We’re not going to be a top six side. This is where winning the title has gone to people’s heads. We have a better opportunity than we ever have to do so for various reasons and can, if circumstances conspire, perhaps achieve the odd top six finish but to expect us to compete regularly at that level is madness short of investment beyond what the current owners are willing or capable of. League position is 95% correlated with total wage bill. We just aren’t going to compete with the existing top six in that regard.
The other 5% is a combination of management, historical reputation and luck, among myriad other factors. It goes to show just how extraordinary our achievement in winning the title was. We should enjoy it for the incredible experience it was rather than looking upon the current era as a disappointing failure to capitalise on what was one of the best experiences of our lives.
We are still little old Leicester, I’m afraid. Slightly less little now. Perhaps elevated above the likes of West Ham in the ‘big club’ stakes. But still a club for whom relegation is only ever bad managerial appointment from being a reality. None of that is to say we shouldn’t want more. Football is for dreaming and for escaping from the realities of the rest of life. Ambition is fine. But too much ambition in something none of us can control is only going to result in disappointment.
All I ask for now, given I’ve seen us do things which I’d never dreamed of, is to be entertained by players who give their all on the pitch. I’m not sure I’m seeing either at the moment. The second is difficult to discern given the complete lack of the first. I want to see us finish as high as we can in the league each year and compete in the cups whilst we have the opportunity to do so.
That’s why this year has been such a dissapointment. We’ve pissed away the opportunity to win both cups and to qualify for Europe via league position. Had better decisions been made by the management we’d be talking about the second most successful season in our history. Given that we can now only ever achieve our second most successful season that’s quite a big deal.
The FA Cup is the biggest missed opportunity in my eyes. We should have beaten Chelsea. We ought to have expected to beat Southampton. And Man Utd is a winnable game. It’s a rare time in the club’s history that saying so is anywhere close to reality and the management decided it’s not important in favour of ‘transitioning’ to a style of football which would bore even Gary Megson.
So all I want is a manager who is capable of getting us playing football which is interesting to watch and having players show some bollocks on the pitch. I think Wagner is capable of that. His philosophy is one of high pressing and counter attacking high up the pitch. He has done a brilliant job at Huddersfield and, arguably, has had to temper his preferred playing style because he has a squad of limited ability. Puel could do with a bit of that pragmatism. I’m not sure if he is my first choice. I really haven’t given it that much thought. But I do not think he would be a bad one.
In my mind the club has two palatable choices. Either go for a competent ‘make the best of what we have’ manager like Dyche - although he is sadly out of reach for now - who will take a look at our current playing resources and set up accordingly whilst making incremental changes over time. Or be radical, decide upon a progressive playing style, pick a man to oversee a transition of staff towards that style and ensure that everything behind the manager is set up to recruit and optimise coaching throughout the club towards achieving it. A bit like Southampton and Swansea of old. I have long preferred the latter option but could live with the first.
At present we’ve gone down a third route which is to employ a manager with a regressive playing philosophy who is determined to move towards it come what may. Even if we give Puel a summer to recruit appropriately for his preferred style, we just end up with players who will be better exponents at boring football. I find the five working days of the weeek quite dull enough already, thanks.
Unfortunately I don’t have any faith in the ability of the current owners to make the right recruitment decisions. I don’t know enough about the set up at the club to feel comfortable pointing the finger at Rudkin for what has been a dicey recruitment strategy for as long as the owners have been in place and it doesn’t matter; the buck should stop with those who employ him.
As I see it they brought Sven in because he was famous. They appointed Pearson because people at the club knew him. Ranieri was recruited because he is famous and pretty much publicly begged for the job. Shakespeare got the gig because he’s a mate of the owners and players and I can only assume Puel was drafted in on the basis of a CV which looks decent enough on paper and for whom we didn’t need to pay compensation. I see no evidence that there was any study around the context of his historical performance. Such as him being a boring bastard in the process.
I haven’t been to our last two home matches. I haven’t decided on the Arsenal game yet. It will depend on how I feel after work that day. But normally I’d be excited about going regardless of quality. I’ve never cared if it’s Man City or Arsenal or Scunthorpe we’re up against. It has always been about us. And that’s the problem at the moment. It’s almost impossible to justify wasting my precious leisure time on boredom. I hope it’s only temporary and that the owners make a decision after next weekend that means I’ll not have to feel this way about watching us again.
