The End of the Pearson Era?

There are rumours all over the internet regarding the future of Nigel Pearson and a possible move to Hull City.

Throughout the day the reaction has mimicked the Kübler-Ross model; denial (“Hull City are broke!”, “Leicester are a bigger club” etc.), anger (I’ve seen two Judas posts on Twitter already), bargaining (at least, we hope some of this is going on behind the scenes…), depression (“Oh God, John Gregory is going to apply for the job again isn’t he!?”) and finally, acceptance.

Well we’re not quite at acceptance yet, but reading the runes of the days reporting does not look good. Leicester have neither confirmed nor denied the reports, which usually means there is at least a modicum of truth behind the reports.

I’d certainly group myself with other fans who see this as a strange sideways move, if not a step down for Pearson in his managerial career if indeed it does come to pass. But neither City or Hull will have much if any money to spend in the summer, and if personal relations between the Chairman and Nigel Pearson really have broken down, then the move doesn’t seem as strange in that context.

However if anyone wants some straws to grasp at if not exactly clutch, here’s another way today could be panning out. We know Pearson, whose contract is due to expire next year, has been negotiating a new deal for some time. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that Nigel is looking at his options elsewhere in order to get an improved deal at the Walkers. Only today the Leicester Mercury published a gushing piece on just how good Steve Walsh, City’s head of recruitment, has been at unearthing new talent in the free transfer and loan markets, the timing of which seems just a little too perfect. If this is a play to get Pearson and his backroom staff an improved deal you’d have to admire the chutzpah – we’re all buying it.

We’ll find out one way or the other soon enough.

Is this Leicester City’s worst ever team?

At a time when City appear to be back on the up it feels like we can look back on hard times and raise a smile at some of the agonies our club has put Foxes fans through.

I’m sure everyone reading this will have their own ideas of their worst Leicester City team, but I’m not interested in cherry picking from different eras, for the purposes of this post the team must have started together.

With this in mind, allow me to present my case for Leicester’s worst ever team. My criteria for this ‘worst team’ follows five rules.

1) It must offer shocking value for money;
2) Any established fan favourites must be passed their best;
3) It should include at least one player who fans have forgotten ever played for the club;
4) Preferably, it should be placed in a setting where failure is almost guaranteed;
5) Few team members, if any, should go on to achieve success elsewhere having played in this side.

The team I have selected featured much of Leicester’s most overpriced talent. Some of my favourites include;

Ade Akinbiyi - £5m
Matt Jones - £3m
Darren Eadie - £3m
Trevor Benjamin - £1.5m

Indeed, the 16 players in the squad that day cost a combined total of £21.75m. To put it in terms of today’s money, that’s nearly 14 DJ Campbell’s.

The line-up included a couple of notable fan favourites. Matt Elliot was the leading light amongst them, but his slide in form was beginning to take shape by the time this match took place whilst Tim Flowers and Andy Impy were not the same players they had been under Martin O’Neil.

The squad’s complete unknown was Kevin Ellison. Ellison played the only six minutes of his Leicester City and indeed Premier League career in this match, coming on as a substitute for Dean Sturridge. Ellison had plucked from the obscurity of Altrincham by Peter Taylor for £50,000. Within nine months he had been shipped to Stockport for a similar fee.

So who did this hopeless collection of expensive underachievers and old boys play? City’s opponents on 17th March 2001 were running away with the league for the second season running. Already 17 points clear, Manchester United’s title surge had been built on an almost impeccable record at Old Trafford.

So how do you break down a side which at that point in the season had conceded just 7 goals at home? Few, I imagine, would respond with Dean Sturridge and Ade Akinbiyi, a pair who between then would furnish City with 17 goals in 69 league starts. The BBC match report finds Ade in good form. Our correspondent notes “for all United's pressure, Leicester should have snatched the lead when Ade Akinbiyi headed over the bar when well-played from a Darren Eadie cross.” Sigh.

Whilst few would pair Sturridge and Akinbiyi as their dream City strikers fewer still would rely on service to the front two coming from a midfield which included Junior Lewis, Matt Jones and Damien Delaney. Jones in particular would prove an albatross around Leicester’s neck. City won just three of their 16 Premier League games in which the Welshman started, Wales at the time fared little better. Junior Lewis’ four wins in 15 Premier League starts for Leicester in 00/01 was equally uninspiring.

At the other end, the United strikers were looking forward to firing shots Simon Royce, who would keep a meagre three clean sheets in 16 starts for Leicester that season. In front of him the defence included former Oxford United man Phil Gilchrist: a centre-back renowned for wearing his collar up like Eric Cantona, but with a first touch more akin to Eric Odhiambo. This would be his final game for the Foxes.

Amazingly the side held out at the Theatre of Dreams for 88 minutes, even surviving the 70th minute introduction of Trevor Benjamin for Akinbiyi for a surprising 17 minutes. Inevitably the torrent of United pressure finally told, and goals from Solskjaer (via a Dwight Yorke deflection) and Silvestre restored sanity to the footballing world.

So did any of this bunch go on to finer things?

Royce and Rowett moved to Charlton, which was at least the Premier League I suppose. Gilchrist too played top flight football with West Brom. Steve Guppy had an injury blighted spell with Celtic and Akinbiyi eventually found himself in the MLS.

In short then, no.

So there you have it, my pick for the worst Leicester team ever. I’d love to know yours.

The lineup in full; Royce, Rowett, Elliott, Gilchrist, Impey, Eadie, Junior Lewis, Jones (Guppy, 89), Delaney, Akinbiyi (Benjamin, 70), Sturridge (Ellison, 84)
Subs not used: Flowers, Oakes.

For those of you who are interested, here’s the BBC match report.

DJ Campbell, a £1.5m man?

The Leicester Mercury is reporting that Leicester City have set an asking price of £1.5m for striker DJ Campbell.

DJ, who has played much more like a Dudley at the Walkers Stadium since signing for £1.6m from Birmingham in 2007, has proved one of the most frustrating players to wear a City shirt in recent years.

Campbell has scored 5 goals in 3 seasons for the Foxes (22 starts, 25 appearances as a sub) but, infuriatingly, has netted 23 goals in 43 starts in loan spells at Blackpool and Derby.

That DJ doesn't enjoy life in Leicester is clear, after all he showed no signs of improvement when Ian Holloway first got his hands on him at Leicester before deciding to bring him to Blackpool. City ought to get as much as they can for the former Brentford man, but is the asking price just a tad on the optimistic side?

In the last few seasons Joe Mattock has left for £1.2m, Ian Hume made his way to Barnsley for the same price. Indeed the last player City sold for more than DJ’s current asking price was David Connelly who signed for Wigan in 2005 at a cost of £2m.

It doesn’t seem like Campbell has much of a future at City, but I’d be shocked if the club gets a seven figure sub for him. Blackpool might have some cash, but £1.5m will buy you a far better striker than DJ.

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?

Sheffield Wednesday 2-0 Leicester City

Leon Clarke’s brace, his first in 12 months, secured a comfortable victory for the Owls against a lacklustre City side. Clarke, who had placed the penultimate nail in Leicester’s 2008 relegation coffin with the third goal of Wednesday’s 3-1 win at the Walkers, ensured another miserable afternoon for the Foxes.

Clarke’s first, a sweetly struck drive from 12 yards gave the home side a 6th minute lead. City failed to heed a first minute warning when Chris Weale was tested from a similar angle. This time the City keeper could do nothing as Clarke’s strike fizzed into the roof of the net.

City were one game short of a nine match unbeaten run, a record which would have been their best at Championship level since 2002/03. But the Foxes never looked likely to snatch even a share of the spoils.

Nigel Pearson’s unchanged eleven were barely recognisable as the side that had thumped Forest just seven days earlier. Martyn Waghorn has proven fruitful on the road with five of his seven goals coming away from home, but the Sunderland loanee found himself in the pocket of Darren Purse all afternoon. Championship player of the month Paul Gallagher provided little and was eventually substituted. The midfield trio of Oakley, Wellens and King failed establish any authority on the game.

What attacking flair City did show came down the left. Lloyd Dyer made a nuisance of himself in the first half, getting in behind the Wednesday backline to create chances for Gallagher and Waghorn, the latter forcing an excellent save from Wednesday keeper Lee Grant. But there the few signs of encouragement ended. Weale left the pitch on the half hour with a wound sustained in a collision with Marcus Tudgay.

In the second half City resorted to artless hoofs from deep. Wayne Brown led this industrial approach from the back, bypassing the midfield in favour of 40-yard balls that did not make up for in accuracy what they lacked in imagination.

By the time a forward whose attributes suited this tactic took the field in the shape of Steve Howard, Clarke had grabbed his second. City needlessly gave the ball away and Clarke provided a neat near-post finish from Jermaine Johnson’s low cross.

Late on Dyer produced an excellent save from Grant, but even this did not spark a late rally in front of the Foxes’ sizeable travelling support. City were dead and buried.

The Month in Stats: October

Leicester fans have had plenty to smile about this month. City ended October in their highest league position since relegation from the Premier League in 2002/03, flirted with an international superstar and in the style of all good sides, won games which perhaps they ought not to.

The month began with Nigel Pearson naming his first unchanged side of the season for the trip to Coventry. He subsequently changed his first eleven for every proceeding fixture. Perhaps poetically, Pearson’s unchanged Foxes’ headed back down the M69 with an unchanged result, their fourth draw in five visits to the Sky Blues. But that wasn’t to say there were no surprises. DJ Campbell made his first Leicester appearance since 25th November 2008, a gap of 315 days. He still awaits his first Leicester goal since 16th February 2008.

The home match with Derby brought City another chance to overturn a poor run of recent results against a local rival, but City were unable to break down the Rams who came for and got their point from the Walkers. The last City side to beat Derby lined up as; Walker, Makin, Dabizas, Keown, Wilcox, Scowcroft, Nalis, Williams, Stewart, Connolly, Blake.

Two draws was hardly an ideal start to the month but City soon got the back to winning ways at home to Crystal Palace. It took Paul Gallagher 547 minutes to bag his first Leicester City goal, but the home faithful only had to wait another 22 minutes from his spectacular second. Gallagher’s brace (the fourth of his career) didn’t pave the way for a first career hat-trick but it was enough to put City right in the mix as the Championship’s top nine sides found themselves separated by just three points.

The dismissal of Gareth Southgate from Middlesborough had to bookies pricing Nigel Pearson between 10/1 and 14/1 to be his replacement. Thankfully for City fans any concern was short-lived as Steve Gibson made his preference from Gordon Strachan abundantly clear.

City’s best moments of October came live on Sky Sports, first with a fortunate victory over Reading and followed by a well deserved win at Loftus Road. At Reading, City kept their third consecutive clean sheet, a feat they hadn’t managed since January 2008. Martyn Waghorn celebrated his first ever Leicester City start with a first-half winner, but strike partner Fryatt extended his longest spell without a goal under Nigel Pearson to six games. Thankfully City’s top scorer put this right at QPR with his ninth brace in a Leicester shirt.

Once again, it is City’s defence who deserve praise for Leicester’s excellent form. The Foxes kept three clean sheets in five games and conceded just two goals all month. They also restricted free-scoring QPR to the fewest attempts on goal they have managed in a home game all season.

But it’s also strength and mental toughness that has put City in such an excellent position. Twice the Foxes conceded the first goal this month but took four points from those games. It’s also over a year since Nigel Pearson’s side took the lead in a league game and lost.

Pearson has created a side that will not accept defeat – in the Championship that’s the battle half won.

Shooting Practice

It’s what we should have expected. After four games Leicester’s goals against tally is far more impressive than their goals for total. Before the weekend’s matches Leicester’s two conceded made theirs one of the meanest defences in the Championship, in contrast the Foxes’ four strikes in the opposition net were nothing to write home about.

Matty Fryatt’s two goals have already equalled his Championship total for the 2007/08 season, but in typical Fryatt style it’s taken him 14 attempts to get them. His ratio of one goal to every 7 attempts is the sort of statistic that makes last weeks’ transfer speculation laughable.

You could argue only two players in the Championship have worked the goalkeeper more than Fryatt, who has hit the target on 10 occasions. But this just leads you to ask why, if Fryatt is in positions to work the goalkeeper, aren’t more of his efforts finding their way to the back of the net?

Leicester are at least creating chances at this level. Before this weekend’s games City had managed 54 efforts on goal in four matches, only QPR, Ipswich, West Brom, Bristol City and Crystal Palace bettered that. And compared with their Championship rivals, City have been more accurate than most too. 31 shots on target have been struck by Nigel Pearson’s men, that’s 57.41% of their attempts. Last season the Foxes got 54.28% of their shots on target.

But working the goalkeeper and beating him are two very different things. City will make life much easier for themselves if they can prove more ruthless in front of goal.

However it is possible to mount a promotion challenge without a prolific strike force. Last season Birmingham were promoted having netted just 54 times, the fewest goals for total of any side ever promoted to the Premier League. In contrast during 2008/09 Norwich City scored 57. The difference, of course, was a defence that conceded just 37 compared with one that shipped 70.

If City start a push for promotion, there’s little doubt it will follow the Birmingham blueprint.

Newcastle Utd

The Magpie’s Shola Ameobi has made a terrific start to the campaign scoring twice as many league goals as Leicester’s Fryatt with two fewer attempts (11 against 13). But with Newcastle’s injury worries piling up this might be an opportunity for Leicester to snatch a cheeky three points for the first time at St. James’ Park since 2000. Tony Cottee and Robbie Savage were Leicester’s scorers that day in the twilight hours of the Martin O’Neil era.

Yet, having not conceded since the opening day of the season, Newcastle have proven they are just as difficult to break down as Nigel Pearson’s back four. The goalless draw is priced at 17/2 and any sensible money should placed here.

On This Day – 31st August 1994

Leicester City picked up their first ever Premiership point at home to QPR. The Foxes had lost their opening three matches of the season, scoring once and conceding seven times, and looked to be on the way to another defeat after Jimmy Willis put the ball into his own net. Thankfully for the crowd of 18,695 at Filbert Street a last minute strike from Phil Gee saved City, but they would have to wait until September for their first Premiership win.