Leicester City fire Premier League winning coach Claudio Ranieri

In news that is both surprising and not-altogether unexpected, Claudio Ranieri has been relieved of his duties as manager at Leicester City. “Indeed, survival in the Premier League was our only target at the start of the campaign”.

“From that point of view the timing couldn’t have been any worse”, Cottee told Sky Sports. “And when you give everything, I think also the luck comes to you”. And while the club shouldn’t have too much trouble finding a manager to do better with these players than Ranieri has this year, looking for one now, in the middle of the season, makes the search more hard.

Carragher feels fans of other teams – who enjoyed seeing the underdog Midlands club win the league – will not be upset if Leicester are relegated.

“Personally I don’t think it’ll go down too well (with the Leicester supporters)”, he said.

“We fight every time, this night a little more”. If Srivaddhanaprabha possessed the remotest intuition for football and its rhythms, then the memory of such moments as Ranieri’s post-match press conference at Sunderland last Spring would have stood in the way of such felony as this.

“Last season was a freak”. He has not been helped by a huge loss of form from last season’s PFA Player of the Year Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy, the scorer of 24 goals.

The 69-year-old has been without a job since that Three Lions capitulation at the hands of Iceland last summer.

Gary Lineker perhaps summed it up best on Twitter.

Their next game is a Premier League fixture against Liverpool on Monday. “Sacked? Really? Dilly Ding Dilly Game’s Gone”.

Leicester City Football Club has tonight (Thursday) parted company with its First Team Manager, Claudio Ranieri.

TV presenter Jake Humphrey added: “Feb 7th 2017”. And this year, the magic Ranieri formula clearly is no longer working.

Yet to blame Ranieri for Leicester’s regression to the mean is simplistic.

Former Arsenal and England striker Ian Wright tweeted: “Claudio Ranieri sacked!”

Vardy’s goal was as much a reward for Schemichel’s superb performance as it was for the rest of the team’s improved second-half display, but there are still huge problems in this Leicester side that must somehow be rectified ahead of the return leg.

“I want more than the maximum, that’s why I was not happy in Los Angeles”, he said.