Dean Smith set for emergency action as time runs short for Leicester

I t was a good job Dean Smith had tickets only for the practice rounds at the Masters because by the end of last week, instead of admiring the view at Augusta he was analysing Leicester City’s lethargic performance in defeat by Bournemouth in preparation for replacing Brendan Rodgers. “You’re not allowed your phone on the course, so I didn’t know until I got back to the hotel,” says Smith of the need to swiftly head to London for talks with Leicester.

Leicester are in an unusual spot, a place and two points off the bottom of the Premier League. Last season they finished eighth and reached the Europa Conference League semi-finals. The previous year they won the FA Cup and secured a second successive fifth-placed finish, and six years ago this week Craig Shakespeare, who has returned as Smith’s assistant, led the team at Atlético Madrid in a Champions League quarter-final; only Wilfred Ndidi and Jamie Vardy, who have struggled this season, remain from the starting XI that night. Marc Albrighton is on loan at West Brom.

In the past few weeks, perhaps for the first time some supporters have questioned Leicester’s ownership whose commitment to the club – and city – can never be doubted. Last year the chairman, Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, known as Top, donated a further £1m to a Leicester hospitals charity and this February he wiped clear £194m of club debt. Whether he kept faith in Rodgers for too long or was too slow to appoint a successor are questions that will rise to the surface in the event of the worst-case scenario, an unthinkable prospect on the basis of their sprawling £100m Seagrave training ground alone. “You can see the ambitions are the elite level,” Smith says. “If you get John Terry saying ‘Oh, wow’ then