GET ON WITH IT

[Fox in a Box]

Another deadline passes today as the seemingly interminable wait for the takeover of Leicester City drags on - and the true damage can clearly be seen.

During the transfer window there have been no new players, no £150,000 for Joey Gudjonsson, no loans and no hint of anything in the pipeline, because the club is waiting to see how this whole thing pans out.

The frazzled nerves, the excruciating frustration and growing impatience are the main causes of alarm.

They are serious enough in themselves, but the real harm is to the team's prospects.

When Milan Mandaric first revealed his takeover plans, City had just beaten Stoke City at the Walkers Stadium to be within striking distance of a Championship play-off spot.

They were looking onwards and upwards, and the shot in the arm the takeover could give them was an exciting prospect.

Now, with City having to look over their shoulders in the same way they did exactly a year ago, that excitement has given way to mystification, sometimes scepticism, and now simply absolute desperation.

City, you feel, simply must win Saturday's clash with Luton to prevent the possibility of being dragged into the relegation zone again and enter a second successive "16-game season" to save their status.

If it is a recurring bad dream for City and Robert Kelly's players, how do you think it looks now to Mandaric?

He has seen his initial starting point for his ambitions steadily eroded, to the extent where his only priority will be to keep City in the division. He must feel, if he had come in sooner, that a run at the play-offs would not have been out of the question.

This business - although anything less business-like is hard to imagine - cannot go on much longer. And once it is completed then, hopefully, what has been going on will come to light.

Mandaric's frustration has been constant, and his lasting commitment to the takeover shows the strength of his determination for the deal to go through.

If, as we are told, the board, the shareholders and everyone else except one director who resigned, are in favour of the deal, what is the hold-up? What is the problem?

Recently, Mandaric told me he was not pointing any fingers, but to the overwhelming majority of the Blue Army, he does not have to.

This gift horse has surely been looked in the mouth long enough, and the big danger is that there is a limit to the man's patience. The City faithful must hope and pray he does not reach it.

Because he is fast becoming the club's only hope, if he is not that already.

[Isopen]

Thought the hold up was at Mandaric's end, so why doesn't Anderson ring up his mate & ask him.

Perhaps he isn't answering his calls either....