Pearson's Leicester on the rise

Article by Jonathan Smith

Saturday 22nd October 2011. Not much springs to mind when hearing the date but it was quite a notable one in the recent history of Leicester City Football Club. It saw Sven Goran Eriksson take charge of his final match as manager of the East Midlands outfit. An uninspiring 3-0 defeat at home to Millwall was unexpected considering the money that had been spent during the summer on rebuilding the squad. The starting line-up included seven new signings. England internationals, Paul Konchesky and David Nugent, big money signing Jermaine Beckford, Irishman Sean St Ledger, young full-back Lee Peltier, injury-plagued midfielder Michael Johnson and former Manchester City goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel were all still trying to find their feet at the club.

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The Foxes were still in a decent position to push for promotion, despite some inconsistent results, which is why Eriksson’s departure came as a shock to many supporters. The question was who would the Thai owners go for next? You can’t get much more high profile than a former England manager and they’d already sacked a young up-and-coming manager when Paulo Sousa was shown the door just over a year earlier.

After drawn out negotiations, it was announced that they had chosen to go for Nigel Pearson. Pearson was a slightly unexpected choice in some ways. He’d already spent two seasons as City manager which saw promotion from League One and a top six Championship finish a year later. His reign came to an abrupt end as Hull City swooped and Milan Mandaric decided not to stand in his way. Many Leicester supporters were disappointed to see Pearson leave after two successful seasons. They were looking forward to seeing if he could complete the job and help lead the club to the Premiership. His return, less than 18 months later, offered fans the opportunity to see if he could achieve his goal at the second attempt.

Just under two years since Pearson’s return and Leicester are sitting pretty in third place just behind QPR and Burnley. The road has been rocky with a large number of players being shipped out of the club and a lot being said about the poor attitude of certain individuals. You get the feeling that Pearson is finally happy with the balance of his squad and the character of the players within it. Only three Sven signings started City’s last match, a 2-1 win at home against Huddersfield. Infact, apart from Schmeichel, Konchesky and Nugent, Sean St Ledger and Neil Danns are the only Eriksson purchases left in the squad but St Ledger’s appearances have been severely reduced due to injury and Danns finds himself on loan to Bolton. Waghorn was a Paulo Sousa signing although he initially joined the club as a loan signing during Pearson’s first spell. The rest of the squad is made up of Pearson signings or products of the club’s successful youth system.

There has been a lot of talk about the unity that can now be found amongst the City squad and there’s no doubting that this is something forged by Pearson since his return. Foxes fans can only hope that the team can maintain their current form and seal a first promotion to the top flight in a decade.

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