I’ve got a lot of time for Craig Levein.
He signed me for Leicester City and I really enjoyed working for him.
The last few years have changed people’s perception of the club but at that time there were others in the league, like Wolves, who had two or three times the budget Craig was able to spend.
Unfortunately, he lost his job around Christmas-time and things started to go downhill for me there not long after as well.
Craig was very diligent.
We were always a thoroughly prepared team.
He was really big on his video analysis, which wasn’t the case everywhere back in those days.
It was the first time I’d seen heart monitors put on all the players at training.
Again, that was ahead of its time.
There was no hiding place for players who weren’t putting a shift in.
LEEDS (A)
DECEMBER 2004: Levein’s Leicester move up to the dizzy heights of eighth in the second division with a routine win at Elland Road.
Lillian Nalis with a standard rocket before a word-class Gary Kelly diving header.
Same again today please.
Up the City 🦊🍺 pic.twitter.com/4dQ04eSgdY
— Football On The Soar (@FootballOTSoar) November 7, 2021
Like a lot of folk, I didn’t think of Craig after Steven MacLean lost his job at St Johnstone.
That was mostly because we didn’t know if he actually wanted to go back into management.
Now that he’s taken on the post, it feels like a great fit.
Craig has brought Andy Kirk with him from Brechin.
What a story that is – Highland League to Premiership in one jump.
I don’t know enough about Andy to give an opinion on what his training methods are like and how he set Brechin up but Craig giving him a lot of responsibility is a sensible move.
At Celtic, Martin O’Neill and John Robertson would observe while Steve Walford took training.
That didn’t work out too badly.
Celtic's Three Wise Men, Martin O'Neill, John Robertson and Steve Walford pic.twitter.com/bKcVfKi9d4
— The Cult of football (@ChrisCuthbert19) June 7, 2020
And here at Arbroath, our gaffer knows that he can’t do everything.
That should be the case for young managers as well as experienced ones.
What’s the point in appointing people to your backroom team if you’re not going to trust them to do their jobs?
I was at training with Arbroath on Monday night so I didn’t see much of the Spurs v Chelsea game.
Mind you, it was nearly Tuesday morning by the time it finished with all the VAR stoppages!
Ange Postecoglou’s decision to persevere with his defensive high line when Tottenham were reduced to 10 and then nine men was the big talking point.
Most managers I know would have told their defenders to drop deeper.
But Ange has his own way of playing, philosophy or whatever you want to call it.
That means pressing from the front and defenders pushing as high as they can.
Nobody in Scottish football will be the least bit surprised by him sticking to his principles.
It’s not an act.
Defending with nine men, Ange Postecoglou style! pic.twitter.com/szfALJ6IAx
— Premier League (@premierleague) November 7, 2023
He’s got this far in the game by doing things his way and he’s not going to stop now that he’s in the English Premier League.
I’m fascinated to see how Spurs get on against Wolves this weekend.
That’s their biggest game of the season for me.
It will be the same style, that’s for sure, but will the players be able to execute it as well now that they’ve lost a couple of key men and everybody is watching to see how they respond?
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