Post by leicesterlass on Apr 21, 2006 8:26:39 GMT -1
Levein ready for return to management
Craig Levein defends his rocky time as Leicester manager which ended in the sack, and does not rule out a move to Dunfermline — or return to Hearts. By Simon Buckland
STILL out, but no longer down, Craig Levein’s recovery from his dismissal at Leicester is nearing completion. “I only think about it every couple of days now,” he smiles. For nine years unbroken he was a manager at Cowdenbeath, Hearts and then Leicester. The Championship club were supposed to be his route to the Premiership, but it turned out to be a wrong turn. Six straight defeats meant a drop into the relegation zone. The Leicester board panicked in January and stopped thinking long-term. Meaning in the short-term, Levein’s time is suddenly his own.
LOL!
Last Thursday morning in a Fife hotel he spent a bit of it explaining what he might do next. The offer to pay for the coffee was declined. “Things aren’t that bad,” he quipped. He is under no immediate financial pressure to work again, but the “frustration and anger” at what happened at Leicester have subsided enough for him to consider himself ready for re-employment. “In my head, it’s time to get back,” he says. The vacancy at Livingston came too early to interest him. More recently, he has declined invitations to apply for jobs in Greece and Spain because his preference is Britain: he wants to be where people can see what he is doing. Where that will be, he doesn’t know. Dunfermline and Hearts are only two possibilities. “When you’re not working, you don’t rule anything out. You can’t say, ‘I wouldn’t do that’.”
If he had his choice, he would still be at Leicester. He believes he had done the difficult bit. As Levein bluntly puts it, “all the s***”. The wage bill had been slashed by £5m, a new group of young players blooded among the cuts, and the enjoyment of seeing his team evolve was about to commence. He was, he maintains, probably only one or two results away, How many times did we hear that???
but he never got them. Instead, Rob Kelly, a member of Levein’s backroom staff who became caretaker, has taken the credit, so much so he has now been confirmed as his permanent replacement. Earlier this month, Levein was watching a Sky-televised Leicester victory against Crystal Palace and got the feeling the co-commentator, Garry Birtles, was talking to him through the screen.
“Maybe you’re listening out for it, but the first 20 minutes especially was bad,” says Levein. “He was talking about how, with a new manager, ‘Everyone is coming into training with a smile on their face now’, but that’s the one thing everyone had constantly when I was there. It makes me out to be some kind of ogre. Garry had no idea what the mood was like before, it’s just the easiest thing to say, but what can you do? I’m not about to phone Garry and say, ‘Listen you’, all I can do is make sure, the next job I have, I get some success.”
Not that Levein is unhappy to see Leicester’s upturn. He believes it demonstrates he signed the right players. “I was trying to build something and the disappointment is not having the chance to keep moving it forward. The Leicester directors were new and not football people. There was a naivety about them. They thought they were doing the right thing and no doubt they’ll be sitting there saying they’ve been proved right.”
So where does this leave Levein’s reputation? It is my humble duty to help him with the answer to this one. Handed a cutting from the week of his Leicester sacking from Charlie Nicholas’s column in a tabloid newspaper, Levein reads how he was “lucky to last so long” and “didn’t know where he was going with Leicester” where his record was “atrocious”. A printing glitch means the text is garbled in one section. “You can tell Charlie wrote it himself, all the words run together,” jokes Levein. Is he concerned that Nicholas’s assessment represents a wider view? “That’s Charlie, he makes his living out of stuff like this,” counters Levein. “He wouldn’t say those things if he was sitting opposite me.”
Mindful of the speculation it would prompt, Levein has avoided East End Park matches since his return north, despite it being the nearest ground to his home. He denies any contact with Dunfermline who have hinted that manager Jim Leishman may revert back to director of football during the summer. That would be no potential problem, for Levein’s first coaching job was working unpaid alongside Leishman at Livingston for a short period in 1997 before joining Cowdenbeath.
If Dunfermline remains his most likely destination, then Hearts is the most intriguing; a club he left just as Vladimir Romanov was joining.
Levein doesn’t regret not staying. He met the now Hearts owner only once and his mind was already made up to leave after what he cheerfully refers to as “four years of struggle”. His Hearts was one of financial constraints and reduced squad numbers, a sizable contrast from the apparent largesse of today. The money has added quality, but the core of the team is much as Levein left it: he signed Paul Hartley and Andy Webster, promoted Craig Gordon and, what he regards his best decision, made Steven Pressley captain. “I caught up with many of them at a golf day earlier this week and it was fascinating talking to them about the changes. When I was there it was cutback after cutback so we became heavily dependent on certain players. I take great pride from the fact, for all that’s been spent since, that they’re still heavily dependent on the same players.”
If the side Levein is to take charge of next remains unclear, one thing is certain: he will manage a comeback.
I used to think he was a nice bloke, now I think he's just a twat and a shit manager.
Craig Levein defends his rocky time as Leicester manager which ended in the sack, and does not rule out a move to Dunfermline — or return to Hearts. By Simon Buckland
STILL out, but no longer down, Craig Levein’s recovery from his dismissal at Leicester is nearing completion. “I only think about it every couple of days now,” he smiles. For nine years unbroken he was a manager at Cowdenbeath, Hearts and then Leicester. The Championship club were supposed to be his route to the Premiership, but it turned out to be a wrong turn. Six straight defeats meant a drop into the relegation zone. The Leicester board panicked in January and stopped thinking long-term. Meaning in the short-term, Levein’s time is suddenly his own.
LOL!
Last Thursday morning in a Fife hotel he spent a bit of it explaining what he might do next. The offer to pay for the coffee was declined. “Things aren’t that bad,” he quipped. He is under no immediate financial pressure to work again, but the “frustration and anger” at what happened at Leicester have subsided enough for him to consider himself ready for re-employment. “In my head, it’s time to get back,” he says. The vacancy at Livingston came too early to interest him. More recently, he has declined invitations to apply for jobs in Greece and Spain because his preference is Britain: he wants to be where people can see what he is doing. Where that will be, he doesn’t know. Dunfermline and Hearts are only two possibilities. “When you’re not working, you don’t rule anything out. You can’t say, ‘I wouldn’t do that’.”
If he had his choice, he would still be at Leicester. He believes he had done the difficult bit. As Levein bluntly puts it, “all the s***”. The wage bill had been slashed by £5m, a new group of young players blooded among the cuts, and the enjoyment of seeing his team evolve was about to commence. He was, he maintains, probably only one or two results away, How many times did we hear that???
but he never got them. Instead, Rob Kelly, a member of Levein’s backroom staff who became caretaker, has taken the credit, so much so he has now been confirmed as his permanent replacement. Earlier this month, Levein was watching a Sky-televised Leicester victory against Crystal Palace and got the feeling the co-commentator, Garry Birtles, was talking to him through the screen.
“Maybe you’re listening out for it, but the first 20 minutes especially was bad,” says Levein. “He was talking about how, with a new manager, ‘Everyone is coming into training with a smile on their face now’, but that’s the one thing everyone had constantly when I was there. It makes me out to be some kind of ogre. Garry had no idea what the mood was like before, it’s just the easiest thing to say, but what can you do? I’m not about to phone Garry and say, ‘Listen you’, all I can do is make sure, the next job I have, I get some success.”
Not that Levein is unhappy to see Leicester’s upturn. He believes it demonstrates he signed the right players. “I was trying to build something and the disappointment is not having the chance to keep moving it forward. The Leicester directors were new and not football people. There was a naivety about them. They thought they were doing the right thing and no doubt they’ll be sitting there saying they’ve been proved right.”
So where does this leave Levein’s reputation? It is my humble duty to help him with the answer to this one. Handed a cutting from the week of his Leicester sacking from Charlie Nicholas’s column in a tabloid newspaper, Levein reads how he was “lucky to last so long” and “didn’t know where he was going with Leicester” where his record was “atrocious”. A printing glitch means the text is garbled in one section. “You can tell Charlie wrote it himself, all the words run together,” jokes Levein. Is he concerned that Nicholas’s assessment represents a wider view? “That’s Charlie, he makes his living out of stuff like this,” counters Levein. “He wouldn’t say those things if he was sitting opposite me.”
Mindful of the speculation it would prompt, Levein has avoided East End Park matches since his return north, despite it being the nearest ground to his home. He denies any contact with Dunfermline who have hinted that manager Jim Leishman may revert back to director of football during the summer. That would be no potential problem, for Levein’s first coaching job was working unpaid alongside Leishman at Livingston for a short period in 1997 before joining Cowdenbeath.
If Dunfermline remains his most likely destination, then Hearts is the most intriguing; a club he left just as Vladimir Romanov was joining.
Levein doesn’t regret not staying. He met the now Hearts owner only once and his mind was already made up to leave after what he cheerfully refers to as “four years of struggle”. His Hearts was one of financial constraints and reduced squad numbers, a sizable contrast from the apparent largesse of today. The money has added quality, but the core of the team is much as Levein left it: he signed Paul Hartley and Andy Webster, promoted Craig Gordon and, what he regards his best decision, made Steven Pressley captain. “I caught up with many of them at a golf day earlier this week and it was fascinating talking to them about the changes. When I was there it was cutback after cutback so we became heavily dependent on certain players. I take great pride from the fact, for all that’s been spent since, that they’re still heavily dependent on the same players.”
If the side Levein is to take charge of next remains unclear, one thing is certain: he will manage a comeback.
I used to think he was a nice bloke, now I think he's just a twat and a shit manager.
