babyblue

It's rumoured we're offering a new contract and they are set to sign, with the possibility of champions league football you'd have to think he'd want to give that a shot. So at the moment it looks unlikely, but they were a loyal group. Turning around a club of your size would appeal to many people, so you never know really. Walsh is worth his weight in gold, how much would Drinkwater, Kante, Vardy, Mahrez, Albrighton (sorry) and Fuchs be worth now. All signed for £8m (£5.6m of which for Kante). Amazing.

Cheers, whatever happens I hope you make the right choice. As I said earlier, I think Rowett would be a good choice. I think he's done a brilliant job next door to you, and it's not the first place he has either. Someone will take the plunge on him sooner or later.

Again, you seem to have missed out him getting promoted from the Championship and absolutely smashing that league to pieces. Losing in the playoffs with the best team? Eh? He had to take over Svens bloated expensive squad full of highly paid crap who didn't care. It takes time to do that, he turned us from a pile of shite losing 3-0 at home to Millwall under Sven, to runaway league winners. He gutted the squad and the one we came up with barely resembled what he took over. Don't look at the money Sven spent and think we were the best team in the league. Pearson wheeled and dealed and in the end only only had a net spend of about £5m for a whole new squad. He'd get the Villa job based on him being able to sort a club out from top to bottom, from being able to get a team promoted and keep them up.

Our head scout is Steve Walsh, yes they would have been recommended by him and the scouting team he set up. But he's still here, Arsenal just got an analyst. Pearson put him in place, he followed him to Hull and back. He's Pearson's man.... as I said in my very first post, you would need to get him as well. That for me is the biggest issue, if you can't get Walsh from us, then I wouldn't take Pearson. He's only proven in that team framework. Our system uses stats, but it's still heavily built around watching people in person as well. The stats are just part of it, Walsh is very much the man with the eye. It's well documented he went to watch another player and spotted Mahrez. Anyway I digress, it's a department setup by Pearson and Walsh.

You do realise that between league one and the premier league is the championship don't you? Now, as much as you might want to sneer and look down your nose at lower leagues, you will in all probability find yourself in one of them next year, so you might do well do get someone who has a track record of dealing with a situation you're going to find yourself in. Low moral, cost cutting, major squad surgery, poor decision making throughout the club, he'll sort that shit out. But, if you think he's a nutcase and an arsehole, despite him being here year after year without any issues prior to last seasons hatchet job. That's up to you.

A manager who took us from league one to the premier league and kept us up, only has three months of good form? How exactly do you come to that conclusion.

I've already explained that he was let down on recruitment last summer, he was well aware of what we needed and was again at the end of last season. Fuchs, Kante, Okazaki, Huth, all his signings and all integral to us this year. Is Ranieri trying to do his job with Gary Taylor Fletcher, Dean Hammond, Paul Konchesky, Liam Moore, Chris Wood. No, he's benefited from Pearson's successes and failures last year as we already knew who was and wasn't good enough. It looks highly likely you aren't going to be in the premier league next season. You're in the championship, a league in which he did well for us. What team has Rodgers built and taken out of the championship, because the Swansea team was already set up and playing a certain way before he arrived. There was no re-building job needed there, he walked into something already working quite well. Has Pearson been sacked for taking over a club expected to be near the top of the league and having them in a relegation battle like Rodgers at Reading? I think Rowett would be a far better choice, he looks like the outstanding manager at the moment in the lower leagues, considering what he's had to deal with.

I don't care whether he becomes your manager or not, I'd rather he was out of work and didn't try and poach his ex assistants from us. Actually yes I did go on to Newcastle and Sunderland forums, for the same reason I am here. I see a lot of nonsense written about him, with very few seemingly able to understand the job he had to do both times here. If you don't want him that's fine, but I'm trying to give insight in to the job he actually did. Rather than people just going off minimal information, or basing it just on what they might have seen last year. I'm sorry that what I'm saying doesn't work with how you feel, I'm just telling you what happened. I see you in a situation very very similar to the one he took over when he first arrived here. Big black cloud over us, almost all and every decision from the top down was wrong. He walked in and changed everything.

I disagree, it means a lot. It was obvious we weren't far away, It was frustrating, but it gave you hope. The owners could see enough to stick with him, rather than changing managers. Look at my previous posts where I've talked about summer recruitment and how he was let down by the DOF. We had to sack him and get players in come January, as soon as that happened we were able to see games out.

Those who don't rate him are few and far between, as I explained before there is a small but vocal group of bellends who never wanted him and could never admit they were wrong. They said he'd never get us out of league one, that he wasn't good enough to get us out of the championship, that he wasn't good enough to keep us up. they were wrong. They slated him for getting rid of players perceived to be our better players (based on their name or what they cost, and certainly not what they had done for us). They said Beckford, Mills, Danns, Bamba should be the core of the team. Pearson booted the lot our as soon as he could, he bought in "nobodies" like Vardy, Drinkwater, Knockaert, Mahrez, Morgan, all perceived to be crap because of where they came from... they were wrong again. Where did all those players he got rid of end up? Arse end of the championship or league one. I rate Pearson based on what he achieved here, nothing more. There views on Pearson have nothing to do with his job, it's personal hatred and not wanting to look stupid.

Well, to be fair... I watched every game and they weren't far off. Barring the second quarter of the season, we were in every game. There are loads of comments from opposition managers who said they couldn't believe where we were because we'd played brilliantly. We had some utter shit luck as well, so many ludicrous decisions going against us week after week costing us points. Liverpool away sticks in my mind, two penno's against us when neither were. The players always kept going, never got downhearted... that comes from the atmosphere at the club and the sort of people he brings in.

You've basically just described Pearson with that wish list by the way.

Or perhaps because Little is still close to Leicester he knows exactly what he did at the club, how well respected he was by the players and the staff and how his methods will work. Pearson will want to change a lot, he'll need to cut out all the people who create the bad atmosphere and that can take time. He's no miracle worker, he won't walk in and make crap players good, or a bad atmosphere amazing over night. But you'd had a club with a drastically better set up to take you forward by the time he's done.

It wasn't the same team. Did nobody listen to the pundits or reporters who constantly said we were always in games, mostly playing well week in week out. There was only a spell for about the second quarter of the season where we were crap, the rest I always felt like we were very close to being a good team. The introduction of Huth sorted out the defence and we stopped all the silly mistakes.

Well actually we played about four different formations last year, it was the switch to 5 at the back that solved the problem in the end.

The squad that's top of the league does not resemble the squad we started last season with, not by a long shot. Huth, Fuchs, Okazaki, Kante, Inler, Grey, Dyer, Amartey, Kramaric all added to the squad off the top of my head. Replacing utter dross like Gary Taylor Fletcher, Chris Wood, Dean Hammond, Liam Moore, Paul Koncheksy. His record as a manager is good, he's only had three proper jobs, twice here and once at Hull... which he left to come back here and never got to complete it. He's got us out of league one, finished in the play offs first season back. Left, come back, got us in the play offs, then got us promoted and then kept us up. That's not really bang average, especially when you look at how much work he had to do both times at the club. Shifting out rubbish on huge contracts, totally rebuilding the team both times he was here after awful management and squad building before he was here.

Well your first line there is laughable don't you think. Basically saying "don't tell me the facts because my mind is already made up"... and then you say I've got rose tinted glasses on, the irony. By the sounds of it, it's you with your head in the sand (yeah I went there) as you are unwilling to listen to someone who actually knows vastly more information about Pearson than you do. Oh... so you heard from a member of staff. Did you not read my post where I said you were wrong, the proof is on the internet if you want to google tape audio and listen to it. You called him racist, his son says absolutely nothing remotely racist at all. The only person you could claim to be racist in that video is Tom Hopper, so there instantly you are just plain wrong.

If you have a problem with the DOF, then you need to sort that issue. That's something different entirely.

Yeah I can see that already. He'd need the time to succeed, where we are now is as much down to the owners patience and believing in what he was doing as anything else. There were times they could have let him go, several terrible runs of form. But they could see the team growing and his methods slowly working.

I'm telling you there were other factors. If he says "we need x position sorting" or "we need x player"... and then nothing is done about it. Then the blame cannot be put just on him. The DOF got sacked for his failings that summer, which should tell you a lot. They would have been scouted by Walsh and his team yes, but they are Pearson's team. The manager will get blamed for poor signings, so he should get the credit for good ones also... especially when he sets up the department and brings in his own people.

People don't like being wrong do they. They were the tiny vocal minority, specifically coming from one website. The majority think they are utter loons.

Well, first and foremost we were pretty good at the end of last season also. Ranieri also got the benefits of having Huth all season (something we didn't have last year), Fuchs, Kante and Okazaki. All signed by Pearson, or bid for before he went. I think it's fair to say with those players we would have had a decent season without Ranieri. As good as... I doubt it, as Ranieri is amazing at game management and can change a game with one early substitution and he's a brilliant defensive coach. But without what he was left behind for him to work with, we wouldn't be where we are either. He told one fan to f'off, some pissed up moron who spent the game verbally abusing him, his players, his staff. The bloke got what he deserved quite frankly. Sacked for supporting his racist son? You mean the son painted as a racist despite not saying anything racist whatsoever? I think you'd not be too happy either. Especially is they go back on what they say to you about having a personal hearing... and then just sacking everyone. Despite two of them not doing or saying anything racist.

There is a section of Leicester fans that rubbished the bloke the second he walked through the door. Rather than admit they were wrong they waged a campaign against him to remove any credit from him. It's quite sad to be honest, but anyone telling you any different than I have is either a liar or an idiot. That might sound quite strong, but you can google about what I've said and you will find numerous articles from players past and present, ex staff members and so on that have said exactly what I have.

No problem and cheers... I still think Spurs and that mouth breather up front are going to do it. Which annoys me massively as their fans are the biggest bunch of tossers I've had the misfortune of stumbling across.

You can't look at that and pin it on him. Our biggest issue in the first summer back was recuitment and we failed to strengthen in key areas, there is a reason our DOF got the tin tack half way into the season. Once we got to January and got Huth in we sorted some of the issues out, the issues that were remaining were left back and a DM. He had Fuchs and Kante lined up at the end of the season before he left. He's not perfect, he made a rod for his own back during the season. But he was learning just like the players were. We played well for the majority of the season and really didn't get the rub of the green a lot of the time. We were often let down by individual errors from certain players (players he wanted to replace in the summer), but we didn't have much option but to play them. I'm not overstating his influence at all. It all started long before the new owners came in, our whole scouting and sports science departments upped sticks with him and went to Hull. They then all followed him back again on his return. He's a great believer in marginal gains. Trying to improve every area of the club, every player, going that extra mile with everything that might only get you 1 or 2 % extra from someone... but with the belief those percentages add up and can take you above your opponent. He's someone who can come in, get rid of all your shit, lift the black cloud, give you a team to be proud of and whatever happens, leave you with a fantastic setup that's run properly.