Having parted ways with Marti Cifuentes, Leicester City’s ambitions for his replacement have been clarified in a new bulletin from the King Power Stadium.

A 2-1 home defeat against Oxford United proved to be the tipping point for Leicester City’s owners and head coach Marti Cifuentes, who was fired after only six months in charge with his team in 14th place in the Championship.

Cifuentes was fired on Sunday following the defeat, but fixtures are coming thick and fast, so they must make a speedy decision to bring in a replacement.

Leicester return to action on January 31st against relegation-threatened Charlton Athletic, looking to claw their way back into the play-off places after a disappointing return to the Championship following relegation from the Premier League at the end of last season.

Leicester City is seeking a “experienced” replacement for Marti Cifuentes.

Daily Mail Midlands football writer Tom Collomosse announced on the social networking site X that Leicester City will be seeking for a specific replacement for Cifuentes at The King Power Stadium.

According to Collomosse, Leicester will look for an experienced candidate to succeed the Spaniard. It’s unknown who that could be, but Foxes fans may welcome a solid, tried-and-true pair of hands taking over in the face of adversity both on and off the field.

For the time being, interim duties will be led by Andy King, who made 379 appearances for the club as a player over 14 years from 2006 to 2020 and joined the club as an assistant manager of the club’s Under-18s after retiring in 2024 before joining the first team coaching staff under Ruud van Nistelrooy in February 2025.

Leicester’s options will be limited because they want “experience” in the midst of the season.

“Experience” is not entirely subjective, but it can be interpreted in a variety of ways. It could simply indicate “older”, for example, or it could refer to someone who has previously led teams from the Championship to the Premier League.

Andy King has been established as the early bookies’ favourite to succeed Cifuentes as Leicester City’s permanent manager, but Collomosse’s reporting appears to put question on whether he will be considered for the role on a permanent basis.

Other, more experienced managers who could be considered for the job on a permanent basis include former Southampton and Rangers manager Russell Martin, highly-rated Lee Carsley, who has impressed with his work with the England under-21 team, and former Bournemouth and Wolverhampton Wanderers manager Gary O’Neil.

Whoever takes the post will find themselves in a chaotic club environment. The fan base is deeply dissatisfied with the way the club has been operated in recent years, and Leicester came in 2026 with the danger of a points deduction looming over their heads as a result of PSR breaches.

There is a lot of work to be done on the team. Leicester have won only two of their previous eight Championship games and are 14th in the table, while they go to Southampton in the Fourth Round of the FA Cup in mid-February.

Their season might yet go either way. Despite being in the bottom part of the Championship table with only 17 games remaining, they are only six points away from a play-off spot, which may be closed with a winning streak.

However, things can also go wrong. Slipping back into a relegation battle isn’t completely out of the question, but with the gap between themselves and the bottom three at nine points, it appears more likely that they’ll push up the table than fall down it, though this could change if they receive a points deduction for their financial misdeeds.

The main issue that Leicester must address as a result of dismissing their manager at this time of year is that time is of the essence. There is a week until the transfer window shuts, and Cifuentes’ successor may have wanted that time to bring in the players they want for the end of the season.

And, while Leicester may want experience, the managers they seek will most likely be working elsewhere. Unless they can entice someone from abroad, they will be confined to individuals who are already unemployed, which will significantly reduce their alternatives.

If Andy King excels as a caretaker, he may be granted the position on a permanent basis. Alternatively, it may be wiser to hire him on an interim basis until the end of the season, then make a more permanent choice once the dust has settled from the end-of-season arrivals and departures elsewhere.

Leicester were extraordinarily late in firing Ruud van Nistelrooy, more than 9 weeks after being demoted from the Premier League. Cifuentes was appointed in the middle of July, with only three and a half weeks to the start of the new season.

The issue at The King Power Stadium last summer, however, was not the timing of these moves, but rather the sense that they did not appear to have much of a plan for what to do next after being relegated from the top division. Leicester City fans may be forgiven for asking if the club’s senior management has learned anything since last summer.