Friday, 8 May 2009

Championship new-boys: Leicester City

It has been a little while since my last post on To be a Pilgrim and I thought I’d start my first post of the off-season with a little look at the teams who will be new to the Championship. First up then is Leicester City who after just one season in League One have made their way back into the Championship and won the league in some style.

I’m not expecting wholesale changes for the Foxes to be honest. They paid their squad Championship wages in League One in an effort to get them straight back up and it worked. They’ve got some decent players there already, Matt Fryatt in particular has been amazing this season and owner Milan Mandaric is keen to keep hold of the striker. I’m not convinced Fryatt will have the same impact in the Championship (well I’m sure he won’t) but he is still a quality goal-scorer and he should keep that up in a higher division.

Mandaric claims he wants to take them into the Premier League so they probably will delve into the transfer market a bit, though as I said I expect the spine of the team to remain essentially the same. I rate Nigel Pearson as a manager and whenever I’ve watched Leicester this season they’ve played some nice stuff, though his record in the Championship with Southampton wasn’t great even though he didn’t last very long there.

Personally I’m expecting Leicester to start the season well, as many promoted sides do, but I can’t see them challenging for promotion next season. I doubt they’ll be relegation candidates either though and a mid-table finish seems like a good Championship bet for their first season back in the league. I’ll be looking at Darren Ferguson’s Peterborough next time, who unlike Leicester will probably have to build their squad to cope with the Championship.

I’m a big fan of the new Argyle home kit as well, looks pretty good but I’m not so sure about the keeper’s jersey – though to be honest who buys the keeper’s strip anyway?

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