Kevin Phillips backing Shakespeare to stabilise Leicester

There is no better man than Craig Shakespeare to shore up the shaky Leicester City organisation, at least according to former striker Kevin Phillips.

Phillips ended his illustrious 580-game career at the King Power Stadium, playing 12 games in 2014 to help the Foxes regain promotion to the Premier League.

But the 43-year-old has not ventured too far away since, offered a coaching role and remaining as assistant first team coach for the club’s first season back in the Premier League.

One season later and Leicester shocked the world by being crowned Premier League champions, though Phillips admits there were always reservations about then-manager Claudio Ranieri.

That’s a belief that seems to have been partially proven right, with Ranieri sacked while Shakespeare was confirmed as his replacement this week, a move Phillips feels is the best for all parties.

“I worked there for a short period under Ranieri and at times the organisation wasn’t good,” recalls Phillips, who left to become assistant manager at Derby County in September 2015.

(Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)

“If it wasn’t for Shakey it could have fallen apart a lot earlier. Of course the manager takes all the credit for winning the league – which he deserves an awful lot of – but it would have been a lot more difficult for them to win it without Shakey being there.

“It was certainly a learning curve for me and Shakey, because at that time it was us running it with [goalkeeper coach] Mike Stowell, and Ranieri came in.

“We’d have our sessions planned for the players and literally as we were walking out onto the training pitch Ranieri would come over and say I want to do this now with them, and he’d change it.

“We were like, ‘fine, go on then, you take it’. But he’d say, ‘no, no, no you take it’. And he’s telling us to put a session on that he wants and we don’t know what it is. We had to adapt.

“Shakey can do that, he can adapt in tough situations. He’s got that talent. That comes from being in the business a long time and working with experienced people.

“You also have to give the players credit. They kind of policed themselves last year. They managed themselves really well.”