Leicester fan here. I've been tracking you ever since he was appointed and delighted that something seems to be happening at last. There were some fears for me that his best days were behind him but I think even without his assistants of Shakespeare & Walsh there's still something about him.
He dug us out of a mess twice. Took over the club in it's lower ever ebb. Now while I think he did manage to assemble the best squad in League One the bookies still fancied Leeds over us and we absolutely walked it. There are plenty of clubs of a similar stature who've gone down there and not had it quite so easy. We got 96 points, only lost 4 times and came back up. We then made the play-offs, Kermorgant-gate - another massive effort from us and the first time in years our fans had felt any serious pride in the club. He was disgracefully let go as Mandaric wanted a more attractive 'name' to make the club more appealing to potential buyers and he appointed Paulo Sousa, who was a disaster and sacked by our new owners after just 9 games. They went and blew a load of money on the Sven charade and with FFP rules being brought in Pearson was brought back after all.
Now Pearson did spend money himself so we weren't paupers but we spent it well - he bought Vardy, Morgan, Mahrez and Drinkwater who went on and achieved the seemingly impossible. He won the Championship in his third year back with 102 points, a tally only bettered by Reading's 106 and had us back in the Premier League after our longest ever absence. I think we all know what followed.
While I'm not necessarily sure he'd have won the league with us I do think his obsession with the correct type of character is what brewed circumstances where the unthinkable became possible and I think he manifested a togetherness that I have seldom seen at the club - something that was falling apart under Ranieri and for me, for some ups and downs, it's never been quite the same since. We were a well oiled machine. An excellent hit rate in the transfer window and you always felt that things would eventually get better even when we were going through bad spells.
Where I think he's failed elsewhere since us is that he does need time and a lot of clubs simply won't afford him it. At Derby for example I think he had plenty of players he wasn't happy with and the run of form was so dreadful under him that it did look like it was too big a mess to fix. Now while that's a quite biased account from somebody who likes him (and doesn't like Derby, shockingly) you only have to see what's happened to them since. Not saying he'd have fixed the problem but I think it's clear they had deeper issues that had been brewing a while.
I think the most telling thing in his favour though is that I've witnessed the absolute unthinkable since he left - a Premier League title, an FA Cup, Champions League quarter finals, trips to Atletico Madrid, Porto, Sevilla, Roma, PSV etc... and here I am still making his case on another clubs forum, as I firmly believe none of this would've happened without his time here. The owners take a lot of credit, they've done some great things, but I think he was largely responsible for the foundations laid for success. How many managers take over a side that had come off the back of 7 wins in 9 and added N'Golo Kante to their squad?
I was worrying that we were basically to him what Burnley are to Dyche but maybe this is all clicking after all. A long way to go and I think you'll pay the price for how many goals you let in (something that surprises me under him I must say) but I'd also bet he eventually fixes that issue. He was upwardly mobile with us. I'm tracking eagerly.
