Tony Gillan: No, Gary Lineker - Claudio Ranieri's sacking at Leciester City is not so inexplicable

But the club is now struggling to avoid relegation and was eliminated from the FA Cup by a team two leagues below them; so out went the manager. This sort of decision is no rarity in football.

There are those who disagree with the sacking. But on those terms, no one can reasonably claim to not understand the decision.

The taxi driver talk currently presented as fact, is that his players got rid of him. Even if this is actually true, then no one seems to consider that they might have done the right thing.

However, leading crisp salesman Gary Lineker, who couldn’t disguise his contempt when Ranieri was given the job in 2015, was distraught.

On Friday he warbled: “It is inexplicable to me. It’s inexplicable to a lot football fans who love the game.

“I shed a tear last night for Claudio, for football and for my club.”

Get a grip mate. You sound like Scarlet O’Hara. Ranieri is a decent bloke who is justifiably upset. But at least he has his memories. Presumably he also has the pay-off from the lucrative four-year contract that he signed last August.

Gary really could shed a tear for worthier recipients.

In 2013 Lineker rhetorically asked Match of the Day viewers: “Will the dismissal of Martin O’Neill really help Sunderland to stay up? History suggests it won’t.”

History suggested no such thing and subsequent events proved Lineker doubly wrong. Even though Sunderland replaced O’Neill with a buffoon, the two games they won under his short and otherwise disastrous tenure were sufficient to keep the club up.

The short-term fix worked and is working so far for Leicester, albeit after only one game – a win over Liverpool. The ginormous cost of relegation means, sadly, that struggling clubs simply do not have the luxury of thinking long-term.

As last week’s events at the Stadium of Light illustrate, the loss of anyone’s job is sad and unpleasant.

But for anyone to think of Claudio Ranieri’s sacking as “inexplicable,” particularly a bright lad like Gary Lineker is, well, inexplicable.