Another Levein article... 'wrong job, wrong time' and all that

[lookwhaticando]

This time, though, the factual inaccuracy on the part of the reporter is just shocking.

He says wistfully: "If I had been a little bit more patient . . ." This is an almost whispered recognition that Leicester was the wrong job at the wrong time. The club were in administration. Huge wage cuts had to be made. The club slid down the division and Levein was jettisoned.

The bit about large wage cuts is true... but the administration statement is surely way off... by about 2 years.

The Herald article - March 31st, 2007.

He acknowledges (again) that his time was a bit of a disaster and he seems to have identified a couple of reasons (too many changes too quickly for one), which is good news for him I suppose. Shame we've not really recovered from the errors he thinks he's made - we're really still paying the price for any mistakes he made. The squad we have on the books properly is essentially his squad still, after all.

The pedant within also spies a glaring spelling mistake... if I was the editor, I'd want to swop it out.

[Poakey]

This time, though, the factual inaccuracy on the part of the reporter is just shocking.

The bit about large wage cuts is true... but the administration statement is surely way off... by about 2 years.

The Herald article - March 31st, 2007.

He acknowledges (again) that his time was a bit of a disaster and he seems to have identified a couple of reasons (too many changes too quickly for one), which is good news for him I suppose. Shame we've not really recovered from the errors he thinks he's made - we're really still paying the price for any mistakes he made. The squad we have on the books properly is essentially his squad still, after all.

The pedant within also spies a glaring spelling mistake... if I was the editor, I'd want to swop it out.

I just think hes being honest.At least he admits to making mistakes and you cant argue he had it tough with having to bring wage bill down an all:

"I was a bit naive. I thought I would get time. Looking back, I made a couple of major mistakes. I tried to do everything at once.

"I tried to get a lot of players out to get the wage bill down, and then tried to bring in young players with the idea that I would get a couple of years to work with them. That was an error. I didn't know the league that well and some of the older players would have been good to keep around. I made a lot of changes in too short a time."

"I wouldn't swop it," he says of his time at the Walkers Stadium. "Without a shadow of a doubt, I'm a better manager than I was 18 months, two years ago. I'm a little calmer in certain situations. I can read games a little bit better."

[Flynny]

Sacking him was definately the right decision at the time, but it would have been interesting to know how we'd be doing this season with him if we had a crystal ball. Trying to climb out of League 1, probably. But if he hadn't taken us down... I dunno, I think we'd be doing slightly better this season for some reason. Something like 13th.

[lookwhaticando]

Sacking him was definately the right decision at the time, but it would have been interesting to know how we'd be doing this season with him if we had a crystal ball. Trying to climb out of League 1, probably. But if he hadn't taken us down... I dunno, I think we'd be doing slightly better this season for some reason. Something like 13th.

Part of me wonders if he only learned his lesson because it cost him his job?

After all, he didn't exactly make much of an effort to correct his mistakes while we slid down the table in dramatic fashion.

Mind you... a good deal of the blame seems to be the massive turnover of the squad he undertook. Learning his lesson from that wasn't much use as the damage had been done.

[dandannieldanok]

I get the feeling we will see RK spouting the same rubbish in a years time, having has the opportunity to reflect after being sacked this summer.

[Flynny]

I get the feeling we will see RK spouting the same rubbish in a years time, having has the opportunity to reflect after being sacked this summer.

For some reason I think he'll go straight back into coaching, probably for another championship side.

[Thracian]

Levein might have gone partway but would need to be a lot more honest with himself to come up with all the answers for his failure.

And had he done so at the time he'd have almost certainly had the time to take his "young and hungry" policy to fruition.

It isn't about youth or experience being the correct way forward. It is what youth and what experience.

It is about being ruthless when you see weaknesses but understanding when players who can deliver have a bad day or two.

And it is certainly not about publicly lambasting honest professionals like Johansson. Or continuing to play defenders in midfield.

Little things matter in football matches. I've said it about Kelly as well as Levein. We're nowhere near good enough to give ourselves handicaps.

With Kelly I'll be glad to see him go. With Levein I just wish he'd not been so blinkered and dogmatic. Or so damned preoccupied with defending for too much of the time.

I even remember him saying he'd be "looking at the attack soon" which summed up his reign up really. Attack was always tomorrow and it cost him just as surely as it will cost Kelly.

[davieG]

And Another

Unfinished business

MOIRA GORDON

IN LOOKING forward, Craig Levein can't help looking back. Back to a time spent in England, when aspirations stalled. A man who puts plenty purchase on attitude and mentality, on players' ability to grit their teeth and a refusal to buckle, he can at least claim that the process of coming to terms with his one managerial failure, at Leicester City, has been beneficial. Personally it has been cathartic, while professionally he is now proving that lessons have been learned. He's not the sole beneficiary either. The experiences have also been bequeathed to Dundee United, his current employers, who have been guided to the giddy heights of a CIS Cup semi-final and third place in the Clydesdale Bank Premierleague. Not for Levein, though, bravado and fighting talk. He was content to have his team sneak steadily into the top three and warns that their departure from the scene could be a lot more sudden but there is an air of belief around the club and the manager again.

"I beat myself up for the first few months after the Leicester thing but I have worked my way through it. I realised that what I learned in my time there would help me in the next job I took." That could have been Dunfermline, with the Fifers chasing his commitment at the same time Eddie Thompson was trying to lure him to Tannadice. Gut feeling played a part in his decision but so too did experience. "The Leicester thing has been going around in my head from since I left.

I had about six months or so out the game before I went to Raith Rovers and I thought about it constantly. I wrote down what I thought and two weeks later I would write it down again and it was different and gradually I came to realise that I had to establish what went wrong. I broke it down to a number of things. One, I was too quick to sign players and I got rid of players at a drop of a hat. The second thing was that the lads I brought in didn't know the league. I brought players from Scotland and players from English lower divisions or Premiership reserves and none of them had played in that league. "It's the biggest and most physical league I have ever seen. They are giants and if you don't have those types of players then games would go along at nothing each for long spells and then a set piece and the winning goal. It worked for teams over and over again.

I have learned that in future, wherever I manage I will take my time bringing players in and the majority of those I do bring in will know the league." He also decided that he won't go to another club that is asking him to make cutbacks. "At Hearts I did it and then I went to Leicester and cut the wage bill from £12m to £6m.

In agreeing to do that I handicapped myself right from the start and add that to signing the wrong players and the fact that at Leicester I didn't really know who I was working for. There were nine or ten guys and they all had their say and ideas in their head. Some were knifing me, some were backing me and nobody knew what the others were thinking from week to week. Here there's just the one man and if he's happy then I'm happy. "I could have gone to Dunfermline but I looked at this job and I looked at the players we had, the youth set up, the man in charge and the budget and while it's not brilliant, I don't have to cut anything back. So, all those things looked good to me."

What was less impressive was the pessimism which polluted the air. Coming in and assessing the situation, he decided some players had to be moved on. "No disrespect to anybody who left but we made changes thinking that a lot of the guys had been here for a while and there was a cloud of... I don't know what to call it. Let's just say maybe I saw a defeatist attitude in some of them and it was really important that the negativity disappeared. That might be a bit harsh and I'm sure they did their best but I think that if you keep losing matches then it eventually wears you down.

As a player if I'd seen that in the opposition then I would immediately have been given a lift." Aware that managers no longer "get time to build a team, you've got to win and try to build at the same time", Levein spent the final few months of last term gauging strengths and weaknesses, assimilating early signings such as Jon Daly, Sean Dillon and Morgaro Gomis and in the summer he set the revolving door in motion. With handfuls departing, in came Darren Dods and Prince Buaben, while Lee Wilkie returned from his spell of knee rehab in the lower leagues. "Things have just worked and players have settled quickly," says Levein. "I think it's important with new players that their first experience is positive so it helped that we got a good start to the season but I had a good feeling about it even in pre-season. The running was very tough deliberately to see who would moan, which I don't particularly mind, but I wanted to see who would moan and then chuck it. I was really surprised because most of them gritted their teeth and got on with it and in the afternoon when the ball work came out, as soon as the contact stuff started, I could see the attitude had changed. Nobody wanted to be beaten in training games, and nobody wanted to lose the running contests so that was all positive." Levein is in no rush to depart Dundee United although he does admit to having some unfinished business to take care of. "I still want to manage in the Premiership but if I want to go there I have to make sure my next choice is the right one. I'm not in any rush and I'm happy here but I am ambitious and I feel I have learned things I want to put into practice. I would like to go back to England, I feel I have something to prove. I suppose, if I'm honest, it is unresolved business."

[Matt]

At least he's admitted his mistake, unlike Peter Taylor who in past reports still insists he did nothing wrong and a good job for this club.

[Fez of Mahrez]

It's a shame it didn't work out for him as either side of his time with us he's looked a quality manager. I don't actually bear him much ill feeling, he's admitted his mistakes unlike Peter Taylor and as he says in his last couple of sentences, he has something to prove and unresolved business to pursue in proving himself in England. I may be one of few but I hope he does.

[davieG]

It's a shame it didn't work out for him as either side of his time with us he's looked a quality manager. I don't actually bear him much ill feeling, he's admitted his mistakes unlike Peter Taylor and as he says in his last couple of sentences, he has something to prove and unresolved business to pursue in proving himself in England. I may be one of few but I hope he does.

Same here, I had high hopes when he came, he sounded the ideal manager for LCFC and I was gutted when it all went tits up for him.

[James.]

Same here, I had high hopes when he came, he sounded the ideal manager for LCFC and I was gutted when it all went tits up for him.

Absolutely. If he ever came back to the Walkers with an opposition team I hope he could hold his head high. And also that our supporters would have enough sense not to boo him. Hmm.

[The Stig]

He did do some very good things for the club. Hume, Fryatt, giving Stearman his chance, Peter Canero. OK maybe not the last one, and he stopped our spiralling costs. But he hit the nail on the head when he said he bought in players who A weren't physical enough and B didn't know English football. He is a very good manager in the SPL, weather or not he could do it in the Premiership or Championship remians to be seen. I hope he does get another oppourtunity in England, I'm sure he would learn from his mistakes and do a decent job.

[Manwell Pablo]

It's a shame it didn't work out for him as either side of his time with us he's looked a quality manager. I don't actually bear him much ill feeling, he's admitted his mistakes unlike Peter Taylor and as he says in his last couple of sentences, he has something to prove and unresolved business to pursue in proving himself in England. I may be one of few but I hope he does.

Good post, all though I wouldn't really compare him to Peter Taylor.

He had a thankless task here, he had to half our wage bill and keep us competing and unfortunatley he didn't quite manage it. He's paid for his mistakes as well, after he left the club he's previously excellent rep was in tatters and he had to take the Raith Rovers job.

[Flynny]

His humility means no-one's going to hate him, and his willingness to learn means that he'll only improve as a manager. Good luck to the bloke.

[Aberdeen_fox]

He's certainly doing a good job at Dundee Utd. I saw them play Aberdeen at Pittodrie on Saturday and after about an hour with United trailing, he threw Lee Wilkie (central defender) forward in the centre of a 3 man attack and they just lumped high balls forward towards him. Sound familiar?

[Ultra]

He did do some very good things for the club. Hume, Fryatt, giving Stearman his chance, Peter Canero. OK maybe not the last one, and he stopped our spiralling costs. But he hit the nail on the head when he said he bought in players who A weren't physical enough and B didn't know English football. He is a very good manager in the SPL, weather or not he could do it in the Premiership or Championship remains to be seen. I hope he does get another oppourtunity in England, I'm sure he would learn from his mistakes and do a decent job.

But a large part of the problem was that Levein himself didn't know English football, and showed very few signs of learning about it.

He had a decent record in cups (the wins against Charlton and Spurs were rare highlights of his reign), but too many of our league performances under his command, particularly away from home, were way below the standard we should expect.

I'd be surprised if he ever returned to England, at least to a club in the top two leagues.

And by the way, Peter Canero was a Micky Adams signing..

[DanTheFoxBhoy]

His humility means no-one's going to hate him, and his willingness to learn means that he'll only improve as a manager. Good luck to the bloke.

Yep. At least he realises some of what he did wrong considering he was so headstrong at the time. And Dundee United are currently fourth in the SPL, equal points to Hibs but a couple of goals behind.

[lookwhaticando]

And by the way, Peter Canero was a Micky Adams signing..

Perhaps he meant getting rid of him.

[Toby or not Toby]

Levein to return as manager then?