Steve Walsh Blog 18/08/2012

It has been another busy week for me, with the LCFC matches and seeing a few old faces!

It was great to see Steve Guppy come down from Sunderland at the weekend and Martin O’Neil returning to Leicester. I thought it was an excellent performance from Leicester as we managed to control the game start to finish. Danny Drinkwater and Wes Morgan stood out for me again as the better players of the match and our new French winger, Anthony Knockaert   certainly seemed to impress the fans in the second half with his pace and technical ability. He had an immediate impact; fast and skilful. He certainly looks like one to watch next season. It was good to talk with Stuart Pearce regarding the Olympic performance and we both agreed we could have gone on to win gold if Daniel Sturridge hadn’t missed the penalty!

I was invited to the Torquay away match by Martin Smith; he’s a Leicester fan and has lived in Torquay for twenty years. He sponsored the game as he’s such a massive fan! At the game I met the ex Man United manager, Frank O’Farrell and we went onto the pitch together; it’s the first time I’ve ever walked onto a pitch with someone who got a louder applause than me! I was sat right behind the goal and even managed to get a great film of Marshall’s goal on my iPhone! I will get this uploaded to the blog soon.

It was great to go down and see another pre-season match, I’ve seen three out of five pre-seasons and it was good to see that Nigel Pearson took the Cup game seriously! The team looked very comfortable and scored some good goals and took us to the next round of the cup without picking up any injuries. It was great to see a goal from Jamie Vardy. I’m a big fan of his and think he’s got loads of potential, certainly one to watch in the future! Dave Nugent was on the bench again, which I don’t think he was happy about, but I’m sure Pearson’s just keeping him on the bench ready for the season to make sure he doesn’t pick up any injuries. The crowd at the match were brilliant; I think there were 1600 Leicester fans at the match. It must have been one of Torquay’s better capacity games. A great turn out, it shows you the following we have as fans must have had to take time off work for that!

It was a bad week for Derby, losing their final pre-season friendly 3-1 against league 2 Chesterfield and then in the Cup against Scunthorpe on penalties. I’m sure this will have knocked their confidence for the season.

It’s hard to predict what team Nigel Pearson will start the season with as he has played a good mix of players in the pre-season and we are looking strong! I’m still very interested to see who he selects to play alongside Wes Morgan today against Peterborough. I would still like to see a little bit more communication between the players but I’m sure that will come with time. There is certainly no lack of support; the fans have been fantastic at all the pre-seasons and I know from my experience what a boost the Leicester fans can give.

Now the hard bit – I’ve come up with my season prediction! I reckon that Blackburn will win the league and be promoted alongside Leicester City.  I’m predicting that Blackpool will come third and be in the play-offs with Wolves, Birmingham and Middlesbrough. At the end of the season I think we will see Peterborough, Sheffield Wednesday and Barnsley get relegated!

I would like to wish Nigel Pearson, all the lads and the whole of the football club all the best for season. I’m really looking forward to it!

There are now only a few tables left for the Mike Tyson event, so don’t wait too long to book if you want to see one of the all-time boxing greats come to town, and we are now taking bookings for Christmas events. For more information, click the link below.

http://www.kkongevents.co.uk

Walshy!