bocadillo
Water Gypsy
From this morning's Daily Mail:
I should not have come here . . . but now I will rebuild Leicester, vows Mandaric
By NEIL MOXLEY
To lose one manager in 12 months might be considered unfortunate; to lose two, careless.
Hope for glory: Mandaric ponders City’s future
Heaven knows what Oscar Wilde would have made of Milan Mandaric, who has been through five in the last year?
Since last April, Leicester's managerial cast list — leaving aside two brief caretaker regimes this season — has read: Rob Kelly (sacked a year ago); Nigel Worthington (caretaker from April to May); Martin Allen (sacked last August); Gary Megson (joined Bolton last October) and Ian Holloway, a positive veteran after five months in the job.
To outsiders, the chairman has got what he deserved. Leicester are two points from the relegation zone and defeat on Saturday against Sheffield Wednesday, who are third from bottom, will endanger their record of never having played outside the top two divisions.
But underestimate Mandaric at your peril. Approaching 70, he still has a twinkle in his eye and admits he throws his toys out of the pram. But he can be self-effacing, too.
"Everyone in football says they learn, I don't know whether I have learned, looking at the results this season," he admitted.
"I did make a mistake when I came here. I'm not perfect. I came here too soon after Portsmouth. I resigned, looked at this wonderful opportunity and jumped straight into it. I wanted the due diligence done. I wanted the club bought. I wanted to be in straight away. But it takes time, it takes energy and when I got here last season, it was too late. I was exhausted.
"And I'm a bit of a loner. My biggest problem was I didn't have someone to share these problems with, so I got Paul Aldridge in, a strong personality who has seen a lot in the last 10 years at West Ham.
"But I'm an optimist. And that's why I believe it will get better from here. I firmly believe we will beat Sheffield Wednesday. I can handle difficult times. I feel good about building things up. We will rebuild Leicester City."
Mandaric is spitting mad at suggestions he will quit if the worst comes to the worst. "I would not leave my friend in trouble," he said.
"I am not going to leave this football club in a worse state than I found it. I want to be in the Premier League. We can put another 10,000 seats in the stadium. Leicestershire will support a good Premier League team."
That may sound like wishful thinking but Mandaric, who made his fortune as a young engineer in communist Yugoslavia, then added to it in Silicon Valley during the Seventies, has profited from every football business with which he has been involved.
So what is the story with all those managers?
"Football is a puzzle," he said. "If it was a case that one plus one equals two, then everyone would do it and it wouldn't be a secret.
"At Portsmouth, Harry Redknapp and myself, we had the right puzzle. Harry went to Southampton, there wasn't any chemistry. That's what I mean, it's a puzzle.
"I needed an aggressive, enthusiastic, young manager. I had Rob Kelly, a really nice man. As a coach, he fired my desire. I wanted him to stay with the club as a coach. I had Iain Dowie lined up at the time but Coventry came in and I lost that one. I stayed with Rob and things didn't go right.
"I felt I had to make changes. The key to success is the summer preparation. You have to physically prepare the players. Get it into their heads what you want from them. If you don't have that, you are always behind, always chasing.
"Things didn't work with Martin Allen, for a lot of reasons. Our recruitment didn't work. Some of my friends in the media think I'm quick to fire people but as owner I have to look at the overall picture. I didn't see we could continue the way things were.
"I hired a proper guy in Gary Megson. He knows his business and has tremendous capabilities of getting teams out of this division. If Bolton do go down, Megson will get them back up. He's firm, disciplined, organised. He gets the best out of players.
"I know my supporters weren't fond of him and he's not going to play the prettiest football. I can't stand the long-ball stuff. But at the end of the day I desperately want to get out of this division. I would work with the devil if he could get me what I wanted.
"And how would I know that six weeks after appointing Megson Bolton would come for him? So we went for Ian Holloway. Enthusiastic, driven. Yes, we have our moments, but then it was never easy with Harry."
Stories vary as to how much Mandaric paid for Leicester. Some suggest as little as £400,000 with bank guarantees in excess of £20million, but to have bought Premier League players such as Matt Oakley, Stephen Clemence and Steve Howard, he must be paying decent wages.
"People say I don't want what's best for the club. Why wouldn't I? I'm spending my money. I got it the old-fashioned way. I earned it.
"The key is to find a formula to work together to be successful. What have I done with my life? I have bought bankrupt companies. I have turned them around. You do that with the help of other people."
Passionate? Yes. Slightly eccentric? Certainly. But if Leicester win tomorrow, Mandaric is going to take a week off to recharge his batteries, then come back and start planning for next season. It looks like Ian Holloway had better be ready . . .
