Leicester City’s New Era Under Russell Martin: A Path to Promotion
Leicester City know all about history. They wrote one of football’s greatest in 2016, tearing up the script as 5,000-1 outsiders to win the Premier League. They lifted the FA Cup in 2021. Now they are back in League One, staring at the hard reality of back-to-back relegations.
Russell Martin wants none of that on his shoulders.
The new Leicester manager is walking into a club still haunted by its own recent past, but he is determined to strip away the weight of nostalgia and failure and judge this era on its own terms.
“We have to find our own way and then be judged on that,” he told BBC Radio Leicester.
The message is blunt: stop measuring this Leicester side against the miracle team, or even against the chaos of the last two years. This is a reset.
A manager rebuilding – and being rebuilt
Martin arrives with his own story to repair. He guided Southampton back to the Premier League just over two years ago, only for a bruising 123-day spell at Rangers last season to dent a growing reputation.
Now he has dropped into the third tier with Leicester, a club that has fallen even faster than he has. The fit is obvious: both manager and club are trying to reclaim their standing, both wary of being defined by what went wrong before.
“Hopefully I'll be judged on the job I do here and not on my previous job and all that stuff,” he said. “It's the same for me.”
That line cuts both ways. He is asking Leicester fans to look forward, but he is also talking about himself.
A new power structure under scrutiny
Martin’s appointment was the first major call under sporting director James McCarron, who stepped into the role last season. McCarron operates beneath chief football officer Jon Rudkin, a man whose name has become a lightning rod for criticism as the club slid from European nights to League One trips in just a few years.
Owner and chairman Khun Aiyawatt “Top” Srivaddhanaprabha has also felt the heat. The glow of the title win and FA Cup triumph has faded under the harsh light of financial missteps, poor recruitment and a team that simply stopped winning.
So what has Martin found behind the doors at King Power Stadium?
“There was real honesty about what's gone on, but now there's real honesty and openness and willingness to move forward,” he said.
He refused to take shots at the past: “I can't judge anything that has gone on before because I've not been here.”
He has watched from afar like everyone else, he admits, and knows people have made their own assumptions. But inside the building, he says, he has been “really open to being surprised” and insists “people have been great.”
The fractures in the club’s hierarchy will be tested again if results falter. For now, manager and board are publicly aligned: this is about clearing the mess and climbing back up.
The target is blunt: go up
There is no disguising the brief. Leicester have spent just one previous season in the third tier in their 142-year history. They cannot afford to linger.
“It's to get promoted, first and foremost,” Martin said. No caveats, no soft landing. Promotion or failure.
He also wants something deeper than a league position. “[And] to play in a way that everyone understands and believes in, feels connected to and makes the fans proud.”
Style and substance, in other words. That will sound familiar to anyone who watched his possession-heavy sides at MK Dons or Southampton. But League One is unforgiving. Pretty patterns mean little if you cannot score and scrap on a cold Tuesday.
Right now, Leicester barely have a forward line to argue with.
A squad stripped back
The summer has been about cutting, not adding. Wage bills and expectations have both been slashed.
High earners and big names from the relegation campaigns have gone. Denmark international Jannik Vestergaard agreed to terminate his contract. Harry Winks, once an England midfielder and a symbol of Leicester’s Premier League-level recruitment, has been sold to Cagliari. Abdul Fatawu’s sale to Ipswich Town brought in around £20m.
These exits are not just tactical decisions. They are financial necessities.
Leicester’s battle with spending rules cost them a points deduction last season for historical breaches. The consequences are still being felt. To stay on the right side of the regulations, they have had to cash in on some of their brightest young talents as well.
The standout example is 17-year-old Jeremy Monga, snapped up by Manchester City. A player many fans hoped to see grow in blue has become another asset moved on to balance the books.
On top of that, an end-of-season clear-out saw 10 out-of-contract players depart. When the dust settled, Leicester were left without a senior striker. Patson Daka had gone. Jordan Ayew, too. For a club chasing promotion, it is a stark place to start.
Building a new attack from almost nothing
Into that vacuum has stepped Conor Chaplin, one of only two signings since relegation. The former Ipswich Town forward knows this division and what it takes to escape it: he was top scorer when Ipswich went up from League One four seasons ago.
It is a smart, targeted addition. But one man is not enough.
Martin knows it. “Ideally, we'd have two or three strikers,” he said. He wants variety, not just numbers. “We don't just want one of the same, and it's the same with wingers.”
Profiles matter to him. So does mentality. “Whatever we are looking at, whatever profile it is, it has to be right for us. They need to be desperate to come here and play, they need to be desperate to help us to be successful.”
Desperate. It is a revealing word. Leicester have spent the past decade as the club others aspired to be: champions, cup winners, European regulars. Now they are searching for players who see League One Leicester not as a step down, but as a stage to fight on.
Martin is trying to build a squad that reflects where the club truly is, not where its history says it should be.
The banners at King Power will still show the title win. The memories will not fade. But in League One, those memories do not win you points. The question now is whether Leicester, under a manager determined to escape his own past, can stop looking back long enough to climb again.
