Opposing View – Leicester City

Get the opinions of a Leicester City supporter ahead of tonight’s clash

Vital Leicester City editor, the unfortunately-namd Svens Ambition joins us today…

We’re just past the halfway point of the season – how has it matched up to your hopes and fears?

I think for many fans it’s been full of more fears really. The promotion sabre rattling before the season began (and since) really meant anything other than automatic promotion the club would view as a failure, and as a fan it’s hard not to be drawn into that and demand that this is what has to be achieved.

That said, the fans haven’t really turned at any point, I think most knew with so many players coming in it would be a little dicey for a while as they gelled and learnt to work together so at least from us I wouldn’t really say the pressure has been on.

We’ve seen improvements over the course of the season and our ‘hope’ is still on track in many ways, but does feel like what can go wrong has gone wrong for us so far, but again that’s because expectation is so high. The club have set a high bar for them to live up to, and we just haven’t been consistent enough on the pitch to match that yet.

How is Nigel Pearson doing back at the helm?

We haven’t really had the honeymoon bounce most probably expected in terms of results since he came back, we are still in many ways as inconsistent as

We were under Sven but whether it’s his different approach or the fact the players have had longer with each other now, we are a bit more steely now in games – and at least for me – apart from some games which have been woeful days at the office, there’s a bit more of a sense now of being unlucky at points as opposed to not deserving anything from a game.

I still think it might be too much to ask to expect him to get the Play-Offs, but that depends on how quickly our form comes together and how quickly we can now show some consistency.

Why were the Foxes mis-firing under Sven?

Too much upheaval is still my answer. Too many players coming in, not being able to really bed in properly on top of all the expectation. I still don’t think Sven was given long enough to work through the patch and gel the players but that’s by the by now. We’ll never know if he would’ve got it right given time but for me that was the main reason we struggled at the time.

We understand Jermaine Beckford was getting grief until recently – why was that?

Just misfiring and not really being on form in the league. Too many spurned chances that would’ve made a great difference to our point tally and league position.

He seems, hopefully, to have levelled out now and found his touch again, so long may that continue.

Who will be the key man for you on Tuesday and why?

Probably Beckford to be honest. Getting back on form, and better confidence if he can’t cause damage by finding the net, he’ll cause you a problem by creating space for others. We’re by no means a one man team when everybody is on form, but if I had to pick one this week it’ll be Beckford.

If you could inflict one Foxes player on us in exchange for one of our players, who and why?

Oh this is difficult, the three that stick out for me are Loach, Hogg and Hodson that I wouldn’t mind seeing move our way, but on a position for position basis I’m not sure who I’d send the other way.

Possibly Pantsil for Hodson maybe?

Where will you finish this season?

I would gladly take any of the Play-Off positions.

Match prediction?

I’m hoping Cardiff has given us a real shot of confidence so we’ll be after back to back wins. 3-1 to us I would hope.

Thanks SvensAmbition – I think there’s a number of WFC fans who’d happily see Loach leave!