon invested heavily in the club to earn promotion, then doubled down on his commitment in the club’s first season back in Ligue 1.

João Moutinho, James Rodríguez and Radamel Falcaco were all bought in a spending spree that amounted to £150 million in 2013, which proved enough with the rest of Ranieri’s talented squad to earn Monaco a second place finish in their first season back in the top flight.

The thrill of progress was short-lived however. An expensive divorce for Rybolovlev in May 2014 and the implementation of UEFA’s financial fair play rules forced a radical change in how Monaco played — and won — soccer.

Rodríguez was sold for a significant profit to Real Madrid after a remarkable 2014 World Cup with Colombia. Falcao and his fat salary were allowed to leave on a doomed loan deal with Manchester United.

In a move that was symbolic of the change at the club, Ranieri’s contract was allowed to expire that summer as well. The club turned to a man little known outside of Portugal: Leonardo Jardim.

These changes spoke to a broader theme of doing more with less. From that point on, Monaco would buy low, sell high and — hopefully — sustain some kind of quality in between.

No one would have predicted how well this plan would work. After recruiting a trio of then-unknowns in the form of Fabinho, Bernardo Silva and Tiémoué Bakayoko, Jardim established Monaco as an unspectacular but sturdy force in Ligue 1. They finished third in 2014/15 and 2015/16.

Then, improbably, Monaco broke out. They welcomed Falcao back from his time out in the cold, promoted Kylian Mbappé from the youth ranks, and dethroned Paris Saint-Germain to win the Ligue 1 title in 2017.

Monaco’s success was further validation of an ongoing trend in soccer led, in part, by Tottenham’s Mauricio Pochettino. Jardim and Pochettino were proving it was possible to simultaneously rebuild and compete.

While Pochettino’s experiment with Tottenham was rewarded with the faith and support of the club’s chairman Daniel Levy, Jardim wasn’t so lucky. Indeed, upon doing the impossible and unseating PSG from the top of Ligue 1, Jardim was tasked to do it again from scratch.

As predicted, Monaco were besieged with interest from Europe’s bigger clubs. Despite Monaco’s previous fire sale and subsequent tight control of their finances, the powers that be put up little resistance.

Much of the talent that brought them the Ligue 1 trophy and led them deep into the Champions League knockout rounds was sold off. Mbappé, Silva, Bakayoko and full-back Benjamin Mendy were all sold for hefty sums.

In fairness, the club did reinvest some of that money, most notably in Belgium international Youri Tielemans and a number of other promising young players. Monaco relinquished the title to PSG again in 2017/18, but still finished second above an increasingly crowded field in Ligue 1.

Even as runners-up, Monaco could still be considered an immense success. Jardim was operating with resources that amounted to a pittance compared to that of PSG, and still managed to extract a phenomenal amount of quality and value from what he was provided. By any measure, Jardim’s achievements against the odds at Monaco should rank him as one of the top ten coaches in the game.

Perhaps the powers that be at Monaco became too convinced of Jardim’s quality however. After the second place finish in 2017/18, they rewarded Jardim’s efforts with another selling spree, this time parting ways with Fabinho and Thomas Lemar.

Again, it can’t go without mentioning that the club did reinvest in Jardim’s project at least somewhat. Russian star-in-the-making Aleksander Golovin joined after the World Cup, and again younger talent like Bayer Leverkusen’s Benjamin Heinrichs were brought in for relatively nominal fees.

Endless turnover isn’t the recipe for sustained success. No doubt Jardim would have made stars of Tielemans and Golovin just as he had all of Lemar, Silva and Mbappé, but doing so takes time — time, it turns out, Jardim would not be afforded.

It’s hard to defend Monaco’s current position in the Ligue 1 table. They have one win in nine attempts so far this season, and currently sit in 18th place on six points. It will take a virtually impossible turn around for them to again challenge for the title this season, and indeed it might even be out of the question for them to earn a spot in Europe for 2019/20.

There is no better coach available today than Jardim to direct Monaco out of that slump however. He is being punished for transfer practices that appear completely out of his control, and there is no guarantee that this act will redeem Monaco’s season regardless of who is brought in to replace Jardim.