Levein's first spell

[davemclaren]

34 minutes ago, Tokyo Drifter said:

We were boring as hell to watch - sound familiar? - but we did well enough in terms of qualifying for Europe etc. for the criticism of Levein to be muted. I don't remember too much grumbling in the stands. And remember Leicester poached him because he was judged to have been a success at Hearts. Hard to see him replacing Brenda at the King Power any time soon. 

 

I've been watching Hearts since the early 1990s and the best we've ever been in terms of attacking and having a go was always under JJ. 

Apart from Burley. 

[Lord Beni of Gorgie]

He had a particularly hard job first time. 

 

He had Robinson cutting the budget,  continually losing his better players. 

 

The football began dull.

 

We had some very good days. 5 1 Derby  4 4 2 in injury time ( eye bleeding eh)

 

We had some bad days 6 1 loss to Motherwell. 

 

We had some grafters McKenna Mcfarlane.  We had some youngsters,  we had some talent,  Valois De Vries Hartley Pressley Gordon. 

 

We had European nights

 

We were clearly best of the rest

 

We struggled in cups 

 

We struggled against the Old Firm. 

 

We weren't happy when he left despite the shite that passes for the truth. 

 

He did exceptionally well rebuilding a team the more popular Jim Jeffries left in tatters. He mastered Hibs when they had started to ransack us

Edited September 17, 2019 by Sir Gio

[NB GIN]

9 hours ago, innerjambo said:

I have never liked his brand of football, he has always made a priority of bringing in a big target man straight away. It's boring, he's boring, and everything is boring.

Played a centre half up front 

[Thomaso]

9 hours ago, sjh1874 said:

Remember after a particularly eye bleeding draw at Dunfermline he declared on the radio that many teams would be happy with a point at East End park.

 

There he is in a nutshell. The style of football was shocking.

 

Yup 0-0!! 🤬 Heard him on the supporters bus on the way home after a big Hearts support suffered a dire negative toothless performance from Hearts!

Pretty sure Dunfermline were near the bottom of the league at the time!

That was the start of me and others turning against Levein!

Edited September 17, 2019 by Thomaso

[Thomaso]

2 hours ago, Fraggle said:

As could his morals!  The move to Leicester wasn't all about career.

 

Indeed

[upgotheheads]

He could be summed up as being efficient but uninspiring. His teams were always well organised and defensively sound but he had players like Pressley and Neilson to rely on who were  rarely injured.

His record against the arse-cheeks was about as bad as it is today but we did finish 3rd regularly I seem to remember. He did bring in Mark de Vries, who was a revelation, but a lot of his team would have been a hangover from JJ's years.

The contrast between the organised set-up of those days and the utter shambles of the last year is the biggest thing. 

[Dalstonjambo]

20 hours ago, Toonhertz said:

only good thing be done then in first spell was bring in De vries 

You must have been drunker than me in Bordeaux and Braga then...

[Thomaso]

54 minutes ago, upgotheheads said:

He could be summed up as being efficient but uninspiring. His teams were always well organised and defensively sound but he had players like Pressley and Neilson to rely on who were  rarely injured.

His record against the arse-cheeks was about as bad as it is today but we did finish 3rd regularly I seem to remember. He did bring in Mark de Vries, who was a revelation, but a lot of his team would have been a hangover from JJ's years.

The contrast between the organised set-up of those days and the utter shambles of the last year is the biggest thing. 

 

And who signed Pressley and Neilson??? And what’s this “hangover from JJ’s years”???

I’d give my right arm to go back to JJ’s years!!!

Edited September 18, 2019 by Thomaso

[Stuart Lyon]

Saw this in relation to Zidane at RM - could equally apply to CL

 

Never go back. Never go back.

Never surrender the future you've earned.

Keep to the track, to the beaten track.

Never return to the bridges you burned.

 

[Samuel Camazzola]

21 hours ago, Toonhertz said:

only good thing be done then in first spell was bring in De vries 

Along with the others several posters have rattled off, he snapped up one the best defenders we've had in a generation in Andy Webster. 

 

Maybury was a good addition as was MacFarlane. Gave Gordon his chance in goal. Several others too. 

[SpikeDudley]

Remember in the summer of 2002 Hearts only had something like 17 signed first-team players?

[The Old Tolbooth]

I enjoyed his first spell too, although if you put a tenner on every Hearts match to end 1-0 to us, then you'd have made a few quid that season  

 

He was the first manager to have us qualifying for Europe 2 seasons in a row as well, and if he wasn't caught nobbing some burd behind his wifes back then he might have stayed a bit longer. 

[Strachsuit]

00/01 was JJ's team. He took over in the December IIRC. 01/02 was majorly focused on cost-cutting as requested by CPR. It was only in the summer of 2002 (by which point CL had had his fourth transfer window) that he really had his own stamp (no pun intended) on the team.

 

He signed wisely given the crazy financial constraints at the time (I think he cut the wage bill by something silly like 60%) and it's probably what disheartens me the most about this time around. My mate said to me roughly 2 years ago: "Remember we went two years unbeaten outwith the OF at Tynie under Levein? That was without a pot to piss in, can you imagine what he could've done with cash?"

 

Ever since then I've been unable to forget this snippet. Is CL just a man who gets the best when he's not got much to choose from? Gets the best out of limited squads when the back is against the wall somewhat. But when given a "war-chest" he's a bit out of his depth and out-smarts himself? I think we're seeing that with his constant tinkering this time round. Back in the day he was forced to play Maybury at LB and Neilson RB because of the lack of depth and inability of the younger players at the time to step up - Paul McMullen and the like. Now he's rotating constantly purely because it looks like he can!

 

Anyway that's moving off point a bit. I was still quite young in 02 but I remember the support being pretty content with Levein. We were very hard to beat at Tynie, we had some memorable results and there was a lot of stability which contrasted the shambles off the field. How the tables have turned...

[tartofmidlothian]

On 17/09/2019 at 12:10, kingantti1874 said:

There was no animosity, we were very effective and notched up some decent wins, the old firm were a different beast at that time with a level of player far in excess of what they have today so there was little expectation that we would compete for titles.. we virtually never lost at Tynecastle.

 

The perception was he was going a good job given off field circumstances which were a disaster, Chris Robinson trying to sell the silver and constant cost cutting..

 

a lot of our fans were rightly pissed when he left for Leicester which they never forgave him for. The timing was terrible.

 

we have been far poorer, far more confused looking, far less motivated this time around.. honestly this team bears to resemblance that his first team. 

 

On 17/09/2019 at 13:30, 3fingersreid said:

A couple of mentions that he got things right tactically, not sure that was him ,I’d say it was Houston that was the tactical man in the partnership. 

 

kingantti is spot on, although 3fingers makes a good point about Houston's influence. Where is he now?

 

When Levein came in after achieving nothing much at Cowdenbeath, aside from being a moderniser and getting the team going in the right direction, he was called Chris Robinson's lackey, because it was expected he would cut costs as he was told to in a way JJ had resisted.

 

That couldn't have been further from the truth. He cut costs every season, but created a really good squad consisting of quality players he'd inherited or brought in, journeymen who came in and played their part, and very few duds. Aside from one honking 6-1 defeat to Motherwell in the middle of an injury crisis and a 4-0 cup exit to Falkirk, there were loads of highlights. 5-1, 4-4 and the Stamp derby against Hibs, 7-1 against Dunfermline, getting into Europe twice in a row and cementing ourselves as Scotland's third team, beating Braga to reach the EUFA group stages. The first Scottish team to do so, I think.

 

He was seen as a smart and hungry young manager who took no shit from players, I'm sure he invented the term wage thief after a 1-0 defeat to Aberdeen which saw him promise a clear-out (Locke and Jackson were among the players who left). When people complained about his caution it was mainly after OF games which we'd tried to manage our way through and hit them on the break, inevitably they'd score and our game plan would be gone. He never seemed to be able to suss them out.

 

As I fan, I had a real sense that he was a cut above every other manager in the league outside the OF, though. Nobody was surprised that a club like Leicester came looking for him. There was anger when he left, but I think most of us realised he'd taken us as far as he could. The main reasons we didn't want him gone were so he could guide us through the UEFA group and because we might have been able to get into Europe again. At the time fans said they'd have loved to see what he could do with Vlad's money, but having Robbo then Burley in charge got us over him quickly.

 

I really wish he'd won something in his career, especially with us, but arguably his two worst decisions were leaving the clubs where he'd done his best work. Vlad might have sacked him anyway, but Houston's Scottish Cup at United could have been his. Looking back, his third mistake was probably not stepping back upstairs over summer and being more open-minded about our next managerial choice.