Could Steve Cooper Have Saved Leicester?

Could Steve Cooper Have Saved Leicester?

Gary Lineker recently said on his podcast 'The Rest Is Football' that if, nine years ago, he was "given the option of winning the Premier League and the FA Cup and then get relegated, I'd have snapped your hand off."

It is hard to find a better way to sum up Leicester City's peaks and troughs over the past decade. Even when they won the Championship in 2023/24, there was discomfort among Foxes fans over Enzo Maresca's style of football.

Steve Cooper's appointment was met with cautious optimism which quickly turned to scepticism and eventually to resentment in the weeks leading up to him being sacked.

Leicester’s decision to sack Steve Cooper and appoint Van Nistelrooy is one of the worst managerial decisions in Premier League history. https://t.co/QRwK6izL0t

— Chris (@bigbird432) April 20, 2025

But if they knew then that Ruud Van Nilstelrooy would win just two league games since his appointment at the end of November, and that match-going fans would go without a home league goal since the turn of the year, would Leicester fans have looked at Cooper differently?

Early Promise

Cooper's reign started with a promising draw at home to Tottenham Hotspur on the Premier League's opening day. Jamie Vardy scored on his return to the top flight, and going toe-to-toe with one of the 'big six' was certainly an early badge for Cooper's Foxes.

He would wait until October for his first league win: 1-0 at home over Andoni Iraola's flying Bournemouth. This would be backed up a week later with a win away at Southampton, and despite losing four of the following five games, Leicester were sat in sixteenth at the time of Cooper's sacking.

Sixteenth - not in the relegation zone.

Poor Competition

Cooper was sacked on the belief that the teams below Leicester at the time would hit form and force the Foxes to improve their results - which hasn't really been the case. Southampton have imploded in a 2007/08 Derby County-fashion and Ipswich Town are just three points above the team who haven't scored a home goal in four months.

The issue is though, that Wolves' appointment of Vitor Pereira has propelled them to fifteenth and a respectable 38 points, and while Graham Potter's relationship with West Ham hasn't been quite as fruitful, the Hammers have amassed 36 points to be sat in seventeenth.

Leicester City are RELEGATED from the Premier League 🔽 pic.twitter.com/KE4zxGj8X4

— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) April 20, 2025

This means - discounting sixteenth-placed Spurs in the relegation battle - that Cooper would have needed 40+ points in order to avoid the drop. He amassed ten across his thirteen league games in charge, and at the time of his sacking there was no suggestion of a turn in form.

Having said that, Cooper would, given his proven experience in avoiding the drop with Nottingham Forest, have done a better job than Van Nilstelrooy. They might have been heading into the last month of the season with an outside chance.

But that's all he could have promised. A chance. And it all comes back to a much more complex problem.

With the quality gap between the Premier League and Championship growing season-upon-season, it's becoming almost impossible for a promoted team to survive in the top flight.

It's this problem that Steve Cooper fell foul of. His side put up a respectable fight, but fell victim to a much wider issue.