Graeme Souness has slammed Leicester’s players after their historic Champions League win over Sevilla, accusing them of contributing to former manager Claudio Ranieri’s sacking while insisting that the squad ‘will fall off their perch’ eventually.
Leicester beat Sevilla 2-0 at the King Power Stadium on Tuesday night – winning 3-2 on aggregate – to qualify for the Champions League quarter-finals, having gone into the game 2-1 down.
There have been accusations that the players downed tools under Ranieri – despite him leading them to an incredible Premier League title victory last season, a theory Souness agrees with.
Speaking on Irish channel TV3 Sport Souness criticised the mindset of the squad this season and defended Ranieri in an extraordinary rant.
Asked what he thought of Leicester’s performance against Sevilla, Souness said: ‘They won the league playing that way.
‘When you’re a manager and you’ve won the league, are you going to turn up the next season and change things? If it ain’t broke why try and fix it?
‘He would have been doing the same training, talking to them the same way, preparing for the games the same way, travelling to the games the same way – everything the same.
‘Some of those players at the start of the season believed all of a sudden: “We’re big players, we’re champions” and took their foot off the accelerator and got in their big comfy armchairs, with their Bentley in the car park and maybe changed their house. They took their foot off the accelerator.
‘What does the manager (Ranieri) do then? The manager has a go at some of them – and points it out to them.
‘And then he falls out with two or three of the influential players in the dressing room and then you’ve got the followers in the dressing room – all of a sudden he’s fallen out with most of the dressing room.
‘That’s what I believed happened and those players that are rejoicing out there and thinking they’re back, that they’re big players.
‘They’ll fall of their perch again – guaranteed – because they’ve done it once they’ll do it again – they’ll let you down
again.’
The champions have won all three of their matches since Claudio Ranieri was sacked as manager and Craig Shakespeare took over the team.
Leicester won on the night through goals from Wes Morgan and Marc Albrighton.
Ranieri’s last match in charge of the club had been the first leg clash away in Seville – a 2-1 defeat.
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