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Are Leicester City simply buying the title?

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So here we are less than two weeks from the start of the new season and as a Leicester City fan its the most  I’ve been looking forward to the start of a new season since…

…well since Milan Mandaric bough the club.

It’s amazing how having a rich owner splashing the cash and brining in big names can improve your confidence going into a new season. But are we simple buying the title?

Whilst Sky have undoubtedly  been responsible the money being splashed around by clubs, after all in most cases in it Sky’s TV money that clubs are splashing around, it was in my humble opinion started at a smallish town in central Lancashire in the early 1990’s who spent £25m in little under 3 years.  Yes I agree this sounds peanuts compared to what is spent by the top clubs today, but in those days Jack Warner was the original Sugar Daddy.

Buying the best players by simply outbidding & out paying what at the time most other clubs could no way afford, he took Blackburn out of the 2nd tier via the play off’s (every Leicester fan will remember THAT penalty) and took unfashionable Blackburn Rovers to the summit of winning the Premiership Title, albeit by the skin of their teeth.
Would they have done that these days without Jack Warner’s financial backing? Of course not.

But it set a trend. We all now know about the Manchester United’s, Chelsea’s & Manchester City’s of the world. They have all proved that money can buy you everything (well almost in Chelsea’s case as they still chase Roman’s dream of the Champions League title)

Other clubs have succumbed too. QPR are one of the richest clubs around but have taken a slightly different route. They spent slowly & wisely. Taking their time to walk before running,  Getting a manager in Warnock, who whilst not a world-wide NAME knew what getting teams promoted from The Championship required. They haven’t splashed   out wildly since reaching the top flight. They are certainly taking the cautious approach & I for one wish them well.

This approach worked well for City too during the Martin O’Neil days. The cautious build it up slowly approach. But would that work these days? It doesn’t appear to, With the exception of last years FA Cup no so called ‘smaller club’ has won anything for years as even the League Cup is seen as worth winning by the TOP 6 these days. And how many clubs have the patience that City showed back then? I doubt Ferguson would get as long to succeed as he did when he first joined the Red Devils.

Leicester, you may remember, tried the Sugar daddy route before. Milan Mandaric was our very own sugar daddy and when he took over he gave then Manager Martin Allen  an open cheque book from which to buy an new team, and he did just that with 11+ players arriving during the close season. Unfortunantly for Leicester City, Allen’s choice of players was up there with Peter Taylor’s and we all know where this particular exercise led us.

Now we have new sugar daddies in The Raksriaksorn’s & their King Power group who this close season have spent nearly £10m on new players. Thats not taking into account what they spent last year on loan wages. Bringing in Sven won’t have been cheap, but at least this could be money well spent as whilst he has spent the money, unlike Allen before him, he appears to be spending it wisely.

I am hoping that the Channel 4 Dispatches programme was all smoke and no fire and that we don’t go the way of Portsmouth. But then The Raksriaksorn’s have pumped too much money into The Club already for there to be no commitment, and although you would expect it, it was nice to see them come out & distance themselves from Mr Sim and commit themselves to the club.

So here we are, back to where I started. We will be THE team that next season all fans of the other 23 Championship teams, all neutrals & if Steve Claridge is anything to go buy, all pundits will want to fail.

We are now THE team attempting to buy a title. We are now like the fans of Blackburn Rovers all those years ago, or the fans of the two Manchester sides & Chelsea.

And you know what?
…I probably feel the same as they did/do. I don’t give a damn as long as we win.

That’s Football for you.

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