Midway Perspective

So we’re midway through the season, and surprisingly things are actually looking quite good.

Is this really us? Because the Leicester I’ve become unfavourably synonymous with in the Championship used to roll over and die at the mere thought of going a goal down.

None of this grinding out results business anyway.

The point against a rejuvinated Ipswich at the Walkers on Sunday was a fair reflection of our season so far. So we might not have played particularly well at any point during the game, but we were not prepared to give away any points.

Two years ago this would not have happened. Ryan McGivern’s own goal within the first minute would have been the catalyst for a spiritless embarassment of a performance and we’d have made Roy Keane a happy man. And that’s just unforgivable.

Sitting fifth in the league with a game in hand is certainly not a position I thought we would have even been within touching distance of at the start of the season. Consolidation in the bottom half of the table would have been a reasonable start given everything that’s happened, but the fighting spirit we seem to have accumulated has put that to rest.

I’ll quite happily take our ‘sneaky’ tag in this division. Few seem to have been impressed with what they’ve seen from us this season, but deep down they know they don’t like the sight of us on their fixture list. Pearson has crafted a well-organised, difficult to beat unit where (almost) everybody knows their place and purpose.

We’re no Newcastle, Forest or West Brom, we’re not pretty and we certainly won’t go down in history, but while the results are still coming in we still have that persistent attitute to be envious of.

I think we’ve proved to everybody, including ourselves, that relegation wasn’t a disaster after all. With Pearson in charge these days we finally have a manager who instills confidence all around. He may not be perfect (who is?), but the job he’s done since taking over has been nothing short of miraculous at times.

More importantly for us, it seems as though we finally have a Leicester City team to be proud of. Even if the play-offs do prove elusive come May, nothing will have changed for me.