Leicester City’s players and board have taken flak, but should more scrutiny be on Van Nistelrooy?

It took just 32 minutes against Brentford for Leicester City to demonstrate why they have lost 10 of their last 11 Premier League games and have one foot back in the Championship.

In that time, they showed why they have set a new top-flight record for six consecutive home league defeats without scoring a single goal and why they have scored just four goals in their last 11 league games. They also demonstrated why they have conceded 32 goals in the 13 games since Ruud van Nistelrooy took charge of the club in December — the joint worst in the division.

All their frailties in both final thirds of the pitch were exposed, leaving some Leicester fans walking out of the ground before the game had even reached half-time.

After the fourth goal went in, goalkeeper Mads Hermansen and midfielder Boubakary Soumare had to be separated by team-mates and the referee. At the final whistle of what was a bleak night for Leicester, only five players acknowledged the few home fans still in their seats. The rest marched straight down the tunnel after a section of the home crowd had chanted ‘You’re not fit to wear the shirt’ as the Brentford goals rained in during that grim first half.

The relationship between Leicester City — its players out on the pitch, the club’s hierarchy up in the boardroom, and its supporters in the stands — has fractured.

For some time, the scrutiny has been fixed on the board of directors and, in particular, the director of football Jon Rudkin. Many of the recruitment decisions over the last three seasons, both in terms of managers and players, as the rot set in have been laid at his door. Others, including chairman Aiyawatt ‘Khun Top’ Srivaddhanaprabha, have also come in for criticism.

The players have taken flak from a disgruntled fanbase. Many of the supporters have already endured enough this season, particularly on home soil. With Manchester United, Newcastle United and Liverpool the next three opponents to visit King Power Stadium, matters are unlikely to improve any time soon.

Although Leicester had three shots on target before they conceded the first goal, they have the joint-fewest (with Southampton) number of shots on target in the league this season — just 80. They have the fewest shots on goal per 90 minutes (9.1) and the fewest on target in 90 minutes (2.8). They also create the fewest opportunities, according to FBref, with just 16 shot-creating actions (offensive actions that directly lead to a shot, such as a pass or take-on) per 90 minutes.

As Leicester demonstrated in 15 shocking minutes after a bright opening on Friday night, they are even worse defensively. This latest performance degenerated into a litany of basic defensive errors, as illustrated by all three of Brentford’s first-half goals.

The defensive back line stood static as Yoane Wissa’s movement was picked out easily by Mikkel Damsgaard’s pass for the first. Victor Kristiansen was slow to close down Bryan Mbeumo and even allowed him to check onto his favoured left foot to score the second.

A dejected Hermansen (Rene Nijhuis/MB Media/Getty Images)

The third was just as bad as Christian Norgaard was allowed to run unopposed into space to head home Mbeumo’s free kick. 

If it wasn’t evident before, it was clear as day after 32 minutes that this Leicester squad is sadly lacking in quality and, more concerningly, desire to compete at Premier League level. The finger of blame could be pointed at the failed recruitment for bringing in these players, or at the players themselves for their lack of application.

However, one area of the team that has so far escaped scrutiny has been the management of Van Nistelrooy.

The Dutchman arrived with a huge pedigree as a player and a double trophy-winning first season as a manager at PSV in the Eredivisie, but he has so far failed to find the right formula with the Leicester squad he has inherited. If anything, his team is regressing.

Steve Cooper was sacked with 10 points on the board from his first 12 games in charge. Since Van Nistelrooy took over, they have added just seven points in 13 games.

The 48-year-old said he wasn’t a football romantic when he first spoke after his appointment, and yet he seems totally wedded to the same system he employed with success at PSV: a 3-2-2-3 in possession and a 4-4-2 out of possession.

That was fine in the Netherlands, where he had Cody Gakpo, Noni Madueke, Johan Bakayoko, Xavi Simons and Luuk de Jong at his disposal. He does not have that plethora of talent at Leicester.

There may be sympathy for Van Nistelrooy that he inherited a situation even worse than he first envisaged when he sat and watched his new side beaten 4-1 at Brentford at the end of November. Or that the profit and sustainability rules (PSR) situation and its impact on what he could do in the transfer window were not made properly clear to him, as he discovered in January.

Van Nistelrooy has impressed the hierarchy with the way he has dealt with those situations with dignity and professionalism and with his impressive work rate since taking over. He never complains.

Although any decision over his future will be made by just one man, Khun Top, there does not seem to be an appetite to make another managerial change. Rather, there is a desperation for him to turn Leicester’s tide — even if the run of results is increasingly prompting realism that this is a tidal wave sweeping Leicester back to the Championship.

But Van Nistelrooy must change something to stem the flow of defeats and goals conceded.

He has made 23 personnel changes in his 13 games, the 13th highest in the division in that time, mostly as he mixed and matched his central-defensive pairing, without reward. But there have also been some questionable decisions.

The omission of Facundo Buonanotte is the most glaring. Whatever Van Nistelrooy has seen in training that has left him using the young Argentine so sparingly must be serious because the Brighton loanee is a player with guile and graft. He was certainly popular with Cooper.

There has been a reluctance to play Facundo Buonanotte (Rene Nijhuis/MB Media/Getty Images)

His reluctance to change his system, too, also seems odd considering the run of defeats. Van Nistelrooy may lack managerial experience but he must realise one thing: if he changes nothing, how will the results and the direction of travel change?

At this point, he and Leicester have very little to lose by trying.

(Top photo: Plumb Images/Leicester City FC via Getty Images)