Shadowing Practice: How Leicester City Collapsed - Learn English Speaking with Video
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In May 2016, Leicester City completed arguably the biggest shock in football history by winning the Premier League.
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But just ten years later, they've been relegated to English football's third tier for only the second time in their history.
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The dream has turned into a nightmare.
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So what's gone wrong at Leicester City?
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Welcome to Tifo Football by The Athletic.
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Leicester's incredible journey had actually started six years before their league title, when they were taken over by Thai businessman Vishay Srivathana Prabha, known as Khun Vishay.
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Under his ownership, they experienced the high of promotion to the Premier League in 2014,
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a miraculous relegation escape in 2015 and of course the world famous fairytale title in 2016.
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The Champions League quarter-final followed in 2017,
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but in 2018, Kun Vishay tragically died in a helicopter crash outside Leicester's King Power Stadium that also killed four other people.
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His role as Leicester owner and chairman was taken over by his son Kun Top,
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who pledged to realise his father's vision for a club that could consistently challenge for Champions League football.
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He pressed ahead with his plans to build a state-of-the-art £100m training ground
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and an expansion of King Power Stadium to increase capacity to 40,000, and to build revenue-generating infrastructure outside the ground, including retail outlets, a hotel,
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restaurants, offices and an indoor arena.
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For a while, Leicester's success continued.
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Under manager Brendan Rodgers, they won a first-ever FA Cup in 2021
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and secured three consecutive top eight finishes in the Premier League.
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But in the background, key mistakes were being made.
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After their title success, Leicester Twitter had avoided profit and sustainability breaches by selling one key player each summer.
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But in the summer of 2021, they abandoned that model.
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With Rodgers' chosen head of recruitment, Lee Congleton, in charge, they signed Patson Dacca, Yannick Vestergaard and Boubacare Samare for big money without selling an asset.
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And Rodgers himself was earning £8 million per year, making him the highest paid manager in the club's history.
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All of this happened just as the club's revenue was starting to be hit by external factors.
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They had already committed to the training ground move when the Covid-19 pandemic hit and dramatically increased the cost of materials, though the stadium development was shelved.
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The pandemic also negatively impacted King Power, the tourism company that Kunvischai had founded and that Kun Top had taken over.
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was particularly badly affected, given that it's rooted in duty-free tourism retail.
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In the 2020-21 season, Leicester missed out on Champions League qualification on the final day of the season, and this proved to be a sliding doors moment.
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Had they qualified, the revenue could have justified their ambitious, risky approach.
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Not qualifying put a club that was perhaps uniquely vulnerable to the global economic circumstances of the time under even more strain.
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In 2022 they posted a loss of £92.5 million.
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Spending had spiralled out of control and by the 22-23 season Leicester's wages to revenue ratio had ballooned to a staggering 116%.
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That season the club sleepwalked towards relegation.
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Rodgers was not sacked until April, despite just seven wins in 29 matches with the seventh highest budget in the league.
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In the summer that followed relegation, seven senior players, who'd been recruited for a total investment of £107m, were allowed to run down their contracts and leave on free transfers.
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The financial impact of the relegation was disastrous.
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Leicester did gain promotion straight back to the Premier League the following year, but did so with the largest budget in Championship history
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and more significant losses that put them in breach of profit and sustainability regulations.
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Under the PSR, Premier League clubs are allowed to lose a maximum of £105m over three seasons or £35m a season.
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Championship clubs, meanwhile, follow similar rules and are permitted to lose up to £39m over a three-season period, or £13m per season.
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Across this three-year accounting period, Leicester spent two seasons in the Premier League and one in the Championship, meaning that they were permitted to lose a maximum of £83m.
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A Premier League statement claimed, however, that they'd breached the PSR threshold by £20.8m.
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Leicester argue that their threshold should have been the £105m given to teams who spent all three years in the Premier League,
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but this was dismissed by an independent commission who handed them a six-point deduction in February 2026.
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By this point, Leicester were already back in the Championship, looking for a sixth new manager in four years.
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They were looking because they'd just sacked Marti Sifuentes, who himself was not appointed until the eve of the first day of pre-season, so that the cost of sacking his predecessor,
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Ruud van Nisselrooy could be deferred to the following year's accounts for financial purposes.
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So with the season already going badly, Leicester were now facing a relegation battle but in the Championship this time, and decision makers were once again slow to act.
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It was as if no lessons had been learned from the 2022-23 Premier League season when the club sleepwalked into relegation.
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When the January transfer window opened, instead of adding players with experience of such a battle to help the cause,
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they brought in youngsters like Devine Mukasa from Manchester City and Dijuan Richards from Chelsea.
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Two talented players, but players without experience, especially of a relegation battle.
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They were thrust into a squad where some of their teammates had wanted to leave but couldn't, and others who knew they were leaving in the summer anyway.
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It's a dysfunctional dressing room, lacking in true leadership, and the supporters will not lament the loss of many of the departed.
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Inevitably, following relegation and a huge drop in revenue, the squad will have to be completely dismantled and rebuilt this summer,
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amidst huge financial cuts across every department of the club.
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The squad costs to revenue ratio has been reduced to 81% from the staggering 116 a few years earlier,
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but it will have to come down by another 20% at least in League One, meaning that young assets like Ben Nelson,
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Abdel Fattou and possibly Jeremy Monger will have to be sold.
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And whoever remains will see another relegation clause activated to cut their wages further.
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With the financial hit of relegation, the complete overhaul of the playing squad and lingering discontent around the club,
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it will take a herculean effort to win back the hearts and minds of a large section of the supporters.
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Amidst the anger, resentment and indignation at Leicester's fall from the pinnacle of English football, the overriding sentiment is that of sadness.
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The greatest fairy tale in English football history has now turned into such a tragedy.
About This Lesson
Ready to learn English with videos while exploring a fascinating sports story? This lesson uses the rise and fall of Leicester City to practice listening, speaking, and vocabulary. You’ll follow a narrative full of real-world terms, perfect for IELTS speaking practice and improving pronunciation. By the end, you’ll feel more confident with conversational English and complex sentences—all while learning about a historic football journey.
Key Vocabulary & Phrases
- Relegated: When a team is moved down to a lower league (e.g., "Leicester were relegated to the third tier").
- Profit and Sustainability Regulations (PSR): Rules that limit how much money a club can lose (e.g., "Leicester breached PSR thresholds").
- Wages to revenue ratio: The percentage of a club’s income spent on player salaries (e.g., "A 116% ratio is unsustainable").
- Sliding doors moment: A critical point where a small decision changes everything (e.g., "Missing Champions League was a sliding doors moment").
- Sleepwalked: To act without awareness, leading to bad results (e.g., "The club sleepwalked into relegation").
Practice Tips
This video has a moderate, storytelling tone—great for shadow speech practice. Here’s how to nail it: First, listen to 30-second clips and repeat immediately, mimicking the speaker’s pace and intonation. Notice how words like "tragically" and "disastrous" are emphasized to show emotion—this will boost your IELTS speaking fluency. Next, focus on long sentences about financial rules (e.g., "Championship clubs are permitted to lose up to £39m over three seasons"). Break them into chunks to master pronunciation. Finally, record yourself and compare it to the video—you’ll quickly spot areas to improve. With consistent practice, you’ll not only understand complex stories but speak English more naturally too!
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.