The Managers: Peter Taylor, 2000-2001

[Corky]

1 hour ago, Vacamion said:

 

Based on his general pattern of signings, and replacing silk with shite, it seems that the common conception of the Wycombe defeat - that it robbed the team of confidence and precipitated our downfall - is wrong, as we would have faltered and fallen anyway. 

 

Still, if we had to go though all THAT, to get to where we ended up, it was a price worth paying, IMHO. 

 

Don't understand actual hate, it's water under the bridge. 

 

Sorry Vac, usually agree with what you say but can't here. The Wycombe defeat was unforgivable, an average third tier side at home, having just beaten Liverpool the previous week we should've had enough to get through the game unscathed. How we didn't needs explaining.

 

We had a very gentle run of home matches after that where we should have picked up another three wins and that would've left us on 57/58 points and at least the semi-finals of the FA Cup. That would've been a very impressive season.

 

And it wasn't just that we had to go through, it was the appalling final season at Filbert St, administration and all that rancour. It worked out well in the end but we had to suffer a lot to get there and I think plenty of it was avoidable.

[inckley fox]

It's impossible to argue a case for Taylor being anything other than a disaster. However I once debated this with a fan of another club who said, 'look, the guy got you to 13th in his only full season, and wasn't given enough of the next season. It's not easy to get a side to 13th. That's not a disaster.'

 

It took half an evening to explain why it WAS  a disaster - the misspent finances, the misplaced loyalties, the chaos which followed - but what stuck with me was that achieving a 13th place PL finish alone meant Taylor had something to show for his reign. We can't say that about Frank McLintock, Bryan Hamilton, Ian Holloway, and - glancing through 'Of Fossils and Foxes' - you could also look at someone like Louis Ford, a century ago. So, while his legacy was perhaps the darkest, it's hard to call him our worst ever manager.

 

As for comparisons with Puel, I wouldn't want to draw any personally, other than one. Some very good posters wanted to give all the credit for our finish last season to Puel, and none of it to Shakespeare. Others, a few years back, were reluctant to give much credit to Pearson for winning the league. By the same measure, we can't credit O'Neill with us being in 4th place in early March 2001, or for the mid-table finish, and we should give some of that credit to Taylor.

 

You could also argue that the side which let us down against Wycombe, and played throughout the slump, contained a host of O'Neill-era legends who, given the esteem in which they're held, should have done better. And you can blame Taylor for letting Lennon go, or pushing Guppy out, or bringing Akinbiyi, Lewis and Wise in, but you can't blame him alone for others whose form fell apart, or those who were too old by 2001. You could equally argue that not all of Taylor's signings were catastrophic. In fact, his transfer policy wasn't much worse than Sven's, or Ranieri's. Rowett was a success, injuries aside. Davidson, Walker and Scowcroft served us for many years, and played their part in our promotion in 2003. Sturridge was popular, even if I was never a fan.

 

Okay, it's a shaky argument, and we all know that - in truth - he was out of his depth. He bore more of the blame for relegation in 2002 than Bassett or Adams ever could. He made three of our worst ever signings, and at a cost. The 13th place finish papered over the greatest collapse in form in our history. The board can take the blame for the extent of the spending, but ultimately it was the degree to which it was misspent which shafted us, and meant that even when we came back up in 2003 we were financially hamstrung. We didn't truly recover from his reign until 2014.

 

And yet, in spite of all that, incredibly, (and even if he is our worst ever boss) I think it's hard to say he's the manager who achieved the least at Leicester.

[ThaiFox]

2 hours ago, inckley fox said:

It's impossible to argue a case for Taylor being anything other than a disaster. However I once debated this with a fan of another club who said, 'look, the guy got you to 13th in his only full season, and wasn't given enough of the next season. It's not easy to get a side to 13th. That's not a disaster.'

 

It took half an evening to explain why it WAS  a disaster - the misspent finances, the misplaced loyalties, the chaos which followed - but what stuck with me was that achieving a 13th place PL finish alone meant Taylor had something to show for his reign. We can't say that about Frank McLintock, Bryan Hamilton, Ian Holloway, and - glancing through 'Of Fossils and Foxes' - you could also look at someone like Louis Ford, a century ago. So, while his legacy was perhaps the darkest, it's hard to call him our worst ever manager.

 

As for comparisons with Puel, I wouldn't want to draw any personally, other than one. Some very good posters wanted to give all the credit for our finish last season to Puel, and none of it to Shakespeare. Others, a few years back, were reluctant to give much credit to Pearson for winning the league. By the same measure, we can't credit O'Neill with us being in 4th place in early March 2001, or for the mid-table finish, and we should give some of that credit to Taylor.

 

You could also argue that the side which let us down against Wycombe, and played throughout the slump, contained a host of O'Neill-era legends who, given the esteem in which they're held, should have done better. And you can blame Taylor for letting Lennon go, or pushing Guppy out, or bringing Akinbiyi, Lewis and Wise in, but you can't blame him alone for others whose form fell apart, or those who were too old by 2001. You could equally argue that not all of Taylor's signings were catastrophic. In fact, his transfer policy wasn't much worse than Sven's, or Ranieri's. Rowett was a success, injuries aside. Davidson, Walker and Scowcroft served us for many years, and played their part in our promotion in 2003. Sturridge was popular, even if I was never a fan.

 

Okay, it's a shaky argument, and we all know that - in truth - he was out of his depth. He bore more of the blame for relegation in 2002 than Bassett or Adams ever could. He made three of our worst ever signings, and at a cost. The 13th place finish papered over the greatest collapse in form in our history. The board can take the blame for the extent of the spending, but ultimately it was the degree to which it was misspent which shafted us, and meant that even when we came back up in 2003 we were financially hamstrung. We didn't truly recover from his reign until 2014.

 

And yet, in spite of all that, incredibly, (and even if he is our worst ever boss) I think it's hard to say he's the manager who achieved the least at Leicester.

Some really good points there.

 

Certainly there is a good comparison to be made against McLintock, who also took a decent team and destroyed it pretty quickly, wasting big money (at the time) on Roger Davis after selling Frank Worthington for peanuts, and signing a lot of players coming to the end of their careers. 

 

Holloway took a poor team over, already in deep trouble from a terrible season which started with Martin Allen's short reign, then the dreadful Gary Megson, with caretakers in between both manger changes. We could also say we were very unlucky to be relegated that season with the number of points we achieved. Having said that, Holloway was way out of his depth, not the right manger for us and I was glad he went.

 

I'm not sure about the Puel points, because under Shakespeare I felt we were going down fast. That comment he made ('snatched your hand off for a point') after the 1-1 draw with Huddersfield was the turning point for me. Puel took that team, and for a while, especially Southampton away, we looked in a totally different class, and by introducing the younger players he shook things up in the right way.

 

So despite that 13th place 'achievement' by Taylor, I'm afraid, for me, he has to go down as our worst ever manager, just because he inherited a very decent team, had a lot of money to spend, and as our manager was to put the club in a precarious, almost terminal, financial position for many years, which, even under McLintock, didn't take us down to that level and we recovered pretty quickly under the brilliant Jock Wallace. 

 

Of course, we could argue it was the board allowing Taylor to spend that money who were at fault for our resulting financial position.

 

However, as fans we want to see investment in our team and club and the board backed Taylor to the hilt, so the blame really has to lay with Taylor for his poor judgement in players.

 

Don't know why, and despite Taylor being my worst ever LCFC manager, I actually disliked Pleat more. Just couldn't take to him at all, disliked his football, and I have to switch off the TV or radio when he is the co commentator, or the 'expert' pundit!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Danny Clender]

He was brilliant and then really brilliant and then oh dear...oh....dear.

He is the total analogy of a bad manager at LCFC. 

I certainly hope he always will be the benchmark rated manager of "Is he as bad as Peter Taylor?"

Without doubt, he was the beginning point of the bleak years. 

Mickey Adams had a good doss...and of course there were moments, but after Taylor it will always be fast forward to Nigel Pearson in League 1 for me. 

 

[FOXSE]

Too soon.

[Ric Flair]

23 hours ago, StriderHiryu said:

I’d also agree that he’s our worst ever because he started the slide which put us back years and which was not fixed until Pearson came in. It’s incredible to think that initially he started so well and at one point fans thought he *might* be better than MON. Sounds ridiculous but we were top of the table early in his reign. 

 

Over time he was proved to be out of his depth and should really have gone at the end of that season. He wasn’t replaced and that signalled the start of our funeral march. 

 

Some of his signings are complete banter. Akinbiyi, Benjamin, Lewis, etc. 

 

I still have trauma from remembering this period ?

I watched the season review yesterday that someone posted and we had some unbelievable home results against the big boys and some away for that matter but I still have an overriding sense of something being absent back then. It must have been because O'Neill had gone and left a huge void but even the great results felt very Puelesque of recent times.

 

His signings that first season were nothing short of a disgrace. Nearly every one to a man was horrifically below the standard we had then gotten to. Every one of Akinbiyi's goals were a rebound or a spoon/deflection from a decent cross. Seeing Benjamin feature more and more at the expense of Collymore was staggering. Then there was Lee Marshall, Richard Cresswell, Junior Lewis and only Dean Sturridge was at that point possibly PL quality. 

 

He systematically destroyed one of the most promising and effective squads in the division. I know we lost Heskey, Lennon and then a couple more aging players but we were in a position to finally go and sign proven players and he bought dog shit instead.

 

Seeing clips of him now still makes me want to nut things, doesnt ever deserve to step foot in our city again, let alone our stadium.

[murphy]

6 hours ago, inckley fox said:

And yet, in spite of all that, incredibly, (and even if he is our worst ever boss) I think it's hard to say he's the manager who achieved the least at Leicester.

 

You make a good stab at playing Devil's advocate but Taylor's reign amounted to industrial sabotage in my view.

 

He took an established premier league team with trophies in the bank and turned them into cannon fodder and at huge expense.

 

I will never forgive him because he cost me (and you) an entire decade and nearly destroyed the club itself.  That's why he was the most disastrous manager of all time.

 

It was all so avoidable.  The manager to follow O'Neill should have built on that success.  I don't blame the board for finally making money available, we had been crying out for that for years.  I blame Taylor for making some of the most inexplicable signings imaginable and I don't just say that with hindsight I said it at the time.  I just couldn't understand the procession of journeymen that turned up.

[Corky]

15 hours ago, inckley fox said:

It's impossible to argue a case for Taylor being anything other than a disaster. However I once debated this with a fan of another club who said, 'look, the guy got you to 13th in his only full season, and wasn't given enough of the next season. It's not easy to get a side to 13th. That's not a disaster.'

 

It took half an evening to explain why it WAS  a disaster - the misspent finances, the misplaced loyalties, the chaos which followed - but what stuck with me was that achieving a 13th place PL finish alone meant Taylor had something to show for his reign. We can't say that about Frank McLintock, Bryan Hamilton, Ian Holloway, and - glancing through 'Of Fossils and Foxes' - you could also look at someone like Louis Ford, a century ago. So, while his legacy was perhaps the darkest, it's hard to call him our worst ever manager.

 

As for comparisons with Puel, I wouldn't want to draw any personally, other than one. Some very good posters wanted to give all the credit for our finish last season to Puel, and none of it to Shakespeare. Others, a few years back, were reluctant to give much credit to Pearson for winning the league. By the same measure, we can't credit O'Neill with us being in 4th place in early March 2001, or for the mid-table finish, and we should give some of that credit to Taylor.

 

 

Even if 13th was a decent job (it wasn't, we were fifth with ten matches to go), any notion that he was still the man for the job went by half-time in the first match at 4-0 down to a very average promoted side.

 

And although results might've been similar for a while, Puel's legacy will be underachieving in lower mid-table with a talented, younger squad which he helped put together. Taylor left us bottom and rotten with a poor squad who'd lost all edge from the O'Neill years with key players gone and inadequately replaced.

[MrsJohnMurphy]

The thing is, if things had been different and we'd appointed Big Sam or Redknapp, we would have gone down a different path which wouldn't have led ultimately, despite the ups and many downs, to the Prem title in 15/16.

 

So in the end I'm okay with it, it was all part of the greater plan   

[murphy]

25 minutes ago, MrsJohnMurphy said:

The thing is, if things had been different and we'd appointed Big Sam or Redknapp, we would have gone down a different path which wouldn't have led ultimately, despite the ups and many downs, to the Prem title in 15/16.

 

So in the end I'm okay with it, it was all part of the greater plan   

 

I agree, a different turn along the way and the title would never have happened.

 

Nonetheless, the mere mention of Taylor's name is enough to bring me out in hives.

[MrsJohnMurphy]

1 minute ago, murphy said:

 

I agree, a different turn along the way and the title would never have happened.

 

Nonetheless, the mere mention of Taylor's name is enough to bring me out in hives.

True can't stand the bloke, comes across really thick too

[ParkerPen]

****ing cretin

[Guy]

On 13/03/2019 at 08:43, StriderHiryu said:

I’d also agree that he’s our worst ever because he started the slide which put us back years and which was not fixed until Pearson came in. It’s incredible to think that initially he started so well and at one point fans thought he *might* be better than MON. Sounds ridiculous but we were top of the table early in his reign. 

 

Over time he was proved to be out of his depth and should really have gone at the end of that season. He wasn’t replaced and that signalled the start of our funeral march. 

 

Some of his signings are complete banter. Akinbiyi, Benjamin, Lewis, etc. 

 

I still have trauma from remembering this period ?

Were it the 'here and now' instead of 2001, then PT would have been replaced without hesitation in the summer after his first 'flattering to deceive' season with us : just like say Puel was at Southampton before he joined us. Obviously this was because the board sensibly gave managers more time back then - even if to our cost in the case of Taylor! Overall it would still be better now if things were like they were in the football world 18 years ago though....but keeping Taylor on for the first few games of 2001-02 was a big mistake with hindsight.....especially bearing in mind we lost 9 Prem. league games in a row after the infamous Wycombe FA Cup quarters defeat the previous season! The previous placing of 4th before 'that' game was false all along as it transpired. Not sure if he was our worst manager ever (being as he had us top of the Prem. for two weeks in his first season!) but he's on that shortlist....! 

Edited 14 March 2019 by Guy

[Crazy Kop Corner]

Literary ruined us for the next 10 years. The man is a complete and utter fool. Even now I can feel my disgust rising. Better to leave it there.

Edited 14 March 2019 by Crazy Kop Corner

[ealingfox]

5 hours ago, Corky said:

Even if 13th was a decent job (it wasn't, we were fifth with ten matches to go), any notion that he was still the man for the job went by half-time in the first match at 4-0 down to a very average promoted side.

 

And although results might've been similar for a while, Puel's legacy will be underachieving in lower mid-table with a talented, younger squad which he helped put together. Taylor left us bottom and rotten with a poor squad who'd lost all edge from the O'Neill years with key players gone and inadequately replaced.

 

Just goes to show how much the league's changed - if you were fifth with ten matches to go these days and then went on the run we went on you'd probably still finish in the top 6

 

[Arriba Los Zorros]

On 13/03/2019 at 18:37, davieG said:

Fromm 442's Clubs worst ever player

 

Leicester (Junior Lewis)

By James Sharpe (@TheSharpeEnd)

Such is the volume of dross that made its way through Leicester’s doors from c.2001-08, you could easily compile a full starting XI of worst players, a cramped substitutes’ bench and a queue of rubbish pros outside the manager’s office confused by their omission from such a side.

Lewis had the incredible ability of being 6ft 2in standing height, and 5ft 8in when jumping

There is, however, one man who stands tall in the quagmire when fans consider the worst player ever to wear the fox on his chest. The mere mention of Junior Lewis’s name is enough to bring most Leicester supporters out in hives, thanks to his dismal 30 appearances for the club between 2001 and 2004.

City boss Peter Taylor bought the lanky midfielder from Gillingham – the third of six (six) times Taylor would sign him during his career – for £150,000. Even that would prove extortionate.

Lewis had the incredible ability of being 6ft 2in standing height, and 5ft 8in when jumping. To his credit, the uncultured central midfielder had one half-decent game in a Premier League victory over Liverpool, but other than that he looked more like a player who fans genuinely thought they were better than.

Unsurprisingly, he eventually left on a free transfer. Even more unsurprisingly, it was then-Hull manager Taylor who snapped him up.

Read more at https://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/your-clubs-worst-player-ever-voted-fans?page=0%2C10#l7qcq2IVuSFJ6Gog.99

 

Here's another piece on him under the banner of  Managers' men: football's 'special' relationships, by those who know best
Read more at https://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/managers-men-footballs-special-relationships-those-who-know-best#KSZicwYave83tpAB.99

 

 

Junior Lewis is surely the ultimate manager’s man, having been purchased six times as a player (for Dover Athletic, Gillingham, Leicester City, Brighton, Hull City and Stevenage Borough) and brought into clubs twice as a coach (Wycombe Wanderers, Bradford City) by Peter Taylor. “I think I must hold the world record,” he tells FourFourTwo. Lewis believes that Taylor saw similarities from his younger days. “We were both two-footed, but mainly left-footed, and we relied on a similar trick - feinting to cross but chopping back onto your right foot. I watched a video of him play once and I thought: ‘I do that’.

 

Lewis: the ultimate manager's man

“He trusted me to keep things ticking over. I fitted his philosophy, and he brought the best out in me. But I didn’t assume that when he moved, I’d automatically follow. When he took over Leicester in the Premier League I did really hope I’d join, but I didn’t hear from him for ages.”

Now a coach himself at Boreham Wood, Lewis has another theory as to how certain types can become invaluable to their boss. “Operating in a difficult position is one way to become a favourite, and I was always a two-footed holding midfielder. There aren’t a lot of us around, compared to more attacking players, probably because you don’t get as much glory.

"So having me in that role meant Peter always knew he had one position sorted.” Lewis, never encountered hostility from team-mates thanks to his status. “I was playing a position which nobody else really did, so the competition wasn’t there. There was a bit of joking, but not much beyond that.”

He seems to fancy himself quite a bit.

If by two-footed he means both feet as bad as each other than he was two footed, or zero-footed. Genuinely a much, much , much worse version of Carlton Palmer. Clumsy, lanky, ungainly should have played basketball.

[surrifox]

I hadn’t realised we had considered Moyes Allardyce and Bruce and decided Tater Peeler was the obvious choice . Good work - presumably this was the work of the Weetabix king 

[Mapperleyfox]

Destroyed the club and put us back a good 10 years. 

 

Never took responsibility for his disastrous spell.

 

Will never forgive him for the Wycombe game.

 

Him and Holloway have to be the worst appointments we ever made.

[Blue Ed]

I remember being quite excited when Taylor became manager and the first few games despite performances we were top but awful. The season really felt like it was only a matter of time before it all came apart. We lost our attacking edge right from the start of the season. If we look at this for lessons it was that our attacking force we purchased that season either were not prolific enough at that level or we didn't play to their style. We got in Trevor Benjamin, 1.5 Ade. 6 and Cresswell players who were bought to replace the Cottee and Heskey the season previous. Shifting out Guppy for Davidson I never understood at the time and meant we lost another attacking threat.

 

 

[murphy]

It's amazing.  We have found a subject that we can all agree on.

 

Thank you PT for bringing Foxes Talk together at last.

[Ric Flair]

8 hours ago, Mapperleyfox said:

Destroyed the club and put us back a good 10 years. 

 

Never took responsibility for his disastrous spell.

 

Will never forgive him for the Wycombe game.

 

Him and Holloway have to be the worst appointments we ever made.

Both these cretins almost blame us as a club as well for their demise.

[DANGEROUS TIGER]

Oh no. Not Peter Taylor, the demolition expert! 

[Vacamion]

On 13/03/2019 at 19:20, Corky said:

Sorry Vac, usually agree with what you say but can't here. The Wycombe defeat was unforgivable, an average third tier side at home, having just beaten Liverpool the previous week we should've had enough to get through the game unscathed. How we didn't needs explaining.

 

We had a very gentle run of home matches after that where we should have picked up another three wins and that would've left us on 57/58 points and at least the semi-finals of the FA Cup. That would've been a very impressive season.

 

And it wasn't just that we had to go through, it was the appalling final season at Filbert St, administration and all that rancour. It worked out well in the end but we had to suffer a lot to get there and I think plenty of it was avoidable.

 

Fair do's.

 

Maybe the shite purchases were mainly after the Wycombe game and subsequent collapse. 

 

And maybe both the Wycombe loss and collapse AND the poor player choices and acquisitions were both just generally symptoms of a poor appreciation of the game. 

 

 

[surrifox]

Ironically , he did a very lifelike and convincing Norman Wisdom impersonation 

[Jobyfox]

He was that bad that even to this day I still suffer from PTAD (Peter Taylor Anxiety Disorder). That feeling watching Leicester when you just assume the world is going to come crashing down all around you.

 

That’s a big reason I couldn’t take to Puel. The position in the table wasn’t bad. There was a strategy to bring through younger players. He was following a great era for the club.

 

But the performances were dreadful. It was difficult to understand how we’d managed to accumulate so many points. You didn’t trust his judgement in managing out our more experienced players.

 

There were just too many echoes of the Taylor regime in what was happening with Puel. My PTAD was in overdrive and that’s why, in my eyes, Puel had to go. Hopefully there will never be another Taylor!

(shudders and reaches for the whisky....)