inckley fox

I can't for the life of me understand why they're negotiating to renew Begovic's contract. He was dreadful and clearly well past it. He managed to be no better than Stolarczyk, which is really going some. Incredibly, Hamer wouldn't be any worse than either of them.

He didn't win promotion with MK Dons did he? I thought that was before he took over. They were lower mid-table in League One under him, I think.

Obviously if it were Martin he'd have to get off to a flying start. In the unlikely event that he took us up two divisions over the next few seasons, I suppose that would be the perfect redemption arc for Top and his ideology. In fact, I'm sure the pro-KP faction would consider promotion from League One alone worthy of vindication. And you'd imagine we'll be the favourites, so a lot of people are going to be of the view that there's a good chance of Top being proven right whoever he chooses to bring in. There are three huge, glaring problems with this, however. Firstly, that it would be proof that nothing has really changed at a time when drastic change is required. Proof that Top is still fixated with possession-based football - an obsession which most likely contributed to us parting ways with Pearson in 2010 and setting our progress back by years, appointing Sousa then Sven. And which - back in 2017 - was deemed 'the only truly sustainable way forward' for the club (at a point in time when two promotions and a league title were our recent past, and a collapse of existential proportions our not-too-distant future). Proof that we can't look beyond gradually replacing everyone at the club with someone who was a bit of a failure at Southampton. Proof that 'outside the box thinking' doesn't exist in our boardroom, and that we can't get 'inside the box thinking' right either. Secondly, this would either mean that McCarron was another 'yes man', handpicked because he roundly reflected all of Top's and Rudkin's ideals, or that Top was still making the big calls, and McCarron is an utter irrelevance. The rule of thumb for some time has been that if Top thinks something is the right way forward, then it's probably the very opposite of what we should be doing, and so the same would have to apply to Martin's appointment. And to McCarron's. And, while we're at it, Glover's. And everything else from top to bottom of the club. Finally, the chances of it coming off would be slimmer than the average pundit might think. Many fans will make their minds up before a ball is kicked, and as we saw with Cooper, that in itself can make it very hard for something to work out. Even if - like most of us - you resolve not to boo him from the off, if the football is frustrating and pedestrian in Game One, there'll be restlessness. And even if that works out for him, when the first defeat comes the sense of 'here we go again' will be far greater than it would with other managers. Sometimes an appointment is so monumentally unpopular that it's really hard for it to work out, even if it should. And when you actually look at his record with clubs like Rangers, Swansea, MK Dons, and even to a degree with Southampton where he rather unspectacularly pulled off what he was widely expected to pull off (before it all went wrong) it all reeks of style over substance. Hype for doing things in an interesting way - the 'right' way, if you're of a particular school of thought - but not in a very effective way. Even in the third tier. So the chances of it working out with a crap, unpopular manager appointed by a chairman whose key decisions have almost exclusively been proven to be wrong, and at a club which is plummeting fast and opting to change pretty much nothing, are not all that great. Perhaps, as with Southampton, Martin will achieve what everyone expects him to next season - you can't discount the possibility - but even then I'd be very dubious that we'd learnt our lessons, fixed the club, got back on the right track. Instead of that, the club needs a genuine upheaval of its long-standing, failed ideals, for other people to make the big calls instead of Top or Rudkin, for a manager to come in who is custom-made for a budget rebuild and success in the third tier. It shouldn't be too hard for them to realise this, but we all know what past evidence suggests on that score.

Three things would concern me most if there had been even a hint of truth in our interest. The first is that he's not particularly good and is unlikely to get any better. He's pretty much a tier three-level player, so it would indicate another transfer window of trying to bring in 'oven ready' players for our level rather than any sort of building for the long-term. The second is that, for once, I do actually know a bit about Max Lowe, and there are certainly a good few Derby fans who felt that he lacked a bit of fight and desire when they were struggling and that he was also a tad too big for his boots. I even remember one incident where he himself admitted that his head was up his own arse. Pretty much verbatim. So that would suggest that we've not learnt anything about the need to scout character rather than simply playing credentials. In fact, it would indicate that instead of trying to bring in PL-standard players regardless of whether they're ****heads, we've dropped down a couple of divisions and are trying to bring in 2nd/3rd tier players who may well be ****heads instead. And the third very concerning point is that we don't have a manager yet. So that would indicate that Top, Rudkin, Glover (and possibly their new friend on the board, McCarron) are still plotting the future course, recruitment strategy, playing style and personnel of the team without any input from whoever is going to have to actually manage them, or stick up for them next season. I mean, that worked out well in January, didn't it?

The problem with Warne is what happens after promotion. His record in the Championship is absolutely abysmal, and while it'd be foolish to understate how crucial a promotion might be for us, I do think we need to look further than the short-term fixes for once. Going up and needing to either fire a popular manager, overhauling his style of play in the process, or get relegated, isn't a great choice. If we want a promotion specialist then someone a little less tainted like Challinor might be the better bet.

As others have said, it depends on what you define 'world class' to be. It's like when people coin the term 'club legend' and debate whether it should be applied to King at one extreme (great servant, great trophy haul, not a major factor in much of the success he enjoyed) and then, say, Kante at another. It's clear that you consider 'world class' to mean the best in the world at what they do, especially if you can only think of four PL players right now who are 'world class'. On that basis, you'd struggle to argue for even Banks and Lineker. Kante may well be the only one, in his City days at least. And no, Ricardo (who was second or third choice RB for Portugal even at his peak) wouldn't come near. I'm not entirely convinced, by that measure, that Rice would apply now, as great a player as he is. For me, though, 'world class' is to be among the very best in your position: To be able to truly excel internationally, continentally and/or within the best teams in the best domestic leagues. That would mean Vardy, Mahrez and Kante were nailed-on, because in terms of what they offered, they were among the best. Possibly even the best. And probably Kasper too, who I honestly thought was one of the best three or four in the world at his peak. That really is a reminder of how amazing Pearson/Walsh were, isn't it? And how our success had more to do with their immense ability to forge an elite side on a shoestring budget than with the investment in the club, as important as it may have been. The six or seven million we spent on Vardy/Mahrez/Kante was by no means an exceptional outlay. The fact that superhuman scouting brought us talent worth twenty or thirty times that amount goes a lot further towards explaining our ascent. And, of course, the people responsible for that were at the club a good while before KP were on the scene.

Ex-players turned manager certainly have a very up-and-down history at the club. There's a case that one of them was our best ever manager: Gillies had ten years in charge, our first major trophy, three more finals, our first European outing, four top-eight finishes and many of our greatest ever acquisitions. But if you look at the others (Gardner, Lochhead, McLintock, Kelly, Rowett, unless I'm forgetting someone) you've got just under six years of management in total... With a return of a bottom place finish in the Midlands League, three relegations and two of our lowest ever second tier finishes. I'm not sure what the lessons are from all that. Things can go badly if you're swayed by the fact that someone's an ex-player (e.g. Lochhead, McLintock) and less so if it's not a factor (e.g. Kelly). And then you've got Gillies, and there was no reason to think he'd be the right man to keep us in the top flight whatsoever, but he did, and then became one of our finest ever. Which category Fuchs would come into, I don't know, but I do know that we're either going to go for a very predictable, safe and totally inappropriate manager for the scale of the task, or take a punt on a wild card who'll either be a complete revelation or, more likely, an absolute disaster. Of the two ex-players that are being linked with the post, Rowett probably comes into the first bracket, and Fuchs the second. You never quite know who'll be the right man for the moment. Who'd have thought, given their background, that not only Gillies, but also Bloomfield, Hodge, Little, O'Neill, Pearson, Ranieri and arguably even Maresca would do as well as they did? And who'd have thought managers who seemed to be a league above us, like Pleat, Eriksson and maybe even someone as well-loved as Wallace would have ultimately endured such mixed (and worse) fortunes?

I don't know. Everyone was pretty sure it was going to be Gary Rowett about four weeks before the board realised that literally nobody else wanted the job.

I'm guessing there won't be a plane for this one.

Completely. He did what Ayew always does. We just never needed an Ayew, and have resented the fact that we were lumbered with one ever since. Understandably. Really good, balanced post, by the way.

Mavididi wasn't excellent that year, and he's been a disaster ever since. Winks was good for half a season. Our results with him in the side, over two thirds of his time at the club, have been vastly inferior to our results without him. He's fallen out with the fans and three different managers, and been a mainstay of our greatest collapse ever, in almost 150 years. One of the major culprits. Cannon's sell-on was fine, agreed, but I missed those good contributions you speak of. He got a goal or two, but never looked like a good spot. Coady, as you said, was a disaster. All of that, in total, amounts to almost 40m in misspent funds which could have been used to comprehensively rebuild our squad with the long-term in mind. Instead, it went on duds and short-term fixes, designed to bolster a vision of football which was never viable if/when we got promoted. The highlights were Fatawu - one of the most selfish players I've ever seen and, in spite of his wonderful highlights reel, not particularly of any benefit to our team-play even in the second tier this season - and Hermansen, who is a decent enough keeper, but by no means a world-beater. I wouldn't be getting the bugle out to parp over Glover/Maresca's marketplace masterstrokes.

I went over the top in my criticism of him yesterday... But no. We've had some great and very successful RBs down the years. Most of his time with us hasn't been especially illustrious, and he hasn't been especially good either. That's not to detract from his first two seasons though.

Was he really that good in those stats? I'll bow to your superior knowledge, but it surprises me. He was good of course. For a bit. And then, largely due to injuries, mostly crap.

He didn't do all that well with Maresca either.

Sheffield United, 2-5. Gary Fitzpatrick was our best player and we never saw him again. The Double Decker was full of Sheffield United fans, who were actually really decent chaps by and large. Harry Bassett was their boss, and I think there's an old doc on Youtube somewhere which shows him in the dressing room, being very very Dave Bassett. I got to know the ref years later too. Also a very nice chap. I can't remember who scored our goals. I think Marc North died only a few years later, sadly. His last game for us was the Oxford win (so, quite a heroic high to go out on) but, in an indication that lots of individuals get to play at this level without being anywhere near league standard, he spent his final years in local football. Patson Daka take note. As for our RB that day, it must have been Ali Mauchlen, surely? Quite the contrast with Ricardo.

Well, not arguing there.

I suppose the benefits gained from cheating impact on the football.

Ooh, I think you're wrong there. Every Forest fan I knew swore he was crap. He came to us at 28, give or take, and had quite the resurgence. He wasn't better than Ricardo, of course. But he did score a beauty vs Watford in, I don't know, 1990. And won player of the year twice. And led us out at Wembley in 1994.

Danny Simpson, maybe? I don't know. But but but... I should apologise for the tirade. I spent an evening with a very smug Derby fan and seem to have taken it out on Ricardo. Quite a rabid rant, wasn't it? We all have the capacity to surprise ourselves. At his peak he was one of the finest - more cultured than Simpson, obviously - so I'm not sure what came over me. If I'd been drunk it would have made more sense. I wish him the very best. Even if he was an exceptionally crap captain, and even if that interview he gave the other day wound me up to the point of distraction. Edit: regarding best RB, the poster who mentioned Pontus has an excellent point. Like you, I'm 46, so we both remember his heyday. You might even remember Marc North...

I mean, even in my time, he's not the best right back we've had. In recent years he's been one of the worst, while for a short time early doors, yes, he was very good. But come on. He's literally our worst ever captain, and the right back in our worst ever team. Character wise, you listen to him and it's easy to see why we're in such a state. A miserably lacklustre, lily-livered individual who has long since wanted out. Literally one of the worst performers in the worst side in our nearly-150 year history. To say he's a better RB than the world class or PL-winning players (who never suffered back to back relegations, and actually won things) we've had in that position, from Adam Black in the 1920s to those in living memory, is one hell of a stretch. As much as Leicester fans, for a very short period of time (when we weren't actually competing for accolades), argued that he was world class, the truth was that he couldn't even establish himself in the Portugal squad ahead of Cancelo or Dalot. He's one of the few common denominators in our post-2021 downfall, and when I hear him speak, I can see why. We got a good year and a half out of him, but replaced him before the FA Cup win (half a decade ago). Please, let's not delude ourselves that anyone in this current batch of dossers is a club legend. It just makes LCFC as an entity seem even s****er than it actually is.

Well, we had a good year-and-a-half out of him in which he was a very able successor to Simpson. The other six-and-a-half years have been more down than up, and he captained our worst ever side. His interviews, to me, betray a person whose lack of moral fibre more than counterbalanced his one-time considerable talent. But maybe it's unfair of me to think that one of our most senior players who said he wanted out last summer - in spite of nobody being remotely interested in taking him off our hands - is part of the cultural and economic problem which has finally consumed our club. If he's one of our best ever five players (ahead of the entire league-winning side, and Muzzy / Walsh / Lineker / Smith / Worthington / Weller / Glover / Gibson / Cross / McLintock / Banks / Shilton / Rowley / Chandler / Black / Adcock / Duncan / Hine etc.) then that'd be fairly damning. I think we've offered more as a club than people as meek as Ricardo (who was neither a league nor an FA Cup winner, and to me represents the era of favouring technical ability over strength of character). But each to their own!

I live abroad, and people never cease asking me (or telling me) what Jamie's up to. He's a much bigger celeb than I'd thought. I reckon his story struck a chord or two, so maybe the wider audience is a bit wider than you'd think. Not that it's of any great interest to me personally. If he comes back and bangs in 40 goals in League One, playing for peanuts, then I suppose it'll matter, but I abhor reality TV.

I think the message being responded to was pretty aggressive, actually. If you start off any encounter by calling multiple people (in fact, the whole fanbase) hateful, and accusing them of wallowing in self-pity, then it's probably reasonable to expect a response. The poster came across as someone who detested Leicester City fans which, logically speaking, gives the impression that whatever they're a fan of, it isn't Leicester City. So I thought the response was relatively polite. In life in general, if you make a point you have to back it up with some kind of justification. If you can, it's a fully-formed opinion. If you can't, it's just posturing and chest-thumping. Somebody wrote something which was aggressive, baseless and a bit dumb. They can either leave it there or try to prove that there's more to them and their stance. And no, stating how long they've been a going to games doesn't count. My dad's been going since the 1950s and he still maintains that Mark McGhee was the architect of O'Neill's success, so it clearly means nothing (to his credit though, he does at least try his best to justify his opinion. He argues well, even if he's obviously wrong). But maybe some people aren't capable of justifying their viewpoint at all. Or maybe even they know that it doesn't make sense. For that reason, I'd like more of these KP loyalists to come on here and, instead of just saying 'you're all bloody fairweather fans' then sodding off, actually form a coherent argument. Some may well be reasonably convincing, but I have a feeling that in most cases it's a stance which - when subjected to reason - will dissolve on contact.

I honestly have no idea how that's happened! One of those glitch in the matrix moments.

Oh dear, I've just made several of your excellent points (after you!).