Ruud van Nistelrooy concerns me - Man Utd icon looks set to take Leicester down
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By any measurement, Ruud van Nistelrooy was one of the great strikers of the 21st century. But after six Premier League defeats in a row, are the fans worried that he wasn’t the right fit for a relegation battle at Leicester? I have to ask because I am worried for them.
Leicester is where I collected the only winner’s medal of my playing career at senior level, won the supporters’ player of the season in 2001 and their title miracle nine years ago was one of football’s greatest feelgood stories. But I was at the game with Crystal Palace in midweek and I was concerned by what I saw. After deciding Steve Cooper was not the right man to keep them in the Premier League, Leicester went for Van Nistelrooy, a decorated player who operated at the top level with Manchester United, Real Madrid and PSV Eindhoven virtually all his career.
He is clearly a very capable coach, as he showed in his four-game stint as Manchester United’s interim manager two months ago. But did Leicester go for him on the back of United’s two convincing wins against Leicester in those four games - a 5-2 thumping in the League Cup and 3-0 win in the Premier League? Was he the obvious choice out there?.
This guy has been successful all his life, and I hope he turns it around at the King Power, but the mentality of a relegation battle is a very different kettle of fish to working at the top end of a league. Look, I feared Leicester would go down before a ball was kicked in August, so they are not falling short of expectations in that regard, but having made the change of manager I would like to know what convinced them Van Nistelrooy was the right fit?.
