Emotions are running high at Leicester City after a challenging week that saw the spectre of profit and sustainability rules threaten their push for a return to the top flight.
On top of this, the EFL also believe Leicester will breach their financial rules this season — which restrict teams to just £13m losses per season — and have already legally attempted to impose a business plan on Leicester to lower their budget and transfer spending.
GO DEEPER
What is PSR and why do Premier League rules only allow clubs to lose £105m?
It is an unwelcome distraction at the business end of a season where Leicester have gone from a 14-point lead at the top of the table to just three points after one win in the last five league games, following the 2-2 draw away at Hull City on Saturday. More importantly, the gap to third-placed Ipswich Town is now down to four points.
With an FA Cup quarter-final at Chelsea up next on Sunday and then the international break, by the time Leicester resume their league campaign they could have relinquished top spot for the first time since September.
Manager Enzo Maresca has other issues to think about besides PSR, which is completely out of his hands. He has to focus on the controllables, like whether to have Callum Doyle’s passing quality on the left side of his defence rather than James Justin’s athleticism, or Conor Coady’s leadership skills at the back.
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Besides that, there are no other real selection issues and Jamie Vardy proved once again that he is the striker in form and that he has to lead the line, with the former England international scoring both of Leicester’s goals on Saturday.
Leicester don’t seem to be making too many friends in the Championship, though. While there has been plenty of admiration for their style of play from many other managers, there are some executives who resent how Leicester have managed to assemble the team that has put them in contention for promotion and they have been pushing the EFL to take action.
And there does seem to have been a commitment from the EFL to pursue Leicester from an early stage of the season. The first letter calling for a business plan came in November, a demand that lost a legal challenge.
That attempt may fuel the conspiracy theorists who believe the EFL is out to get Leicester, with that sentiment further stoked by Maresca’s post-match comments at Coventry City in January that their impressive winning run at the start of the season had “annoyed” people.
He was complaining about a run of refereeing decisions that had not gone in his side’s favour, like at Ipswich when a penalty wasn’t given for Cameron Burgess’s challenge on Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and the decision not to give Coventry’s Kasey Palmer a second yellow for a cynical trip on Dewsbury-Hall when Leicester were 1-0 up.
The performance of referee Samuel Barrott against Hull will not appease those conspiracy theorists, especially when, having booked Jean Michael Seri he reached into his pocket again when the Hull midfielder stopped a quick free kick being taken, only to seemingly realise a red would have to follow and discreetly took his empty hand out of his pocket.
That left several Leicester players waving their arms and laughing ironically at the decision, which they felt came on the back of several other questionable ones. Muddled refereeing is hardly a conspiracy, though.
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Barrott, who also took charge of the Ipswich away game, certainly irked the 2,346 travelling fans, but he wasn’t the only person who was targeted by an angry and frustrated fanbase.
Chants that the EFL are corrupt were not surprising. While much less muted and a tad premature at this stage, it had similar tones to the Everton fans’ reaction to their Premier League sanction.
But Leicester need to look closer to home. They had to come back from a goal behind twice and both times, a bit like the mess they face off the field, it was entirely of their own making. In fact, their recent poor run has been more a result of their own errors than good opposition performances.
Leicester have not been charged with a breach of PSR yet and do not face a points deduction that could affect their promotion push, but it also remains a fact that both the EFL and more importantly the Premier League believe they have a strong case to pursue charges and a sanction.
While some believe the conspiracy and that the EFL is out to make an example of Leicester, there will be many more Leicester fans who will accept that if the club has broken the rules then they deserve a sanction and will look to blame those internally who are at fault.
Director of football Jon Rudkin is the current pantomime villain and there were more chants for him to go during the game with Hull, but a PSR breach will not be down to one person at the club, it will be a collective responsibility.
If they are guilty they need to take their punishment with humility and Leicester need to change the mood around the club, regardless of what fate befalls them.
In contrast, their promotion rivals Leeds are loving life right now and all the momentum seems to be in Yorkshire.
Instead of anger and acrimony, there needs to be a defiant swagger and nobody epitomises that more than Vardy, the scorer of both of Leicester’s goals.
Vardy is the man rival fans love to hate. He takes relentless abuse wherever he goes, mostly about his wife. He answers his abusers by doing the one thing they don’t want him to do — scoring goals.
Then he stares at his barrackers as if to say, ‘thanks for the motivation’. That’s what the under-siege Leicester now need to do as well.
GO DEEPER
Vardy is Leicester's leader from the front - and worth another year
(Top photo: George Wood/Getty Images)