Soccer
Stan Collymore slams Leicester City's top flight strategy in light of Premier League struggles
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Stan Collymore doesn't think Leicester City's continued Premier League struggles can be blamed on Ruud van Nistelrooy, as the fault lies in the club failing to focus on the first team.
The Foxes sit two points from safety in the bottom three, with only one win in their last ten games and rumours that the Dutch boss is already under pressure having taken over in November.
However, Collymore thinks the issue falls on the club and their failure to invest properly in the squad, and they are now facing the consequences.
"It's been a very disappointing campaign," Collymore exclusively told DAZN News, courtesy of William Hill Vegas.
"I think that the problem is, like Wolves on the other side of the Midlands divide, is that unless you're constantly investing in your squad, even two or three quality players a window, then you're back-pedalling. And that's the problem that they've had.
"They took their eye off the ball in terms of the first team, built a wonderful academy and an amazing structure that would be fit around Madrid or Barcelona.
"But you've got to make sure that the meat and two veg of a football club, i.e. the first team, are constantly supplied with a balance of younger, quality recruits that can get better and experienced players that can take you forward. And on both, they've been lacking.
"If you look at Leicester's team, yes, there are players that they bought four or five years ago that they were hoping were going to be first-team players and players that they'll promote from, say, a cracking academy. But I think that the ownership hasn't yet banged the recipe of how to successfully staff the first team.
"Until he gets that right, by buying experienced Premier League players, plus your three or four that you can polish and make into better players and maybe sell on, it doesn't matter who the head coach is, they're going to continue to potentially, in the next three or four years, yo-yo between the top two divisions.
"So I feel for Ruud van Nistelrooy and I felt for Steve Cooper, as I felt for other managers. I don't think it's the coaching at this point. I think it's the construction of the football department at Leicester City."
