{"id":663640,"date":"2026-01-25T10:58:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T15:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=663640"},"modified":"2026-01-25T10:58:53","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T15:58:53","slug":"marti-cifuntes-sacked-leicester-city-oxford-united","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2026\/01\/25\/marti-cifuntes-sacked-leicester-city-oxford-united\/","title":{"rendered":"Marti Cifuentes Reportedly Sacked by Leicester"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marti Cifuentes is said to have been sacked as Leicester boss after just five months. The Spaniard made his move to the East Midlands over the summer, following Ruud Van Nistelrooy’s dismissal. City fans would have thought it couldn’t get any worse than the stint under the Dutchman, but it did. With the Foxes without a clean sheet in 23 games, eleven defeats in the league and sat fourtneeth, it’s no surprise that change is incoming. In addition to this, the looming points deduction and divided squad combine for a season where City could genuinely be fighting for safety.<\/p>\n

Marti Cifuentes Sacked Following Eleventh League Defeat<\/h2>\n

Marti Cifuentes Gone<\/h3>\n

As confirmed by John Percy<\/a>, Cifuentes is no longer the boss. The decision brings little surprise, given his dismal track record. When watching Leicester play, the tactics are all over the place, and there is a major reliance on individual brilliance from players who are too good for this level. Both Jordan James and Abdul Fatawu have carried the Foxes throughout this campaign, and when they can’t produce moments of magic, the same underwhelming results come.<\/p>\n

Read More:<\/strong> Evaluating Leicester Centre-Back Options Following Wout Faes Departure<\/a><\/p>\n

The lack of consistency has been appalling, and not having kept a clean sheet since mid-September is also far from good enough. Coming into the season, excitement was there from the fans for a rebuild, with youthful exuberance at the centre of it. Flashforward to January, and the likes of Ben Nelson, Jeremy Monga and Louis Page have all spent long periods out of the starting eleven. It’s hard to see where the club goes from here, and with a lack of investment, it’s hard to see how it ever gets better.<\/p>\n

Following the aforementioned Oxford game, former City striker Matty Fryatt<\/a> expressed his disappointment. He said: “They are going to walk themselves into a relegation position. It’s desperate times.” The words from Fryatt perfectly encapsulate the turmoil the club are in. Losing to 23rd-place Oxford at home, and creating an XG of 0.59 is nowhere near good enough, not to mention that they conceded three big chances. It’s been time to go for months, and really, the big decision should have come earlier after the 4-1 defeat to QPR or the back-to-back losses to Southampton and Sheffield United.<\/span><\/p>\n

How Does This Affect Leicester City?<\/h3>\n

With the City vacancy opening up, they need a new manager to steady the ship and get the best out of this group. Players like Abdul Fatawu and Stephy Mavdidi lit up the league just two years ago and surely can once again. It’s also important that the new figure in charge makes use of younger talents like Bade Aluko, Monga and Page after being disregarded at times this season. If the manager wants to get the fans behind them, including the youth, would help.<\/p>\n

Read More:<\/strong> PSR Expert Reveals All On \u2018Odd\u2019 Leicester Trial<\/a><\/p>\n

Ultimately, the most pivotal part of the next few months is staying in the division. A relegation battle would have felt so far away coming into the term, but if a points deduction comes, then the club is in genuine danger. Furthermore, the underlying data also doesn’t bode well for staying away from the drop zone. On the XG table, Leicester sit 22nd in the league. This highlights the fact that they constantly concede high-quality chances, but then, when attacking, don’t get into good enough areas to have dangerous shots.<\/p>\n

From back to front, the team is a mess, and on the 10th anniversary of winning the league.\u00a0 It’s incredible to see how far they have fallen. The apathy of the fans is at an all-time high, players like Winks who don’t even want to play for the club and an owner so out of touch with what is wanted. The next step of Leicester’s tumultuous decade is undecided, but if the past few managerial appointments are anything to go by, then this may not end well. Steve Cooper, Van Nistelroy and Cifuentes all haven’t been good enough, and even outside of them, the likes of Brendan Rodgers and Enzo Maresca fell out with the club’s higher-ups. No top manager would want such a cursed job, especially with all the factors playing against them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marti Cifuentes is said to have been sacked as Leicester boss after just five months. The Spaniard made his move to the East Midlands over the summer, following Ruud Van Nistelrooy’s dismissal. City fans would have thought it couldn’t get any worse than the stint under the Dutchman, but it did. With the Foxes without […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5391,"featured_media":663696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":true,"sfio_embed_code":"<\/smartframe-embed>","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-663640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-leicester-city"],"modified_by":"Alex Richards, LWOF Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5391"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663640"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":663698,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663640\/revisions\/663698"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}