Leicester City are back in the Championship after a year away with a bright young manager and League One's top marksmen at their disposal.

Last Season: 1st in League One Leicester returned to the Championship at the first time of asking with consummate ease. After a disastrous 2007/08 where Leicester worked their way through three managers and were relegated they could have been forgiven for taking some time to rebuild in League One before winning promotion, as ourselves and Nottingham Forest did. However the appointment of promising young manager Nigel Pearson after his harsh sacking by Southampton and the good fortune of actually getting Matty Fryatt fit for a whole season for the first time since he joined the club from Walsall proved to be catalysts for a terrific season. They lost just one of their first 13 games in the league, won it by seven points and lost just one match at home all campaign.

Head to Head: QPR took four points from Leicester in 2007/08, a season that ended with the Foxes being relegated. At the Walkers Stadium in September Mikele Leigertwood scored a spectacular first goal for the club after joining from Sheffield United in a 1-1 draw. At Loftus Road at Christmas Ian Holloway’s Leicester side was beaten easily by Luigi De Canio’s QPR side. Damion Stewart, Adam Bolder and Dexter Blackstock got the goals in a comfortable 3-1 win.
Leicester 1 QPR 1
QPR 3 Leicester 1

Odds: The bookies have Leicester down as tenth with their shortest title odds 18/1 with 888Sport, totesport and BlueSq and their longest 25/1 available from six sites including Paddy Power and Sky Bet.

Manager: Nigel Pearson Pearson played at centre half for Shrewsbury, Sheff Wed and Middlesbrough and enjoyed a brief spell as manager at Carlisle in the late 1990s – his final match at Brunton Park was the famous Jimmy Glass match against Plymouth when his goalkeeper scored with the last kick of the game to secure their football league status at Scarborough’s expense. Despite that Pearson seemed destined to be a sort of Chris Hughton figure – an excellent coach and assistant manager, but not a manager. He worked with Gary Megson at Stoke, Bryan Robson at West Brom, and Glenn Roeder at Newcastle. Pearson always strikes me as quite a dour guy, monotone, boring even, certainly not managerial material. However in his last two jobs he has done superbly well and is now one of the hottest properties around. He must have something about him. At Southampton he took over in February and led them to safety against the odds with a point at West Brom and a 3-2 win against play off chasing Sheff Utd after going 1-0 down in the final game. Nevertheless Rupert Lowe, in his wisdom, got rid of him in favour of Jan Poortvliet and his half baked academy merger idea. Pearson picked himself up, took the job at Leicester City and led them to the League One title at the first attempt. At Portsmtouh Milan Mandaric worked his way through several managers before dropping on with Harry Redknapp, after a tumultuous first season with Martin Allen, Gary Megson and Ian Holloway at the Walkers Stadium Mandaric may just have found his magic man again. As ever though with the unpredictable owner, one bad run of results could be curtains for the manager.
Survival Chances: 6/10

Players: All eyes were on Matty Fryatt last season as he enjoyed a quite remarkable 32 goal season in League One. Fryatt always had the potential, but after signing for Leicester from Walsall in 2006 he has never been able to harness it consistently. After scoring six goals in his first half season at the Walkers he suffered badly with injuries in his first full campaign, and then scored just twice in 30 games during the relegation season of 2007/08. Personally I feel with the self belief provided by last season, and fitness if he can maintain it, Fryatt may yet make a very good Championship marksmen but it is a big season for him this year. Pearson’s summer signings have been focussing on making Leicester hard to beat, Wayne Brown is an excellent capture at centre half – far too slow to play in the Premiership with Hull but a key figure in their promotion and Colchester United’s remarkable first Championship season before that. Richie Wellens, a tough no nonsense central midfielder, is the big money signing of the summer from Doncaster which gives the Foxes an uncompromising spine of the team with big target man Steve Howard at the top end of it. Promising young full back Joe mattock is likely to attract further interest from elsewhere if he performs well at this level. Leicester’s success though will depend on whether Fryatt can finally translate potential and League One goals into Championship success.
Likely Star Player – Matty Fryatt.

Transfers
In:
Richie Wellens from Doncaster Rovers - £1.2m
Astrit Ajdarevic from Liverpool – Undisclosed
Wayne Brown from Hull City – Undisclosed
Danny N`Guessan from Lincoln City – Undisclosed
Jack Hobbs from Liverpool – Free
Robbie Neilson from Hearts – Free
Chris Weale from Bristol City – Free
Out:
Joe Cobb to Wycombe Wanderers – Undisclosed
Barry Hayles to Cheltenham Town – Free
Paul Henderson to North Queensland – Free
Patrick Kisnorbo to Leeds United - Free
Marc Edworthy – Released
Bruno N'Gotty – Released

Prediction: I don’t expect Leicester to tear up any trees in this league, and their signings this summer seemed to be focus on making them tough and hard to beat rather than on ripping into the division and going for two straight promotions. That said they are a long, long way from being the worst team in this league and should be able to put a good ten or more sides below them in the table. I expect a finish somewhere in the lower top half of the side.
Verdict: Somewhere around tenth to twelfth.

Photo: Action Images

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