For Leicester City, might British be best?

By David Cockcroft

An October managerial casualty seems to be the norm in today’s game, yet the news of Sven Goran Eriksson heading out of the Leicester City exit door came as no little surprise to the football world. Leicester’s lowly 13th position doesn’t really read too much into their inconsistent start. Two points from the top six Sven will argue, but the Thai owners have decided not to tolerate this Swede for too long.

In a stint of just over a year in charge Eriksson splashed well over £10 million pounds of the King Power kitty on a new look Leicester squad. Results were imperative and Millwall’s 3-0 win in the East Midlands last weekend spelt the end of Sven’s ‘Leicester revolution’.

Where to now for the Foxes?

The messiah is the name on the Leicester public’s lips. Martin O’Neill did extraordinary things in the late 1990’s with a team placed in a similar position to today’s batch of players and without the extortionate resources that exist today, taking the club to places they never dreamed of.

He is number one with the fans, number one with the bookmakers.

If the ideal scenario doesn’t play out then who else will Leicester seek? Two foreign regimes, the only two in the history of the football club, have failed, telling the owners enough of where not to look.

It appears British is best in the English Championship – you only need to look at the record books to prove that.

In the last ten years only one manager not hailing from Britain or the Republic of Ireland has achieved the goal of promotion to the Premier League, West Bromwich Albion’s Roberto Di Matteo posting a glitch to the near perfect correlation. From the 30 successful managers over the last decade in the Football League, 21 are English, 4 are Scotsman, 2 from Northern Ireland, 1 hailing from the Republic of Ireland and 1 Welshman, leaving the Italian as the only non-British or Irish success.

Mark Hughes, Roy Keane and Alan Curbishley are names already being banded around, candidates that would suit the job in hand but will the foreign investors recognise the advantage British managers have to succeed in this renowned tough division?

Both Paulo Sousa and Sven Goran Eriksson, admirably, tried to play good football with Leicester but Saturday’s Millwall game just demonstrates that in this division, pretty is not perfect.

Kenny Jackett came to the King Power Stadium with a game plan and my did it work. The East Londoners parked the bus when Leicester’s slow attack tried to gather momentum, thwarting any opportunities to feed passes through their backline. The key to Millwall’s win was a combination of this and their counter attack. They broke with pace and caught Leicester napping, forcing mistakes.

This mentality is so effective in the Championship and such a likely tactic, especially away from home.

The traditional British thinking behind football is to be strong, hard and solid. Millwall were all of the above. We Brits tend to love a pacey wide man, someone to feed a big old fashioned centre forward. Millwall’s 6 foot 3 striker Darius Henderson scoring a hat trick to see off Leicester last weekend.

Leicester City already have the make up to play in this effective and direct way too.

Pacey Lloyd Dyer and Neil Danns are part of the squad. Big Steve Howard provides that old fashioned centre forward role. Added to this clientele are big names in the English second tier. Richie Wellens, David Nugent and Jermaine Beckford are players many say wouldn’t look out of place in the Premier League.

The squad is in place at the King Power Stadium it seems so perhaps it’s just some good old fashioned British direction that may be missing. So Martin, what do you say?

England, English Championship, Football League, Leicester City, Sven Goran Eriksson