Champions to Championship: how slow-thinking Leicester sealed their own fate

Over the past few months the pre-match montages on the big screens at Leicester’s King Power Stadium have felt particularly bittersweet. One culminates in Ricardo Pereira striking late at PSV Eindhoven to tee up a first European semi-final and a date with Roma at the Stadio Olimpico last May, the other with Wes Morgan lifting the Premier League trophy with Claudio Ranieri. Confetti rains down and then there are a few seconds of Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, Leicester’s late owner, applauding fans on all four sides of the ground before the pictures fade to black. At which point supporters instinctively respond with a rousing cheer.

Seven years on from winning the title, six on from competing with Atlético Madrid for a spot in the Champions League semi-finals, two on from winning the FA Cup and missing out on a top-four league finish on the final day, and 12 months on from another European adventure, Leicester are coming to terms with relegation. Their previous three league finishes read: fifth, fifth, eighth. And now 18th, two points shy of Everton, who stayed up on the final day at their expense.

Complacency is an accusation levelled at a club that has been drifting for a while. Leicester’s decision to commit to this summer’s tour of south-east Asia suddenly feels rather misplaced. The club evidently did not forecast a possible relegation when signing up to pre-season friendlies.Leicester, of the Championship, will face Liverpool in the Singapore Festival of Football, with Bayern Munich, Roma and Tottenham the other teams involved. The week before, they take on Spurs in Bangkok, birthplace of Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, the 37-year-old Leicester chairman known as Top.

From the moment relegation was a serious possibility the