FoxHole

Leicester City 1 Scunthorpe United 0, Saturday 29 March 2008

Relief was in the air at the final whistle. They even played music from The Great Escape over the public address as we left the stadium. But three points isn’t enough to secure safety yet. We need to win our remaining two home matches against Colchester and Sheffield Wednesday, and hopefully take something from the trips to Barnsley, Sheffield United and Stoke City.

The match was hardly an advert for the beautiful game. But then I didn’t expect to see flowing passes and great ball skills. I was, after all, at the Walkers Stadium. It was cold, damp, and the howling wind was blowing rubbish all over the pitch. Most of the game was as expected: Crap. But there were some moments, and Lee Hendrie showed again that he is in a different class. We also managed to get the ball wide and put some crosses in to the forwards. This proved far more effective than the usual long ball as their keeper was forced to make a couple of excellent saves.

But as Leicester fans know you need nerves of steel to last 90 minutes. As Scunthorpe became more desperate, so they looked more threatening. On cue our defence started to panic; and if I wasn’t so cold I’d have chewed off my nails. The ref didn’t help when he added five minutes of injury time. But suddenly the relief we needed finally arrived and I left the stadium in a much better mood than I did last weekend.

On the way back I heard that Derby were officially relegated -in March - ha ha ha.

I really don’t know what to think about this afternoon’s match. Clearly it is vital that we win, but is that very likely? On last week’s performance against Hull City the answer is clearly no.

Believe everything you have read or heard about the game last Saturday. We were totally third rate and only worthy of third division football. The players, and it is they who should take most of the blame, simply weren’t bothered. Only Henderson in goal played well (it could have been 0-6 without him); and only Hendrie seemed prepared to put some effort in, and he had a nightmare of a match.

So what of today? Our North Lincolnshire rivals have had some notable players pass through their ranks: Kevin Keegan and Ray Clemence are probably the most well-known. But the current squad is made up of players I’ve not even heard of. Is this a good thing I wonder? Current results suggest that the less we know about the opposition, the worse we play. We will know at about 4.50pm.

West Brom 1 Leicester City 4, Saturday 15 March 2008

I was so sure we wouldn’t win this match that on Saturday morning I made some silly joke about how, in my imaginery world, Leicester would win 4 - 0. Never mind though, I’ll settle for 4-1.

I have to say that for the first half an hour or so the commentary on Radio Leicester gave no hint of what was to come. Indeed, when West Brom took the lead it seemed very much like business as usual. We weren’t playing too badly, but nor were we making the most of our chances. Then we mess up in defence. I greeted their goal with the usual bout of swearing and despair, wondering if we’d already lost yet another match.

But how things can change. Clearly the sending-off helped (for a change). As the goals started to go in, the tension in our kitchen increased (no Leicester fan is ever confident of winning while there is still time for the other side to turn it around). And as for Howard, I have been one of those who wondered why he ever made the starting line up. But against one of the top teams in the league, and away from home, he scores a hat-trick. I guess he’ll be playing against Hull then.

So when the game ended at something like 5.00pm, I had that rare but very good”we’ve won” feeling. To top it all, Southampton who beat us last week were thrashed 5 -0!

I was never a Megson fan, and what little respect I had for him vanished when he walked out on Leicester City. But last night he sank to a new low by putting out a reserve team at Sporting Lisbon in the UEFA cup. His actions were an insult to all the other teams in the cup, and above all, to the long suffering Bolton fans whose season is almost as bleak as our own.

Indeed, imagine traveling to Portugal, your side is just one match away from a quarter final place, but on arrival you learn that Megson doesn’t think the competition is important enough. I’d be furious, and judging by comments on Radio 5, many Bolton fans were.

Thank god he’s no longer our manager; and good riddance.

Southampton 1 Leicester City 0, Tuesday 11 March 2008 

What exactly can I say?

Another defeat, another batch of wasted chances. Ironically, we  have shown  that we can dominate (Bristol City on Saturday) and even win games (a great result away at Cardiff), but the real Leicester City side seems incapable of actually scoring (our four disallowed goals against Preston being the exception to the rule).

Relegation is now closer than ever and morale will surely sink lower. Unlike some fans I don’t blame Ollie. Against the league leaders it wasn’t his fault that we missed chance after chance. And as we have just seen, somehow our players just don’t get it right on the night.

Indeed, we should have beaten Southampton but we didn’t. Verdict: Not good enough.