Peter Taylor turns penitent

Peter Taylor has belatedly tried to make peace with Leicester City fans almost on the eve of his potentially hostile reception at The Walkers on Saturday.

As he prepared to bring his Hull City side across for the Championship match which marks his first League return to the club he managed so disastrously for 13 months, Taylor said: ‘I was absolutely gutted that it didn’t work out at Leicester. To lose your job at such a lovely club was very hard to take.’

Taylor was speaking to the Hull Daily Mail and pondering on a managerial career at Leicester which made his name arguably the most villified in the club’s history.

Leicester City fans website Foxestalk had this week quickly filled a thread with 101 reasons why they ‘hate Peter Taylor’ and despite some flippant contributions the major points were emphatic enough…

Basically after taking over from the legendary Martin O’Neill in 2000, Taylor tackled the task of rebuilding like a football version of the legendary pools winner ‘Spend, Spend Viv Nicholson’.

Five million pounds went on Ade Akinbiyi, the striker who couldn’t score, £8m on signing and paying the wages of hardly prolific striker James Scowcroft.

There was a £1.5million fee for journeyman forward Trevor Benjamin, another signing, Lee Marshall was ‘a future England player’ but stopped somewhat short and others who never looked up to Premiership football.

Taylor did, briefly, take Leicester to the top of the Premiership but the pendulum swung back alarmingly and was on its way to rock bottom when City lost to Wycombe Wanderers in an FA Cup quarter-final.

This made City a laughing stock and confidence ebbed away from the players to the extent that they were relegated despite all the money that had been spent.

It was a disaster which eventually resulted in City going into Administration. They become one of the most hated clubs in the land as a result and almost went out of existence.

Leicester won just 19 of their 54 high cost games under Taylor and he told the Hull paper: I know the reception I’m going to get.’

‘I understand their point of view. If I’d have been a Leicester City supporter at that time, I would have been disappointed, but I can’t change my time at Leicester.

‘Very few managers go through their career being successful everywhere they go and without making mistakes – I made mistakes there.’

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