WHILE IT’S UNLIKELY that most Ireland fans will shed too many tears if Martin O’Neill steps down as manager of the Boys in Green, the reaction to increased speculation of the coach’s return to Leicester has been received with enthusiasm by the majority of the club’s fans.
O’Neill previously had a successful spell with Leicester between 1995 and 2000, before leaving the Foxes to join Celtic. The 63-year-old coach was also previously offered the chance to return to the club in 2010, after Nigel Pearson’s first spell as manager ended, however with the side in the Championship at the time, the Derry native turned down the offer.
Nevertheless, with Leicester now having established themselves as a Premier League club and Ireland looking increasingly unlikely to qualify for Euro 2016, a manager as ambitious as O’Neill may find the prospective offer too tempting to resist.
News that betting has been suspended on the Derry native’s possible departure from his current role has certainly intensified recent speculation, with O’Neill named as one of the favourites to take the job from the moment Nigel Pearson was sacked from his second spell at the club.
And while the bookies aren’t always right, they clearly had inside information on Pearson’s sacking.
“They knew before any media outlet that Pearson was sacked,” the Leicester Mercury’s Chief Football Writer, Rob Tanner, recalls. “It suddenly went to very low odds, so they got the heads-up on that. I think the fact that people are putting a lot of money on now… It suggests that somebody somewhere knows that there’s something in this. So I would not discount [the rumours] at all.”
Tanner also believes that the owners recently demonstrating an ability to back up their grand ambitions for the club in the form of cash could also be a factor in O’Neill’s potential return.
“He didn’t want to come back originally, especially as there were a lot of question marks about the owners and what their motives were. We’ve seen at other clubs how foreign investors have come in and it’s not exactly ran smoothly. But since then, everything’s changed.
“If you look at City now, they are a Premier League side and the owners have proved that they are the real deal. They’ve seriously invested in the club… So he would be strongly backed.”
And perhaps more importantly, O’Neill is highly regarded by most Leicester fans owing to what he achieved in his first spell at the club.
“There’s a few who think it’s a step backwards and an attempt to revisit past glories that’s doomed to failure, but there’ll always be the pessimists. The vast majority are positive and one fan said: ‘God is returning to the King Power Stadium.’ That’s how highly he’s though of by some.”
In contrast with his time at Leicester where O’Neill was widely regarded as a bubbly, happy-go-lucky figure, most observers feel the manager has not shown the same level of enthusiasm since taking over as Ireland boss.
And Tanner believes the veteran coach’s increased reticence in dealing with the media can be attributed to bad experiences in Scottish football.
“I didn’t cover Aston Villa but I was speaking to another journalist who’s worked in the midlands a lot longer than I have.
“He had his difficulties with some of the journalists [at Aston Villa] and he was very different to how he was at Leicester. He had an excellent relationship with journalists there. They used to have press conferences that would go on for 40 minutes, and for 30 minutes, they’d be talking about things other than football. He’s got a great love of music and movies and things like that, so it was pretty relaxed.
“I think it all changed when he went to Celtic. I know the Scottish media can be quite full on, so whether his approach to media changed because of their approach to him in Scotland, I would say that’s probably the case. He was a very different character when he came back to the midlands with Villa than he was before with Leicester.”
Tanner believes that there is a “strong chance” O’Neill will return to Leicester and feels it would be a wise move to appease fans still reeling from news of Nigel Pearson’s surprise sacking, despite the former Middlesbrough player leading the club to Premier League safety last season on the back of promotion in the previous campaign.
“The majority of fans were very unhappy to see Pearson sacked. He’s had two very successful spells.
“They weren’t going to sack him for football reasons, it was off-field problems that caused an issue, and a lot of fans were unahppy at that. So Martin coming back would be a shrewd move by the owners, as he’s still loved by the supporters.”
