Schmeichel, Marshall and Schlupp win awards

Leicester City's supporters' club have rewarded their players of the season at a gala awards evening at the King Power Stadium this evening.

Kasper Schmeichel, Ben Marshall and Jeffrey Schlupp were the big winners of the night, with the City keeper picking up the ultimate Player of the Year accolade. Ghanaian breakthrough international Schlupp has been voted as Young Player of the Year, whilst January signing Ben Marshall wins the Goal of the Year award for his strike against Chelsea.

Leicester City Confirm 2012/13 Season Ticket Prices

Leicester City have, as expected, confirmed their season ticket prices for the next 2012/13 Football League season.

As reported here over the weekend, prices have risen overall but those increases are offset by rationalisation and continuation of prices for Under-8s, Students, Under-22s and families.

Season tickets in the Family Stand will stay at current prices, including the continued offer of free tickets for Under-8s, although Students will no longer fit into an explicit price bracket. Instead, that category has been opened-up to allow all Under-22s to benefit, disadvantaging what City's Chief Executive Susan Whelan described as a "small minority" of mature students.

"While some supporters will experience an increase," she said, "We have made every effort to protect particular areas from rising costs, including the price freeze in the Family Stand and the availability of the Family Discount in only a minor increase in the Kop."

Amongst the new benefits offered to season ticket holders are a removal of all administration and payment, with the option to pay by monthly direct debit at no extra cost in order to avoid a large initial outlay. A number of packages to bundle the likes of replica shirts or match programme subscriptions to season tickets are also available.

2012/13 Season Ticket Prices

Leicester City to Announce Season Ticket Prices

Leicester City will announce new season ticket prices on Monday, Of Fosse and Foxes understands.

It is believed that prices - frozen for a number of years - will increase in premium seats but those rises are expected to be offset by overall decreases in the price of family and 'Just the Ticket' seating areas.

The Foxes' owners are thought to have delayed announcing the prices as they awaited confirmation of the club's situation next season: promotion to the Premier League could have seen dramatic price rises over the moderate alterations that are anticipated.

Season ticket prices at the King Power Stadium have been frozen over the past two seasons as the club have become a stagnant feature of English football's second tier. It is hoped that, by attracting younger fans at low prices, the club can build a consistent following to spur the team to success.

Conclusions from a Dire Game Against Burnley

Leicester City	0-0	Burnley
	(HT 0-0)

King Power Stadium, attendance: 19,806
BBC Match Report

Conclusions from the New Den

Millwall	2-1	Leicester City
	(HT 1-0)
Kane 23 Keogh pen 55		Drinkwater 82

The New Den, attendance: 11,525
BBC Match Report

Brief and Belated Conclusions from Portman Road

Ipswich Town	1-2	Leicester City
	(HT 1-1)
Scotland 43		Marshall 45 Nugent 58

Portman Road, attendance: 18,282
BBC Match Report

Conclusions from Doncaster Rovers

Leicester City	4-0	Doncaster Rovers
	(HT 1-0)
Drinkwater 33 Peltier 47 Marshall 78 Gallagher 88

King Power Stadium, attendance: 22,054
BBC Match Report

The Thais, Liquidation, and the State of Football Today

This article is adapted from a forum post by Mustapha_Teabreak on the popular Bentley's Roof message board.

However little the Vichai and Aiyawatt Raksriaksorn know about football, they know business. Their King Power duty free business is one of the largest companies in Thailand and one of the biggest duty-free retailers in the world. The Thais are the front for a substantial investment fund, Asia Football Investments, and as a consortium they own Leicester City Football Club outright. However, the investments from the Thais and from AFA are mostly in the form of loans to the club. So where does this leave the Foxes?

Going into the deal, AFA and the Thais were surely given a magic number that would stand as a worst case scenario. If their investment were to see them making a loss, that magic number would give them an idea of how much are they are prepared to lose and when to get out of the deal - exactly like any good casino gambler who knows exactly when to cut their losses and walk away from the table.

In any case, should Leicester City fail to make the Premier League and offer the investors a good return, to get out the owners would have two options: sell the club as a going concern, or liquidate the business and enter administration.

Unlike Scotland, England has a preferred creditor rule, so it would be reasonable to presume that AFA (that has paid the loans to the club) will be in some way football related. Taking a ball-park figure of £30 million as the value of the football club, with another £30 million of outstanding debt owed to them (in the form of loans), the Thais would have three options:

1. A sugar daddy comes in to buy the club, paying the Thais £60 million, in full, right away. This is unlikely to occur whilst the club languishes in mid-table in the second tier.
2. Sell the club for £30 million to an interested party but keep the loans open. Then, if the club get promoted, the remaining loans can be called-in.
3. Call in the loan to force liquidation. As probably the first preferred creditor, the Thais would get the first choice to asset strip the club, as happened at Portsmouth.

Any venture capitalist (and that is what most of the investors are, hoping to cash in on promotion to the Premier League) would have this magic number of money they can afford to have tied up for 3-5 years. What they simply cannot afford to do is to give an endless supply of cash to a club with no hope of returning it.

This leaves a difficult choice for the Thai owners, yes, but it is far from an impossible decision to make. And, if they are half the businessmen they seem to be, they will have a planned escape route that could leave Leicester City teetering on the brink of extinction.

Meanwhile, across the Trent it is thought that Derby County are in a very sound position indeed. Clubs historically have had local owners with ties to the community and local businesses and the Rams seem to following that noble ethos. Shunning the idea to get promoted at all costs might mean that they are consigned to mid-table mediocrity, but it sees them secure in their future and not at the whim of expensive loans.

Regardless of the impending UEFA funding rules, if more teams did what Derby have done and refused to take top-flight ageing cast-offs on season long loans (essentially making the Championship nothing more than a reserve league), football might start a slow but steady recovery in the eyes of ordinary fans.

One of the things that has seemingly hurt the second tier in the past decade is the use of Premier League fringe players as loanees. This means that short-sighted owners can get a better team temporarily, at the expense of long term player development. As an ideology this fails ultimately when owners have to go back to the marketplace to buy quality long-term options, as the loan system has been used in lieu of developing young players already at the club. Blackpool should be credited not just for the way they went about their football in the top flight, but also for not going all out and spending themselves into oblivion when they got there.

The path of reaching the Premier League at all costs will not work and will cause more clubs to come a cropper in the future. At some point a 'true' top flight team will run into dire financial difficulty and the FA will be forced to find a solution. Much rather sooner, before that happens, than when one of England's biggest clubs is lost forever.

So where does this leave Leicester? Let's say Nigel Pearson gets shunted, all the big earners are sent on their bikes and City get a young and hungry manager with team players coming through the academy and solid lower league players being given their chance. Perhaps a new chairman would get back to giving a manager 3-5 years to build a side. So what if the choice is made to have a club for the future instead of short-term success?

I'd take League One, stability, and a locally owned club that's good for the community over the shambles we have now.

Conclusions from London Road

Peterborough United	1-0	Leicester City
	(HT 0-0)
Taylor 60

London Road, attendance: 10,714
BBC Match Report

Conclusions from Forest

Leicester City	0-0	Nottingham Forest
	(HT 0-0)

King Power Stadium, attendance: 23,412
BBC Match Report

Conclusions from Hull City

Leicester City	2-1	Hull City
	(HT 2-1)
Dyer 18 Marshall 19		Fryatt 8

King Power Stadium, attendance: 23,759
BBC Match Report

Conclusions from Bloomfield Road

Blackpool	3-3	Leicester City
	(HT 1-1)
Phillips 33, 90 Bednar 69		Beckford 38, 73 Nugent 54

Bloomfield Road, attendance: 12,485
BBC Match Report

Foxes to show Poppies support in friendly

Leicester City have confirmed that they will visit Kettering Town to play a friendly fixture in support of the ailing club.

The Poppies have been hit with waves of financial woe, culminating in the loss of their Rockingham Road ground and move to Nene Park, former home to their arch rivals Rushden & Diamonds who themselves folded following money troubles.

The Poppies will host the Foxes next Wednesday, 28th March (kick-off 19:45) with entry by donation to the Northamptonshire club's coffers.

The two clubs have a history of facing each other in pre-season games, with City victorious on their last meeting at the final game to be hosted at Rockingham Road. Leicester are unlikely to field a full-strength team as the game follows their fixture against Nottingham Forest, although a mixture of fringe players and young talent are in the frame.

Meanwhile, former skipper Matt Oakley has left the King Power Stadium by mutual consent. Oakley has failed to make an impact this season and has spent a large part of 2012 on loan.

FA Cup Quarter Final Conclusions from Stamford Bridge

Chelsea	5-2	Leicester City
	(HT 2-0)
Cahill 12 Kalou 17 Torres 67, 85 Meireles 90		Beckford 77 Marshall 88

Stamford Bridge, attendance: 38,276
BBC Match Report

Pensioners vs. Foxes: FA Cup Quarter Final Preview

Leicester City face the hugest test of their season when they travel to London to play Chelsea in the quarter finals of the FA Cup tomorrow afternoon (kick off 14:05, live on ESPN).

The Pensioners are England's final remaining representative in European competitions this season and will play Benfica in the last eight of the Champions League in ten days' time. They must first overcome the Foxes, however, with manager Nigel Pearson keen to emphasise his players' ability to beat the Premier League club.

"Clearly we've got to catch them on a not-so-good day and we'll have to be at our best, but it's an opportunity for the players to show what we can do," said the City manager, "We're all looking forward to the game, but we're conscious that there is a job to do as well. It's not all about us being underdogs, we want to go there and give a good account of ourselves and cause them problems."

To beat Chelsea remains a massive challenge for the last club outside of the top flight to remain in the cup, with Leicester having only beaten the home side in a quarter of their meetings. The Blues, meanwhile, have an impeccable FA Cup record. Three-times winners in the last six finals, Chelsea have lost just two FA Cup matches in the last 31 and have only been knocked-out by a lower league side once in the last four seasons, losing to Barnsley in 2008.

Leicester have never beaten Chelsea in the FA Cup and the sides have not met in the competition for twelve years. This, then, is a hotly anticipated fixture and, with the likes of John Terry and David Luiz doubtful through injury, the Foxes could spring a surprise with Paul Konchesky returning from suspension and only Danny Drinkwater unavailable: he is cup-tied.

Conclusions (or not) from Birmingham City

Leicester City	3-1	Birmingham City
	(HT 1-1)
Beckford 34, 90 Schlupp 80		Elliott pen 20

King Power Stadium, attendance: 21,092
BBC Match Report

Conclusions from the Madejski (or is it Majedski?) Stadium

Reading	3-1	Leicester City
	(HT 1-0)
Leigertwood 15 Roberts 75 Church 89		Danns 90

Madejski Stadium, attendance: 21,858
BBC Match Report

Predicting the Championship run-in

Everybody knows that football is unpredictable and, as Leicester City's form this season has shown, inconsistency is equally difficult to understand.

Memorable wins over the likes of Southampton, Derby County and Coventry City have contrasted sharply with poor losses against the likes of Bristol City (twice), Watford and Reading. What is clear from the teams listed here is that there is no rhyme or reason to who the Foxes can beat - or indeed lose to. Bristol are arguably one of the poorest teams in the league and they certainly haven't scored many goals except against Leicester, who they have now beaten twice. Meanwhile, the Foxes have done the double over a high-flying Southampton side and thrashed lowly Coventry at home and away. Clearly battling against teams fighting relegation is not an issue, but nor is meeting the class of good teams, as the FA Cup victory over Norwich City or those games against Southampton show.

What is clear after last night's defeat at Bristol is that the Foxes can now be virtually written-off as play-off contenders for this season. It is thought that, of the twelve games remaining, City must win nine to stand even a vain hope of reaching the top six. Even then, Nigel Pearson's side would have to rely on some poor form from those above them.

Predictions based upon Pearson's team's form since he returned to manage the club in October (below) suggest that Leicester will win just five of their remaining games. The Foxes' manager has failed to reach the same dizzying 52% win ratio since he moved back to the King Power Stadium from Hull City, although his 45% win rate is not one to be sniffed at.

The statistics show that inconsistency is Leicester's problem, with the remaining 55% of games split evenly between draws and losses. Extrapolating this form into the remaining games - and not taking into account any of that footballing unpredictability mentioned earlier - leaves the Foxes gathering just eighteen points from the twelve matches that are left in this campaign. This would give City a grand total of 66 points for the season, one point less than last term and leaving them in the same, dire 10th place.

So, the combination of Sven Goran Eriksson and Nigel Pearson is no better statistically than that of Eriksson and Paulo Sousa. What should concern Leicester City supporters is not that this year should be written-off, but that the short-sightedness of the club's owners - should Pearson not make an emphatic start next season - could result in a continued yearly cycle of 'what-ifs', 'buts' and 'maybes'.

Barring a miracle - football is entirely unpredictable and this statistical analysis is so often proven wrong - in which Pearson manages to guide his team to the top six this year, this summer is likely to be another one of dashed hopes, optimism and, at the end of it all, abject disappointment.

Here's to being a Leicester City fan.

Conclusions from Ashton Gate

Bristol City	3-2	Leicester City
	(HT 1-1)
Cisse 45 Pitman 54 Stead 79		Dyer 41 Danns  77

Ashton Gate, attendance: 12,033
BBC Match Report

Hammers interest in ousted Matt Mills

Mill-ing it over: Former skipper looks set
for Foxes' exit

West Ham United are reportedly keen on out-of-favour Leicester City defender Matt Mills, according to Sky Sports.

Mills has been dropped by Nigel Pearson having lost the captain's armband last month and with the Foxes' manager coy about the former Reading man's future at the King Power Stadium in an interview last week, a move does seem to be on the cards.

Leeds United sought the signature of 25-year-old Leicester-born Mills last week, as Pearson confirmed, but with no news on any movement out of the East Midlands since then, the Hammers have picked-up the chase. Sam Allardyce will be keen to bolster his defence for West Ham's promotion push.

Leicester will want to offload high earner Mills if he is indeed to have no further role at the club. He is amongst those paid the highest wages at the King Power Stadium having been bought in for a club record fee last summer.