Levein's lovin' it
MOIRA GORDON
A MAN who thinks about the game, the articulate way he gets his message across and someone possessed of the brain to juggle finances and manipulate a budget with the ease of a trained accountant, Craig Levein comes across as a sporting intellectual who would be more at home with a chess set than a jigsaw puzzle.
But while tactics boards and set plays do come into the equation, the basic premise to his working life is finding what others may regard as off-cuts and mis-shapes and slotting them together to reveal the bigger picture. With one piece still missing and the new season yet to get under way, he can't guarantee what that will be but in his mind's eye, it is likely to be promotion to the Premiership.
That was the reason given when he swapped Hearts for Leicester City in November. He wanted a fresh challenge and believed the Coca-Cola Championship club would be a stepping stone to one of the most attractive leagues in world football. The bedding-in period may have been a touch frustrating, hamstrung as he was by the personnel he inherited, but it was also educational and, as a new season beckons, he is confident of bettering last term's 15th-place finish.
"I'm glad I arrived halfway through the season because it's a lot different down here than up the road. Obviously, the fact we knew everybody up there was easy. The hardest bit here has been getting to know all the players and the teams as quickly as possible. If we played Dundee or Dundee United, anybody up the road, I knew exactly who was going to be playing, but that was one of the reasons I came down, just to freshen it up and so I would have that challenge again. From a manager's point of view, the fact we play each other so often up the road makes life easier but it's boring. Down here, it's great because some of the stadia we are going to, like the Stadium of Light or Elland Road or Upton Park, you're going to stadia you have only seen on the telly, so it was exciting and it still is. I'm enjoying it but it is harder work."
The mid-season introduction also gave him time to suss out the squad and identify areas he needed to improve on. "The boys who were here all worked hard and I can think of only two games where I felt they hadn't given me everything but I knew I had to make changes. I had agreed to wait until the summer but I ended up getting so frustrated at one stage I went back to the board and asked if I could have what was effectively an advance on my summer budget so I could bring in some players in January and I'm glad I did because it gave me extra time to work with those players."
A dizzying time at the Walkers Stadium, there have been countless players shipped out and a dozen brought in. Levein now believes he is just one striker away from finishing 'his' squad. "That has been very difficult because, at Hearts, I had two or three years to bed players in and get things together and didn't have to make wholesale changes. Here, I've had to do that. The good thing about that is that the defence that was here when I arrived is pretty much away and I felt that was a big part of the problem. We didn't have any lightning quick strikers and we didn't have any lightning quick defenders and in football you need one or the other.
"If you have quick strikers you can sit deep and hit on the break. If you've got quick defenders you can win the ball high up the pitch and not worry about anything going over the top but we were ... well, stuck. I kept wanting us to push out but when we did I was shitting myself in case the ball went over the top! We couldn't get high enough up the pitch to support our strikers. Now we have more pace at the back and I'm still looking for a quick striker."
A league which puts great emphasis on set-pieces, those who know Levein's organisational skills strength will consider this a natural habitat. With a reputation for drilling his defences and demanding more from players, few who sign for him fail to develop as players. It's a trait he is relying on again. "We have done a lot of work on the defensive side and I'm a lot happier going into the season. It's more what I'm used to. I know that they are all fairly young and impressionable and, I suppose, malleable."
There were some who initially described Levein in similar terms when he was appointed manager at Hearts. As the football equivalent of a civil war raged with fans on one side and the board on the other, Levein was stuck in no-man's land, trying to cover his players and dodge the flak from the fans who registered his unwillingness to become embroiled in the bickering and decided it was because he was Chris Robinson's lapdog. But Levein is no lapdog, just a realist who knew he was in a no-win situation and simply tried to get on with his job. He made cuts when he was asked to and still tried to appease everyone by getting results.
The fact he was so successful bodes well for the fans of the Foxes. Again this summer he was asked to trim his budget by £4.5m. He did it with relative ease.
"It's out of the frying pan into the fire! But saying that, for next season we will probably still be amongst the top six or seven in the league for wages. The good thing is that although that sounds like a lot of money, when you consider some of the big earners like Matt Elliott, who left halfway through the season, [James] Scowcroft, [Ian] Walker, [Keith] Gillespie, [Martin] Keown, who have all moved on, it wasn't too difficult to claw back money. It's still better than I had up the road. And, because I've done it before, it doesn't faze me in the slightest.
"I've always been used to digging around, trying to find players who offer value for money so that doesn't bother me. I just make sure I don't really covet players so I don't get too disappointed if I don't get them. Some of the players we're competing for, like Mo Camara, who went to Celtic, we know that we are in with a shout but if they are interesting a Premiership club then we've got no chance so there's no point in getting worked up. I've been quite lucky in some of the guys I've brought in from Scotland because, believe it or not, even the guys we got from Celtic, the money they were on up there is nothing like what they're on down here, which is why I've only got a few in from England."
As well as the mini-battalion which has marched south over the body, with the likes of Alan Maybury, Mark De Vries, Patrick Kisnorbo, joining Stephen Hughes from Rangers and Rab Douglas and Momo Sylla from Celtic, he has brought in two Swedish defenders in Nils-Eric Johansson and Patrik Gerrbrand, as well as an Irishman, Paddy McCarthy, from Manchester City.
He defends the influx of former SPL players saying: "I know what I'm getting. The likes of Maybs [Alan Maybury], for me, he's what a defender should be. He's tenacious, he's quick, aggressive when he needs to be, and he can play as well. He's been a revelation and I know there's still improvement to come. But that's why I brought him. He's terrific value for money and he fits in with what I needed from a player in his position. I knew his character and I knew I could trust him and that's a big thing if you are bringing in a lot of players and trying to get them to fit. They need to gel on the pitch and in the dressing room. They need to get on off the pitch and respect me and each other and if they do then I know they will work hard for each other. I need to know I can trust them and I do trust the players I've got here now. On top of all that they're good enough.
"I said last season that the team I had at Hearts would have been promoted down here. Down here the standard isn't brilliant. The players are a lot bigger and a lot stronger and I think down here, it's a little bit more to do with luck as well."
But in life you make your own luck. Some will say that Levein was lucky to escape the turmoil at Tynecastle for the new challenge he craved, but he earned the right. And while he will always be considered a realist, as he bubbles with excitement and enthusiasm, free from the pressures of demonstrations and carping, this happier and more relaxed manager is also a walking, talking advertisement for escapism.
