Craig Shakespeare at Leicester City 2017/18

Sideshow Bob

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Makes sense to give him the job the players clearly are happy to play for him and they recovered well after he took over.

Will be interesting to see where they end up next season without European Football you'd imagine they'll be better off but I can't see them being anything above 7th. The top 7 look a million miles ahead of everyone else last season and that was reflected in the league table at the end but depending on who comes and goes Leicester could easily be the best of the rest but equally they could be in another relegation scrap.

I think his big challenge is he might need to break the Huth/Morgan partnership and inject some youth into that backline so they're not so easily hurt by pace when they need to defend a little bit higher.

It looks like Mahrez will go but apart from maybe Schmeichel it doesn't seem like anyone else it being linked with moves maybe guys like Musa & Slimani who came in for the CL football might move on but they didn't contribute massively so probably wouldn't be missed.

I guess he'll try to make a bit of a change but he won't want to risk changing to much as apart from the first 1/2 of last season they had something that really worked for them even when they were losing under Pearson in that first season and looked dead and buried they weren't getting battered it was just marginal loses. Once they got Huth in to tighten the defence up a bit those close matches started going there way.
 
I think he will struggle personally, they had a honeymoon period when he first was appointed but then they tailed off again. Although they performed admirably against Atletico.

Like you say jsp he won't want to change much. Musa and Slimani were huge flops and even the Ndidi signing was inspired I just don't see that much quality left if Mahrez was to leave. But who knows, who foretold them winning the league.

On a side note I don't really like Shakespeare, he looks like he is has a sneaky face, and I have suspicions he was going behind Ranieri's back and causing trouble (obviously this is a pure unfabricated rumour, hey I should work for Sky Sports :p).
 
Well the reports that came out at the time were that he'd been marginalised a bit by Ranieri and he was very popular with the players as he'd come up through the leagues with them and players had made it known to Shakespeare that they were unhappy with the constant changing of the team and formations often less than 1 hour before kick off.

Musa is a strange one as it might be that in the absence of Mahrez he could be a good replacement as he gives you that direct running and spark that Mahrez often provided especially in counter attack situations.

It all depends where the bar is set now what is success for Leicester? For me top 10 is a good season for them but when you've tasted CL football can you really set that as your benchmark? It all depends on how the owners see it do they accept it was a freak or do they think it is in some way sustainable.

One of the problems they've had is the recruitment guy left last summer and went to Everton and it's probably a bit early to tell if they've replaced him properly. It was him along with the scouts who went and found these under valued players.
 

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