Leicester City are in freefall. Sitting 17th in League One after winning just once this season, the club that lifted the Premier League trophy in 2015/16 has now tumbled into English football's third tier — and there is little sign the descent is ending anytime soon.

Five managers, no stability

The rot set in after Enzo Maresca guided Leicester to the Championship title in 2023/24, with Jamie Vardy contributing 20 goals across all competitions. Maresca departed for Chelsea that summer, and what followed was a managerial carousel that would test any football club.

Steve Cooper, celebrated for his work at rivals Nottingham Forest, arrived first. Then came Ruud van Nistelrooy, Marti Cifuentes — who lasted six months — Gary Rowett, and now Russell Martin. Five permanent managers in the space of roughly a year, each unable to arrest the slide.

Martin's record offers little reassurance. Before Leicester's solitary league win this season, his previous top-flight victories came at Rangers and, before that, Southampton. The pattern of struggle has followed him to the King Power Stadium.

Possession without purpose

The numbers tell a damning story. In Saturday's 4-0 home defeat against Oxford United — a club that finished the previous season relegated from the Championship — Leicester controlled 63 percent of the ball yet mustered fewer shots on target than their opponents. Their expected goals figure barely climbed above one.

Leicester currently lead League One for possession and rank among the top three for shots per scorer. The ingredients are there in theory; the execution is not.

A club in crisis from top to bottom

The failures extend far beyond the dugout. Leicester have spent heavily in recent years, with questions raised over both the volume and the calibre of signings. Long-term sustainability issues and reported brushes with financial regulations have compounded the pressure on the playing side.

The club has also carried the profound weight of tragedy. The deaths of chairman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha and four others in the 2018 helicopter crash near the King Power Stadium cast a long shadow — one that, inevitably, has shaped the direction of the club in the years since.

Last season, as Leicester were relegated from the Premier League for a second consecutive year, chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha publicly accepted responsibility for the club's decline. Those admissions have yet to translate into a coherent recovery plan on the pitch.

The road back looks long

Meanwhile, Sheffield Wednesday — Leicester's opponents on the opening day of last season's Championship campaign, then the very definition of a club in disarray — now sit top of League One. The contrast is stark.

Reports from the weekend suggest Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha faces two significant decisions, with at least one — widely presumed to concern Martin's future — appearing unavoidable. The second, less clearly defined, is said to carry the potential to shape the club's fortunes for years to come.

For a club that scaled such remarkable heights less than a decade ago, the situation at Leicester City demands urgent, decisive action. The boardroom decisions that follow will determine whether this is a temporary crisis or something far more lasting.