Leicester City Football Club remain winless at the start of their League One season under new manager Russell Martin following back-to-back relegations in each of the past two seasons.
The East Midlands club drew 1-1 away at Notts County in their opening match before losing 2-1 at home to Burton Albion last weekend.
Without a win from their opening two matches in the third tier, some supporters are already fearful that Leicester face a third straight relegation. The uncertainty has been heightened after the club's Thai owners recently announced that Leicester City has been put up for sale.
Slow start under new manager
Martin was appointed as Leicester manager on a three-year contract back in the summer, tasked with turning around a team in freefall. However, the early weeks of his tenure have failed to halt the decline.
During last weekend's defeat to Burton Albion at the King Power Stadium, Leicester fell 2-0 down midway through the first half. Many home fans were seen streaming towards the exits long before full-time.
In his post-match interviews, Martin offered soundbites that cited a lack of hunger, energy, and psychological readiness among his players. "We have to make sure that is our worst 25 minutes of the season," Martin said after the home loss to Burton.
Echoes of Glasgow dismissal
The sluggish start and post-match comments have drawn direct comparisons to Martin's turbulent spell at Scottish Premiership side Rangers 12 months ago.
Martin's time at Ibrox unravelled after a 9-1 aggregate hammering against Belgian side Club Brugge in the Champions League qualifiers a year ago.
Following that European defeat, Martin expressed remorse over his team's display. "It's humiliating and it's really painful. We're not strong enough as a group yet," Martin said at the time. "I don't think we'll get beat 6-0 again. We have to feel this pain. I don't think we will feel this level of pain again in future."
Despite the humiliation in Brugge, Rangers persisted with Martin for another two months. The Glasgow club finally dismissed him with the team sitting eighth in the table after securing only one win from his first seven league matches.
Martin left Ibrox after just 123 days and 17 games in charge, making him the shortest-serving and statistically worst manager in Rangers' history, bar none.
Uncertain future for former champions
When Martin received the Leicester job in the summer, several English journalists praised the decision. However, many Leicester supporters viewed his hiring as a risky gamble for a club trying to rebuild after two successive relegations, while Rangers fans had experienced a similar trajectory 12 months earlier.
Critics have described Martin as a football idealist whose tactics resemble a lower-tier version of Pep Guardiola, delivering possession-based style without defensive substance or quality.
In an interview over the summer, Martin reflected on his brief spell in Scotland, admitting that Rangers "probably wasn't the right fit for them or me" and claiming he had learned from the failure.
The current crisis marks a dramatic fall for a club that won the English Premier League ten years ago. In May 2016, under Italian manager Claudio Ranieri and his famous "dilly-ding dilly-dong" catchphrase, Leicester defied 5,000-1 odds to win the top-flight title.
That historic triumph was celebrated at striker Jamie Vardy's house while tenor Andrea Bocelli performed Nessun dorma at their home ground, leading into an August 2016 campaign in the UEFA Champions League.
A decade later, Leicester fans are witnessing a very different reality as the club struggles to adapt to life in League One under Martin's guidance.
