Leicester slide lands Mandaric with uphill struggle

[Geo V]

http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2061770,00.html

Guardian

It is still possible that Leicester City will return to the Premiership before the three-year deadline announced by Milan Mandaric when he completed his takeover of the club in February. What the Serbia-born businessman did not factor into his calculations, he has wearily admitted, is that it may require two promotions to get there.

Not that was there any real reason why the former Portsmouth chairman should. When, some three months after first confirming his interest, Mandaric took control at the Walkers Stadium, City had just won three consecutive games and were safely in mid-table. Ten winless games later the Foxes are 19th, with matches at Preston North End and Barnsley, and at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers - all teams with much to play for - to scrape together the three points they probably still need to save them from falling into the third tier of English football for the first time.

It is, said Mandaric, not a "restful" time for anyone at the club. "Everyone has these dreadful feelings, including me, and it's worse because there's nothing I can do. The situation is what I inherited," he said. "By the time the takeover was complete it was too late, I had missed players targeted for transfers, but we had won two or three games and I thought perhaps it wasn't going to be a problem.

"In terms of what I could do, maybe I should have been quicker to act on the manager [Rob Kelly], but otherwise nothing, and I hope the supporters appreciate that it's not in my power. I'm the one with the most on the line financially, and a lot emotionally, too. I'm still optimistic we'll stay up, but if we go down it won't be a pretty picture and I'm not going to mislead anyone in that respect."

Very few fans blame Mandaric for Leicester's plight. Kelly, the manager he sacked after Easter Monday's 3-0 defeat by Plymouth, comes in for a degree of criticism, as do the players, but many see it as a continuation of a decline begun by over-spending and mismanagement during the reign of Peter Taylor.

Relegation and a period in administration followed before the club were rescued by a consortium including the former Leicester striker Gary Lineker, but according to Kevin Wells, a London-based supporter for more than 30 years, the club have never recovered. "There's still a lot of debt to be serviced, mainly connected to former creditors and the building of the stadium," said Wells.

Estimates vary on how much, though between £15m and £20m is generally regarded as realistic. Although he is understood to have guaranteed the interest payments, Mandaric is also thought to have had to put down no more than £4.5m to gain control, with a second similar payment due next year.

Wells believes Mandaric was right to remove Kelly. "Whether [caretaker manager Nigel] Worthington's a long-term prospect, I doubt - my guess is Mandaric will want someone with a higher profile - but frankly no one's looking beyond the next three games." Lance Tomlyn, chairman of the club's Independent Supporters' Association, also clings to the hope that the late effort against Birmingham on Tuesday will be replicated throughout the coming games.

"Worthington's no genius but there's a bit more order about us," Tomlyn said before defending Mandaric. "If he hadn't come in and we'd gone down, my guess is we'd have gone back into administration. That would have meant a 10-point penalty. Or we might even have disappeared altogether, because one of these days there's going to be a club that really is going to go bang and nobody's going to bail it out. It might well have been us."

[Geo V]

I agree with most of what MM said but I think he made an error in keeping RK on for too long. RK`s inability to grab decent loan signings has hurt us big time.

Kevin Wells runs the London based supporters club I think? Is he a member on here too as Ive interacted with some other London based City fans??