With twelve games of the 2024/25 English Premier season played Leicester City have sacked manager Steve Cooper. He is the second EPL manager to be sacked this season.
A statement on the club website reads:
Leicester City Football Club has parted company with Steve Cooper, who leaves his position as First Team Manager with immediate effect.
Assistant Manager Alan Tate and First Team Coach and Analyst Steve Rands have also left the Club. Steve, Alan and Steve depart with our thanks for their contribution during their time with the Club and with our best wishes for the future.
Men’s First Team training will be overseen by First Team Coach Ben Dawson, supported by coaches Danny Alcock and Andy Hughes, as the Club begins the process of appointing a new manager, which we hope to conclude as soon as possible.
Leciester currently sit sixteenth in the table with ten points from their twelve matches.They are one point above Wolverhampton Wanderers who remain above the drop zone by virtue of goal difference, although a late winner for Ipswich against Manchester United would change that.
Steve Cooper had been at Leicester City for five months, after being appointein in June 2024 on a three year contract. He replaced Enzo Maresca, who had guided City back to the Premiership as winners of the 23/24 Championship. Maresca moved to Chelsea in early June 2024. In a twist of fate it was a home defeat to Maresca's Chelsea which sealed Cooper's fate.
In all matches in charge at Leicester, Cooper guided the team to three victories, five draws, and seven defeats.
There had been some grumblings about Cooper's appointement due to him having been Nottingham Forest manager so recently, and the teams seeing themselves as close rivals. But to sack him after only 12 league matches, with the team above the drop zone and a run of matches which sees them play two teams around them suggests either a bold vision or desperate panic.
With more than three-quarters of the season left to play the incoming manager has plenty of time to consolidate the teams position in the league. The main worries would be if there is not already a prospective replacement waiting to take the job on. In the thirty days from next Saturday until the teams final December game the team have seven matches. Should the signing of a new manager drag on the team could have been sucked deeper into a maelstrom which is likely to have five teams fighting to avoid the three places in the drop zone.
There are managers who will be eager to return to the Premiership - Graham Potter, who has been out of work since April '23, may be interested - but the owners could have their eye on someone. Since the Srivaddhanaprabha family took control of the club in 2010 they have appointed nine full time managers. Cooper is the second shortest term manager in that period with only Dean Smith's eight matches being shorter.
Looking at the list of managerial replacements, where they happen mid-season and not at it's end, replacements are generally in place within a week or so. If that holds for this transition the new manager is likely to be on hand to watch next Saturday's game even if they are unlikely to be in charge of the team by then.
*text by stuartcturnbull picture from Getty Images via BBC