Leicester City have been relegated from the Premier League with five matchdays of the season remaining following Sunday’s 1-0 defeat against Liverpool.
The result left Leicester an insurmountable 18 points adrift of safety and guaranteeing their second relegation to the Championship in three seasons.
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A run of just four points from their most recent 18 league matches sealed Leicester’s fate, with Trent Alexander-Arnold’s second-half goal condemning them to defeat against league leaders Liverpool.
Sunday’s defeat was played to the backdrop of ongoing fan protests at the club’s ownership, with a plane flown over the ground ahead of kick-off asking for the board to be sacked.
Ruud van Nistelrooy’s side have lost each of their most recent nine Premier League home matches without finding the net.
“You have to take the responsibility and that’s what I’m doing for the next five weeks, and after that we have to see,” Van Nistelrooy said after Sunday’s game, when asked on his future at the club.
The Dutch coach said he will discuss “what is best for the club” with the ownership but says he has no date set for those talks.
In November, Leicester sacked Steve Cooper after five months in charge at the King Power Stadium, after the club took 10 points from their opening 12 games and appointed Van Nistelrooy as his successor.
The former Dutch striker had started the season as first-team coach at Manchester United under Erik ten Hag, before spending four games as the club’s interim manager between Ten Hag’s sacking and the appointment of Ruben Amorim.
Following Van Nistelrooy’s appointment, Leicester defeated West Ham United 3-1 at home before a late comeback secured a 2-2 draw at home to Brighton & Hove Albion.
The message directed at Leicester’s owners that flew over the club’s stadium on Sunday (Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images)
However, Leicester embarked on a run of 15 defeats in their next 16 league matches — a run interrupted by January’s 2-1 victory at Tottenham Hotspur — which saw them cut adrift of safety.
That run was ended with the 2-2 draw at Brighton on April 12, which also ended their sequence of eight matches without scoring a goal.
Leicester are the second team to be relegated from the Premier League this season, following Southampton’s demotion with seven matchdays remaining on April 6.
Leicester’s owner Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha with Jon Rudkin, the club’s director of football, during Sunday’s game against Liverpool (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
18th-place Ipswich Town are also on the verge of relegation; Kieran McKenna’s side are 15 points adrift of West Ham with five matches remaining and a vastly inferior goal difference.
Should Ipswich’s relegation be confirmed, it would be the second successive Premier League season in which all three promoted clubs would be relegated in their first season back in the top flight.
(Clive Mason/Getty Images)
