Reality Check - Never forget where you've come here form

Writing these things is never easy, this one one of the hardest I have probably had to write as being a ardent Foxes Fan it is not always easy to be totally objective when putting your thoughts down in print so to speak.

Its Sunday 17th April & I have woken up following the defeat yesterday against Reading and with Rose coloured spectacles removed it is time to reflect.

I watched the match vis a thread on the PC being unable to get to the game myself & despite the scoreline we didn't play that badly. Looking at the match stats courtesy of the BBC we had the greater possession 57% v 43%, we had more shots both on & off target than Reading & a lot more corners. But on the stat that counts, goals scored, we lost 3-1. I don't have to ask HOW we lost, that is too obvious with the main two answers being a abject failure to finish off good moves by hitting the back of the net & the same in defence where at times Reading were the proverbial hot knife through our buttery defence.

Three games to go now & 5 points behind 6th position, the only play off position we can actually fill and it looks an impossible task despite all the mathematically possible quotes.

But the season wasn't decided on the 90 minutes at the Madejski Stadium yesterday. It has been, to say the least a roller coaster season, and for those of us that have supported Leicester long enough, if there was an award for Roller Coaster Seasons Leicester City FC would win it hands down.

In this life you reap what you sow and that is very true of this season for The Foxes.

If we go back to last summer & Milan Mandaric's decision to sell the club.
Mandaric took over the club when it was at a very low ebb & with the likelihood of going into administration for a second time a great possibility. We knew what we were getting with Milan, the managerial merry go round, media circus etc, but I like many welcomed him with open arms and truth be told I honestly don't think we would have a club now if it wasn't for Milan & for that I will always be grateful to him.

However, Mandaric like many other rich owners of English Football clubs, The Glaziers at Man Utd, The Arabs at the other half of Manchester, Abramovich at Chelsea, are only in it as a business or hobby. There are few Mike Ashley's or David Gold's in the leagues that are rich enough to buy & bankroll the clubs they support.
So when Mandaric came to sell the club it came as no great surprise, we could only hope that history would not repeat itself and follow the chain of events that followed Mandaric's sale of Portsmouth FC.

But going back to last summer, we had just finished in the play off's in our first season back in The Championship. We had an up and coming manager in Nigel Pearson, who after getting us promoted out of League 1 at the first attempt, not an easy task in itself, had guided us to an unbelievable play off spot. Ok we all remember what happened that fateful night in Cardiff, but we had exceeding all expectations in actually getting there.

Then the wheels started to come off the wagon...
The Thai's took over, and as things stand this is not a bad thing. It's nice to be sat here knowing that we have money behind us, and a lot of money it seems at that. Know we all know money can't buy you success all the time. Manchester United tried it for almost a decade before a certain Alex Ferguson moved in & Chelsea still haven't managed to buy the Champions League just yet. . Closer to home, QPR, the richest club in the Championship at the moment have taken 3/4 years to get where they are.

But Mandaric, as is his way, ignored the if it ain't fixed don't mend it theory, and for whatever reason, and as is always the case with Mandaric we will probably never know, parted company with the manager that had guided us to that aforementioned play off place. Hindsight is a marvellous thing, but if we had stuck with Pearson & the team he was building would we have been where Cardiff are sitting this morning, second in the table? We will of course never know.

The rumours that The Thai's wanted a manager who would bring the beautiful game to The Walkers abounded & Paulo Sousa was the man given that task. He did, as every new manager will & does, brought in his own players, got rid of some & changed the style of play to 'his' style.
Oh how that went wrong.
Too much change too soon? Possibly, but that is what happens when you change managers, they will of course want their own team. We can all remember how Peter Taylor dismantled the Martin O'Neill team. Not because he had to, but because as the manager he wanted to.

By then end of September last year only a couple of months into the new season we had gone from play off semi finalists to losing 6-0 to the then bottom team Portsmouth & replacing them at the foot of The Championship.

Change was needed and boy did we get it. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to accept that we actually do have Sven Goran Eriksson occupying the managers office at The Walkers.

For once the changes that a new manager makes were welcome and sorely needed.

Now go back to that dreadful month of September and think if I had said to you that with just 3 games to go we would be sat 10th in the league table and flirted with the play off's would you not have bitten my hand off?

OF COURSE YOU WOULD!!
But like football fans everywhere we always want more. Draw we want a win, win 3-0 we want to win 5-0 etc etc.

But remember where we came from this season.

The simple truth is we are not currently good enough. But we are a hell of a lot better then we were under Sousa. To go from bottom to play off's was always a big ask.

So it is Svens fault we didn't make it. I don't believe it is. If we don't make it next season then, yes, it will be.
He will be given money in the summer to make 'permanent' & not laon signings & he knows only too well that nothing short of the play off's will be seen as failure. But back to this season

Sven has been criticised for having no Plan B. But when did he? Did he ever have a Plan B for England? No he didn't, but I honest believe that I'd sooner have a Sven with only a Plan A than a Sousa with Plans, A, B & C. If only for what he brings to the club in attracting good players etc. When it works Svens Plan A doesn't look too bad. We played decent football yesterday, look again at the stats if you don't believe me, we just failed in front of both goals.
And put Sven & the Thai's money together and we should attract some good players this summer.

Ok so the lets look at the players.
I have been very critical of some of Svens decisions this season. I honestly think that whilst we are at this level, we should still have the likes of Fryatt & Hobbs at the club. OK I don't know what goes on behind the scenes & at training, but Hobbs is an England U21 defender & Fryatt is Hull's top goal scorer. Would he have scored yesterday? Of course we will never know.

As for loanees - well I have heard people criticise Svens policy on this. But it worked for Pearson when he took us up from League 1. Why buy players who we would be stuck with if they don't work out? (Mr Vassell take a bow - good work rate or not, you're a striker & you're not scoring goals!!) The players we need to get out of The Championship are not the same as those we would need to stay in The Premiership. Just ask Kenny Dalglish when he took Blackburn up. It has to be said that some have worked & some haven't. We all love Naughton, Mee, Vitor & Cunningham before he got injured. Ricardo divides opinion like no one before him, and the same seems to be happening with Yakubu & is defiantly happening with Bruma.

But we know from Pearson's time that loanees can work if used right. The problem seems to be that we rotate players too much.
A Manchester City fan I know recently told me that while there Eriksson as known as The Tinker Man. Vitor starts, we keep a clean sheet, he scores 2 goals and then gets dropped for the next game. WHY? Eriksson will change & tinker, its who he is, like Mandaric with the Managers. But we have to decided if we want Eriksson as he is, I think we do.

We moan at the fact that Premiership players arrive and don't give their all, but do we want League 1 standard players who would come in & spill blood for the cause but not be good enough? We ALL have shouted for top players to come in. We wanted premiership players & thats what we got. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Unfortunantly thats the name of the game.
And we are as football fans so fickle. Bemoaning Yakubu after his misses yesterday, but loving him & naming him as man of the match after his hat trick against Middlesborough. Again this is the nature of the beast. It's football!!
You can't always buy the right players, even Sir Alex has signed the odd bad player.

But than look at the Burnley game. Helped I know by a woeful Clarets performance, but the starting team who played so well there spectacularly failed to reproduce the same performance against a team 4th from bottom just 3 days later. Who knew?

I think the players are beginning to realise as well that it's over this season. King scored a spectacular goal to get us back in the game with 10 minutes still to go. Celebration? Geeing up of the players? Oakley leading as a Captain & rousing the troops? None of it. Almost a resigned consolation feel to the whole affair. Players acting like a boxer on the ropes, battered & bruised, knowing its all over but managing to land one last punch.

But like I said REALITY CHECK TIME.
Look where we WERE & where we ARE.
Look at the Manager THEN & the Manager NOW.

I would take the now, warts & all.

Sven has got another year on his contract. He's got the likes of King, Wellens & Gallagher to extend theirs.
So if we can, as we are, keep hold of our best talent & maybe keep hold of the likes of Naughton & Mee who knows what next season will bring. With The Thai's money & Svens name we are more likely to get, lets say, a better class of player in.

So as we sit here and moan & complain about where our season has ended up would you want to be where Sheffield United currently sit? as Take That say:
NEVER FORGET WHERE YOU'VE COME HERE FROM.

Fozza1 / LTID