Liverpool legend Ray Houghton has explained that he was not shocked with Leicester City’s decision to sack Claudio Ranieri.
The Foxes, who are next up against Liverpool later in the day, parted ways with Ranieri last week, despite the Italian guiding the club to their maiden Premier League triumph in the 2015/16 campaign.
Leicester City have struggled to attain any level of consistency this season and presently find themselves in the relegation zone.
And Houghton believes as football has become a huge business now, Leicester City’s hierarchy sacked Ranieri to protect their business as they thought the former Chelsea boss would not have been able to help the King Power outfit avoid relegation.
As a result, Houghton insisted that the news of Ranieri’s sacking did not come as a shock to him as he saw it coming.
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“Well, I am not shocked, everyone’s saying that they are shocked, but I’m not”, he said on LFC TV.
“I think it has been on the cards for the last few weeks. There’s no loyalty in football anymore, there’s no sentiment.
“The owners at Leicester City are trying to protect their investment because football is a business now, it has gone away from a sport.
“It’s a billion-pound industry and that’s what they are looking at.
“They feel that with Claudio in charge, they might not survive in the Premier League which is quite incredible when you think that they won it last season.”
Houghton went on to add that come what may, Ranieri will be Leicester City’s greatest ever manager for delivering the Premier League title last term.
“Things haven’t gone well this season which can be seen from the league table – they are just a point above relegation zone”, he continued.
“It’s not good from his own point of view, although he will go down as the greatest ever Leicester City manager because he won them the most important title in their history which was the league.”
