Thursday, 12 August 2010
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Thursday, 5 November 2009
#1, part 1 - Peter Taylor
There aren't many people in the footballing world that I passionately hate, but Peter Taylor has to be one of them. If the truth be told I do feel slightly guilty about it because I'm sure that he's a nice guy, and I have no doubt that he tried his hardest with my football team. But no matter how much I think about it, I still can't quite figure out how he turned a team that was regularly in competition for a European please into an absolute joke of a side, while spending £23-26m (depending on which newspapers you read) in the process.
Peter Taylor arrived at Leicester City in the summer of 2000. Martin O'Neill, the man who had taken the Foxes into arguably the most successful period in their history, had departed to Celtic, the team he supported as a child. The fans were heartbroken. Add to that the fact that star striker and Leicester lad Emile Heskey had just been transferred to Liverpool for a club record £11m and you start to see that the new manager would have an unenviable task. At the same time, there was an air of positive anticipation around Filbert Street. The club was a year or so away from moving into a new stadium. There was a large pot of money for the new manager to spend. The training ground had recently been renovated. There were many positive selling points to use in recruiting the next new manager and the fans were eager to know who would be charged with the task of taking the club to the next level. And surely now the club COULD move to the next level - after all, despite the departure of Emile Heskey, Stan Collymore had recently signed and seemed to be regaining his form and confidence. Plus the nucleus of the team was still there - the unbeatable Tim Flowers in goal, the irrepressible Matt Elliott at the centre of the defence, the commanding midfield combination of Muzzy Izzet and Neil Lennon, and of course Mr Leicester City himself - Steve Walsh - was still club captain, even if not a first-team regular any more. Steve Guppy was providing more assists than David Beckham, Tony Cottee was still regularly banging in the goals and Robbie Savage was really building his reputation for getting up opponents' noses.
So with a team like this, plus the biggest pot of transfer cash known to any Leicester City manager ever, things were looking good. At this point I remember having a conversation with a university friend:
"I'm excited by Peter Taylor, but I just hope he doesn't go and waste all the money on unproven division one crap."
However my fears were surely unfounded, as this was the man who had previously been manager of the England Under-21 team. He would surely be able to use that influence to convince some of the great young players on the fringes of their clubs' first teams to come to Leicester for some real first-team experience. After all, we had three players in the England squad at one point the previous season - Flowers, Guppy and Heskey, and there were also clamours for Muzzy Izzet to be called into the squad. Being at Leicester no longer meant that you were ignored when it came to choosing the England squad. This was going to be great. We'd see the likes of Carl Cort, Danny Mills, Frank Lampard, Michael Carrick et al. at the club in a matter of no time. We'd be great. With a bit of luck we'd genuinely be able to break into the top six.
So we wait for news of the first signing. Over the course of the summer any lingering fears of existing players leaving are allayed by the news that Muzzy Izzet, Neil Lennon and Matt Elliott have all signed contract extensions. Excellent. This is going to be a great season!
Now I can't remember in which order they came in, but the signings of Gary Rowett (an intelligent defender who would play right-back or centre back), Simon Royce (the perennial reserve goalkeeper), Callum Davidson (a Scottish international left back) and Trevor Benjamin (an unproven lower-division prospect) didn't exactly fill me with confidence. Rowett seemed a good signing, and knowing that Frank Sinclair was going to miss the start of the season this seemed the most sensible of the signings. Benjamin was still young so he was one for the future. Royce was a steady goalkeeper, but as a friend said to me "O'Neill wouldn't have signed him, he's too short for the Premier League." Davidson was an interesting one. The squad had been missing an established left back since Mike Whitlow had departed several seasons ago, but the team had generally played with wing-backs, so it didn't really matter. And on the left we had Steve Guppy and Darren Eadie, plus youngster Stefan Oakes had been known to cover from time to time, so this hinted at a possible change of formation. However the signing that really caused the alarm bells to start ringing was Ade Akinbiyi...
Akinbiyi had come through the Norwich City youth team but had never established himself the first-team. He moved to Bristol City where he started storing a few goals at a lower level, and this prompted Wolves to pay just over a million pounds for him. I remember reading about him signing for Wolves at the time and thinking that was a lot of money for someone who had only really had one good season. So imagine my shock when I read that a number of months later, after just 13 goals for Wolves, Taylor had moved to pay £5m for Akinbiyi. I had to re-read that several times. That's right FIVE MILLION POUNDS. That's just under half of the transfer fee for Emile Heskey. There were established England internationals that hadn't moved for that much. Still, let's stay positive and see what happens...
So, first day of the new season. Here I am expecting to see a new Leicester City line up, probably with a 4-4-2 formation. The team is read out. Seems to be a 4-4-2 - Flowers in goal, back four of Rowett, Taggart, Elliot and Davidson. Midfield of Izzet, Lennon, Savage and Impey. IMPEY? "Bloody hell, I thought he'd be first out the door with a new manager..." says my mate. I am in agreement. Up front we've got Akinbiyi and Collymore. Bizarrely, there's no sign of Steve Guppy. Not even on the bench. Very strange. The man responsible for a high percentage of assists for the past three seasons isn't even in the squad. The best crosser of the ball in the Premiership. The main set-piece taker. "Oh, Guppy was struggling with an injury, I think." my friend tells me. I later find out he was wrong. The team lines up in a 3-5-2 formation with Davidson at left wing-back. Not the most attacking selection in the world.
So the game finishes 0-0. Fair enough. Got to give them a chance to settle down. Seemed solid enough, though we didn't create too many chances. Akinbiyi seemed a bit lost out there and Davidson didn't get into those penetrating crossing positions that Guppy found so well, but hey-ho. We'll see what happens from here.
So the next few weeks pass by and things are going very well indeed. The team, despite not playing very well, manages to stay near the top of the Premiership.
Then I read a comment from Robbie Savage in one of the newspapers. Apparently Peter Taylor is "more of a laugh" than Martin O'Neill, which obviously, in Robbie's eyes, makes him a better manager. Alarm bells are ringing again. Now we know that O'Neill was a disciplinarian and ran a very tight ship. How do you think he got Stan Collymore playing again? How else did he handle massive dressing room personalities such as Washie, Taggart and Lennon, and mavericks like Frank Sinclair and Robbie himself? O'Neill kept that team playing for each other and comparisons were often made to Wimbledon's "crazy gang". Very few managers can handle that sort of environment.
We were soon to find out that Taylor was not one of those managers.
A story broke of a fight at a reserve team match. Apparently the over-eager Trevor Benjamin had said something that he shouldn't have said. Collymore, making his way back to fitness after injury, took offence and allegedly planted his fist into Benjamin's face. Various vague recollections of this story did the rounds, and then news broke that Collymore and the club had agreed to go their separate ways. Collymore claimed that a new contract promised by O'Neill had not been forthcoming, while Taylor maintained football reason. Yeah, cos what the club REALLY didn't need at this point was a 20-goal striker. Now I'm getting annoyed. But still, the manager has to have the final say. If he wants rid of Collymore, I'll respect that. After all, we're near the top of the table and with the slightest tweak here and there, we should stay there for the rest of the season.
Richard Cresswell arrived from Sheffield Wednesday, where he'd not exactly set the world alight.
Then the European games arrived. Two rather weak performances against Red Star Belgrade saw City go out of the UEFA cup at the first hurdle. There was no sign of the fight that the club had last produced under O'Neill, when we went out to Atletico Madrid under incredibly controversial circumstances. The most significant thing about the first leg for me was the performance of Cresswell as a substitute. Despite costing just £750,000, less than one-fifth of what Akinbiyi had cost, he had already looked more likely to score goals at this level than the misfiring headless chicken who had not yet scored a goal for the club. So what did Taylor do? Loan him back out, of course. Couldn't possibly have him showing up his "marquee" signing now, could he?
Somehow, in spite of some poor performances, City are top of the league for the first time since 1963. However, call me cynical, but neither me nor my friends are convinced.
So Collymore leaves for Bradford. By this point Taylor has also shipped out old heads Tony Cottee and Steve Walsh to Norwich. Just like that. Club captain and loyal servant for more than 13 years is gone in a flash, without so much as an opportunity to say goodbye. More bad news follows. Neil Lennon hands in a transfer request. He wants to join Martin O'Neill at Celtic. You can't really blame him. Things aren't looking great here and O'Neill is doing a wonderful job at Parkhead. Oh well, £6m in the bank. Go on then, Taylor, let's see what you can do to fill that massive void in the centre of the park.
So, £3m for Matt Jones. Who? I said Matt Jones. You know, one of the kids from the Leeds youth team. He'd made a handful of appearances and certainly looked like one for the future, but he wasn't a replacement for Lenny. To his credit, Taylor said that from the start. Still, there must be plenty of cash floating around. There must be a proven Premiership player around that can help fill the gap...
But Taylor doesn't seem to want to entertain Premiership players. He's going to bring in the players he wants and do things his way.
Enter Junior Lewis.
Who?
Junior Lewis. A lower-leagues journeyman brought in intially on a month's loan from the mighty Gillingham. To be fair to him, in his first few games he passed the ball well, sheilded the defence and did the simple things in the way he was asked to. There were even rumours that West Ham and Tottenham were going to hijack the loan by putting in a bid to sign him. So Taylor did the only thing he could - he rushed in and signed him on a five-year, Premiership-wage contract.
Lennon has gone, Collymore has gone. Results start to wobble and the club doesn't stay at the top of the league for very long, but it's nearly Christmas and we've secured nearly enough points to be sure of Premiership football next season already. I mean, it would take one might bad run of results to see us relegated and there's no way that's going to happen, right?
But then we hit January and we draw Wycombe in the FA Cup. We're not worried. City under O'Neill have not been a club to be victims of upsets. However hard the other team works, City always work harder. It'll be fine.
Part 2 to follow.
Peter Taylor arrived at Leicester City in the summer of 2000. Martin O'Neill, the man who had taken the Foxes into arguably the most successful period in their history, had departed to Celtic, the team he supported as a child. The fans were heartbroken. Add to that the fact that star striker and Leicester lad Emile Heskey had just been transferred to Liverpool for a club record £11m and you start to see that the new manager would have an unenviable task. At the same time, there was an air of positive anticipation around Filbert Street. The club was a year or so away from moving into a new stadium. There was a large pot of money for the new manager to spend. The training ground had recently been renovated. There were many positive selling points to use in recruiting the next new manager and the fans were eager to know who would be charged with the task of taking the club to the next level. And surely now the club COULD move to the next level - after all, despite the departure of Emile Heskey, Stan Collymore had recently signed and seemed to be regaining his form and confidence. Plus the nucleus of the team was still there - the unbeatable Tim Flowers in goal, the irrepressible Matt Elliott at the centre of the defence, the commanding midfield combination of Muzzy Izzet and Neil Lennon, and of course Mr Leicester City himself - Steve Walsh - was still club captain, even if not a first-team regular any more. Steve Guppy was providing more assists than David Beckham, Tony Cottee was still regularly banging in the goals and Robbie Savage was really building his reputation for getting up opponents' noses.
So with a team like this, plus the biggest pot of transfer cash known to any Leicester City manager ever, things were looking good. At this point I remember having a conversation with a university friend:
"I'm excited by Peter Taylor, but I just hope he doesn't go and waste all the money on unproven division one crap."
However my fears were surely unfounded, as this was the man who had previously been manager of the England Under-21 team. He would surely be able to use that influence to convince some of the great young players on the fringes of their clubs' first teams to come to Leicester for some real first-team experience. After all, we had three players in the England squad at one point the previous season - Flowers, Guppy and Heskey, and there were also clamours for Muzzy Izzet to be called into the squad. Being at Leicester no longer meant that you were ignored when it came to choosing the England squad. This was going to be great. We'd see the likes of Carl Cort, Danny Mills, Frank Lampard, Michael Carrick et al. at the club in a matter of no time. We'd be great. With a bit of luck we'd genuinely be able to break into the top six.
So we wait for news of the first signing. Over the course of the summer any lingering fears of existing players leaving are allayed by the news that Muzzy Izzet, Neil Lennon and Matt Elliott have all signed contract extensions. Excellent. This is going to be a great season!
Now I can't remember in which order they came in, but the signings of Gary Rowett (an intelligent defender who would play right-back or centre back), Simon Royce (the perennial reserve goalkeeper), Callum Davidson (a Scottish international left back) and Trevor Benjamin (an unproven lower-division prospect) didn't exactly fill me with confidence. Rowett seemed a good signing, and knowing that Frank Sinclair was going to miss the start of the season this seemed the most sensible of the signings. Benjamin was still young so he was one for the future. Royce was a steady goalkeeper, but as a friend said to me "O'Neill wouldn't have signed him, he's too short for the Premier League." Davidson was an interesting one. The squad had been missing an established left back since Mike Whitlow had departed several seasons ago, but the team had generally played with wing-backs, so it didn't really matter. And on the left we had Steve Guppy and Darren Eadie, plus youngster Stefan Oakes had been known to cover from time to time, so this hinted at a possible change of formation. However the signing that really caused the alarm bells to start ringing was Ade Akinbiyi...
Akinbiyi had come through the Norwich City youth team but had never established himself the first-team. He moved to Bristol City where he started storing a few goals at a lower level, and this prompted Wolves to pay just over a million pounds for him. I remember reading about him signing for Wolves at the time and thinking that was a lot of money for someone who had only really had one good season. So imagine my shock when I read that a number of months later, after just 13 goals for Wolves, Taylor had moved to pay £5m for Akinbiyi. I had to re-read that several times. That's right FIVE MILLION POUNDS. That's just under half of the transfer fee for Emile Heskey. There were established England internationals that hadn't moved for that much. Still, let's stay positive and see what happens...
So, first day of the new season. Here I am expecting to see a new Leicester City line up, probably with a 4-4-2 formation. The team is read out. Seems to be a 4-4-2 - Flowers in goal, back four of Rowett, Taggart, Elliot and Davidson. Midfield of Izzet, Lennon, Savage and Impey. IMPEY? "Bloody hell, I thought he'd be first out the door with a new manager..." says my mate. I am in agreement. Up front we've got Akinbiyi and Collymore. Bizarrely, there's no sign of Steve Guppy. Not even on the bench. Very strange. The man responsible for a high percentage of assists for the past three seasons isn't even in the squad. The best crosser of the ball in the Premiership. The main set-piece taker. "Oh, Guppy was struggling with an injury, I think." my friend tells me. I later find out he was wrong. The team lines up in a 3-5-2 formation with Davidson at left wing-back. Not the most attacking selection in the world.
So the game finishes 0-0. Fair enough. Got to give them a chance to settle down. Seemed solid enough, though we didn't create too many chances. Akinbiyi seemed a bit lost out there and Davidson didn't get into those penetrating crossing positions that Guppy found so well, but hey-ho. We'll see what happens from here.
So the next few weeks pass by and things are going very well indeed. The team, despite not playing very well, manages to stay near the top of the Premiership.
Then I read a comment from Robbie Savage in one of the newspapers. Apparently Peter Taylor is "more of a laugh" than Martin O'Neill, which obviously, in Robbie's eyes, makes him a better manager. Alarm bells are ringing again. Now we know that O'Neill was a disciplinarian and ran a very tight ship. How do you think he got Stan Collymore playing again? How else did he handle massive dressing room personalities such as Washie, Taggart and Lennon, and mavericks like Frank Sinclair and Robbie himself? O'Neill kept that team playing for each other and comparisons were often made to Wimbledon's "crazy gang". Very few managers can handle that sort of environment.
We were soon to find out that Taylor was not one of those managers.
A story broke of a fight at a reserve team match. Apparently the over-eager Trevor Benjamin had said something that he shouldn't have said. Collymore, making his way back to fitness after injury, took offence and allegedly planted his fist into Benjamin's face. Various vague recollections of this story did the rounds, and then news broke that Collymore and the club had agreed to go their separate ways. Collymore claimed that a new contract promised by O'Neill had not been forthcoming, while Taylor maintained football reason. Yeah, cos what the club REALLY didn't need at this point was a 20-goal striker. Now I'm getting annoyed. But still, the manager has to have the final say. If he wants rid of Collymore, I'll respect that. After all, we're near the top of the table and with the slightest tweak here and there, we should stay there for the rest of the season.
Richard Cresswell arrived from Sheffield Wednesday, where he'd not exactly set the world alight.
Then the European games arrived. Two rather weak performances against Red Star Belgrade saw City go out of the UEFA cup at the first hurdle. There was no sign of the fight that the club had last produced under O'Neill, when we went out to Atletico Madrid under incredibly controversial circumstances. The most significant thing about the first leg for me was the performance of Cresswell as a substitute. Despite costing just £750,000, less than one-fifth of what Akinbiyi had cost, he had already looked more likely to score goals at this level than the misfiring headless chicken who had not yet scored a goal for the club. So what did Taylor do? Loan him back out, of course. Couldn't possibly have him showing up his "marquee" signing now, could he?
Somehow, in spite of some poor performances, City are top of the league for the first time since 1963. However, call me cynical, but neither me nor my friends are convinced.
So Collymore leaves for Bradford. By this point Taylor has also shipped out old heads Tony Cottee and Steve Walsh to Norwich. Just like that. Club captain and loyal servant for more than 13 years is gone in a flash, without so much as an opportunity to say goodbye. More bad news follows. Neil Lennon hands in a transfer request. He wants to join Martin O'Neill at Celtic. You can't really blame him. Things aren't looking great here and O'Neill is doing a wonderful job at Parkhead. Oh well, £6m in the bank. Go on then, Taylor, let's see what you can do to fill that massive void in the centre of the park.
So, £3m for Matt Jones. Who? I said Matt Jones. You know, one of the kids from the Leeds youth team. He'd made a handful of appearances and certainly looked like one for the future, but he wasn't a replacement for Lenny. To his credit, Taylor said that from the start. Still, there must be plenty of cash floating around. There must be a proven Premiership player around that can help fill the gap...
But Taylor doesn't seem to want to entertain Premiership players. He's going to bring in the players he wants and do things his way.
Enter Junior Lewis.
Who?
Junior Lewis. A lower-leagues journeyman brought in intially on a month's loan from the mighty Gillingham. To be fair to him, in his first few games he passed the ball well, sheilded the defence and did the simple things in the way he was asked to. There were even rumours that West Ham and Tottenham were going to hijack the loan by putting in a bid to sign him. So Taylor did the only thing he could - he rushed in and signed him on a five-year, Premiership-wage contract.
Lennon has gone, Collymore has gone. Results start to wobble and the club doesn't stay at the top of the league for very long, but it's nearly Christmas and we've secured nearly enough points to be sure of Premiership football next season already. I mean, it would take one might bad run of results to see us relegated and there's no way that's going to happen, right?
But then we hit January and we draw Wycombe in the FA Cup. We're not worried. City under O'Neill have not been a club to be victims of upsets. However hard the other team works, City always work harder. It'll be fine.
Part 2 to follow.
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