By Richard Rae, The Observer/London
More than a few Leicester City supporters thought the club’s best chance of returning to the Premier League in the near future had disappeared in the space of 20 seconds at Vicarage Road last May. As Foxes fans in the stadium or watching on television will never forget, what would have been a tie-winning penalty in the fifth minute of added time in the second leg of the play-off, taken by Anthony Knockaert, was saved by Watford goalkeeper Manuel Almunia. A few bewildering moments later Troy Deeney had scored for the Hornets, the final whistle had blown, and to a man, Nigel Pearson’s players crumpled to the turf in disbelief.
The gloom extended over the summer. The teams relegated from the Premier League, Queens Park Rangers, Reading and Wigan, looked to have retained stronger squads than Bolton, Blackburn and Wolves, the previous year’s relegated sides. Other championship clubs, including neighbours Nottingham Forest, were spending far more than City, whose Thai owners King Power International, were being forced by the advent of the financial fair play regulations to limit Pearson’s incursions into the transfer market to a minimum.
The general consensus seemed to be that the best that could be hoped for was another shot at the play-offs.
However, in his post-Watford press conference, Pearson had been remarkably upbeat, and not in the standard “Rally the troops and go again” sort of way.
Despite being aware of the financial constraints that had been placed on him, his optimism appeared unforced. Pearson, it seemed, genuinely believed that his squad would still be good enough to compete with the best and that the experience they had been through over the season would make them even stronger.
And such has been the case. Starting from the back, retaining Kasper Schmeichel was vital. The Denmark goalkeeper signed by Sven Goran Eriksson, lest we forget has been linked to any number of top division clubs, both home and abroad but Pearson is well aware of his value. City’s is not the tightest defence in the Championship but time and again Schmeichel has kept them in games before the strikers have picked up a vital goal.
Friday night’s 2-1 win over Sheffield Wednesday was their 21st match unbeaten, and if it was in some ways it too was unconvincing, the two games serve to illustrate one of the Foxes’ most important qualities under Pearson: that of winning, or sometimes just not getting beaten, when not being particularly fluent.
That is not for a moment intended to damn the club with faint praise. Financially, they appear to be more solidly positioned to go into the EPL than many who have gone before, with the chairman, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, having effectively wiped out the 103m debt hanging over the club after Eriksson was given an open cheque book by converting it into shares, and buying the ground (for 17m) to boot. Both Manchester City and Chelsea have done something similar in recent years.
How much will be made available to Pearson to strengthen his squad during the close season remains to be seen, but Srivaddhanaprabha’s swapping of debt for equity unquestionably increases the club’s leeway under financial fair play.
It will be interesting to see both those whom Pearson targets, and those he is able to bring in. In some respects he resembles Mick McCarthy who, after steering Wolves into the Premier League in 2009, kept his promotion side largely intact. Spirit and togetherness can take you a long way, even in the Premier League.
