Ian Holloway makes honest admission about his ill-fated spell as Leicester City manager

[dayday]

My recollection of that season was we bought shit load of players who was far from good enough.

 

Carl Cort

Shaun Newton 

The Iranian wonder kid Hossein Kaebi

Sergio Hellings

Jimmy casino Nielsen

DJ Campbell

Bruno N’Gotty passed it 

Radostin Kishishev- was ok 

Zsolt Lackzo- looked the dogs bollocks against cov

Gábor Bori as above

David Bell

Stephen Clemence - always injured

Lee Hendrie- steady player 

Matt Oakley

Harry Worley

Steve Howard, there is others but can’t be bothered to look

 

The truth is Holloway was right to many players to please, the better players either was injured or under achieved.

 

 

[49er]

1 hour ago, koop. said:

DJ Campbell has to be one of those he wanted rid of surely

Doubt it . Played for him at Blackpool

[TJB-fox]

55 minutes ago, dayday said:

So why was Martin Allen sacked? , If you think it was a player then my info was diffrent

Several of the senior players were pissed off with his aggressive nature and training methods and went to Milan with an ultimatum effectively. Was told this by an ex player in the squad at the time, about a year after it had happened. Milan was forced into sacking him..

...so I was told.

[ARM1968]

Rabid badgers - a classic 😂

[wokinghamfox]

12 hours ago, Les-TA-Jon said:

We'd been circling the drain for 3-4 seasons before that point anyhow, amassing a bloated squad of nobodies and has-beens. 

There was little youth development going on during this period. You are right it was a mix of has beens who had well and truely had their day and wanna be's. 

 

If I recall we had a head of player recruitment who was suddenly dismissed without an explanation as to why. We were litteraly buying rubbish on a daily basis.

 

Nigel Pearson had the luxury of a season in league 1 to rebuild and shace the squad. NP started the revolution we are experiencing today. From 04 to 07 was a disaster that just slipped from bad to worse. Ian Holloway is not a poor manager he just fell into a downward spiral.

[Langston]

40 minutes ago, wokinghamfox said:

There was little youth development going on during this period. You are right it was a mix of has beens who had well and truely had their day and wanna be's. 

 

If I recall we had a head of player recruitment who was suddenly dismissed without an explanation as to why. We were litteraly buying rubbish on a daily basis.

 

Nigel Pearson had the luxury of a season in league 1 to rebuild and shace the squad. NP started the revolution we are experiencing today. From 04 to 07 was a disaster that just slipped from bad to worse. Ian Holloway is not a poor manager he just fell into a downward spiral.

 

Don Mackay might be the director you're referring to, ex Cov, Fulham and Blackburn boss - lasted about four or five weeks before leaving with a bloke called Lil Fuccillo who was a scout and had been with us for six months or so.

 

[Guesty]

3 hours ago, TJB-fox said:

Several of the senior players were pissed off with his aggressive nature and training methods and went to Milan with an ultimatum effectively. Was told this by an ex player in the squad at the time, about a year after it had happened. Milan was forced into sacking him..

...so I was told.

I remember when Allen had them working in the ticket office and cleaning parts of the ground.

 

Then going to the media and boasting about it. Undermining your players and showing them up in public is never a great way to win them over.

 

Also heard a story about him writing an acronym on a whiteboard to club staff when he had a meeting with them. When he explained it to them, he basically said: it was his way or they could all get lost - but it wasn't put as pleasantly as that (I can't remember the acronym).

 

Edited 2 November 2019 by Guesty

[sacreblueits442]

12 hours ago, Woodsey1727 said:

I think him getting us relegated was the best thing for the club, getting rid of players that didn't want to perform for the club and getting nige in to rebuild, if we survived relegation we would of been in an even worse position 

...sliding doors....we could still have bought Nigel in had we stayed up!!!!!

[sacreblueits442]

52 minutes ago, Guesty said:

I remember when he had them working in the ticket office and cleaning parts of the ground.

 

Then going to the media and boasting about it. Undermining your players and showing them up in public is never a great way to win them over.

 

Also heard a story about him writing an acronym on a whiteboard to club staff when he had a meeting with them. When he explained it to them, he basically said: it was his way or they could all get lost - but it wasn't put as pleasantly as that (I can't remember the acronym).

 

...as I have said previously...arrogant twit, he really felt he had made it and never applied himself to improving the club. All this rationalisation is him attempting to rewrite history.He thought his reputation would be enough to carry him in his position, it just goes to show what a waste of space he was!!!!

[Mickey O'Neil]

13 hours ago, Tommo220 said:

but then we wouldn't have such great memories of losing at the Withdean (on particularly wobbly scaffold) or beating Carlisle away!

...or throwing away a two-goal lead at Swindon. That game hurt more because we spent the match abusing their keeper, Smiggy!! He turned around and flipped us the bird when they equalised! It may have been Simon Cox  

Edited 2 November 2019 by Mickey O'Neil
Grammar

[Out Foxed]

11 hours ago, koop. said:

DJ Campbell has to be one of those he wanted rid of surely

Doubtful. He had him at Blackpool 

 

that squad wasnt too bad two future premier league captains in it. 

[Lee Monty]

19 hours ago, davieG said:

He spent over 2Mill on Steve Howard, Matt Oakley in January

Both of whom were decent for us, that Howard header against Leeds on Easter Monday is still one of my favourite all time goals, although we were fricking awful under him and the loan players were all dross

[Sly]

Holloway needed to happen unfortunately,  for us to get rebuilt.

 

By inheriting that squad he did, with all the egos, the likes of McCauley, Stearman, Sheehan, Porter, Mattock, Hammond, Wesolowski, Kisnorbo etc, he was on a hiding to nothing and would have been ultimately trying to delay the inevitable. They were talented but unprofessional. You’d see players drinking on a Thursday night, when they had a game on a Saturday. Turning up in expensive cars, drinking and showing off. Too much, too young. I remember one of them trying to do keeps up in the middle of Loughborough at 2AM on a Friday morning and he couldn’t even manage to do three; he was that drunk! 
 

Holloway’s biggest mistake was not dealing with it. Something that Nigel did the following year, balancing the books at the same time. Being in an easier league to participate in definitely helped stabilise us. He didn’t need to retain some of the players, so was able to let them go. 
 

The players that remained were the more professional ones and that is what we built our foundations on.

[hebangsthedrums]

He was shit an d it was galling that he wanted to cultivate his media image more than keep us in the division. Second worst manager we have had. 

[Elvis hammond]

All I remember about hollaway was shef united away and the fans song was hollaway show us your shoes and he did 😂

[Sly]

Holloway won 28% of his games. 
 

Only the following Leicester Managers are worse:

 

Frank McLintock - 12.5%

Ian McFarland - 20%

Garry Parker - 0% - that was horrendous!!

Bassett - 14%

 

 

 

[davieG]

1 hour ago, Sly said:

Holloway needed to happen unfortunately,  for us to get rebuilt.

Why? A better manager could have restructured us in the Championship. There was plenty of time a transfer window and at least £2mill.

[Dames]

10 hours ago, Guesty said:

I remember when Allen had them working in the ticket office and cleaning parts of the ground.

 

Then going to the media and boasting about it. Undermining your players and showing them up in public is never a great way to win them over.

 

Also heard a story about him writing an acronym on a whiteboard to club staff when he had a meeting with them. When he explained it to them, he basically said: it was his way or they could all get lost - but it wasn't put as pleasantly as that (I can't remember the acronym).

 

The acronym was FIFO from what I remember. Fit in or **** off.

[Collymore]

5 hours ago, Out Foxed said:

Doubtful. He had him at Blackpool 

 

that squad wasnt too bad two future premier league captains in it. 

Yeah that squad had some quality in that's for sure. 

 

Even DJ Campbell was unplayable on his day, trouble was he rarely had his day with us... 

[Matt]

2 hours ago, davieG said:

Why? A better manager could have restructured us in the Championship. There was plenty of time a transfer window and at least £2mill.

Purely from a confidence and feel good factor I think League One was the best thing for us.

 

We were in a lull, going round in a circles of mid table obscurity and fighting relegation battles in the Championship, it was only a matter of time until the inevitable happened.

 

As I said in an earlier post at the time of relegation i'd have bit your head of if anyone suggested going down would be the best thing for us but in hindsight I really do believe that.

 

I wouldn't have chose it, I didn't want it but it was a process we had to go through and luckily (given other clubs struggles when they have dropped to that level) we came through the other side and bounced back immediately.

 

Sometimes you need to take a step back to take steps forward.

 

Edited 2 November 2019 by Matt

[Fox92]

Relegation doesn't "have to happen" for someone to turn a club around it. However we were constantly finishing near the bottom of the league every season and after a while, no matter what level, it gets you. 

 

Plymouth under Holloway were decent, as I recall, the likes of Ebanks-Blake, Buzsaky and Halmosi. Fvck me that day they beat us at home was horrific. So at the point of Holloway joining us I was behind the idea. 

 

My memories of games that season include being freezing away at Hull and the first time I'd seen us win at the Hawthorns... and what a day that was. The Stoke game was awful and more than anything their pitch invasion sticks out to me still.

[MAC_fox]

I don’t blame him as such, he picked up Allen’s poo stick and a list of woeful players. Did well before us and after he left us so can’t be all his fault 🤷🏻‍♂️

[JamesfromlondonLCFC]

was shite for us. but also we were a ticking time bomb as he says. dont hate him at all. 

[The Horse's Mouth]

That season is mad when you look back, imagine Martin Allen, Gary Meg & Ollie absolute banter line up, Manadric was a proper clown 

[Corky]

3 minutes ago, The Horse's Mouth said:

That season is mad when you look back, imagine Martin Allen, Gary Meg & Ollie absolute banter line up, Manadric was a proper clown 

Vichai and Top got a bit of stick for muscling in on the title celebration but Mandaric was on another level. Our owners now aren't in the media too much making statements but barely a few days went by without Milan proclaiming he's a fan, he wants success, this manager didn't work, the next one is great, he'll go through 20 managers to make the club successful.

 

He really did try too hard.