Freeman's Wharfer

It’ll be written by the Comms Director. He might potentially have had to sign it off (although maybe not for a run of the mill programme note) but don’t get worked up kidding yourselves that Top sat down and typed that all out. Same with the abomination of a statement at the end of last season. Not his words. That said, I’m sure on that one he had to give hard approval so absolutely his fault looking at that, thinking it was a good plan and signing it off.

Also wanted to share my thoughts having been to the Union FS forum on Thursday night. It’s quite clear that UFS have some great people who genuinely care about the club, the fan community and the city of Leicester. What they’ve achieved across the 10 years they’ve been in action is something they should be incredibly proud of. However, it was also quite clear that they run up against resistance, silence and obstruction from the club on a regular basis. Recent examples where they’ve been able to overcome this - such as the general sale of tickets - are when they’ve partnered with the Foxes Trust. That partnership can be powerful. The Foxes Trust have unfortunately, in many instances, been found wanting in pushing the club or being able to leverage their access as an official supporters trust. It feels like that organisation has gone stale and those in charge don’t have either the appetite or the ability to hold our club accountable. With some of the recent developments, it’s really important we have a Trust that can do that. Because of that, as @CosbehFox says, a number of us have joined to learn more about how the Trust operates and see what we can do to encourage a more effective Trust. Our ability to do that will be made or broken on others coming along with us or not. If you’d like to join us, get yourself a £10 Trust membership and DM me so that I can give you access to our WhatsApp channel where we’ll be coordinating our approach.

I’ve also joined the Foxes Trust this morning. Please come and join as well so that we can get it functioning properly in time!

I’ve been waiting to see if there’s any word from them on the reported financial breaches as well but… tumbleweed. I’m with you though. More than happy to get involved in a movement to sort it out and get a trust that actually works for the fans. Where can people register interest in getting involved as well?

Our club and fans conducted themselves with dignity and respect following that incident and Everton fans were always very positive in their thoughts about us. Then some idiots went and starting singing about Boris Johnson taking their benefits at Goodison and I think some that respect between the two sets of supporters has been a little lost.

Such a dumb thing to say for those saying “you don’t hear complaints about this when we don’t lose”… Of course. If the train’s not delayed, I don’t complain about the state of the rail network. But when it is, the failings of that network are exposed so I do. Games like yesterday give a glimpse into the price we pay for the shambles running our football operation off the pitch. We might be rich enough in league position and points accumulated so far to be able to pay that price, but don’t kid yourself that those asking questions are overreacting to one result or that there aren’t valid criticisms to be made.

Dewsbury-Hall isn’t a technician, he’s an energetic grafter. His attempt against Sheffield Wednesday completely epitomised that. We need a specialist in the summer.

Didn’t Rennie leave Bristol City when Pearson got sacked? Gerrimbackin

If I was going for a new job right now, the first thing I’d do is connect with a few existing employees on LinkedIn and ask if they’d be open to chatting about the role and company. Quite often companies have referral systems where the employee can put you in and receive a referral bonus if you get the job (which gets them invested in helping you with a bit of insider knowledge). Even if not, it shows a bit of initiative and can help you tailor your application/interview approach.

Quite a few tone deaf to his recent interviews then… You might think it’s just one deal not getting over the line. The bigger picture, however, is that this manager gets frustrated at what he’s working with and potential broken promises. Would it take him walking for you to acknowledge that he’s not asked for much but been given very little in return?

You think Maresca feels the same way?!

Someone sniffing around Justin before the window closes? Would command a decent-ish fee and I’m sure Maresca, whilst appreciating his quality, sees him as a non-typical fit for his system and therefore very sellable…

Well I would say hiring for ‘coachability’ is more appealing than hiring for someone who believes they are the finished article. If someone has relevant experiences in answer to every question then, great, showcase that in the answers. But also talk about what further development could/should look like. It’s not good for me as the hiring manager, or you as the prospective employee, if I can’t stretch or improve you in our time working together. A question I love asking: tell me about the last time you received feedback you didn’t agree with. How did you respond and what did you do with that feedback? Straightaway the God’s gifters clam up and bumble a start to an answer. They either don’t want to say they disregarded the feedback because they’re completely blinkered, or they are so uncomfortable talking about their development areas that they give a really half-hearted or weak response. Instant red flag.

No great loss. Genuinely think a kid from our academy wouldn’t do any worse if needed. The only thing that distinguished Casadei from being at the level of our academy was that he was owned by Chelsea, not anything on the pitch. We’ve had a real touch getting rid of him and not being forced to play him for the remainder of the season.

I hope he gets booed to the rafters the day he steps back in the King Power stadium in the opposition dugout. Speaking Spanish to Firmino whose mother tongue is Portuguese sums the cretin up. More about trying to showcase his Spanish than make his player at ease.

People are saying that it’s harder than it might look, so let’s have a look a couple of other clubs who have to be careful around FFP and what they managed to get done this summer… Southampton’s player sales for a fee: Ward-Prowse (West Ham) Tella (Bauer Leverkusen) Djenepo (Standard Liege) Nlandulu (Bolton) Chauke (Burton Albion) Orsic (Trabzonspor) Diallo (Al-Duhail) Livramento (Newcastle) Salisu (Monaco) Lavia (Chelsea) Olaigbe (Cercle Brugge) Bycroft (Swindon Town) 12 players shifted for a fee. Not all superstars that were cherry-picked. Many that will have been on decent wages and who were brought in for significant fees. Sold to all corners of the globe and all levels of the English football pyramid. Now let’s look at Everton: Price (Standard Liege) Nkounkou (Saint Etienne) Kean (Juventus) Simms (Coventry) Samuels-Smith (Chelsea) Cannon (Leicester) Iwobi (Fulham) Gray (Al-Ettifaq) 8 players sold for a fee. Again, sold around Europe and lower down the English pyramid. A nice fee in there from the Saudi gold rush to boot. Now let’s look at ourselves… We sold 5 (Maddison, Barnes, Castagne, Hirst and Odunze) for a fee. Three out of five I’d have been able to find a buyer for myself. Four out of five were sold to clubs in the English pyramid. So what is it about Leicester City that means we struggle to sell where other clubs don’t? How come we are unable to do business on the continent or in the Middle East? Why can other clubs shift players they don’t want, or need, for a fee, whereas we can only sell our coveted assets or release players on free transfers? Those of you who say it’s not like Football Manager are right. It requires a little black book of contacts. It requires a network. It requires favours from old friends and proactivity to get out and make connections before clubs even realise they have a need for a player. Is Mr Rudkin doing that? Did he build those agent and club connections when he was running the academy? Was he out in the market making things happen during the Thailand PR tour this summer or sat next to Top at functions and meaningless games like some sort of glorified Executive Assistant? You might want to cut him some slack. But until I’m told different than it’s his remit and his job to get players out of the door in a beneficial manner, I’ll continue to point the finger and demand a little more for the good of the club.

Pity he didn’t want to in that first half today

None of my business what my colleagues get up to at the weekend in their spare time. I don’t care how they vote, who they sleep with, what they say on the internet, what they eat or drink, where they go. I care about how they conduct themselves in the work place and how they get their job done. They’re colleagues, and that’s therefore the only business of theirs that I have any right to even start to take an interest in.

Massive fan of Union FS but can’t get behind the reluctance to entertain the idea of a singing section next to the away end. The main point is that it splits up those who want to sing at home games (regardless of the type of chants they like to sing). Say we have 3,000 of those people in the stadium, 1,500 in L1 and 1,500 at the other end of the stadium only dilutes the impact of either group (I’m in L1 and have seen singers leave to go to SK1). Those using the Brighton cup game as evidence it wouldn’t work is a bit unfair. It was a midweek Carabao cup game with about 25,000 in the stadium and not representative of a normal league game. The big opportunity this club and fan base has is the expansion. Move the family stand, make it safe standing and get Union FS and L1 evictees in there together and we’ll have something to work with. I already know it’ll be an opportunity missed.

Yeah, group of Coventry lads about 5 yards in front of us layed into some Leicester lads completely unprovoked. Strangely enough it was a group of stewards who arrived on the scene to break it up. From the sounds they carried on and found some new targets later on. We got massively lucky pre-match. Ended up walking the wrong way round the stadium and got to where the away end was but on the Coventry side of the police line. They started trying to break through the police to get at Leicester fans outside the away end and the police started hitting them back with batons. One of them had a full balaclava on with only eye holes. We had our Leicester scarves on in the middle of all this and a couple of them called us out but fortunately managed to turn back out of it sharpish. I stopped a few other Leicester fans heading that direction as well. The whole funnelling of fans around the stadium, and being able to end up in a bottleneck like that with the worst of their home fans, was poor crowd management. Sounds like it also happened with Leicester fans trying to get back to the train station as well.

It was an average end today. Not a bad one, an average one. But Hermansen, Faes, KDH and McAteer all asking for more noise in that second half. Can’t exactly say the away end helped in any regard with the 10-men challenge.

Rudkin’s inability to get unwanted players out of the door is hurting us again. If it’s not a big money departure of one or our best players, we’re horrendous at doing anything other than letting people walk for free or loans. I refuse to believe that a decent DOF over the past few years couldn’t have got a fee and sorted out a swifter exit for the likes of Perez, Mendy, Benkovic, Ghezzal. We must have a reputation within the game now that LCFC won’t turn down a loan offer and make you take a player on a permanent if you really want them. Praet, Ndidi and Iheanacho will all potentially walk from the club this summer with no fee in return. These are players that are current internationals for countries of relatively decent calibre in the international game (and not the first to go for nothing after Tielemans, Amartey and Soyuncu). If you believe no club in the whole of world football would have been willing to pay for them then you’re deluded. A good DOF has agent contacts, links with clubs, pedigree and experience in the transfer market. We have the bloke who used to run the academy. Clubs who cashed in on the Saudi gold rush in the summer didn’t just get lucky. They knew it was a possibility and had proactively built connections and relationships with the buyers. Rudkin probably doesn’t even know the country dialling code.

Judging by the amount of comms I’m getting as a season ticket holder about tickets for Ipswich at home, there’s quite clearly a bit of concern behind the scenes that what will be a big game, live on tv, where Maresca will want vocal backing for the team, isn’t selling as well as they would like… Seems to be the flood gates are open for the extended network of season ticket holders!

Great to see the club has offered to meet to discuss. Did you ever get any answers to those questions you submitted in the summer? Given we’re now into a new calendar year, are you going to ever tell the fanbase what you asked and what was said?

You want these lads to lose their livelihoods because in their free time, on the weekend, they made a helicopter gesture with their hands down the football?! Wow!