Inside The Dressing Room: Elliott On O'Neill, Izzet & Leicester's Potential In 2000

[FoxyJim1987]

On 04/08/2020 at 18:40, OzFox said:

I was lucky enough to go to one of the first matches they played together, away at Charlton. Even then it was obvious how good they both were and they looked as though they'd played together for years. I remember thinking they hunted as a pair...if one went in for a tackle the other was there to mop up. I can't remember who they replaced but it was an immediate big improvement.

 

Think Claridge got his first for us that night too. 

It was my absolute favourite memory in football. I was 9 years old, had only been to a handful of away games before, and it was Easter Holidays at school so I could go as it was a night match. Spent the day in London going round other grounds with my Dad. A steward guy at Highbury let us in and let us walk down the tunnel and walk around the pitch. The same happened at Brentford. Got a London bus with the Brentford badge on it given to me. Then sat outside at Greenwich quays pub before watching us win, it was perfect. We then went to Palace and won if I remember rightly, big Iwan scored. 

[MPH]

7 hours ago, ParkerPen said:

 

Things went well for MON at Celtic (and fair play to him for that) but as an Irish Catholic he was drawn to Celtic when they were still a genuinely big club, and don't blame him one bit for deciding his time with us was up

 

I remember MON saying at the time That his Dad once told him that if the Celtic job ever became available he should be willing to walk there if he had to...

[MPH]

On 03/08/2020 at 14:56, Strokes said:

Flowers only came in 1999 he had a couple of good season.

The guy you’re agreeing with also stated O’Neill didn’t have a great record with big signings? 
I can’t remember many big flops, gunnlaugsson, Fenton and possibly Zagorakis at a stretch. He had enough hits to balance it out. Claridge equal record transfer at the time, Lennon wasn’t much in value behind it and was a big number then. Elliott record transfer, Eadie looked good before his injury. 
We didn’t just lose our players when he left, we lost our identity for over a decade and it’s not revisionism to say so.

 

elliott record transfer? He was 1.2m from Oxford... Eadie was 3m

[Strokes]

2 hours ago, MPH said:

 

elliott record transfer? He was 1.2m from Oxford... Eadie was 3m

£1.6m and yes it was the record at that time.

[Rain King]

3 hours ago, MPH said:

 

elliott record transfer? He was 1.2m from Oxford... Eadie was 3m

He was the record for almost 18 months until Frank Sinclair. (Courtesy of the brilliant history section of this site)

 

 

[FoxyJim1987]

O Neill did sign one or two duds but got some incredible bargains. Even Sir Alex had a few Klebersons and Verons. The characters he brought in like Prior, Taggart, Impey, Savage, would just run through a wall for the team and would never quit. As one poster said, we totally lost our identity after he went, but it was an amazing era looking back. 

[urban fox]

When you look at the backbone of the squad that MON left behind there was real talent there. Yes, we lost Heskey and one or two were approaching the back end of their careers but what happened under Taylor was shocking. I was genuinely excited that first season, i really thought we would finish top 4 and finally win the FA cup. The defeat to Wycombe was disastrous but i think that things had probably started to fall apart before then.  Taylor brought some woeful players in and it was obvious that he had an agenda to break up MONs squad. More recently Puel did the same, trying to dismantle the legends (an unpalatable job, but one that needed doing at some time) but at least he signed good players, who are the basis of our current squad, even if his style was dire.

Not sure what the problem was with Taylor, but it all went seriously t*ts up very quickly, once he started bumping certain players wages up and bringing in the likes Junior Lewis. It was obvious that Lennon, despite being handed a lucrative new contract, wanted away and once he left the writing was on the wall.

My opinion for whats its worth, was partly the way he treated Collymore (based on reputation rather than talent, and Taylor's seeming desire to be seen as being the big man in charge) caused a lot of unrest amongst some of the squad,and thats when the rot started to set in, exacerbated when he started to sign, and pick some utter dross.

[evil jack]

They've just put up an interview with Danny Simpson.

You don't think of him as being particularly eloquent, but It's actually really great.

 

I loved the bit about him standing in the tunnel before a game & just knowing he was going to win....

 

https://www.lcfc.com/radio/1816322/inside-the-dressing-room-episode-7--danny-simpson

 

[moseeds]

Nothing about the Peter Taylor era made any sense even at the time. His managerial pedigree was paper thin. His stardom within the FA had risen but outside of it wasn't seen as anything special. He was good at the media game though which inflated his credentials. His first full season with Leicester was reminiscent of this season under Brendan but ended even more catastrophically. Hope history isn't about to repeat itself in the coming year...

[Channy'sboots]

I got an insight into how Taylor’s treatment of some of the MON squad went down behind the scenes. We were on a corporate match day and one of the ‘Legend Hosts’ looking after us collared a suited and booted first teamer who wasn’t even on the bench that afternoon. “So X, How’s life going under the new Manager? What’s he like?” I asked ( a bit insensitive I suppose on reflection) 

The reply was / is still priceless.. “I think he’s a cñut mate” 

Player X ambled off and our match day host didn’t know what to say

Brilliant moment