inckley fox

You must have watched a totally different game to me. Far from our worst performer, had a few decent moments, but very underwhelming.

I didn't know about that (and I can't find it anywhere). His u-23s debut was that month, but it wasn't against Man U. I'll take your word for it, though!

I think his debut was vs Boro, and he was decent. Are you talking about his PL debut? I think that was vs Everton, and no, he didn't do much.

Best: Pearson. Took us up two divisions, kept us up and - in unprecedented fashion given our financial limitations - formed a side on a shoestring that would win the league. If we were treating Pearson I and Pearson II as separate incarnations, then you could possibly argue for O'Neill ahead of him - and certainly Ranieri - but if you combine the two reigns, he's got to be the most important manager in our history. In fact, his achievement is, for me, the most underrated in modern football. He was the architect, if not the deliverer, of one of the most significant events the game has ever seen. Most liked (by the fanbase): Ranieri. Retrospectively, Pearson perhaps, but while he was actually in charge he was in and out of favour with the fans. It was always 'fine margins', as he'd say. Ranieri was feted pretty much from game one to the rather messy ending. O'Neill was adored, but the negativity towards him in his first six months leads me to lump for Ranieri. My personal favourite? O'Neill just pips Pearson and Ranieri. I should also add that I posted on here under a different name when I was a kid and people thought I was secretly in love with Craig Levein, which is unfair because I thought he was crap and was merely trying to offer some balance here and there. I actually fled the forum for a few years on the back of that! It is true that I had a soft spot for the late Gordon Lee though. I met him when I was little, and he was a good man. And saved us from disaster back in 1991. Most disliked (by fanbase) - Cooper. Ahead of Taylor and Ruud, who were quite popular for brief spells, and Megson, who was gone before the hatred could hit fever pitch. At first it was because he wasn't good enough for us, then because he wouldn't give Alves a chance, then because he wouldn't play Pereira (both justifiable decisions), then because he was to blame for our dodgy recruitment (Skipp, Bobby etc.) even though our recruitment had been awful for years, and then because we should have been in the top half of the table, and weren't, (which was an utterly insane stance, even at the time). I'm sure people are trying to realign their arguments now. Yes, he was the wrong appointment and we'd most probably have gone down if he'd stayed, but it was still disproportionate hatred. People just couldn't get beyond a real gut distaste for the guy, and the tidal wave of negativity - which gave the green light, I thought, for some of our players to express their antipathy too - meant he was doomed from the off. Personally, the one I could least abide was probably Rodgers, but it's an irrational dislike because I think, given time, it's inevitable that he'll be seen as one of our more successful bosses. I also had a serious issue with Taylor. I wrote him a letter telling him how crap Junior Lewis was and, to his credit, he replied. But he wrote, quite brusquely, that anyone who understood the game would see what Lewis had to offer, and he weirdly double-underlined the word 'manager' where it said, beneath his signature, 'Leicester City Manager'. I still have that letter in my parents' house somewhere. Worst - Holloway for me. Taylor at least achieved a 13th place top flight finish. There are only 13 or 14 of our managers who have kept us up for at least a season in the top flight, so even though PT was the manager who perhaps did the most damage to the club in my lifetime, his achievements put him a notch or two above Hamilton, Allen, Megson, Holloway, Ruud. Ollie inherited a side in 17th which, in spite of the chaos, should never have gone down, and his complacency (e.g. saying 'we probably already have enough points to stay up') was key to our worst ever finish. Hamilton, Pleat and Sousa, for instance, were nowhere near that awful or that disastrous.

Lineker was quick!

Personally, I think this is also a bit over-the-top, even though I appreciate someone offering some counterbalance. We've seen with our own eyes his lack of commitment on the pitch. Last season on occasions his lack of interest in tracking back (even when introduced as a sub) was picked up by commentators. If I were to be kind, I'd say he was average in the final months under Enzo, then outright rubbish under the next two managers. The incident in the nightclub wasn't by any stretch normal. Of course, things can get coverage and bother the general public without being particularly significant, but that was very unusual and very unprofessional. He and the others were, by all accounts, rightly reprimanded. Had his performances been up to scratch then we could have forgiven his disrespect for Cooper perhaps, but they weren't. He then continued to be awful - and fell out - with the next manager too. Like most of what we talk about on here, if you pick a side then there's always a good deal of speculation involved, but from what I understood, Ruud's request of him (for one night) was no different to what Enzo required of all the players (for several nights) when he first arrived. Ruud said that professional standards weren't high enough and, for all my doubts about his judgement as a manager, I doubt his judgement on professional standards is too far off the mark - especially based on what I saw of us last year. And the suggestion that Winks was one of the chief culprits tallies perfectly with what I saw of him, specifically, on the pitch and his attitude towards the previous manager, which isn't at all speculative. When it comes to questioning a player's commitment, I'd say you're on firmer ground - and dependent on far less speculation - with Winks than with most players we've criticised down the years. The fact that he's now posing a problem for a third consecutive manager by - again, demonstrably, visibly - sulking with the fans, is neither here nor there. We've already seen more than enough. Obviously we should consider people's feelings. Footballers have always benefited from and, equally, suffered from febrile matchday atmospheres, but you could argue that it 'coming with the territory' is no excuse for nastiness. I'd have more sympathy for the teachers, nurses and police officers I know who deal with far worse than him for far less recompense, but that's me. However I'm not sure I've seen evidence of either excessive, unfair criticism of Winks or of any mental health issues. If he had a serious problem with the criticism he has received then that'd be a shame, but he should also ask himself whether he's doing everything in his power to help himself. From what I've seen it's quite the opposite.

You're conveniently ignoring the insertion of Jordan Ayew into the equation.

I hear what you're saying, but those four managers were Rodgers (who effectively got us relegated), Smith (who did get us relegated), Cooper (to whom very few on here would give the time of day) and Ruud (who also got us relegated). They're not necessarily the best judges of ability!

Surely we have seen plenty of Wout, and he's been utterly awful at the top level and decent enough - though by no means standout - at a lower level. That also goes for Vestergard. I'm not sure you can comfortably separate those two in terms of how well they've done for us, other than to say that Vestergard had very little to do with our last two relegations and Wout was one of our poorest performers. Nelson, for his part, has also been very decent at a lower level, has thus far never been problematic in the way that Vestergard and Faes have, and while untested at a higher level, has reportedly attracted clubs who have considered the sorts of fees which nobody in a million years would contemplate for Faes. I mean, even if it's all untrue, the fact that news outlets can credibly speculate over 20m bids for Nelson, but would never dream about similar fees for Faes, tells you something in itself. Even Okoli, who looks like a complete dud to me, could attract way higher sums of money. So I'm not sure how you reach that conclusion, unless you're purely looking at performances in the second tier for Leicester (ignoring, say, Nelson at Oxford) and ignoring what Vestergard has offered for us at this level and for others, in way more successful sides than Faes has ever represented, at a higher level. Personally, I think we have very little to fear from letting him go, and everything to fear from his continuation.

Cliff is obviously a perfectly nice chap, from what I've seen, and entitled to his view. It's usually wrong, but he's entitled to it anyway. However, in my experience a vote of confidence from his supporter's club is the death knell for an era. Until January 1991 there was a growing rift on the board between the Shipman faction and certain members, like Martin George and John Elsom, who wanted the club to show more ambition. Now, you could argue that this ambition got us into a lot of trouble under Elsom a decade later, but back in 1991 it was the difference between a future with David Pleat in charge and one with the likes of Brian Little and Martin O'Neill as manager, and many years of top flight success. There were regular protests outside the ground. We were shipping goals at an alarming rate, in freefall towards the third tier. I remember Shipman, to his credit, came out to speak to the baying mob on at least one occasion. He was well-meaning but deluded. He argued that we'd tried to sign Alan Butcher (he meant Terry) and that was about as much as he had to say in his defence. It was a hostile atmosphere week-in week-out, with attendances dipping well below 10,000 on a regular basis, a deteriorating stadium and almost universal disdain for Shipman, Pleat and co. Bricks were thrown through windows, there were banners aplenty (including one from a plane calling for Shipman and Pleat to go... Only for the latter to miss it because he wasn't even attending the game!). I'm sure many of you remember it all well. It was a vital, pivotal moment in our history. Something either changed or we'd go the way of some of the other clubs we were competing with back then (many of which were above us in the table), like Bristol Rovers, Notts County, Port Vale, Plymouth, Oldham and Oxford. There was no guarantee that our future would be any brighter than theirs. Anyway, I say 'almost universal disdain' because at this juncture Cliff started cropping up in the Mercury or on the radio, or wherever anyone would have him, telling us that everything would be fine. Shipman was doing his best. Pleat was doing his best. Stop complaining. Get behind the boys. Nobody could have been more out of touch and at times it felt like he was doing Shipman's bidding. At last, under the sheer weight of popular demand, Pleat and Shipman were swept aside. We stayed in the second tier and then enjoyed arguably the best period in our history up to that point. I honestly thought that was the end of Cliff as a 'voice of the fans'. I didn't see how someone could have been so wrong on so many occasions, about such crucial issues, and yet still pipe up. But he did, and if you fast-forward thirty years (past the bit where he thought Big Nige was doing untold damage to the club!) to this, you can see him still peddling the same dreary line. If he picks a side, it's probably not only the wrong one, but actually essential that you as a fan do the precise opposite of whatever he proposes!

I don't know what his problem is this time. Is he angry with the fans for giving him some stick? The club for failing to support him in the argument with Ruud? Or even the club for reprimanding those players who were pictured on the night of Cooper's sacking? We could speculate all day long. But, to reiterate, his attitude is evidently a problem right now, unless we take the view that all this sullen behaviour is totally normal and not at all emblematic of the wider negative mood around the club. Maybe it is indeed important not to jump the gun - if we hear that he's had personal issues which explain this apparent negativity, then that would change everything. But equally it would be an almighty surprise and very hard to believe if we were to hear that the manager is untroubled by his demeanour right now. The overwhelmingly obvious conclusion to draw is that he's unhappy at the club and is letting everyone know. So that constitutes a Harry Winks-shaped problem for the manager. And in that regard, Cifuentes is the third consecutive manager - almost certainly - to have had one. That stands even if the two of them get on wonderfully, because lots of managers have friendly relationships with players whose behaviour nonetheless causes them serious issues. To watch and follow City at the moment, three things strike you most: the inactivity of the board, the growing hostility of the fans, and the poor attitude/application of the players. Winks is the most visible example of the latter, and it's very hard to defend someone for whom you could say exactly the same under the last manager, and the one before him. Still being better than Skipp or Soumare doesn't change that, nor do the exact rights and wrongs of Winks' displeasure with the club now, six months ago, or a few months before that. Personally, I don't think that the positive contribution on the pitch of these unhappy players is a counterbalance to the negative impact.

Well, he was certainly highly unprofessional on Cooper's final day in charge. He was struggling to make an impact before that, so it's a pretty damning reflection on what his attitude may have been. To say 'well, technically the manager had already left when he was seen in a nightclub waving placards around begging for the return of the old manager' is a bit of a stretch for the defence! It's extraordinary to see a player doing that. There may be one or two other examples of something similar from the distant past, but not so comically blatant and transparently, publicly unprofessionally. I didn't rate Cooper either, but that was very poor from him. The third coach is Marti. I said 'now he's having a sulk under manager number three', which I think is fair to say - otherwise we wouldn't be talking about it! Whether he personally hates Marti or not, I have no idea. But it looks like he's not behaving himself once again.

Yes, I totally get where you're coming from. But I'd make two points there. Firstly, if it's true (as widely reported) that Enzo asked everyone to spend a week at the training ground and that certain players didn't/couldn't attend and found themselves outside the core group for a while (which is what happened, as far as we can tell, with Winks and Ruud), then surely some of those also had valid reasons for their absence. In other words, while we don't know the ins and outs, we can suppose that what Ruud asked of him wasn't extraordinary at any club, and most players - nearly all of which have families - went along with it. Secondly, if we take the view that there may be a side to the story that we're not hearing here - e.g. Ruud was more unreasonable in his demands than Enzo had been over a similar proposal - then all you can really do is look at the two individuals' track record elsewhere. Ruud has clashed with a few people in the past, certainly (though I'm yet to hear of anything beyond the pale, and ITK journalists maintained that he was fairly popular with our players), but Harry Winks has proven a problem for the last three Leicester City managers, and wasn't particularly great for a good portion of the one before that (that he actually liked!) We've seen him celebrating Cooper's exit on the day he left in an incredibly unprofessional manner, and we've seen his behaviour recently - with our own eyes. Any possible criticism of Ruud, or Cooper, or anyone else where it concerns Winks is, on the other hand, speculative. And, under Ruud and before the rift, we saw some very half-arsed performances from him. So it's hard to formulate any sort of meaningful argument in his defence. Whichever way I try to look at it, he really does seem like one of the most rotten apples, in a slurry of vomit-inducingly putrid apples.

I understand why managers give everyone a clean slate, but this is the problem with it. As far as everyone other than the new manager is concerned, the same issues persist. I still feel for Cifuentes. When I saw in the Athletic that one of the key criteria for the new boss was that he be 'malleable', I read that as them needing a guy to toe the club line and try to be nice and keep everyone on board, as opposed to coming in wielding a sledge hammer. Personally I felt we needed the sledge hammer, but the manager has come in and done what he was asked to, tried to ease the unrest, and yet his recent interviews suggest that this just isn't possible. Things have gone too far. Winks' behaviour seems inexcusable. In isolation I'd understand why people would want to hear his side of the story as well as Ruud's, but essentially all the manager requested was one night at the training ground. When Winks' hero, Enzo, arrived he asked them all to spend a week there, and a lot of people speculated that certain players found themselves less involved early on in the season because they hadn't gone along with this. And, whether that's an accurate representation or not of that particular row between Ruud and a player, this isn't an incident in isolation with Winks. Just as it wasn't with Vestergard either. Not only was Winks very average for the second half of the FLC season, but he celebrated the following manager's exit, fell out with the next, and appears to be having a proper sulk under the one after that. Sometimes the negative mood which is established by competent players isn't sufficiently counterbalanced by their contributions. People said that about Youri and Maddison, and they were obviously vastly superior footballers to Winks, and apparently way less problematic. And, while I'd never be personally offended by Fatawu's message the other day, this is precisely the problem with it. If you have very public shows of disaffection from his team-mates, coupled with evident complacency, laziness and outright s***ness on the pitch, then you can't really expect to get the fans roaring for you. Anywhere.

I really hope not. Of course, after that performance yesterday people will say that he needs to focus on his own game, and specifically how he deals with quicker, more physical defenders - and I suppose that's fair too. It's a two-way street, as many have said, and I understand why fans leaving early or being overly negative (e.g. booing someone like Daka, who hasn't had a great time with us but always gives his best) doesn't help. It's fine in my book for Fatawu to say his bit, not least because he's one of the few who have earned the right to do that. It's not what I would have done personally though. It's a very volatile atmosphere at the moment with a breakdown in understanding between the club and its fans, so until we start seeing more of an effort from their side to fix that, it's probably only going to stoke anger to be calling out the supporters. For some it will go in the pot with Faes cupping his ears or Winks having one of his many sulks, when perhaps some humility and determination to build bridges might go further than adding to the fire. It only widens the rupture, and one obvious reaction is to say 'have a word with those who pay your wages and fail to communicate effectively with the fanbase, or with your teammates whose incompetence and/or stroppiness has helped to foster this breakdown in the relationship'. He's not a kid playing down the park, and handling relationships with the fanbase sensitively is part of what professionals are handsomely paid for. But the fans, as many have said, aren't immune from criticism and while I can see how some will take umbridge with what he's said, I have no personal problem with it at all. It seems very genuine, at least, and that's a pleasant change. And I suppose he's right in everything he says apart from the bit about how the team 'deserves' success. I'm pretty sure that's intended as a 'get this club back where it belongs' type of comment, but a few pundits yesterday remarked that the team acted as if it was entitled to victory just by turning up, and you could interpret what Abdul said here as an indication of that.

Nelson? He had a quiet second half but as poor a first half as you'll see. I wouldn't single him out for praise! My main doubt about the team selection at the weekend was his exclusion, yet based on tonight it was absolutely the right decision. I was really disappointed with him but he's only 21, and down the years we've known plenty of CBs who didn't come good until they were a lot older than that. I thought he looked good in the one game I saw of him at Oxford. I really hope the fans will be patient with Cifuentes. While he wasn't my own first choice, I think that this job is a lot tougher than it looks. Expectations among fans, board, media are sky high, but this is a weaker squad than the one which just about won the FLC fifteen months ago. I think it's very mentally weak, and the lack of clarity about the final squad for the season - together with the looming points deduction and general air of pessimism about the place - is going to tell. Those things have far more to do with the board, players, past managers, than with Cifuentes. Right now, the players look every bit as lacklustre and half-arsed as they did under Ruud, and before that Cooper, and before that the final few months of Maresca. And I was under the impression that, like the rest of us, you yourself don't mind having a moan from time to time! Or has that changed?! But yes, Kasey was crap. I thought we'd see a bit of determination from him to make an impression, but he didn't come close.

I thought it would have been very, very harsh. Skipp was stooping, the foot wasn't even shoulder height. Their claim was about as clear a penalty as you'll ever see.

It's a fair point. In my time there have been plenty of times when managers made decisions which looked bad and turned out to be bad. When most fans think something is a bad idea, it quite often turns out to be. I think of Pleat's evident high estimation of players like North, Spearing and Reid. Little bringing in multiple players from Darlington, or playing Ormondroyd in the CF position. Taylor's insistence on playing Lewis and Lee Marshall. Bassett's initial refusal to play Piper. Levein flooding the squad with SPL players, after saying he felt that that was a much higher level than the English second tier. Allen bringing in a host of players - Casino Jimmy, Sergio Hellings, Kaibi - who'd been pushed on him by agents, and who had seldom played a game at any competitive level. Most of Holloway's decision-making. Ranieri trying to play Amartey as a Kante replacement. Puel dropping Vardy and opting for a Mendy-Choudhury midfield. Most of the Rodgers/Congerton-era signings (when fans had pointed out well in advance that the latter's recruitment record was awful). Cooper picking Reid over Fatawu. Ruud picking Ward without knowing the history. The list goes on. I'll wait before I lay into Cifuentes for building his side around Vestergard and either Okoli or Faes over Nelson, simply because that hasn't happened yet, and I'm sure there are loads of good reasons for those decisions in the short-term. I mean, they scored the goals on Sunday, so I'm sure he could justify their selection/introduction on that alone. But I think it could be a big mistake if this continues in the long-term, not least because we've already seen what happens when a side with a limited budget builds its team in the second tier around players who aren't good enough, and never will be, at PL level. These frustrations among fans often occur when a new manager wants to start afresh and give everyone a fair crack of the whip. It may be a fresh start for him, but you can't expect fans to forget everything they've learnt from the past. So you get people booing Faes, which I wouldn't have done and think is a bit silly when he's coming onto the pitch, but is also people's way of saying 'hey, we've had three years of this cretin, and enough is enough'. It might not seem very nice and I don't think the routine excuses that 'I pay my entrance fee, I can do what I want' or 'he's paid millions for being crap, he doesn't deserve any sympathy' really cut it... but it's also inevitable. If you play individuals who have been first choice among successive managers despite being very bad for the club, fans will feel the need to let any new and apparently unwitting manager know.

You've given two really interesting examples there. The turnaround under Little is one of the most dramatic in our history, though it's also worth checking out Frank Womack on the 'History' section of Foxestalk. He took over when we were in the second tier relegation zone in 1936 and still won the division! Notably, Womack did it with very few changes to the squad, and after a couple of years of struggling in the top flight we were relegated again, and stayed relegated for a long time. In Little's case, however, the upturn was remarkable because we were in one of the most prolonged ruts the club had ever been in when he took charge. He didn't even bother watching the full highlights of the previous season. He already knew what he needed to change and there was no 'clean slate'. He swept out Hodge, North, Spearing, Ramsey and a load of fringe players like Des Linton, stripped Mauchlen of the captaincy (and dropped him) and rebuilt - with next to no money - from there. As with Pearson when he returned to the club, much of the effectiveness of his reset owed to the club's willingness to clear the decks, even if it meant losing money. But clearing the decks is easier said than done, especially nowadays. Cifuentes may wish to overhaul the playing staff but he has to maintain a degree of credibility among the playing staff. If he were to lump for the youngsters ahead of the experienced pros, you'd probably see something more like what happened when Jock Wallace took over. He'd have Page, Alves, Monga, Evans and co. straight in the side, sign virtually nobody and wait for the old boys to find themselves a new club. It enabled us to build a new generation of players in the second tier, but we only finished 17th in his first season and when we did go up we were too inexperienced (with an average age of only 21ish) and came straight back down. Adams is a curious one. He couldn't really give them a clean slate because he'd been Bassett's number two, and we were utterly broke. He cobbled together a side from our veterans, including 4 or 5 O'Neill-era players, and came straight back up. But in some ways he faced a similar, albeit more extreme, problem to that which we faced in 2024. The core squad was mostly unchanged from the one which came down, save for a few notable departures, and too much surgery was needed with too few resources when we went up. And, as with last season, we came straight back down. In all of these examples - Wallace, Little, Adams, Maresca - with managers taking charge of sides that clearly needed a reset, and with differing approaches to the degree of 'clean slate' that they should be afforded, we came straight back down. If we want to go up and stay up there will have to be a hybrid approach; keeping senior players on board until they leave, or buy in and become better players, while simultaneously easing in the better youngsters. You have to be less radical than Wallace, and more radical - if it's viable - than Adams or Maresca. So I'd expect to see the likes of Faes, Vestergard, Soumare and Winks making appearances, but if that sets in over the course of the season - or, alternatively, if the manager looks too hard at how poor these players have been for us over time, grows weary of them and alienates them in favour of a wholesale introduction of young players - then we'll be in trouble if we do win promotion. I'm not sure any of these managers are really our blueprint. And it's going to be very hard to secure a promotion that sticks in such a quick turnaround. I understand people saying that, as good as they may look at this level, we can't build around Faes, Vestergard and Winks again if we want longer term success. But equally, we can't sweep the whole lot of them out and start again with a bunch of kids either. Me - I'd prefer to be patient and rebuild even if it takes a few years. Many of the most successful periods in our history - the 20s, 50s-60s, 90s, 2010s - have come after lengthy periods in the second tier. But I'm not sure that this is the plan, nor even that it's financially viable in 2025.

Personally, I couldn't care less about shirt numbers, but I do understand where you're coming from. If it were a club decision, it would indeed be tone deaf to have Ayew as your apparent replacement for Vardy. However this looks to me more like a team/management decision rather than a club-level one. It's quite possible that someone has said 'look, we might be bringing in a younger chap who could end up playing the "nine" role - do we save the shirt for him?' And between management and senior players they may have thought that this would be a lot of undue pressure (which will only grow if we retire the shirt for a year or two) on a younger player, and perhaps someone with a little more seniority should assume the burden. If Ayew has said, 'alright, I'll do it', then regardless of whether I thought we should have signed him last summer or not, I'd have to applaud him for taking on the responsibility. I wish others would show that level of commitment.

The original article doesn't contain any spelling errors, but neither does it mention any specific approach for Fatawu. It's just speculating about what may or may not happen. I hate people closing threads or casually calling for threads to be closed, but they might have a point here!

I'm a little surprised by some of the comments on Doyle. I didn't think he was exceptionally slow. For an LB, yes, but not for a CB. He's not agile at all because of his build, but his top-rate speed didn't seem too awful, and in fact I think Enzo specifically referenced the fact that he wasn't too slow when he signed (though I may well be wrong there!). I thought he'd make a very decent CB, and I'd prefer a Nelson-Doyle partnership to any combination from Faes, Okoli and Vestergard. The issue with him, apart from being played out of position, was that he picked up an injury and lost all of his momentum. Justin came in, did alright, and as we cooled on the idea of stumping up a fee for Doyle we tended to favour the permanent option. His form fell away badly after that, but at 21 a CB still has many years of improvement ahead of him. I'd want to see us shift a few players first, though. And it does worry me that, across different managerial regimes, we tend to get linked with the same players (as with Slimani, Ndidi, Maguire, Evans, Winks). It suggests limited managerial influence in signings, which only works if the club, players and management staff are all pulling in the same direction. And that, in turn, worries me because anyone who wants to pull in the same direction as Top is probably the last thing that we need at any given moment.

I think that only happened once, didn't it? (when it was already clear that he was leaving). Rodgers'error was in assuming that Ward was a valid long-term replacement. Even so, the hefty fee paid for him to become the eventual successor was all Puel's work. Claude made some very decent signings (albeit for players who, in my opinion, lacked the sort of mental resilience that we leaned on so heavily in the Pearson and post-Pearson era) but there were also a few duffers. And the idea that he was the architect of Rodgers' success is a tad over the top too when you consider that roughly the same number of Pearson-era players featured in the FA Cup win as Puel-era signings.

There are quite a few 38/39 year-olds without a contract at a top tier football club right now. For those who want to continue to play, it's not unusual that they sign for someone quite late on in the window. Older players don't always want to submit themselves to exhausting pre-season programmes (e.g. Cambiasso, who was 4-5 years younger than Vardy when he came to us, and was without a club pre-season) and wait. I have no idea whether he's struggling to pay off his wife's legal bill, or whether his entire existence hinges on another lucrative contract, but I do know that it was widely reported in the local press that Valencia had offered him a deal and he hasn't yet got back to them. So maybe he isn't as desperate as you think. If you have inside knowledge of his priorities and finances then obviously I'd bow to your superior knowledge. Even if he expects to be on 100K+ per week, I expect there would be interest in him from some quarters of the planet. Perhaps he's just waiting to see if something at a more competitive level comes up. But I suspect his options - at playing level, coaching or punditry level - are greater than they are for lots of other 38/39 year-olds. Calling it a disaster for a man who is nearly 40, regardless of how successful he's been, to be without a contract at an elite football club is a bit extreme. It's not as if he's a 27 year-old who marched out of the club proclaiming his certainty that he was headed for bigger and better things.

I'm confused. I thought he was talking about Kone, and I think you're talking about Wilf. Unless Kone is having pictures taken in the kit too!