No going back

Craig Levein craves another job, but not in Edinburgh. Alan Campbell reports

IT is 116 days since Craig Levein was sacked by Leicester City, and not one has gone by without the former Hearts and Scotland defender asking himself where it went wrong at the Walker Stadium. The answer, as he walks his two dogs or plays another round of golf, is still blowing in the wind.

At least the anger he felt on January 25, when he was dismissed after just 14 months in the Midlands, has given way to a more considered analysis of the fate which eventually befalls all but the most fortunate of his breed. The charlatans walk away, their bank balances topped up, but when you are as committed to a job as Levein, the sense of injustice lingers.

More of that later, but, as one season gives way to another, the priority for Levein is to find new employment.

Intriguingly, his old position at Hearts is currently vacant while a similar gap may arise at Easter Road if Tony Mowbray is tempted to pastures south. Talk of the former is met with a firm assertion that caretaker head coach Valdas Ivanauskas deserves the position permanently. The prospect of managing Hibs is greeted with a Hearty laugh.

“I couldn’t do it,” he replies, when he has recovered his composure. “I’ve been associated with Hearts since I was 19. I joined the club in 1983, and was there for 14 years as a player and four as manager.

“I wouldn’t get much patience from the Hibs supporters. One defeat in a row would be enough for them. Plus, none of my friends would forgive me.”

The world, though, is changing, and Jim Duffy recently crossed the Edinburgh divide briefly, but Levein knows there is too much maroon running through him for his candidacy to be a starter if Mowbray moved to one of his English suitors.

“I’ve enormous respect for Tony and I love to see Hibs doing well because I’d rather the Edinburgh clubs prospered than the Glasgow ones, but I’ve been at Hearts so long it would be impossible,” he says.

So what about Tynecastle? Before Levein left for Leicester, Vladimir Romanov, who was on the brink of purchasing former chief executive Chris Robinson’s shares, made a last-minute attempt to persuade him to remain at Hearts. A second approach is unlikely.

“There is only one candidate for the Hearts job, and that’s Ivanauskas,” Levein says. “He’s done well, the players like him, and he knows how Mr Romanov operates.”

In which respect, and while it’s not for him, Levein can understand why Ivanauskas may be prepared to take Romanov’s counsel on team selection.

“It drives me completely scatty when I hear people say that whoever the manager is at Hearts, he’s just a puppet,” says Levein. “It’s disrespectful. Provided the boundaries are made clear to you when you take the job, and you take it on these terms – one of which might be you don’t have a full say in who is in the team – you can’t complain.

“It’s common in other countries but we just can’t get our heads round it. Mr Romanov has been fantastic for the club and also for Scottish football. Just look at where Hearts were when he came in, and look at where they are now.”

Although, as an unemployment statistic, he cannot afford to be too choosy, Levein would prefer to uproot from his home on the outskirts of Dunfermline and return to England to complete unfinished business. If anything, he points out, his experience at Leicester has only reinforced his desire to be a successful Premiership manager.

First, though, he needs the opportunity to return to the Championship and overturn any perception that he was a Scot who couldn’t cut it in England. Being unexpectedly reacquainted with his P45 in January hasn’t dented his self-belief.

“What I want to do is get back and prove to everybody I can do a job,” he says. “The reason I went down there was to get into the Premiership and that hasn’t changed. I look at half the managers in England and I think I’m better than them. You live and learn from your experience, and I want the opportunity to put that into practice.”

At Cowdenbeath, where he cut his teeth, then Hearts and later Leicester, Levein found himself implementing serious cost cuts while simultaneously being expected to improve the clubs’ standing. He was successful in Fife and Edinburgh, but wasn’t allowed to finish the job he’d started at Leicester.

Seen from his perspective, an agreed medium-term strategy to rid the club of its ageing bloated wage earners was being successfully implemented. Under his stewardship, £5 million was slashed from the Championship club’s £12.5m annual wage bill, while the average age of the first team squad was reduced by almost 10 years.

Levein will go to his grave believing that Leicester, a club which had fallen by the wayside, were being turned around when his tenure was cut short. But he also knows he made mistakes, not least in failing to bring an experienced Premiership striker to the club when David Connolly was sold to Wigan last August.

The end, when it came, was undignified. After an uplifting 4-2 defeat of Sheffield United in late November, league results deteriorated. The solace of an FA Cup win over Spurs at the start of the year was short-lived and three successive one-goal defeats saw Leicester plunge into the relegation zone. It proved too much for the board.

“They’d obviously decided at some point that if we ever dropped into the bottom three that would be it,” points out Levein. “As directors they’re probably patting themselves on the backs now that they’ve stayed up, but at what cost to the long-term planning?”

Every sacked manager has a hard luck story to tell, but Leicester’s results after Levein and his assistant Peter Houston departed seem to bear out his assertion that a chronic inability to convert chances into goals cost him dearly. The next three league games were won, and caretaker manager Rob Kelly was given the post full time.

Levein has no issue with the former Blackburn Rovers academy coach, but equally it can’t be easy to see the other man take the kudos for Leicester’s improved results. There has been ample time to look back, but he knows that only the future can prove, or disprove, his assertion that he was taking Leicester in the right direction.

He wouldn’t rule out a job in Division 1 or 2 in England but, after years of fire-fighting at Cowdenbeath, Hearts and Leicester, it is the circumstances, rather than the status, of his next club which will matter to him.

“Two things are more important than anything else,” he points out. “If you’ve got money it gives you a far better chance. If not, and fewer and fewer clubs have money, you’ve still got a chance if the club has a really good youth policy. If you’re heavily in debt and have got no youth policy – forget it.

“Despite what happened, I loved it down there. It was fantastic going to different places and coming up against new players and managers. You just gradually get to know the scene, whereas up here if an 18-year-old made his debut for Arbroath I would know about it.

“I enjoyed going to the lower divisions in midweek and building up a knowledge for the players there. And at weekends it’s massive with the crowds and some of the clubs like Leeds, Coventry, Derby and others who not so long ago were established Premiership teams.

“It’s difficult to get your foot in the door there. In this game you can take two steps forward and one back, but what you can’t do is take two forward and two back.

“I made two steps forward in Scotland and one back at Leicester. I felt I stuck to my side of the bargain there, but when I get the chance again I’ll do things differently and make sure we look after the short-term results by making us very difficult to beat.

“Football is a hard game. There is no quarter given and when things aren’t going well it feels as if the whole world is caving in around you. That’s the first time in my life I’ve felt under intense pressure. But it doesn’t scare me, and the further away I get from it the easier it is to rationalise.

“Ten years ago the average time-span of a manager was over two-and-a-half years. Now it’s 18 months. Perhaps I was a little naive in focusing so much on the long-term picture – all my signings were based on that.”

Those bracing steps on the golf course and with his dogs have convinced Levein of one thing. The next one he takes will be forward.

Taken from the Sunday Herald