By Thai Newsroom Reporters
LEICESTER CITY are playing a decisive away game tomorrow (April 18) which could probably determine whether the Thai-owned Foxes will stay up in the Championship, the second tier of the English football echelon, or will be relegated to the third-tiered League One at the end of the current season, thus registering a disreputable, back-to-back drop in a couple of consecutive years.
According to English football pundits, odds for Leicester to stay up in the second tier after being relegated from the top-tiered Premier League last season are currently no more than 20% with only four games to play in face of a relentless rivalry against the likes of Portsmouth, Blackburn, West Bromwich Albion and Oxford, all struggling to avoid relegation.
Primarily attributed to Leicester’s probability of relegation was the phenomenon in which the East Midlands club have frustratedly borne a six-points deduction after they had perpetrated a breach to the English Football League’s Profit & Sustainability rules sending themselves embarrassingly ranking in the drop zone alongside Sheffield Wednesday, the other Thai-owned football club which have been practically relegated several months ahead of the end of the current season.
Given the current circumstances under which those relegation rivals are having a range of three to seven points above Leicester who made surprise news headlines around the globe by becoming the Premier League champions at the end of the 2015/2016 season, Thai national Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha’s Foxes who currently have 42 points with 11 wins, 14 draws and 17 defeats are undoubtedly having no choice but to win tomorrow’s away game against the Pompey at Fratton Park or else their chances of surviving the gruesome relegation battle might probably be very slim, if not downright zero.
But the Foxes under English manager Gary Rowett have noticeably shown poor performance week in, week out with the latest defeat in a home game against Swansea whilst some of the Foxes’ squad members are quietly looking for exit to other clubs upon the end of the season no matter whether the Foxes will stay up in the Championship or go down to League One.
In last Saturday’s game at King Power stadium, Rowett used as many as six of the Foxes strikers with four playing together for a good portion of the second half but none could score a single goal against the Swans. To the accumulated chagrin of the Foxes fans inside the stadium and outside, those highly-paid forward players were so utterly helpless as they failed to send the ball hitting the back of the net, namely a couple of Ghanaian strikers Jordan Ayew and Abdul Fatawu, a couple of English strikers Stephy Mavididi and Jeremy Monga, Zambian striker Patson Daka and Jamaican striker Bobby de Cordova-Reid.
Following tomorrow’s away game against the Pompey will be the final three matches to determine the Foxes’ foreseeable destiny including a home game against Hull, a home game against Millwall, both being promotion-chasing sides, and finally an away game against the relegation rivals Blackburn.
In another development, Sheffield Wednesday previously owned by Thai national Dejpon Chansiri will start their next season in League One with a 15-points deduction unless potential, new American owner David Storch and his Arise Capital Partners finally agree to pay some 15 million pounds as part of the takeover process to their outgoing predecessor at Hillsborough stadium.
The debt-ridden Owls have already sustained a combined 18-points deduction due to a breach to the EFL financial rules since an early part of the current season and only made one win and 11 draws but conceded 30 defeats so far.
At any rate, it will simply be up to anyone’s guess as to how soon the both of English football clubs, either currently or previously owned by the Thais, will return to the Championship and then hopefully get promoted to the Premier League after it has been now a full decade for the Foxes and 26 years for the Owls under Danish manager Henrik Pedersen since they last ranked among top-flight clubs.
CAPTIONS:
Top: Leicester City’s Ricardo Pereira (right) and Portsmouth’s Yang Min-Hyeok battle for the ball at the King Power Stadium. Photo – Skysports.com
First insert – Leicester’s Thai owner/chair Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha. Photo – Skysports
Second insert – Aaron Ramsey scored on his second league start for Leicester in the match against Portsmouth which ended in 1-1 draw. Photo – Getty Images and published by BBC
Front Page – General view of Leicester City flags before the match. REUTERS/Carl Recine and published by CNA
Also read:
Thai-owned Foxes on brink of relegation again
‘Amazing Thailand’ on West Ham shirts next season
American consortium closing in on Sheffield Wednesday takeover bid
U-turn on poker with Anutin banning the card game
