Claudio Ranieri’s sacking wasn’t just down to Leicester players… club chiefs took their eye off the ball

SNAKES, rats, rogues and traitors?

For Leicester’s players the aftermath of Claudio Ranieri’s sacking has been galling.

Lauded worldwide for last season’s astonishing title triumph, they have found themselves in the eye of a full-blown sewage storm — their former manager martyred and their own professionalism questioned.

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Still, Jamie Vardy was unrealistic when he claimed Leicester’s players received ‘unfair stick’ before thrashing Liverpool 3-1 in the first game since Ranieri’s removal.

Performance levels had dropped so extremely that attitudes were bound to be criticised.

Then the improvement in their work-rate on Monday night, compared to recent Premier League defeats, was so obvious they were never going to avoid further  condemnation for having failed to shed enough sweat for Ranieri.

Yet Leicester had been excellent in the second half of Ranieri’s final match against Sevilla. They had not simply jacked it in.

Problems were more complex than a band of brothers turning into Big-time Charlies, then downing tools on a loveable manager.

First and foremost, Leicester lost two crucial employees — N’Golo Kante and recruitment chief Steve Walsh — failing to properly replace either.

All statistical comparisons between Leicester’s running and tackling this season and last, is skewed by Kante’s phenomenal workaholism.

His omnipresence covered up the Foxes’ ageing title-winning defence — and it seemed glaringly obvious they needed to sign a top-class centre-half.

But with Walsh, who snapped up Kante and Riyad Mahrez for bargain prices, allowed to leave for Everton, Leicester wasted £60million on Islam Slimani, Nampalys Mendy and Ahmed Musa.

Ranieri inherited a buoyant team in 2015 and made a few masterful tweaks. But he had no cure for second-season syndrome once opponents figured out his team.

Mahrez often looked disinterested, Vardy suffocated of service.

But most are simply honest pros — high on confidence one season, horribly low the next.

Those of us who slammed Ranieri’s Leicester appointment were spectacularly wrong. Yet we weren’t a crackpot minority.

Nothing in his 30-year managerial career suggested he was a miracle worker.

It seems last season was an extraordinary exception, not the rule.

Sure, Ranieri may feel let down by players, but what about his No 2 and possible successor, Craig Shakespeare — a close ally of former boss Nigel Pearson and Walsh, who owed him no personal loyalty?

The club’s Thai owners asked for players’ opinions about their slump.

This was not a shop-floor rebellion.

It was the owners, including chairman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, who offered Ranieri their ‘unwavering support’ two weeks before they sacked him.

And they sacked him with the approval of many supporters, as opposed to romantic neutrals.

Patience with managers is a thing of the past anywhere other than Arsenal and player power is the end-game when clubs treat players like Hollywood divas.

But while there has been little cause for pride this season, Leicester’s dressing room is no reptile house.