Stadt

The financial situation is completely tied into the football side. We could double commercial revenue and still be in the shit because we still have a runaway wage bill - we almost get it in control then sign Winks, Coady etc on silly deals and give Vestergaard a new one. In a normal business the board and owner would sack/force the shit directors out. But at Leicester Rudkin lives in Top’s arsehole and that’s how they like it

Probably not an unpopular opinion. Women’s sides get comprehensively beaten by male youth sides e.g u16s

They don’t have much, if any say on footballing decisions so they’re at the behest of Rudkin’s mismanagement. The commercial revenue is dwarfed by TV and player trading income. They might have protested the Skipp signing but they’re not on the football side. Davies has only recently taken the role on anyway - as Simon Capper moved to Newcastle

I’m one of the biggest haters in the forum but some of you need to remember it’s the second game of preseason ffs. At this stage it’s about fitness - we don’t even have a manger yet

It’s not even like we’ve ever thrown them in the deep end and they are actually miles off. We had a player as good as KDH make his debut at 20, he only got a first team chance after TWO excellent loans. It makes me wonder how many near misses with first team quality players we’d had. Somebody like Maswanhise certainly could have had a better career trajectory had he been loaned out at 18.

I've said this a lot but you'd think Rudkin as academy director and DoF would be too academy focussed with managerial appointments, squad building, contract handling etc but he isn't. He's an active hindrance to his own life's work. Guy Branston's attitudes were really quite revealing, we had a loans manager espousing the institutional view that young players are just always so far behind.

Oh yeah we meant to get to get relegated all along too

If he doesn't want to play in the Championship - he didn't last time, then he'd want to move. Given he seemingly wants to move back to France then a loan move there isn't guaranteed. Players take paycuts more than you think, they likely know they're never going to get a deal on the same terms again. His move here has been a nightmare and being settled elsewhere is likely better than an additional 20k p/w for a season. Even if we don't sell him for £5m ish, sell him for £3m get him and his wages off the books entirely. I don't want another Perez situation where loan a player out just for them to leave for nothingwhen their deal expires.

Say £5m and £500k signing on is probably better than loaning him paying £500k-£1m in a loan fee, 50% of the wages now and then spending £4m on a signing bonus anyway. Agents have clubs over a barrel with signing on fees this days when players are free agents. There is also the risk that you loan him and you're then gazumped by a bigger club when he's a free agent. Lille, Monaco, Marseille, Nice etc have the money provided he takes a bit of a wage cut but given he's homesick apparently he probably would. It's sort of moot though as Rudkin doesn't proactively sell anyone

We won't get that but it's the sort of fee we should. We paid £3m for Coulibaly when he had 6 months left ffs

Diabate was a complete punt and I did say permanent. We spent serious money on one RW in all that time when it was the most upgrade-able part of the side. I vividly remember we were both against the Perez signing

We didn't even try which is what drives me wild. We signed Ghezzal (obviously shit), Under on loan and Perez (barely a winger). We lost Mahrez in 2018 and signed two permanent RWs in 6 years until we landed on Fatawu.

He's on gardening leave, probably paid off partially so QPR didn't have to make a multi-million pay off at once and they're residually paying the rest. The compensation is to free him from the remaining payment an release him from any contract.

Kristiansen played all season for a Bologna side that qualified for the CL, full Denmark international with 18 caps, still only 22, he'd have takers at the £7m bracket. Faes has been linked with decent moves, again full Belgian international, reasonable with the ball at his feet, mobile, highly rated in France, again he'd have takers at a similar price. Soumare has won the league in France, great frame, can progress the ball etc, he'd have takers at a similar price. WE know these players are shit but the PL is a different level to everywhere else in Europe, players still have their uses especially at the prices we'd sell them at now. Buying clubs have to know these players are for sale though and they have to be shopped around by their clubs and their agents. Given Rudkin doesn't even talk to managers at the club he's definitely not talking to players - so they probably want out but they're relying on their agent to do all the work and they don;t know what price they're available for particularly. Good DoFs are out talking to agents, clubs and briefing the football media to drum up interest, Rudkin lacks the agency to do any of this so we're lumbered with players. It's not like our shit players are uniquely shit relative to the rest of everybody else's shit players, it's that we're uniquely bad at selling them. Some if it is because they're on relatively high wages but again that's Rudkin's fault.

If we had £20m in from selling Krisitansen for £8m, Faes for £6m and Soumare for £6m or an other combination of want away crap we'd not then stuck with a £10k p/w wage budget for managers. Not that I think Cifuentes is particularly a bad choice but we've hamstrung ourselves because we've not done things in the right order. It sounds simplistic but I just think Top and Rudkin have no idea what 'ok' never mind 'good' looks like at DoF level - we could afford to sign the shit we do if we recouped some of the money we spent on it. We never do. Tom Cannon is the only player we didn't want to keep we've sold for more than £5m since Musa in 2018! 7 years of letting players leave for nothing! 7!

Given we’re manager led we’re so behind on our recruitment too. We could have shifted some deadwood if we were proactive with it, we’re not - everybody goes on a nice, long holiday after the season (or dicks around playing Polo).

He took over a floundering side and did really well, after an initial bounce in 23/24 and not much businesses in the summer of 2024 he had a lower-midtable side where they should be. I’m not exactly enamoured by the appointment but he’s clearly a competent coach working with a pretty mediocre at QPR.

The two shouldn't be mutually exclusive. Any good work Puel did (what did he actually do? Play Chilwell? Macia signed the players) was completely overshadowed by his failure to finish above 9th with Vardy, Mahrez, Maguire, Ndidi etc

Much more variable

Yeah it’s strange, I think in both cases they just have crap squads. Nobody at QPR really scored any goals - there’s only so much a manager can do with sub par forward players. Cifuentes’ other teams seem to have been fine in that regard.

Rolling xG and xGA chart from QPR's 2023-24 season. He sorted their defence out immediately, in his first 7 games they conceded sub 1 xG in all of them (the chart is a rolling average so doesn't look like it on there. Ended up at about 0.24 xGD per 90 which would have had them 7th (on xGD) over the course of the season. Less good last season and his transfer business is pretty mixed but they haven't had too much to spend.

This is why the Puel revisionism is so crap, he had a decent side with two world class players in midtable finishing behind Burnley

We can afford them it's just either we won't pay the compensation (we allays have the money to sack them) or we can;t convince them to join.

Rudkin probably outsources someone to sling o- I'll stop there

Arrrrrgh