Stadt

Off the top of my head - £22m fee, 5 year deal so about £17.6m remaining on his book value at that point? Bit far off but the club can't pretend as if they were bothered about FFP then given the reckless abandon since.

This is a Rudkin problem. Proactive DoFs try and bomb players out quickly when it's clear managers don't rate them when their resale value is still relatively high. "LEICESTER CITY have reportedly rejected a bid worth £13million from Monaco for midfielder Boubakary Soumare." Whether Rodgers wanted to keep him or not we had to accept that bid, the point of having a director of football is stop a vandal manager trying to have it all their own way with short terms thinking. Rejecting that bid was arguably the most stupid outgoing transfer decision we've made - this was pre-PSR rule changes too.

He's sometimes just as complicit in some of the crap the club pulls but ultimately he's a good guy in a difficult situation. Not so much him personally but it's another case of somebody having been in their post for decades at the club, no wonder there is little innovation.

The photo where they’re all facing backwards up the stand is so good. Always cracks me up

His brother Leet is from Leicester actually

I bet energy costs are absolutely shafting gig venues. The cooling required for the fridges plus the electricity for light and sound systems must be through the roof.

Prior to his injury he looked like he was going to be one of the best keepers in the league. Given the dearth of keepers that are good shot stoppers and can use their feet it’s pretty reasonable. Trafford went for almost £30m on the back of a Championship season.

Ah right, a year left though maybe even now we could offer more in wages? Probably unlikely though.

Have we played all the ODC games now? I haven’t followed that closely this season

Dunk should play in the remaining games

Ah yes - I didn't see this as it the posts were on separate pages.

I'd guess he's a descendent of the De Lisle the school in Loughborough is named after. Not too many players of Norman stock around so it's pretty cool actually. Watched a clip on youtube and he's scored a lot of free kicks in age group football.

Sounds like he was slain during the Barons' Revolt at Evesham

I don't rate him particularly but with our lack of depth, he's become important as a DM and RB option. He's a better fullback than midfielder from what we've seen.

It would have been fairly normal (In England at least) for the manager to have that oversight - most wouldn't have used it incidentally such was Pearson's vision. I loathe to give King Power much credit, even Vichai, but the best thing he ever did was hand the reigns to Pearson to build a club. His trust in domain exerts like Rennie, Walsh, McKenzie, Balsom was the crucial element. They failed to notice that Pearson was almost one of a kind altruist manager who thought more about the club than his own career - they just think that's what managers do despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. Really Rudkin has had an amazing opportunity as a DoF, all the faculties in place, a lottery win title just as he started his tenure, supportive but clueless owners, academy director, and a patient fanbase - what's he done with an insane level of autonomy? Royally f uck things up. He's an agencyless moron.

Lightning Seeds were a bit flat, Happy Mondays better in intimate settings (and a younger crowd maybe) but James were fantastic - wholly charismatic stage presence. F uck Oyo btw, they book rooms into hotels they have literally no affiliation with so it was a mad scramble trying to sort somewhere to stay at 3ish, had to stay about 10 miles out and the gig commenced at 5ish.

All set against the backdrop of years of FFP trouble too, at no point has he been introspective enough to sort out any of this mess until now. I'm so excited for the day we do hear about the inner workings at the club - I'm certain the media embargo is in place because there just aren't systems or processes, it's all on the hoof, we run like it's 2007. What's especially funny, galling or whatever you want to call it, Pearson came along and showed him exactly how to build a club successfully and he... just learned nothing from that. We still have the "you don't know that" brigade occasionally defending him but multiple players have confirmed Rudkin handles the negotiations for contracts, other clubs have named him in player signing announcements. It couldn't be clearer but these fans are just reflexively fine with failure and the idea of accountability upsets them?

Looking at some players with a year left on their deals. Young 21 year old attacking 8 / 10 struggling to break through at Villarreal https://fbref.com/en/players/b8bd60fe/scout/12202/Ilias-Akhomach-Scouting-Report Versatile 10/ Winger type, almost 21 at Anderlecht https://fbref.com/en/players/f4adf2cd/scout/12507/Mario-Stroeykens-Scouting-Report Not had a kick for the last few years at Leipzig (injuries perhaps?) and wages maybe a concern for a 27 year old but Xaver Schlager is the sort of profile we need. https://fbref.com/en/players/8f056768/scout/12212/Xaver-Schlager-Scouting-Report Can't believe Mainz aren't starting him, has a year left and he starred in the U21 Euros, maybe he'd have other suitors but we must try. https://fbref.com/en/players/231c67ff/Nelson-Weiper Wages an issue perhaps but Lokonga we could do worse than, try him on loan first perhaps. https://fbref.com/en/players/1b4f1169/scout/12192/Albert-Sambi-Lokonga-Scouting-Report Not played for Sunderland so far this season (injured?) but had great season last year, seemingly, and we do need a long term LB https://fbref.com/en/players/307ea3b6/Dennis-Cirkin Young Senegalese CB that profiles incredibly well in Ligue 1, touch short maybe https://fbref.com/en/players/17bb562c/Arouna-Sangante Ben Sheaf has only played 7 minutes this season. We should be all over this https://fbref.com/en/players/7b4a62af/Ben-Sheaf Boadu was electric on loan for a shit Bochum team last season - would be a hell of a coup, should be all over this https://fbref.com/en/players/5b479568/Myron-Boadu

I was never a fan particularly but this is one of the positive second order effects of using academy grads as squad players. We can bulk out the squad cheaply (i.e no direct fees and lower wages) and then we can turn a profit plus a healthy PSR boost. Would we have been significantly worse off if Josh Knight played the (few) minutes Mendy did? We gave Bassey a shot instead of Amartey or we just trusted Iversen in lieu of Ward? No, no and no. Arguably we'd be better off

West Ham not surprising - far too old school those pair. Howe's recruitment is generally crap so that doesn't surprise me either but Edu is a smart guy and Kia has proper talent on his books. We're lumbered with Wasserman's crap stock and it's a relationship that we only ever seem to lose out of.

Exactly. PSR didn’t make us lose £200m worth of players leave on a free - in fact it might have made us sell some of them earlier.

Our errors are self-inflicted, we were flying too closely to the sun with a > 100% wages to turnover spend before the PSR regulations changed. We decided to 'go for it' by buying Daka, Soumare and Vestergaard (none of which were meant to by first choice!) without making any sales, that was our second largest net spend only eclipsed by... wait for it... last summer. I hate the regulations but they're the last thing we can blame.

He didn't want to play in the Championship last time, he evidently doesn't want to again based on his performers so far. He could try and see a miserable year out whilst getting paid more PW but his stock will further falter this year. Or, get a move back home (it was rumoured he was homesick a few years ago) and reboot his career. Can't imagine he'd rather be here.

He doubled the amount of assists he’s made for us against Charlton - going from 1 to 2 with a 0 xA pass If Braybrooke, Cartwright, Page etc put in the performances he did - half of FT would say they’d never make it. There certainly wouldn’t be the same ‘wot if out of no wear he was actually gud wot then’ shouts. His PSR break even amount is c. £4m - I’m fairly sure the 2nd-7th bracket in France would bite at that.

FIF was another so thought there was some great FT conspiracy