Matt Mills

[Guest Electric Yetis]

8 minutes ago, surrifox said:

I thought his defensive partner at Reading was a better player (can't remember his name !) and wondered if we signed the wrong one.  at the time Curtis Davies was the player we should have committed to .

Kizanishvili was his main partner for the end of the season but he was only on loan. They had Ingimarsson & Alex Pearce too.

[CosbehFox]

Personally I thought Curtis Davies was another Emperor New Clothes player 

[Corky]

4 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

Personally I thought Curtis Davies was another Emperor New Clothes player 

The only players I'd have like to have kept on from Sven's time, apart from the three Pearson did and proved their worth, were Yakubu and Kyle Naughton. Although Ben Mee has carved out a very decent career.

[The Horse's Mouth]

2 hours ago, RoboFox said:

 

Forgot about Kingfox's obsession with Sean st ledger 

[Bert]

1 hour ago, davieG said:

the Merc are on the ball with this one

 

'I stumbled off' - Former Leicester City favourite lifts lid on infamous Nigel Pearson bust-up.

 

The two came to blows during their time at Leicester City following a chat in the manager's office.

ByTom Leach
09:37, 19 AUG 2020

Former Leicester City captain Matt Mills has claimed that he was confronted by an unprovoked Nigel Pearson during his time at the King Power Stadium, sparking a training ground bust-up that saw him dropped and forced out of the club.

Mills was made Foxes captain in 2011 after completing his switch from Reading but things soon turned sour when boss Sven Goran-Erikkson was sacked and replaced by Pearson

He says Pearson, who most recently took charge of Premier League Watford, made an early decision to punish the central defender in an attempt to stamp his authority on the entire squad in a power play that asserted his dominance at Belvoir Drive.

But in doing so he overstepped the line, suggest Mills, confronting him in his office just days after a crucial FA Cup clash.

"We were in sixth or seventh when Sven got sacked, it wasn't like we weren't battling for promotion at the time - but Nigel Pearson came in and I could tell it wasn't going to work," he said, speaking to Second Tier Podcast.

"He made it clear in one way or another that I wasn't going to be involved.

"On the first day I met him he shook my hand and said: 'You're not as fat as I thought you were!'," Mills explained.

"I used to have my body fat levels checked every weekend and I was never over ten per cent, so that was a weird comment.

"And then we played Crystal Palace the next day and on the Monday he called me into his office, I thought he was going to tell me it was a great game on the weekend, but instead he just asked me if I thought I deserved to be captain.

"I explained that the old manager obviously saw something in me and that I didn't make myself captain, I wasn't sure what to say but I knew from the start that it was cagey.

"I continued to play and we were in the play-offs when we had an FA Cup quarter-final that he left me out of so I went to see him in his office to ask why I was dropped.

"I was thinking that he would tell me that I had been poor or that he wanted to give someone else an opportunity, but his reply was that I should get up and leave his office. That was random because I had only tried to open a dialogue up.

"And he was quite forceful with it," he continued. "I asked if we had a problem because all I was trying to do was have a conversation but he just proceeded to do something that I probably shouldn't mention so will leave up to other people's imaginations - but I stumbled off afterwards.

In the weeks that followed Mills says he was made to train with the youth team as he was left out of a string of crucial Foxes games in the fight for promotion before sitting down at his family home in Swindon one matchday to see his manager tell Sky Sports that he had been snubbed for so long because Pearson refused to "pick a team on price tags and egos".

Mills said: "I was left thinking, what have I done to this man for him to throw me under the bus like this.

"Since then I have read a lot of coaching manual and management books and there is always an old saying that you chop of the head of the snake and then you won't get any backlash, as it were.

"If he could stamp his authority on the squad and show that he could get rid of the captain then nobody would mess with the manager.

"It worked," he added. "Leicester got promoted and I just happened to be the fall guy."

 

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/nigel-pearson-city-matt-mills-4437861

 

 

They’re direct quotes from the podcast

[UniFox21]

Just now, Bert said:

They’re direct quotes from the podcast

Breaking news here, the merc has listened to the podcast and written it down 

[don_danbury]

said something about beckford sending him a text with a laughing emoji, did those two not get on then?

[Guest Manini]

1 hour ago, davieG said:

 

"On the first day I met him he shook my hand and said: 'You're not as fat as I thought you were!',"

 

[CosbehFox]

''We were in sixth or seventh when Sven got sacked, it wasn't like we weren't battling for promotion at the time''

 

We were 13th Matt

[bmt]

It's actually quite funny how shit he was. How could so many people get it so wrong?

[z-layrex]

Matt Mills, Neil Danns, Beckford... the very definitions of midtable Championship obscurity.

[Guest Electric Yetis]

3 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

''We were in sixth or seventh when Sven got sacked, it wasn't like we weren't battling for promotion at the time''

 

We were 13th Matt

Also says he was dropped for the FA Cup Quarter Final against Norwich. Pretty sure that was 5th round.

[gerrytaggart]

4 hours ago, Aus Fox said:

Really interesting comments here, he’s obviously trying to saying something physical happened without opening himself up to be in a bit of bother when he can’t prove it. 
Would love to hear Nigels side of this story.

Nigel. "yeah I twatted the useless c***" 

[Gamble92]

38 minutes ago, Corky said:

The only players I'd have like to have kept on from Sven's time, apart from the three Pearson did and proved their worth, were Yakubu and Kyle Naughton. Although Ben Mee has carved out a very decent career.

Agree with all of them, although i think Curtis Davies did initially look a class above. He soon adopted the attitude of the rest of them though.

 

I was in awe of Yakubu. Looked out of shape, unhealthy, lazy but his technique was ridiculously good and the things he did were levels above the championship. 

[Lesta2014]

6 minutes ago, Rain King said:

Also says he was dropped for the FA Cup Quarter Final against Norwich. Pretty sure that was 5th round.

Yep the quarter we lost to Chelsea, Marshall scored a screamer

[Wasyls Pec Deck]

I agree with everything said in this thread.
 

I think at the time as well he may have broken the clubs transfer record (Akinbiyi)? Or it might have been slightly under it. I remember thinking at the time this will be worth it just to banish the ghost of Akinbiyi being our transfer record. 

 

Him and St Ledger were good in an away win at Southampton I seem to remember! 🤣 

[Sampson]

21 minutes ago, z-layrex said:

Matt Mills, Neil Danns, Beckford... the very definitions of midtable Championship obscurity.

Beckford wasn't good enough for the Championship full stop, let alone mid-table. He showed that at Bolton too. Bolton fans disliked him as much as ours did.

 

He was one of those players who was too good for League One but not good enough for the Championship.

 

He never scored more than 8 goals in a Championship season. Even Iain Hume managed 11 in the season we got relegated.

Edited 19 August 2020 by Sampson

[Mark_w]

‘I’ll leave it to people’s imaginations” is likely the sort of spineless cowardice that lost him the captaincy.

[The Horse's Mouth]

1 hour ago, z-layrex said:

Matt Mills, Neil Danns, Beckford... the very definitions of midtable Championship obscurity.

Do think its harsh on Danns, he at least gave it is all and wasnt a bad little squad player the other two were big time Charlie's 

[davieG]

1 hour ago, Bert said:

They’re direct quotes from the podcast

Yes I guessed that but there people who can't hear or access that.

[The Horse's Mouth]

1 hour ago, don_danbury said:

said something about beckford sending him a text with a laughing emoji, did those two not get on then?

Nah I think it's the opposite, sounded like they had a bit of a big time Charlie clique 

[davieG]

1 hour ago, z-layrex said:

Matt Mills, Neil Danns, Beckford... the very definitions of midtable Championship obscurity.

Danns was ok here's a bit of he recent interview about LCFC - Former player Remember

 

I was on my way to talk to Celtic when I had a call from my agent saying that Leicester were interested. It was a good offer to move to Celtic, but I’d moved for most of my career and Leicester wasn’t as far away. Sven-Göran Eriksson was at Leicester, who was a massive name. Also I was so excited when I heard about the plans that the Club had and about the players they were going to bring in.

Expand photo

Danns made his home debut for the Foxes against Real Madrid in the summer of 2011.

“This was the foundation of where Leicester is at the moment,” Neil reflected, “so I’m glad I made the decision to go to Leicester and play a little part in the rebuilding of the Club.

“There were loads of good players at Leicester. Looking back now we probably brought in too many players at once for success to happen straight away, but when you look back some of those players were there when the team won the league, and a lot have gone on to achieve amazing things. In the end success happened in a time frame that probably no one would have expected anyway, so to be part of that was good. I can look back now and think that I was part of that.”

Sven left in the Club three months after Neil had come to Leicester.

“That was a weird one,” Neil continued. “He’d obviously brought in a lot of players and everyone expected everything to happen straight away, but as we all know, that is never the case. Time is needed for a team to gel, so he probably had the pressure on him because he had spent so much money, but fair play to him, he brought in a lot of new players that laid some of the foundations for the Club’s future success. When he went it was a bit disappointing, but you could understand where the decision was coming from.”

The following month, in November 2011, Nigel Pearson returned for his second spell as Leicester City’s manager.

“Nigel Pearson was a great guy,” Neil remembered. “He took on the squad and improved it. He played me in most games that season. I think I scored six goals in 37 matches, which wasn’t bad from midfield. I also had the opportunity to captain the side on a few occasions.”

 

Rest of it is here - https://www.lcfc.com/news/1750931/former-player-remembers-neil-danns/featured

 

Obviously had a better relationship with Pearson.

[Corky]

1 hour ago, Gamble92 said:

Agree with all of them, although i think Curtis Davies did initially look a class above. He soon adopted the attitude of the rest of them though.

 

I was in awe of Yakubu. Looked out of shape, unhealthy, lazy but his technique was ridiculously good and the things he did were levels above the championship. 

Between 2010-12 we had good players across both seasons who didn't play together who could've made a promotion challenging team with someone like Pearson in charge.

 

If we had, for example-

 

Schmeichel

 

Naughton

Morgan

Davies/ Vitor

Konchesky

 

Vassell/ Gallagher

Drinkwater

King

Dyer

 

Yakubu

Nugent

 

In the pre-Vardy and Knockaert era, that team is capable of at least the play-offs.

[Pliskin]

Let’s be honest, Matt. The best thing you brought to the club was your then Mrs. 

[Fox92]

I remember a Reading fan on here saying Mills only performs on games on the tv, we all said he was bitter but he was right.

 

Mills was terrible. I'm not surprised Pearson didn't want him.