This season Paul Warne took MK Dons up to League One. In previous years he has promoted Derby and Rotherham in different seasons. He is an expert of promotion, but has struggled in reforming his teams in the next season.
Paul Warne promoted Rotherham three times during his six-year managerial tenure, securing successful promotion campaigns to the Championship in 2018, 2020, and 2022.
Paul Warne had his time at Derby, a club of a similar size as Leicester, but he was not able to make the next step and ended up in League Two.
Leicester signed up Nigel Pearson when they last did see relegation to the third tier. He managed to climb and take the club into the play-off’s the season after promotion. He laster came back and promoted Leicester to Premier League.
Earlier in the process of hiring a new Leicester Manager, we did see a number of names with a profile similiar to Paul Warne, having experience with promotions, so looking at the different profiles are interesting.
This season Michael Scubala (Lincoln), Brian Barry-Murphy (Cardiff) and Steven Schumacher (Bolton) were the three men taking their teams up from League One.
The season before you had, Chris Davies (Birmingham), Phil Parkinson (Wrexham) and Nathan Jones (Charlton) as the managers bringing promotion.
John Mousinho (Portsmouth), Paul Warne (Derby) and Des Buckingham (Oxford) at helm in 2023-24. Steven Schumacher (Plymouth), Kieran McKenna (Ipswich) and Darren Moore (Sheffield Wednesday) were in charge in the 2022-23 season for those three promoted sides.
In 2021-22 it was Wigan, Rotherham and Sunderland getting promoted. Alex Neil in charge of Sunderland. Paul Warne in charge of Rotherham and Wigan having Leam Richardson.
If you look at the types and profiles of these managers, Leicester are climbing in the wrong threes to find their candidates. If you look at the list of candidates linked to Leicester, they look far from a manager with ability to take this club up from this level, with the profile of those others very different.
Chris Davies and Michael Scubale were both seen as candidates for the Leicester job and possibly the two with the best profile for this type of task.
Happy anniversary, Gaffer! 🥳
— Milton Keynes Dons (@MKDonsFC) April 15, 2026
Paul Warne was appointed #MKDons Head Coach a year ago today 📅#COYD pic.twitter.com/Z6BQieZYn8
We will see what happens but surely a foreigner looks a very odd move as no one is seen in a promotion in the last five seasons.
The biggest problem for Leicester at the minute is that they have a squad full of players with no experience from this level of football. They are not yet started to build a new fundament for next season. They have no manager in place and the situation most be sorted quickly.
We have not seen Paul Warne on any list at all, going for a man out of work looks the route at this point. The last four managers hired by Leicester, Steve Cooper, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Marti Cifuentes and Gary Rowett, were all out of work when they came in, no compensation fee to be paid, but looking in the back mirror, no one achieved what was expected.
They also became emergency appointments, going in, when other candidates said no. What Marti Cifuentes experienced last season was a nightmare, but his own decision. He started the season with players who at that time told him they wanted to play elsewhere and he had to trust a loan player to be his best man in the team.
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