A different situation as Leicester in 1983-84 were a newly promoted team, but still similiar in many ways regarding a terrible start. Even a more terrible start that we have seen in this campaign with an 0-4 opener vs. Notts County starting a strange run of horror but still ending as a good story in the end.
This opener was followed with a new 3-0 home defeat to Luton and Leicester had seen 7 goals conceded in their two opening games.
Gordon Milne was in charge and had a good record of seasons with Coventry in the top flight and his Leicester team was struggling heavily. A draw away to Stoke in the 7th game gave some hope of a change, but it wasn’t before late October that Leicester could collect their first win.
Four days earlier they had managed a grand win in the League Cup vs. Chelsea and then took on a strong Everton side at home. This really made a massive change as goals from Paul Ramsey and Alan Smith did see a fantastic home win at Filbert Street as the climb towards safety started.
Leicester manager Gordon Milne decided to play newly signed Mark Grew from West Brom in the openers of the season with a contract situation not cleared for first team regular Mark Wallington.
Grew had a terrible run and had conceded 14 before the change happened after the 5th game of the season. Wallington could not stop the rot at first but Leicester managed two draws in the first six games before that magic 2-0 home win vs. Everton coming on the 29th of October 1983.
This season we have seen something of the same with Danny Ward not really showing the quality needed to be the first team alternative. But at present Brendan Rodgers does not have that mature and experienced alternative as we did see Kasper Schmeichel leaving for Nice.
Later in the season Gordon Milne decided to play a third alternative giving Ian Andrews his first games as a young 19 year old. Mark Wallington was in play for last season appearance when Leicester secured their top tier staturs with a grand 2-1 win vs. Forest. Ian Andrews played in the two last games of that season losing to Wolves and Sunderland.
Gordon Milne had to strenghten the defensive line adding Bob Hazell from Queens Park Rangers as the England B international made a huge impact in defence. Alan Smith, Gary Lineker and Steve Lynex also used a few months to adapt to the top flight as goals started to flush. Lineker scored 22 in his first real top flight season, Alan Smith hit 15 and Lynex 12.
Milne survived and was not thrown under the buss as Leicester finished 15th and everything that started as a nightmare came out as an acceptable season.
Looking back at that season you did see a grand number of positives appear. Gary Lineker establishing himself as a top tier super goalscorer, making his England debut in May 1984. Alan Smith coming through alongside Lineker. Ian Wilson, Kevin MacDonald and John O’Neill were other players to really making their top flight bow as they were key players during that season staying up.
The difference from this season is the fact that Leicester were expected to do much better but still you need to make a few crucial changes to get this ship back on track starting with the obvious to give Daniel Iversen the gloves and also appearing with a more defensive approach and pack the defense as well as being more counterattacking. Leicester did have the ball more than Tottenham in the game yesterday which again shows both the ability and weakness of this team.
CHECK YOUR FOOTBALL RESULTS
CHECK YOUR FOOTBALL STORIES AND TRANSFER TALK
Leave a Reply