Ricey

He wants to play for Leicester? Big red flag for me that.

Behave. He’s taken over a ship with huge self-inflicted holes in it and we are two matches in. I think he’s got some things wrong, but our biggest problem is that the squad is nowhere near good enough, due to a long line of mostly terrible transfer windows. You can’t blame a manager two matches in. All the anger and blame should be at the doors of Top and Rudkin. It’s their mess.

Don't want to piss on anyone's chips, but a leak of a club agreeing terms with the player before agreeing a fee with the other club is normally a tactic to generate more interest from other clubs. Looking at the other clubs that have been interested, I suspect this news is designed to kick them into gear. Anyone of them will be more attractive than us.

I think it's a combination of Cooper wanting honest, hard-working players and us being knocked back repeatedly for most of our first-choice targets. if we'd got Soule, Hlozek, Sara etc I don't think we'd be feeling like this, but the blame for us not being able to get those deals over the line can only be laid at the door of the board. We should able to attract players of that ilk, but a combination of incompetence and a looming points deduction, itself a result of incompetence, is understandably putting players off. I'm shocked we haven't tapped into the Championship market more, like Ipswich and Southampton have. It feels like such a no-brainer for the situation we find ourselves in. Worst case scenario is if those players don't quite work in the PL, you have someone that will be one of the better players in the league if we go down. We should be focussing on players with high potential ceilings and big resale value. Instead we are putting all of our eggs in the 'proven', hard-working, Premier League experience basket. I just worry that those eggs have already started to go off and we'll be stuck with them rotting away in the Championship.

I'm not against having him as an option, as we are in a scrap and he'll suit that, but any permanent transfer comes at a cost. If it was a free or a season long loan then I'd be up for it, but £6M+ and potentially a 3 year contract is not good value. We need to use this opportunity to sign some players that have the potential to either stay with us for a number of years or be sold on for profit. So far this summer we haven't really signed anyone in that category and I worry that if we go down we'll struggle to generate a lot of money from sales, as we all know how incredibly bad the club is at shifting players out of the door. This summer feels so much like the season we went up with Micky Adams. We had no money then, but rather than being creative with our transfer business, we just signed a load of older players who had good Premier League experience. Hignett, Ferdinand, Howey, Scimeca, Dabizas, Freund, Guppy, Gillespie etc. It didn't work and most of them left once we went down, leaving us with another rebuild job. I want us to sign some players that, if we do go down, you would expect to stay and you would expect to carry on their development in the Championship. KDH was the perfect example of this last season. I'm not sure we'd have been able to cash in one him had we not been relegated.

Live starting points will be something that I think will go down really well, as will the new UI.

Ok, I'll bite...and I will add the disclaimer that I'm ridiculously biased after spending the last year designing on FC and another 14 years on FM. It's really not just rolling out the same shit every year. You quite literally can't win. I've been involved in versions with more ambitious changes and the criticism thrown our way is that people don't like the changes and the miss this and they miss that. On the other hand, if there are more minimal changes, and instead a focus on improving existing systems, people complain that it's just a rebadge and a money grab. The latter is always the one that people actually enjoy playing more once everything settles down. With games like FC and FM we can't change the very core concept of the game, unlike other games. We can only improve the core concept and then add things around it, but a year is a short time and there is only so much that can be achieved within a cycle. Instead, features and modes are often rolled out over multiple years so that they can grow more organically. On FC people will focus on the gameplay and rightly so, but that area of the game is incredibly complex and interwoven. One slight tweak can have a huge impact on the overall experience. It's a very fragile balancing act and it's why things like the Closed Beta exist. There are over 1,000 people working on FC, as it's an absolute monster of a game when you consider all of the different modes. It's now effectively multiple games within one package. There is so much going on to improve modes, improve the tech, add modes and give people new ways to play. I think the problem is that if people don't engage with the other modes in the game, they don't realise the full extent of the work going on. ...and yes I'm biased, but I quite like the gameplay so far this year. It needs some tweaks for sure, but it feels more fluid and I find defending less frustrating compared to 24.

Weird game and very much a game of two halves, but in that second half it was like we'd got our Leicester back. It may not be enough and there is more to football than just trying really hard, but over the last few years the team has been so passive and soft that it was just great to see us press hard, win the ball back and then put together some really smart, attack-minded, counter attacking moves. That second half resonated with me more than anything I saw last season, despite how many games we won. As I say, it might not be enough, but we don't stand a chance without that sort of fight and mentality. I just hope we can replicate it away from home, without the atmosphere, which is something Cooper struggled with at Forest.

I think he's a good addition, it just doesn't stack up with everything we are hearing from the media regarding budgets and he doesn't address any of the gaping holes that we have within the squad. Also, why offer both Hamza and Ndidi new contracts recently only to then go and spend £25M on another defensive midfielder. It's just another decision to add to the pile of decisions that, on the face of it, point towards a football club incapable of joined up thinking.

It’s going to really sting if we get a breach for 23/24 when Chelsea have sold their hotel and women’s team back to themselves in order to comply and a bunch of clubs have player swapped with each other for over inflated fees. I know we aren’t normally ones to play by the book, but clubs are making a mockery of the rules.

I was thinking this, apart from maybe Wrexham. The references to Cooper and Top were so forced. It nearly ruined a uncharacteristically good piece of content that actually referenced events before King Power.

Potentially £25M and yet we were apparently weighing up whether spending a similar amount on Ioannidis was worth it. I think Skipp will be a decent addition, but he's never worth more than £15M. I fully expected it to be a loan with an option and then for us to spend our budget on more pressing areas of the team.

Skipp to relegation ⏭️

It doesn’t have the desired effect at the end of the game though. If we win, no one will join in or care and if we lose the stadium is half empty before the players have even started shaking hands. The UFS way of doing this is the right way. Short, sharp and concise protest followed up instantly by a song getting behind the players.

A lot of our fans really struggle to separate out the concept of holding the club accountable for their actions and supporting the team on the pitch. Other clubs don’t seem to have this problem.

I have a feeling that Cooper was told by the club during discussions that we want to “play like Man City” and he’s agreed to it to get the job. As you say though, he clearly doesn’t believe in it and I suspect he’ll ditch it after a few defeats.

Third kit is what I'd call pale grey, with navy details and the old Fox and Crop badge repeated as a pattern on the front of the shirt.

I notice that all of the photos so far only seem to be from the KP era...

Seeing that this topic is hot and then finding out it's due to a conversation about tax and due diligence really does sum up our summer so far.

I think nowadays you hear more leaked information about bids and talks, so it feels like a long time.

"Sorry officer, I know I was doing twice the speed limit but it was unforeseen that I would leave the house so late."

I thought there was a no dickheads policy.

Pointless. Anyone can air their opinions to Jim at any point. You would think, after all the recent negativity, it would have been a good bit of PR to send a couple of relevant personnel from within the club.

It’s not up to the PL or FA what deduction we get.

Is there a Championship badge underneath?