Jacky Chan-dler

[Ric Flair]

You obviously have it in for Craig Levein because he is the mighty man who has replaced the lovely talented Mr Adams. Well answer me this dude, did you spout all this abuse when we turfed Peter Taylor out and in came Mr Bassett and Bum Chin Adams? How long does it take for the manager to bed in before you get behind them and then never leave their ass irrespective of how well they are doing as a manager?

I don't know if what i've written makes sense as it sounds a little shite to me, but what i'm trying to say is how the hell did you get this addiction to Micky Adams? As there were managers of Leicester before Micky Adams who have left in dubious circumstances, did you fly the flag for these managers after they had left?

I know it's the fans you are disgusted with for daring to question Adams capabilities, but surely it's time to swipe the chip cob you have off your shoulder and get behind Levein. It's not going to be easy out there for City and the fans never thought it would be, but Adams took us as far as he could. The La Manga debacle changed Micky and he never really had his mind on the job again, you could tell this season that he'd lost his passion for the game with us. Now perhaps we treated him badly with all the booing and abuse we wrote on here, but us fans pay good money to watch Leicester and we are allowed an opinion. Opinions might be right and they might be wrong, but if the majority of 32,000 fans think the same then I find it highly unlikely that we are all wrong. Managers come and go, it's a cut throat business and if they aren't producing the goods then they have to leave or be pushed. It happens at most clubs and it will continue to happen, I think if you spoke to Micky he'd admit himself that things had got out of hand at Leicester and there wasn't anyway he could continue to work here as he'd lost the plot.

Let it go mate, go and get yourself a bottle of something nice and get nailed. Everything will look better after you do that, you might even start agreeing with us boneheads.

[Chandler]

You're alright Hoof mate, you're alright. Open minded, sense of humour and you take the piss out of yourself. AND you ask a most interesting question. I'm so glad you asked me about Peter Taylor so glad, in fact, I practically wet me sen (racial mimicking of 'Homo Yorkshirebus'). So here goes...

Not so many moons ago I was a member of an organisation called the London Football Coaches Association. We used to invite lots of managers, coaches and players to our monthly meetings at White Fart Lane which were chaired by Bob Wilson (name drop, name drop, yeah, yeah, yeah) and to our annual dinner and piss up at Highbury.

Now there was one young 'up and coming' coach of the England U 21's I seem to remember who always had something else to do whenever he was invited. We began to hear things about him. He was difficult, sullen and a bit up himself. He rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way (including, to his cost, Howard Wilkinson, who dismissed him from his post at the FA).

When MON decided to sling his hook and PT was in the frame to take over I wrote a letter to John Elsom explaining why he should not be considered for the position (NB then, as now with Levein, I PREDICTED there would be problems - I wasn't wise AFTER the event in true fickle bonehead fashion). I backed the Walsh/Cottee

application (as some other fans did).

But the board, the media and most of the fans were completely taken in by the obnoxious Taylor. His very mixed record was covered up and his unbeaten run at U21 level (friendlies and qualifying games) trumpeted to the heavens.

My worst fears were confirmed when he broke the club record and signed Akinbiyi. £5m for a player who had never played in the Prem and who had been sent home from the Nigerian training camp for being crap. What makes it even worse was that a certain Bolton player was a bit sniffy about moving to Chelsea because he thought he wouldn't get first team football. He eventually joined for £4.5m. His initials are EG.

For a while I gave PT the benefit of the doubt (just like CL now). I thought I was going to have to eat my words when, for two glorious weeks in October 2000, we were top of the Prem. What a feeling! But strangely the team wasn't playing that well. We were still 5th in the Prem when we crashed out of the FA Cup to Wycombe in March.

Then we broke the club record for most consecutive defeats - eight on the spin I think. I remember the game against Boro (0-3 - Boksic's goal will live with me forever) and the dawning realisation that Taylor had put out what would now be considered a Division 1 side - something like eight players with virtually no experience of Premiership football.

However it wasn't all his fault. The players behaved disgracefully. Some of them put in deliberately below par performances on the pitch (Lennon and Elliott the main offenders) in a bid for big money moves. MON was stirring things up behind the scenes. Izzet, out of guilt no doubt, led a player delegation to the board asking them not to sack Taylor.

But Taylor had to go. He was deeply unpopular and seemed to think you could take cack out of the conference and it would perform in the holy blue. The Spurs game that season was the only game that I've ever been to where I hoped that we would lose so we could get him out that season and start afresh for 2001/2. Alas it was not to be we won 4-2 and eventually finished 13th.

So there you are. I opposed Taylor before he was even hired, Hoof. I often wonder about that season. IF MON had stayed and IF we had hung on to Heskey and Collymore and IF Walsh hadn't been exiled to Norwich... Champions League?

[Newcastle_Fox]

First kind of sane post you have posted there Chandler! Well done mate!

Neh seriously some good points there and agree with it all. Just wish John Elsom would have listened to you about Taylor.

I wonder what would have happened if O'Neill and Heskey and the rest of the squad would have stayed! Remembering Sunderland 5-2 - a sign of potential greatness!

[step]

Excelent post chandler and I actually agree with what you say about PT, and I confess I was took in by him, just like everyone else. but I was also one of the first to start questioning his ability on the net sites.

You still have not explained why this blind faith in MA. Again a manager who I supported and I though he had a likeable personality, I did think he made too many mistakes and eventually lost the plot. Maybe the pressure got to him. I dont know. But I do know, me and you have had some deep discusions about him and I still dont understand why you feel so different to me or others. Please tell

PS: I have np doubt if MON had stayed, he would have controled collymore, EG would have joined us, as would hartson, and we would have gone on to win the FA and the League.

MON would have earned himself a reputation, second only to the great Brian Clough

[Katy]

Excelent post chandler and I actually agree with what you say about PT, and I confess I was took in by him, just like everyone else. but I was also one of the first to start questioning his ability on the net sites.

You still have not explained why this blind faith in MA. Again a manager who I supported and I though he had a likeable personality, I did think he made too many mistakes and eventually lost the plot. Maybe the pressure got to him.  I dont know.  But I do know, me and you have had some deep discusions about him and I still dont understand why you feel so different to me or others.  Please tell

52447[/snapback]

Some interesting comments made Chandler but im interested in why you feel the need to tar everyone with the same brush - not having a pop just would like to know.

[Chandlers_son]

Dad, stop this please.

can't you see, people are laughing at you?

It was the London Football Coach drivers Association that you went to and even they barred you in the end after all your mental health problems started.

And why are you pretending to know Arsenal's Bob Wilson, Uncle Bob is a postman in Long Eaton as you well know and the only thing he's ever chaired is you over the head [at cousin Margo's wedding, remember? ]

Robert is my mother's brother

[MON]

Excelent post chandler and I actually agree with what you say about PT, and I confess I was took in by him, just like everyone else. but I was also one of the first to start questioning his ability on the net sites.

You still have not explained why this blind faith in MA. Again a manager who I supported and I though he had a likeable personality, I did think he made too many mistakes and eventually lost the plot. Maybe the pressure got to him.  I dont know.  But I do know, me and you have had some deep discusions about him and I still dont understand why you feel so different to me or others.  Please tell

PS:  I have np doubt if MON had stayed, he would have controled collymore, EG would have joined us, as would hartson,  and we would have gone on to win the FA and the League.

MON would have earned himself a reputation, second only to the great Brian Clough

52447[/snapback]

I would doubt we would have won the league, defitnley top 4. If only hey.

Now we're in the present. Come on Craig Levein. It seems like a different club to me, from the onei'll era. does anyone else think this. With all of his players gone, and a new stadium etc.

[Chandler]

This might surprise you lot - but I had (and still have) a lot of reservations about Micky Adams!

During our administration I sent an email to the administrator warning him about Micky Adams' volatile nature and his penchant for throwing his toys out of the pram. I felt he was making a bad situation even worse.

In the early days under Dave Bassett (the first relegation season) I felt that Micky often undermined him by going public with his demands to take hold of the reins.

Also, most surprising of all, I too, often questioned his very bookish approach to footie tactics. He seemed to be a real succour for fashionable theory, he seemed to take it all in very uncritically, like an enthusiastic, impressionable sports science fresher.

But then he got us promoted. He got us promoted automatically. He got us promoted with no money. He got us promoted in a season where we were one hour from extinction - the first team ever to be promoted to The Premiership having just come out of administration. He got us promoted with a truly awful squad, that played truly awful football. But it had too.

Micky got us promoted by sheer force of personality, drive and enthusiasm. He was one of a rare breed, he was a genuine MOTIVATOR. Now there are very, very, few managers in the game who genuinely do make a difference. And Adams is one of them because he has brought success to other clubs in similar difficult circumstances.

I won't go on about the disappointment of last season now, because the reasons for it are quite complex and would only make this post even more lengthy and boring than it already is. I'll just leave you with these two thought:

The main reason why I wanted Micky to stay was because he was and remains a proven specialist in getting teams promoted at the first attempt - after all he has done it three times before. Unfortunately we got off to a slow start - principally because of the sendings off ( 4 in ten games costing us 5-7 points). But fans had huge expectations because of our signings which had made us pre season favourites for the title - result CLASSIC MOB REACTION.

The next reason is one you should take note of. An old textbook study of 1,000 newly relegated clubs in professional leagues throughout the world which changed their manager during that season had an 85% chance of finishing in a lower league position than the one held at the time of the change.

And in most of these cases the pattern followed was the same - a short period of success (maybe 5-10 games) followed by a long decline. What the STATISTICS are telling us folks (NOT ME) is that we are now more likely to be fighting relegation than battling for promotion.

But Levein has roughly a one in seven chance of getting it right. For that reason, although I am critical of his defeatist language I am willing to give him a chance. But if we are, say, only say six points above the drop with ten games to go I won't be shy about calling for a change.

We would probably get the benefit of the dead cats bounce and avoid the drop.

[ForeverBlue]

This might surprise you lot - but I had (and still have) a lot of reservations about Micky Adams!

During our administration I sent an email to the administrator warning him about Micky Adams' volatile nature and his penchant for throwing his toys out of the pram. I felt he was making a bad situation even worse.

In the early days under Dave Bassett (the first relegation season) I felt that Micky often undermined him by going public with his demands to take hold of the reins.

Also, most surprising of all, I too, often questioned his very bookish approach to footie tactics. He seemed to be a real succour for fashionable theory, he seemed to take it all in very uncritically, like an enthusiastic, impressionable sports science fresher.

But then he got us promoted. He got us promoted automatically. He got us promoted with no money. He got us promoted in a season where we were one hour from extinction - the first team ever to be promoted to The Premiership having just come out of administration. He got us promoted with a truly awful squad, that played truly awful football. But it had too.

Micky got us promoted by sheer force of personality, drive and enthusiasm. He was one of a rare breed, he was a genuine MOTIVATOR. Now there are very, very, few managers in the game who genuinely do make a difference. And Adams is one of them because he has brought success to other clubs in similar difficult circumstances.

I won't go on about the disappointment of last season now, because the reasons for it are quite complex and would only make this post even more lengthy and boring than it already is. I'll just leave you with these two thought:

The main reason why I wanted Micky to stay was because he was and remains a proven specialist in getting teams promoted at the first attempt - after all he has done it three times before. Unfortunately we got off to a slow start - principally because of the sendings off ( 4 in ten games costing us 5-7 points). But fans had huge expectations because of our signings which had made us pre season favourites for the title - result CLASSIC MOB REACTION.

The next reason is one you should take note of. An old textbook study of 1,000 newly relegated clubs in professional leagues throughout the world which changed their manager during that season had an 85% chance of finishing in a lower league position than the one held at the time of the change.

And in most of these cases the pattern followed was the same - a short period of success (maybe 5-10 games) followed by a long decline. What the STATISTICS are telling us folks (NOT ME) is that we are now more likely to be fighting relegation than battling for promotion.

But Levein has roughly a one in seven chance of getting it right. For that reason, although I am critical of his defeatist language I am willing to give him a chance. But if we are, say, only say six points above the drop with ten games to go I won't be shy about calling for a change.

We would probably get the benefit of the dead cats bounce and avoid the drop.

52514[/snapback]

Blimey Chan, youve excelled yourself, ive just read 2 of your posts that dont contain mindless insults or fight arangements.

Excellent work.

DF

[step]

MON,

Under MON, For the first time in my life I went to city and watched us stand up and equal any team in the premier. Do you realise that there was only 5 clubs to finish in the top 10 of the premier for 5 years on the trot. The for big teams ie. Man U, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and little old leicester. That was one hell of an achievment.

With stan, EG, Hartson and MON was trying to bring Larson to city and concidering the midfield of Muzzy, robbie, lennon with guppy on the wing and a defence that was unbreachable I think you are seriously underestimating what we had at at city.

MON says in his book that after the sunderland game he knew he had a team that would win the league.

Remember we did not loss a game for the first eleven games under PT and that was without a decent striker.

In that season AA score 10 goals, one of AA's goals hit him on the arse and went in, another bounced of the back of his head and went in. city was putting so many crosses into the box that that willy puller AA could not keep up, AA did not realise those two crosses where comming his way.

I remember AA missing 2 to 3 open goals every match, they where absolute sitters that my gran could have scored from, and she dead (soz gran) think back we were untoachable.

It was increadable how stupid PT was, he just carried on playing AA

With MON, we would have won the FA cup and the League

[shen]

MON,

Under MON, For the first time in my life I went to city and watched us stand up and equal any team in the premier.  Do you realise that there was only 5 clubs to finish in the top 10 of the premier for 5 years on the trot.  The for big teams ie. Man U, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and little old leicester.  That was one hell of an achievment.

With stan, EG, Hartson and MON was trying to bring Larson to city and concidering the midfield of Muzzy, robbie, lennon with guppy on the wing and a defence that was unbreachable I think you are seriously underestimating what we had at at city. 

MON says in his book that after the sunderland game he knew he had a team that would win the league.

Remember we did not loss a game for the first eleven games under PT and that was without a decent striker. 

In that season AA score 10 goals, one of AA's goals hit him on the arse and went in, another bounced of the back of his head and went in.  city was putting so many crosses into the box that that willy puller AA could not keep up,  AA did not realise those two crosses where comming his way.

I remember AA missing 2 to 3 open goals every match, they where absolute sitters that my gran could have scored from,  and she dead (soz gran) think back we were untoachable. 

It was increadable how stupid PT was, he just carried on playing AA

With MON, we would have won the FA cup and the League

52575[/snapback]

but we DIDN'T get EG neither did we get Hartson and we would NEVER have gotten Larsson...We had a good team, but a 5-2 victory against Sunderland in no way justifies that we would/could have become League Champions. That's just pure utopian talk. We could well have made it into Europe, eg like Ipswich, but that's as far as we could have gone. Don't forget we were at Filbert Street then and we couldn't compete financially with the big clubs. Man U and Arsenal already had frightening squads at the time and it's all well MON saying he thought 'he had a League winning team' when he always knew that Leicester would be a stepping stone to something bigger..

[step]

In the early days under Dave Bassett (the first relegation season) I felt that Micky often undermined him by going public with his demands to take hold of the reins.

52514[/snapback]

I agree he was out of order.

Also, most surprising of all, I too, often questioned his very bookish approach to footie tactics. He seemed to be a real succour for fashionable theory, he seemed to take it all in very uncritically, like an enthusiastic, impressionable sports science fresher.

52514[/snapback]

Again I agree, he thought he could experiment with difficult changes half way through a match and over looked the obvious

Micky got us promoted by sheer force of personality, drive and enthusiasm. He was one of a rare breed, he was a genuine MOTIVATOR. Now there are very, very, few managers in the game who genuinely do make a difference. And Adams is one of them because he has brought success to other clubs in similar difficult circumstances.

52514[/snapback]

MA did an excelent job of getting us promoted. but he did it by exploiting the administration and the attackes from other clubs chairmans to develop an atmosphere in the changing room of, "city's sqaud V's the rest of the world" and excelent motivator it was, respect to MA he did what was needed and did it well. but I am afraid that was where his motivational skills finished and I doubt he would have been so succesfull without the seege mentallity.

Last season we all seen many example of the players lack of enthusiasum, they just where not responding to MA and it cost us through relegation and the loss of players. They could see the cockups he was making. eg" Reserving three players when we are winning by 2 or 3 goals and then lossing the match because the team fell apart, he did not do this just once, he did it half a dozen times, every time we got ahead, he throw a spanner in the works. Why? WHAT WAS HE TRYING TO PROVE. Just like PT with AA. Why cant they learn from their mistakes?

21 players left city that season, we are told, 21 different reasons? Which is rubbish, yes they had get out clauses, etc, but they left because they had little faith in MA and he responded accordingly. A whole squad does not walk away with out a good reason and you have to look at the constant in a situation and that constant is not 21 inderviduals, it is MA, DB etc. Their were the problem.

As the manager he was responsable for the squad therefore he should have kept the core of the team together. but. He knew he was the reason they wanted to leave and he then took the arrogant managers attitude of, sod them I will replace them. His biggest mistake. (He could have got us straight back up again)

Then we come to the new squad. No one can not expect a squad of new players to gel quickly and we all know that a when players move clubs a high percentage of good players suddenly become bad players. Like you say MA has managed to get many teams promoted. BUT. and it is a big but. he has always taken the existing team and changed a few players to improve it. Never has he changed so many players in one go. In fact I cant think of a manager that tried to change so many players in one go. They would be crazy to try it. Like the fans, the media knew we should come straight back up. The media just ignored the big mistake but many fans like myself expressed our concerns.

What we could not ignore a another season where the players had no passion, no fight. Where had the grinders gone. We all liked benjamin, not because he could play football. most of us think he is a joke, but he worked his balls of and just like AA we are a little more forgiving of a hard working donkey. We all want to watch quality football, if not quality then we would except some gusto, a bit of zest, spirit, what ever you want to call it, just give us something that gave us some hope. We got neither, the players gave nothing and MA taktics where as lifeless.

This is not the actions of agood motivator

Classic Mob Reaction took over. what do you expect, we are a mob, we are a tribe. that is part of what makes football so entertaining. its war, its us V's them, the enemy. But our General had unnessaseraly screwed things up, and what you are not concidering is that the mob reacted to the circumstances. We did not react because we dont like MA or because we dont want MA to succed at city, we reacted because we could see that he was letting us down and he had no answer to the problems. He just repeated the same mistakes again and was out his depth.

You blame the poor start on some sendings off as if some invisable force was responsable. MA is responsable anyway the problems where much deeper than that. Either way MA was responsable.

We could end up in a lower possition than we were when MA left. but for all the reasons above I think that at the end of the season we would have ended up higher with CF than we would have done with MA. Infact with MA at the helm, I think we would have definatly been involved in relegation battling. Currently things seam to be so bad that I am not sure if we will get up next season, that is not critisisum of CL. He just has a lot to do.

[Chandler]

Agree with some of what you say Step

But you have made one glaring error. Most of the players that left pre season did so because of the relegation clause in their contracts which dictated a significant drop in wages. Of the others Bent was on loan, Sinclair booted out, Dickov left for a fresh start after La Manga.

Re. substitutions we could argue the toss forever but a couple of thought for you: fans tend to notice the subs when the team loses (nobody mentioned what a brilliant sub Hignett was when he came on to score the equaliser against Arsenal, in fact he was booed).

And fans are always right about substitutes. They have the benefit of the most amazing technology known to man. It's called 20/20 hindsight.

[Ric Flair]

It's pleasing to see a more structured debate now, Chandler actually sounds reasonable after all

You make some good points Chandler regarding what's happened at Leicester and there's no doubt that you have a good insight in to what goes on behind the scenes in football that your average fan would never get to hear or see. After reading your response to Taylor you have bought back memories about how bad he actually was and Adams can't be classed as bad as him as there's no way he is.

I genuinely believe that Micky Adams is a decent manager, there are alot of run of the mill managers out there that Micky is better than and they get job after job and some they succeed in and some they don't. It's like that with the majority of managers, they aren't guaranteed to be successful in every job just because they have succeeded in the past.

I have no doubt that Micky will do a great job elsewhere and I wish him all the best. I've met the man before and he's a nice chap, but I believe his position became untenable after all that went on with La Manga and him offering his resignation. Then for us to get off to a bad start this season and him throwing his toys out of his pram because the fans dared to show frustration in what they were watching.

I would like to hear your views on your reservations over Craig Levein. Craig was my first choice to take over as soon as Micky resigned, since about a year ago I started to follow what Levein was doing at Hearts as I liked the look of what he was achieving and I have confidence in him doing the same here. In his two previous jobs before arriving at Leicester he's done remarkably well just like Micky I suppose and I like the way conducts his business. He's very open with the fans regarding what he wants to do, he doesn't feed you any shite like Adams appeared to do at times. He won't take any mucking about, which is what we need. He also wants to lay the foundations down and build something, which I got the feeling Adams wasn't that keen to do. Micky seemed impatient and was trying to cut corners and basically chase rainbows.

Levein's got a tough job to do, but even though we've not exactly improved under Levein I feel much more optimistic as a fan that we'll improve within the near future. If we don't, then questions will be asked as it's up to the manager to make the team perform. But Craig must be given time, he deserves it.