As night falls this evening, the Leicester City team coach will edge through the rush-hour traffic on Marsh Lane and turn left through the unassuming entrance to Court Place Farm.
It will make its way along the narrow lane to the MGroup Stadium, where manager Russell Martin and his players will disembark with the sole intention of avoiding FA Cup humiliation against sixth-tier Oxford City.
When they board the coach again a few hours later, it will be with either relief or embarrassment, depending on whether they suffer a giant-killing that would make national and potentially international headlines. For Martin, it would be a defeat he may never be able to shake off.
Why Russell Martin can't afford to suffer an FA Cup giant-killing
That Leicester team coach has travelled to English football’s most famous stadiums, from Anfield to Wembley.
But its journey from the East Midlands to Oxfordshire for this FA Cup first round tie is a sign of how far the Foxes have fallen, just five years after lifting the trophy and only 10 years after winning the Premier League.
Martin’s managerial career - or perhaps more accurately, his reputation - has experienced a similarly sharp decline.
He was aged just 33 when he became MK Dons head coach in November 2019, when he was still on the club’s playing staff. In 2020/21, his only full season, the League One team boasted the third-highest possession percentage per game in Europe - behind only Manchester City and Barcelona - and scored a goal against Gillingham following a 56-pass move, a British record.
MK ended the campaign 13th, but Swansea City had seen enough to make Martin their manager. After solid but unspectacular finishes of 15th and 10th in the Championship, he moved to newly-relegated Southampton in summer 2023.
After a slow start, he led Saints to promotion back to the Premier League, via a club-record 25-game unbeaten run and a play-off final victory over Leeds United. It emerged this week that Martin was even earmarked as a future Manchester United manager by the club’s director of football, Jason Wilcox.
His stock had never been higher, but within six months it had crashed. Martin became a top-flight manager by favouring a possession-based style, but his refusal to change his approach became a stick to beat him with as Southampton floundered. He was sacked in December 2024 with Saints rock-bottom, having claimed just five points from 16 games.
Somehow, it got worse. Martin was named Rangers boss in summer 2025 but lasted just 123 days - the shortest stint by a permanent manager in the club’s history - after the fans turned on him amid poor results and some PR disasters.
It was why there was widespread derision when Leicester appointed the 40-year-old in June, as they prepared for life in League One following successive relegations. The jeers grew louder after some embarrassing early-season defeats, most notably a 4-0 thrashing by Oxford United at the King Power Stadium.
Fast forward to the present day and another clash with a team from Oxford, and Martin has won just 15 out of 53 games since leading Southampton to promotion. That being said, he is currently on his best run of form in that time, with Leicester taking 10 points from their past five matches.
The problem is that Martin has become such a lightning rod for criticism that whenever the Foxes drop points, the knives come out. Here are some of the comments under the club’s posts on X after the Foxes twice let slip a lead to draw 2-2 at home to Stevenage last Saturday:
“Get used to this with that clown as manager.”
“Whilst he remains in charge we remain in League One. His team selections, tactics, subs all questionable. As soon as we come up against anyone half decent we are found out. Get rid.”
“I want a flexible manager not a one-trick pony.”
“Your possession obsession is causing the team to go back rather than forward too much.”
While X is not always an accurate barometer of public opinion, these comments marked all the squares on the Russell Martin bingo card. To his critics, he is a "clown" and a "one-trick pony" ("fraud" is another popular insult), whose "possession obsession" means his teams are "found out" far too easily.
The latter criticism is certainly valid, as there is no doubt that his tactical inflexibility accelerated his downfall at Southampton and contributed to some of Leicester’s poor results this season.
Equally, the Venn diagram of people who do not like Martin and also hate ‘tippy tappy football’ probably has quite a crowded intersection. For some people, his failures vindicate their belief that a possession-based approach is overrated.
And if Leicester lose to Oxford City live on TV, it will vindicate their belief that Martin is a "clown".
Tonight’s game has all the ingredients of an FA Cup upset: an underperforming giant going to an in-form non-League club (City are second in National League North), who boast several former EFL players including ex-Sheffield Wednesday and Watford winger Fernando Forestieri and former Bristol City and Oxford United striker Matty Taylor.
City’s ground will be full to its 3,500 capacity, with the fans crammed in close to the action. The only thing missing is a playing surface resembling a mudbath, as City have a 3G pitch.
That should allow Leicester to dominate possession, but if they still come up short, well, Martin’s critics will feel they have been proved right.
Alternatively, if the Foxes win with little fuss, maybe the narrative around Martin will start to change. One victory over a non-League side will not move the needle, but you would expect a clown to slip on a banana skin, not calmly pick it up and toss it in the bin.
If Leicester then continue their good form and mount a promotion charge, he might even be praised for reversing his and the Foxes’ decline.
But that is a discussion for another day. Today, Martin must avoid a humiliating defeat from which his reputation may never recover.
