Claudio Ranieri Reflects on Leicester's Title Win and Sacking
Claudio Ranieri still remembers the sting.
Nine months after leading Leicester City to the most improbable Premier League title in history, he was out of a job, the club marooned in a relegation scrap and his name scrubbed from the manager’s door. On the surface, it looked like a brutal but simple football decision. Results had nosedived, the champions were one point above the drop zone by late February, and the board panicked.
Ranieri says the story runs deeper than that.
Dressing-room politics behind the title miracle
Speaking to Four Four Two, the former Chelsea and Roma manager laid bare the frustration that still lingers from his 2017 sacking.
"Honestly, it hurt. Nine months earlier, we had won the Premier League together, but now I was being dismissed? Why?" he recalled. "Later, the chairman’s son told me the problem was I didn’t get on with some English members of the staff. Unbelievable."
Ranieri revealed that the tensions had been simmering even during the title-winning season. While Leicester sat top of the table, one member of staff, he says, was already working against him.
"Already the season before, when we were top of the league, one of the staff members had been speaking badly about me to the players," he said. "I called him into my office and asked why – he couldn’t even give me an answer."
Ranieri’s instinct was to act. He wanted the club to move the staff member on once the season ended. But the euphoria of that extraordinary title run changed his mind.
"At that point I was too focused on the title race, so I simply told the general manager that at the end of the season, we’d let him go," Ranieri explained. "In the end we won the title – there was such joy, such celebration, that I decided to do nothing. That was a mistake. The following year, he continued speaking negatively about me to the players."
The Italian’s regret is clear. Loyalty to the group that made history came at a cost.
Champions League nights, Premier League pain
Leicester’s slump after their title triumph was dramatic. As the confetti cleared, the club were dragged into a fight they never expected: survival.
Ranieri did guide the Foxes into the Champions League knockout stages, a remarkable achievement in itself. Under him they reached the last 16 and set up a tie with Sevilla. But the European adventure stretched a squad that had never faced such demands.
By late February, after a run of five straight league defeats, Leicester were hovering just above the relegation zone. The board acted. Ranieri was dismissed. Assistant Craig Shakespeare stepped up as interim head coach, kept Leicester in the Premier League and oversaw a stirring comeback win over Sevilla to reach the Champions League quarter-finals.
Many supporters felt the decision to sack Ranieri was still unforgivable, a betrayal of the man who had delivered the greatest moment in the club’s history. Ranieri himself, though hurt, tried to frame it within the brutal logic of the job.
"Being sacked is part of a manager’s career and I accepted it," he said. "I took it badly, but not really much worse than other dismissals I’d experienced, because the satisfaction of what we’d achieved went far beyond any disappointment. Football is like that."
The cost of chasing Europe
On the pitch, Ranieri insists the decline was not as simple as champions losing their edge. He had warned the club what was coming.
"I had warned everyone that we couldn’t repeat what we’d done. It was impossible," he said. "Playing both league and Champions League football is extremely demanding if you aren’t used to it. The physical and mental energy required is enormous."
He believes the performances against England’s elite remained strong, even as results wobbled.
"In the league, especially against the bigger sides, the performances were still there. Whether we won or lost, the boys played well," he added. "But European football takes a toll and we paid the price in the league, usually against less prestigious teams."
The glamour of Europe, the grind of domestic survival – Leicester were pulled apart by the very success they had dreamed of.
After Leicester, and the Foxes’ fall
Ranieri’s journey after the King Power dugout took him across Europe again. He had short spells with Nantes, Fulham and Watford, before closing the coaching chapter of his career with a third stint at Roma. He now serves the Italian club in a senior advisory role, watching from upstairs rather than pacing the touchline.
Leicester, for a while, seemed to have moved on smoothly too. Under Brendan Rodgers they lifted the FA Cup and secured back-to-back fifth-place finishes in the Premier League, flirting with the top four and re-establishing themselves as a force.
That feels a long time ago now.
Relegation from the Premier League last season sent the club into reverse. This year has been even more punishing. Leicester sit 23rd in the Championship with only three games left, eight points from safety and winless in six. Their appeal against a six-point deduction for breaching English Football League financial rules has failed, leaving them staring at the unthinkable: a drop into League One.
From champions of England to the brink of the third tier in less than a decade. Ranieri has made his peace with his own dismissal. Leicester are still wrestling with the consequences of what came after.
