Away Days – Can Leicester do enough on the road?

The start of the 2010/11 season will be something of a novelty for Leicester fans. Only twice in the last 10 seasons have the Foxes started the campaign away from home. More worryingly, both of those matches ended in limp defeats. The opening day of the 2005/06 season saw a 4-1 thumping at Sheffield United. This was followed by a 2-0 surrender at Luton Town to begin the 2006/07 season.

Despite my prattling on about how Leicester didn’t win a single away match by more than one goal last season, City’s away form was by no means as desperate as that statistic suggests. Indeed, 31 points away from home in the Championship is a very respectable total.

The Foxes certainly have some favourite hunting grounds. City have won five of their last seven trips to Oakwell and five of their last 10 visits to Elland Road and Vicarage Road.

Elsewhere however, points are not so easy to come by.

City have fared poorly in recent derby encounters. The Foxes have won only two of their last nine visits to Pride Park and none of their last five matches at Coventry. Most depressingly of all Leicester haven’t collected three points at the City Ground since 1972, amassing 13 trips without a win since.

It’s not just locally that City have struggled. Leicester’s last winning goalscorer at Carrow Road was Emile Heskey in 1995, five matches ago. City have no wins in five attempts at Bramall Lane, just one win in 9 away visits to Hull City, and a pathetic return of one win in 14 league matches at Portman Road.

Of the current 23 Championship grounds to which Leicester will travel this season, City have won on their last visit at 6 of them. Last season six away wins was good enough to see Blackpool promoted to the top flight through the playoffs, but we have to go all the way back to 1994/95 to find another side (Bolton Wanderers, 5 wins) for whom such average away form was sufficient for a successful promotion campaign.

Leicester are likely to need a strong return from their away fixtures to make the playoffs. To do so it looks as though they’re going to need to overcome a few bogey grounds.

The race for the play-offs

After yesterdays excellent result against fellow play-off chasers, Leicester’s promotion push looks destined to extend the Foxes’ season for the first time since 1995/96.

But as any Foxes fan should know, there will be sides who hit form at just the right time to steal that play-off spot from any team that takes its foot off the gas. I say Foxes fans should know this because this is exactly what Leicester did in 1995/96. On 20th March 1996 Martin O’Neil’s men were 10th, four points behind 6th placed Ipswich. But following a run which brought seven wins and 22 points from their final 10 league matches, City finished 5th. We all know what followed.

This time however, it’s different. City hold a seven point cushion on 7th place and a game in hand over Ian Holloway’s Blackpool. In short, a play-off place is Leicester’s to lose.

How likely is it that Leicester will hold on to their play-off spot? The past five seasons seem to point in City’s favour, 15 of the last 20 teams to hold a play-off position at this stage of the season have managed to remain in the top six. But there are some horror stories too…

2008/09 – Cardiff City

Cardiff City have gained a very unwanted reputation as end of season bottlers. Last season provided perhaps the best example yet of Cardiff’s inability to close the deal.

The Bluebirds had been in the play-off positions since 30th November and on Easter Monday 2009 lay 4th, eight points clear of 7th place. Dave Jones’ side then proceeded to take just one point from their final 4 games, including a 6-0 defeat to Preston, the team who went on to replace Cardiff in the play-offs on goals scored.

2007/08 – Plymouth Argyle, Charlton Athletic

After 36 games both Plymouth and Charlton were occupying playoff positions, but the Pilgrims took just 9 points from their final 10 matches and Charlton managed a return of just 8 points from 30. Unsurprisingly such pitiful end of season form (relegated Leicester took 12 points from their final 10 games) was not enough to maintain their league position. Plymouth and Charlton finished the season in 10th and 11th respectively.

That said, the race for the play-offs has also proven to be quite sedate in other years. In the 2005/06 season the sides who occupied the play-off positions on 2nd January did so for the rest of the season with the exception of just one weekend. That year automatic promotion, play-off and relegation places were settled with 3 games of the season remaining. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?

Pedigree – Part 1

With just over seven weeks to go before Leicester City kick off the 2009/10 Championship campaign at home to Swansea, the start of the new season is now closer than the end of the last. Foxblogger is back in pre-season training.

Already early season optimism is taking its hold, with dreams of the play-offs exciting even the most pessimistic Leicester fan. At least 16 Championship sides will consider themselves viable challengers for a place in the play-offs or better on 8th August. But which of the Championship’s 24 sides (15 of them with past Premier League experience, one fewer than last season) really have a shot at promotion, and which are doomed to mid-table mediocrity or worse? What follows is an exercise in past pedigree.

Barnsley
Premier League Experience: 1 Season
Current Spell in Championship: 3 Seasons
Last season: 20th

Had things gone a little differently in the 2000 play-off final Barnsley could have returned to Premier League, as it turned out an own goal from Richard Wright after 6 minutes was the closest they got. Ipswich ran out 4-2 victors that day and Barnsley haven’t looked like making a serious push upwards since their parachute payments ran out. Four seasons in the third tier from 2002-2006 have reshaped the aspirations of the club. Their first target this season will be 50 points.

Blackpool
Premier League Experience: 0
Current Spell in Championship: 2 Seasons
Last Season: 16th

The departure of Simon Grayson to Leeds United midway through 2008/09 looked to have rocked the Seasiders boat by March. A home defeat by Burnley left Blackpool 21st with just two wins in 15 matches. They survived, but like Barnsley their priorities will be to avoid the bottom three.

Bristol City
Premier League Experience: 0
Current Spell in Championship: 2 Seasons
Last Season: 10th

Promoted with Blackpool in 2007, Bristol City’s meteoric rise to the play-off final in their first season back in the second tier after eight years in the third took everyone by surprise. 13 home draws last season proved to be the undoing on their promotion challenge, but the Robins will expect to be in play-off contention once again.

Cardiff City
Premier League Experience: 0
Current Spell in Championship: 5 Seasons
Last Season: 7th

The Bluebirds have flirted with promotion in the past, but it has so far only proven to be a cruel tease for their long-suffering fans. In 2006/07 Cardiff lead the way until last November, only for a slump of credit crunch proportions to see them ending the season top of only the bottom half of the table. Last season it was even worse. After the 11th game of the season Cardiff dropped out of the play-off positions only twice – once after game 20, and once after game 46. Preston North End, the side who replaced Dave Jones’ team in the play-offs on the final day did so by virtue of having scored one goal more than Cardiff. The score when the two sides met on 18th April with four games to go: Preston 6-0 Cardiff.

Coventry City
Premier League Experience: 9 Seasons
Current Spell in Championship: 8 Seasons
Last Season: 17th

Some club yo-yo between divisions, Coventry City do not. Coventry City were last promoted to England’s top flight in 1967 and resolutely stayed there for 34 years. When, in 2001, the Sky Blues finally failed to pull off a great escape they took to the Championship like a barnacle to a rock. Coventry survived relegation by just one point in 2007/08, and have managed just one top ten finish since 2001. Nevertheless, they might get their act together one day.

Crystal Palace
Premier League Experience: 3 Seasons
Current Spell in Championship: 4 Seasons
Last Season: 15th

Crystal Palace are the reason every team 22nd in December still harbours hopes of a late play-off push. The Eagles ridiculous run of 51 points from 24 matches after they had managed just 22 points from their opening 22 games in 2003/04 was mimicked by Doncaster in 2008/09 (40 points from 22 games following 18 points from 24 matches) but is still the stuff of fantasy in the vast majority of cases. Palace seem to follow a mediocre season with a play-off spot in the next. If they don’t look like repeating this trend, Neil Warnock’s time in football could well be up.

Next time: Derby County to Newcastle United