'I Was Very Happy At Leicester' – Sven On His Year With The Foxes

[Tommy Fresh]

1 hour ago, Ric Flair said:

Andy King was absolutely phenomenal under him.

Was it under Sven when he scored that chip at Cov? Or was it Sousa

[Tommy Fresh]

2 hours ago, Stadt said:

If he was a good manager he'd had us promoted. He spent something like £15m which was obviously a massive outlay then and we had the highest wage bill in the league.

 

Nugent, Paintsil, Konchesky, Schmeichel, Fernandes, King, Wellens, Dyer was the basis of a good squad and he squandered a huge amount on Beckford and Mills. Charlatan.

He was a good manager back in the day to be fair.

[Sampson]

27 minutes ago, TK95 said:

How we never signed him permanently when he wanted to stay himself I'll never know

He didn’t want to stay did he? He ended up going to Blackburn who were in the PL instead and had a great season. Think he scored about 20 goals in a side that got relegated.
 

Why would he have dropped down to the Championship when he was offered the chance to be a lead striker for a PL side?

[Gamble92]

It was the arrogance to think just because someone had played for England 10 years prior that they'd walk the championship that cost him.

 

That season we first got him halfway through was one of my first as a season ticket holder and we undoubtedly played the best we had in years at the time. 

 

Like others have said it was actually the finishing touches like Beckford and Mills that were just abysmal signings. (Although I'll always thank Beckford for the Forest hat trick).

 

I always liked the way Sven had class in the way he conducted himself though, and his parting statement was a really nice message to the fans. We have certainly had a hell of a lot worse and he didn't exactly ruin us, just didn't do a great job.

[Plastik Man]

16 hours ago, ttfn said:

 

All the more remarkable when later, in retirement, it was revealed Yakubu and Sven are actually the same age!

Edited 4 February 2023 by Plastik Man
Swen

[HybridFox]

13 minutes ago, Sampson said:

He didn’t want to stay did he? He ended up going to Blackburn who were in the PL instead and had a great season. Think he scored about 20 goals in a side that got relegated.
 

Why would he have dropped down to the Championship when he was offered the chance to be a lead striker for a PL side?

Said it himself

 

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11712/6829978/yakubu-wants-leicester-stay

[Stadt]

Just now, Tommy Fresh said:

He was a good manager back in the day to be fair.

He spent c. £250m in 3 years at Lazio 97-00 which was a ridiculous amount then, you still obviously have to be a reasonable manager but that'd be like the equivalent of spending a billion in 3 years now.

 

His first Benfica spell was good but he's underachieved in his career for the teams he's managed. Quarter final exits with those England teams is underachievement too

[SemperEadem]

2 minutes ago, Stadt said:

He spent c. £250m in 3 years at Lazio 97-00 which was a ridiculous amount then, you still obviously have to be a reasonable manager but that'd be like the equivalent of spending a billion in 3 years now.

 

His first Benfica spell was good but he's underachieved in his career for the teams he's managed. Quarter final exits with those England teams is underachievement too

Shagger though

[lcfcbluearmy]

4 hours ago, Ric Flair said:

It was a beautiful mess, what a man. He had many faults did old Sven for club and country but I can't help but love him. Reminded me of my Grandad. 

 

Some of the football we played in certain games was astonishing.

I think the likable thing about him is that he can look back at his time hear and admit that he made mistakes and that we were right to fire him. There are definitely some managers that couldn't....... 

[Simoken]

All i remember of this era was 'the dark days' and dodgy incomings

[Fox92]

1 minute ago, Stadt said:

He spent c. £250m in 3 years at Lazio 97-00 which was a ridiculous amount then, you still obviously have to be a reasonable manager but that'd be like the equivalent of spending a billion in 3 years now.

 

His first Benfica spell was good but he's underachieved in his career for the teams he's managed. Quarter final exits with those England teams is underachievement too

He was also very successful with Lazio and led them to only their second title ever.

 

England was a disappointment given our quality but we went out of tournaments to sides that were better/as good as us. In 2002 you're talking about one of the best International sides in Brazil, they had some of the greatest players in the World when you consider Cafu, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Rivaldo, Gilberto Silva, Cafu, Lucio. We were probably, on paper, better than Portugal in both 2004 and 2006 but they had quality too. There were at least 5 players who played for Porto who had just won the CL in 2004 and that's without mentioning Figo and Rui Costa.

 

Which is why I don't get the comparisons of our English team now, Southgate might have got us to two semi finals but he hasn't played against a side as good as Sven did. We played France as well when Zidane scored (a double maybe?), can't remember the year, but that side would have included Henry, Vieira, Thuram, Makelele.

 

Money has always been spent. I don't know about on that sort of amount but Fergie used to splash £25m/£30m on players in the early 2000's (which is the eqivilent of what now? £60m a player, more?).

[Miquel The Work Geordie]

We had some truly exotic trialists in his time – Bernard Parker, Razak Otomoyossi, Michael Rensing, Fabrice Pancrate, there was some Honduran(s) who never officially signed n all who I remember us chasing. The pull of the npower 

[StanSP]

5 minutes ago, Miquel The Work Geordie said:

We had some truly exotic trialists in his time – Bernard Parker, Razak Otomoyossi, Michael Rensing, Fabrice Pancrate, there was some Honduran(s) who never officially signed n all who I remember us chasing. The pull of the npower 

You've definitely just made up those as if they were FM re-gens.

[sylofox]

4 hours ago, ttfn said:

 

When we had urgency instead of trying to bore the opposition into submission.

 

Someone needs to send that to Top.

Also copy Rodgers into it ffs.

[Golden Fox]

Up until us, it was always a Sven and Tord Grip joint ticket. They were a team with Tord doing a lot of the hands on coaching and Sven overseeing, making final decisions and being the face for the media. The formula was incredibly successful (at club level).

 

When Sven came to Leicester, Tord didn't join him for whatever reason, and we had to make do with Derek Fazackerley - who is probably fair to describe a lower league journeyman coach.

 

Unfortunately, I don't think we ever really saw what Sven could have done with us as we were missing a vital ingredient.

[Tommy Fresh]

32 minutes ago, Stadt said:

He spent c. £250m in 3 years at Lazio 97-00 which was a ridiculous amount then, you still obviously have to be a reasonable manager but that'd be like the equivalent of spending a billion in 3 years now.

 

His first Benfica spell was good but he's underachieved in his career for the teams he's managed. Quarter final exits with those England teams is underachievement too

Doubt Lazio fans care, they've only won the league twice. Also your previous post referenced money spent to being successful so don't think that can then be used as a criticism to him being pretty successful with Lazio. He also won a UEFA Cup with Göteborg and was in numerous other European finals. England onwards was all a bit meh though.

 

Edited 3 February 2023 by Tommy Fresh

[Itsthejoeker]

13 minutes ago, Miquel The Work Geordie said:

We had some truly exotic trialists in his time – Bernard Parker, Razak Otomoyossi, Michael Rensing, Fabrice Pancrate, there was some Honduran(s) who never officially signed n all who I remember us chasing. The pull of the npower 

Have I imagined it or did we have some Peruvian wonder kid who never got really homesick and never actually came over here?

[Miquel The Work Geordie]

1 minute ago, Itsthejoeker said:

Have I imagined it or did we have some Peruvian wonder kid who never got really homesick and never actually came over here?

 

We had Pier Laurrari for a bit who'd been (briefly!) through Bayern but I think he signed pre-Sven, maybe in the first Nige era

[ts_1010]

Loved watching Yakubu, the world's oldest 28 year old, somehow rack up 11 in 20 or something. Mental times.

Edited 3 February 2023 by ts_1010

[Sambiasso]

5 hours ago, SemperEadem said:

Anyone else remember the two Thai blokes one in the home kit and the other in the away doing really dodgy streams of our games?

Wan Tan' Foo Kin Dec

[SemperEadem]

6 minutes ago, Sambiasso said:

Wan Tan' Foo Kin Dec

There they are! 

[Miquel The Work Geordie]

That Burrda kit for 11/12 might have been made out of clingfilm but cor blimey she looked great

[HybridFox]

1 hour ago, Sambiasso said:

Wan Tan' Foo Kin Dec

BRING THEM BACK

[Corky]

Played some great football at times but ultimately it was really underwhelming. Think it gave the owners a steer in the right direction in terms of having a set up of stability with the next manager, though, when the obsession with supposed huge names eased off.

[don_danbury]

4 hours ago, TK95 said:

How we never signed him permanently when he wanted to stay himself I'll never know

i thought blackburn came in for him and he wanted to play in the prem?