Club block birthday requests after jokes about sacking ex-Celtic boss sent in

Leicester City have reportedly blocked a supporter from submitting a scoreboard announcement request calling for manager Brendan Rodgers to be sacked.

The former Celtic boss is under increasing pressure at the King Power Stadium following a difficult start to their Premier League campaign, with the Foxes currently sitting bottom ot the table.

Leicester have picked up just four points after nine matches, including a damaging 2-1 defeat to mid-table Bournemouth at the weekend.

Fans had hoped that a thumping 4-0 victory over fellow strugglers Nottingham Forest at the start of October would bring about an upturn in fortunes but it now appears patience is wearing thin among the support at the East Midlands club.

One fan, in particular, called Stuart is understood to have paid £20 to submit a joke scoreboard request to be displayed during Saturday’s upcoming home match against Crystal Palace with a message directed to ‘Brenda Nout’ - presumably a fake name.

Unfortunately for him, the club refused to be fooled and denied his request.

The fan later posted a screenshot of an email he had supposedly received from the football club on Twitter, which read: “Hi Stuart. I can see that you have paid for a scoreboard announcement for the Crystal Palace match.

“We will not be able to display your message. I have refunded the £20 back to your account. Kind regards.”

Responding to the tweet, another Leicester fan claimed the club had now blocked all requests for scoreboard announcements this weekend.

He wrote: “No way Leicester have blocked and stopped all birthday announcements at the Palace game on Saturday. Just because a loyal fan wanted to wish their son Zak Rodgers and their mum Brenda Nout a happy birthday, shocking stuff from the club.”

Rodgers, who enjoyed a highly successful two-and-a-half-year spell at Parkhead between May 2016 and January 2019, won two Scottish Premiership titles, two Scottish Cup and three League Cups during his time in Glasgow.

He replaced Claude Puel at Leicester midway through the 2018/19 season before guiding the club to back-to-back fifth-place finishes in England’s top tier.

However, the 49-year-old has found the going much tougher this term. When asked if he felt under pressure in the wake of Saturday’s defeat, Rodgers replied: “It’s not about pressure. I know if you’re in the bottom three, there will always be pressure - I understand that.

“For me though, it’s about focusing on the process of getting the results. Ultimately we lost this game but we’ve got two home games and we really need to focus on them.”