Hammers can kill off another Leicester boss

Former Daily Express chief sportswriter and all round good guy JOHN WRAGG  has been covering Leicester City for national papers over many years.

Today in this exclusuive CandH blog ‘Wraggy’ takes a look at the troubles affecting the Foxes and they may just be a bad or worse than the Hammers right now.

CLAUDE Puel could be gone from Leicester quicker than it takes to spell club billionaire owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha’s name.

Thai Srivaddhanaprabha might be a nightmare for Countdown’s Rachel Riley if she had to put up all those consonants and vowels, but he doesn’t mess about.

Claudio Ranieri was sacked less than a year after he won the Premier League for Leicester.

Craig Shakespeare was binned four months into a three-year deal having kept Leicester safe from relegation following Ranieri’s dismissal and taking them to the quarter-finals of the European Cup.

Now it could be Puel’s turn if he loses at home to West Ham.

He arrived in October as Shakespeare’s successor and the French boy done good initially.

Puel lost only one of his first eight league games to steady a very wobbly Leicester ship and took them into the Premier League’s top eight and the quarter-finals of the FA Cup.

There was even talk of European football nights again via the Europa League, not that Claude was shouting about it. You can’t really see him shouting, he talks so quietly.

But he does mess about.

Team changes, formations, they are straight from Claudio ‘Tinkerman’ Ranieri’s football manual. But Puel has none of Claudio’s cheeky charm, no twinkle in the eye, it’s all deadly dull.

And Leicester are getting fed up with it.

There’s been talk of dressing room unrest with Puel for weeks. This squad of players has history remember, accused of losing faith in Ranieri when he chopped and changed the team and made decisions they thought odd.

Leicester crashed 5-0 last time out at Crystal Palace. It’s now four games without a win, three of those defeats.

Puel has won three of his last 13 games in all competitions. He’s won four league games since the middle of December.

Aleksandar Dragović, for instance, is unhappy.

Leicester have an option to buy him  for £18m from Bayer Leverkusen but he’s unlikely to make his loan permanent if Puel is still there.

Why? Because he’s not getting enough games.

Marc Albrighton, suspended for this game, is a winger with a fantastic crossing ability all day long. Where’s Puel been playing him? Full back.He can’t tackle his way out of a paper bag and got sent off at Palace when he was caught out by Wilfried Zaha.

There’s stuff going on that is baffling and Puel doesn’t have the wins on the board to back up what he’s doing.

Southampton fans did warn Leicester what was coming. They were so cheesed off with his dull football they turned against him in a way that makes Sam Allardyce look flavour of the month at Everton.

Puel’s opening eight games at Leicester made Saints fans look numpties because he attacked ,with five wins and 17pts out of 24.

Since then it’s been those four wins from 18 league games, 19pts out of 54.

Srivaddwhatshisface arrives for Leicester games by helicopter. Have a look up Claude, make sure there are no gun turrets strapped on.