22 Assessment

On 25 May, Simeone arrived in Leicester. There was a press conference arranged to announce the signing of the new manager. It went fine without any incident. Mary Thatcher from Leicester Mercury was invited to do a special cover story of the appointment of the phenomenal Argentinian as Leicester's manager.

The five year contract was signed with 1 million pounds as basic salary and a bonus of 500,000 were Leicester to gain promotion. On Natalia Simeone's, Diego Simeone's sister and agent, insistence, a 10 million release clause was also inserted in his contract. His salary will be increasing by 25% every year. The terms were slightly changed but John was happy with the contract signing.

After that Simeone started his work as the Leicester manager. Since the players were on a vacation, Simeone could only watch film to assess them. Meanwhile John and Michael were looking all over the Europe to find players suitable for them. John was looking for the future stars that could be snapped up for cheap while Michael was scouring English teams to find veteran talent with experience in Premier League who would be willing to come to Leicester.

After three days, there were four people sitting in the meeting room. John, Michael, Diego Simeone and the newly appointed translator, Oliver Smith. Simeone will be learning English from his translator too. Oliver was a young man fresh out of the university.

"So, Mr. Simeone, what is your verdict? What will we need to do in order to compete for promotion." John started the meeting.

"Please Mr. Baker, just call me Diego. We will be working together quite often in the future, so let's just be on the first name basis." said Simeone in Spanish.

"Okay, then just call me John. Now coming on the transfers, what do you think about our current squad and where do we need to improve?" asked John.

"Well, where do I start? I watched the film and I think our team doesn't have the quality to be anywhere near the top. After watching the film, I think we need to overhaul most of our squad, starting from midfield. The display of the midfield last season was truly pathetic. They weren't able to protect the defence when they were defending and they couldn't create chances for the forwards when they were given the ball." Simeone started taking apart the Leicester squad.

"Then our defence, while they weren't being protected by the midfield they weren't doing their job well enough. This led to our team ending the season with the sixth worst defence in the league. Our fullbacks are fine acc. to Championship standards but we need substitutes for both Joe Mattock and Richard Stearman. we need to buy at least one starting central defender to pair with Patrick Kisnorbo. He is tough but we need someone with positional awareness and technical ability on the ball to play from back and start a counterattack."

"Goalkeeper is a position of concern as well. Rab Douglas is 35 years old and it is showing. Paul Henderson is fine as our backup goalkeeper but he isn't ready to succeed the starting position and at 32 he's not going to improve." Simeone kept speaking as Oliver translated. John was listening intently while Michael was taking notes.

"Our forward line is most complicated. Individually, both Matty Fryatt and Iain Hume are good with the potential to be one of the best strikers in Championship. But due to their similar playing style, they hinder each other instead of complimenting each other. That fact combined with lack of creation and threatening runs from midfield led to Leicester not even being able to score 50 goals in 46 matches. With 49 goals across the season, it was the fourth worst attack in the championship." Simeone said before stopping.

Simeone was unforgiving in his assessment. But it was true. Even after overspending in the past few years, Leicester had one of the worst squads in the Championship. John recognised that fact and that was why he was determined to tear down the current squad and rebuild from scratch.

"So, where do we need to improve and what kind of players will fit in your system?" John asked Simeone with plans already forming in his mind.