Leicester City: A New Era Begins with Russell Martin

Ten years on from 5,000-1 glory, Leicester City are back in the third tier and picking through the rubble. Russell Martin wants no part of the nostalgia tour.

The new Leicester manager knows exactly what hangs over the King Power: a Premier League title, an FA Cup, European nights, and then a slide so steep it spat the club out in League One. Twice relegated. Reputation bruised. Finances strained. The fairy tale now feels like a weight.

Martin is determined to strip that away.

“We have to find our own way and then be judged on that,” he told BBC Radio Leicester, making it clear he will not measure himself against Claudio Ranieri’s miracle or Brendan Rodgers’ peak years. “Hopefully I’ll be judged on the job I do here and not on my previous job and all that stuff. It’s the same for me.”

He needs that fresh slate as much as the club does.

The 38-year-old arrives with promotion on his CV from Southampton, but also with the scars of a turbulent 123-day spell at Rangers that ended with his reputation dented. Dropping into League One, just as Leicester have, is his own form of reset.

New faces in the firing line

Martin is the first big call of a new power structure. His appointment came under sporting director James McCarron, who stepped into the role last season beneath chief football officer Jon Rudkin. Rudkin, alongside owner and chairman Khun Aiyawatt ‘Top’ Srivaddhanaprabha, has worn much of the criticism as Leicester have lurched from Champions League nights to points deductions and back-to-back relegations.

Martin, though, has little interest in relitigating the past. He has already sat down with the hierarchy and, he says, liked what he heard.

“There was real honesty about what’s gone on, but now there’s real honesty and openness and willingness to move forward,” he said. “I can’t judge anything that has gone on before because I’ve not been here.”

He has watched Leicester’s collapse from afar, like everyone else. But he insists he arrived ready to be “surprised” and says the people inside the club “have been great”.

The remit they have given him is brutally simple.

“It’s to get promoted, first and foremost,” he said. Then he added the second strand: “To play in a way that everyone understands and believes in, feels connected to and makes the fans proud.”

League One. Leicester City. Promotion or bust. There is no ambiguity.

A stripped-back squad and a sale-first summer

The squad Martin inherits barely resembles the one that lifted the FA Cup in 2021 or even the one that went down. This summer has been about cutting, not building.

High earners and big names have gone. Denmark defender Jannik Vestergaard agreed to terminate his contract. Harry Winks, once an England regular, has been sold to Cagliari. Abdul Fatawu, one of the few bright sparks in a grim period, has moved to Ipswich Town in a deal worth around £20m.

Those departures are not simply tactical decisions. Leicester are still wrestling with the consequences of overspending. Last season’s points penalty for historical financial breaches forced the club to treat this window as a balancing act. That has meant not only trimming the wage bill but cashing in on potential.

Seventeen-year-old Jeremy Monga, highly regarded inside the club, has already gone to Manchester City. It is the kind of sale that stings a fanbase, but under the current rules and financial pressure, it has become part of the reality.

An end-of-season clear-out saw 10 out-of-contract players leave. The most striking consequence? Leicester finished the campaign and entered pre-season without a single senior striker on their books. Patson Daka and Jordan Ayew were among those to depart, leaving a glaring hole at the top of the pitch.

For a club with promotion demands, that is not a detail. It is a crisis point.

Building an attack from scratch

So far, the rebuild has been cautious, almost painfully so. Conor Chaplin, the former Ipswich Town forward, is one of only two signings since relegation. Chaplin knows this division well; he was top scorer when Ipswich climbed out of League One four seasons ago. He arrives as a proven threat at this level, but he cannot do it alone.

Martin knows that. He has been blunt about what still needs to come through the door.

“Ideally, we’d have two or three strikers,” he said. He does not want clones. “We don’t just want one of the same, and it’s the same with wingers.”

The idea is clear: variety in attack, different profiles, different threats. Leicester will not just chase names; Martin wants players who fit the style he plans to impose.

“Whatever we are looking at, whatever profile it is, it has to be right for us,” he said. “They need to be desperate to come here and play, they need to be desperate to help us to be successful.”

That word – desperate – is telling. Leicester once attracted players with the lure of European football and a Premier League platform. Now, Martin wants hunger, not comfort. He wants players who see League One Leicester not as a comedown, but as an opportunity.

A club between eras

This is only the second time in 142 years that Leicester have dropped into the third tier. The last time they were here, they used it as a springboard. The climb that followed eventually ended in one of the most astonishing title wins in English football history.

Martin does not want that story dragged out as a measuring stick. He does not want every misstep compared with Ranieri’s miracle or every defeat framed as another chapter in a tragic fall.

History is there. The banners, the memories, the expectations. He knows he cannot erase them.

But in a club still shedding salaries, selling its brightest prospects, and scrambling to sign strikers, Martin’s message is stark: judge this Leicester on what comes next, not on what came before.

In League One, with a stripped-back squad and a fanbase still reeling, that challenge will define more than just his own reputation.