inckley fox

If that is the case, then it would at least be nice if this time they gave some thought to what comes next. I'd prefer us to properly build and restructure over several years in the FLC than to see more quick fixes.

He's predictably dire at this level and always has been. The only thing I can say in his favour is that none of the other three defenders who participated in that shambles will ever be regulars in a PL side that avoids relegation, so as bad as he is, at least it's not embarrassing when you have the likes of Vestergard for company. That's how bad they all are. And my thoughts on the two centre mids are frankly unprintable in the modern era.

Either way, he was a free. If you wanted to upgrade on Mavididi, you probably needed to spend. We didn't. The fact that he got in ahead of Mavididi, and still does, is either a poor reflection on our long-term planning when we signed Stephy, which would be a tad harsh, or a damning reflection on our lack of resources to make the squad PL ready. Whatever, it shows that two managers agree that Mavididi isn't good enough at this level, and our principal alternative was an ageing free transfer when we needed something more promising.

Well, I can't argue with that! The only thing I'd add is that our dire CM performances all season long - Winks, Soumare both gutless and missing in action more often than not - suggest that we needed a more combative presence in that position. Skipp was just, it seems, a poor choice.

We had no money for new first choice wingers. The hope was that Mavididi and Fatawu would step up, and therefore we invested in competent cover players rather than replacements. But neither adapted well initially, Fatawu got injured, now Mavididi continues to struggle. They've both offered enough at times to suggest that they were adequate cover but neither should ever have been first choice. I don't think Cooper can be held responsible for the lack of funding for upgrades, and did okay (even though I'd have preferred a couple of up-and-comers) when it came to finding cover players.

If you change manager, go long-term. No more short-term fixes.

There is no way on earth that a vaguely competent manager would allow themselves to field a Vestergard-Faes defensive partnership. I don't know whether Okoli, Coady are viable alternatives (realistically they can't be much worse) or whether shape needs to be changed, but if you field those two - with those substandard FBs and CMs to screen them - then relegation is inevitable. Absolutely criminal defenders at this level.

A lovely technical player. Complete fodder in the PL. Sides rightly exploit his weaknesses game in game out.

He's a further symptom of everything wrong with the club. It was an awful job for any manager, admittedly, but it seems like another poor fit. When the sweeping changes that we need come, I expect he'll be among the casualties. And I honestly don't have a clue what he's doing most of the time. On top of us being a poor team, I also suspect that he is fundamentally crap.

We can easily let our emotions get in the way of our judgement with KP, and especially Vichai. He also made his mistakes. There were suggestions in the press that he was partly responsible for Pearson's first exit due to his desire for 'a more continental style of football' (I remember managing to find the link years ago but can't for the life of me track it down now). He appointed Sven and presided over his misspending, as well as that which followed our league win, and therefore blew any chance of us seriously capitalising on 2015-16. And of course - while Vichai's leadership certainly allowed our success to happen in a way that previous owners never could have, and some of his key decisions were undeniably spot on - the cheques he signed were not for the sums of money which typically lead to league titles. The 3.5m he parted with for Morgan, Drinkwater, Vardy, Mahrez, Albrighton, Simpson and Fuchs shouldn't have been enough to bring in the bulk of a PL-winning side. That was down to unthinkably and unprecedentedly good recruitment under Pearson and Walsh. They accumulated 100s of millions worth of talent for about 30m, and that's what made our success so special - that it wasn't down to a chairman's immense wealth, but rather to excellent management (predominantly, to my mind, by the managers and their teams). Either way, in his defence Top was by his father's side for all those great achievements. According to some reports it was he who pulled the plug on the post-Palace Pearson sacking, which allowed the Great Escape to happen. He presided over Rodgers' appointment and the FA Cup and Charity Shield wins. He's contributed a great deal from his own pocket - more, unless I'm mistaken, than was the norm under his father. If we're going to credit Vichai for the success, Top - like Rudkin, while I'm at it - would also deserve a fair share. Personally I thought Vichai was a very good chairman, and while I'm fond of his son and still hope he starts to do the right things, I doubt he will and can't argue with the fact that he's not been up to the task so far. But I also think that a big reason for our crowd holding back as much as they do with their criticism for the board, and also for the sense of absolute mourning/anger for someone that they cherished letting them down so badly, is that they always overstated KP's role in our success. Yes, it was crucial. But Vichai's Dream was always no more than an improbable dream. I'm sure he had lots of other improbable dreams that never worked out for him. In our case, Pearson, Walsh, Shakey, Claudio and a bunch of players who proved themselves to be many times bigger than their apparent worth were - more than even Vichai - the ones who actually pulled it off. If we'd seen that, we'd have been quicker to question Top, and far less shellshocked when it dawned on us that he, along with Rudkin and whoever else, was ruining the club.

One of the reasons why I'm sometimes slower to pinpoint Rudkin as the root of all our woes is that I'd heard something very similar to this from one of those 'I know someone who knows someone' sources. The sort of thing you don't feel the need to repeat until someone else says it. The suggestion back then was that he's extremely personable where not everyone else is, solidly professional where others aren't, willing to basically run everything by himself because others won't, and also one of the only people among the higher-ups who has the first clue about football. It struck me that I'd known people like that in my working life, and that they're often the ones who take the flak for others' negligence and incompetence. Of course, he deserves criticism because he's paid a huge amount of money for running the football side of the business, and it's evidently badly-run. But it did get me wondering whether he's the willing fool who's basically keeping things ticking over, and whether the whole thing could come crashing down if we got rid of him. That said, apparently it's already crashing down regardless. So yeah, fire him.

I honestly think you're wrong here. We were getting undone in the FLC in the second half of last season and sides were picking holes in our shape. It's all very well saying that you just need good coaching to make it work at this level - better than, say, Parker when he went down playing 'the right way', or Kompany, or Martin at Southampton, or countless others - but those coaches who can pull off purists' football with limited options are few and far between. My gut instinct was that we'd have been mauled at this level if we'd played the Enzo way, and the closer we've edged towards it under Ruud, the worse the results have been. Yes, it can be done, but I was unconvinced last season that our options were all that well suited to possession football at a higher level. I do think you need a calibre of technical player that goes sone way beyond some of those individuals you listed (Mavididi, Reid, Ayew, Winks). I think it's quite a basic argument to say that our big problem has been appointing two crap managers. Neither have had the time to truly show that, but we know full well that many of these players got relegated the last time they were in the top flight, that recruitment has been iffy for years, and that the club has been a bit of a shambles behind the scenes. These would all be way higher up on my list of concerns, and reasons for failure, than either manager (though, like you, I was pretty unimpressed by both appointments) or the idea that we're not playing football the Enzo way.

You're suggesting that poor results last season and this have nothing to do with the manager and everything to do with Ndidi. I think there's a risk of falling into the trap of believing that there are one or two straightforward magical solutions to our plight. Wilf's form trailed off for several seasons towards the end of our last PL spell, and he was a regular in the relegated side. We did drop off midway through last season, but form was mixed even after his return (we lost 5 of the 12 games he started). He'd been up and down this season, to my eyes at least. I haven't seen enough to believe that the boss is the weak link either - I just feel the squad is poor, unsettled and that two different managers haven't had the time or circumstances to effect change. But I'd be wary of thinking that a manager was entirely guiltless and helpless, or that we're the only ones to suffer key injuries. Mads was a huge loss, but we couldn't have banked on him continuing to work miracles. And some of Ruud's decision-making, in spite of the difficult circumstances, can be questioned.

When interest came in for Enzo, the club looked at our form in the second half of last season, together with our resources for the close season, and clearly decided that our best bet was to become a hard-to-beat team of scrappers. Cooper seemed like a reasonable appointment to achieve those ends, but the problem was that everything had been built for a very different kind of team. Players had bought into the 'idea', as Enzo called it, and it was a hard-sell to say 'okay, now we have to forget all of that'. But having not followed through with the 'idea', they also failed to see through the Plan B. They reacted to the dressing room discontent from players who were always going to get mauled if they tried to play like a poor man's Man City. They reacted to fans who either felt a personal repulsion to Cooper from Day One or who had unrealistic expectations about what to expect from the team. Perhaps they even needed to, because it looked as if there had been a club-wide rejection of Cooper's ideas, and that therefore it was never going to work. But nothing has got better. We've had more possession against bigger teams which gives the false impression at times that we're more in control of games, but it seems clearer and clearer to me that we were always going to need to buy into the idea of being a dogged, nasty, relentless team of spoilers in order to scrap for survival. We just rejected that notion as any sort of necessity, and as such now we've become an opponent's dream. It's bordering on hopeless. Of course, I don't think Cooper is a particularly good manager, nor have I seen enough to know Ruud is a particularly bad manager. And I think the mess behind the scenes as regards finances and poor recruitment has created a nightmarish working environment for a boss. But what we're seeing on the field now is just the consequence of players, fans and club management failing to understand how a squad comprised of players who aren't really good enough for this level can become competitive. As for the club as a whole, for a long time I've felt that Top simply needs to recognise the state of things. Whether Rudkin is the head of the serpent that needs removing or not, a thorough restructuring - even now - with an admission that things need to be done differently and built properly over time would go a long way. People will accept that it might not be an instant bounce-back, that there'll be short-term pain before things get back on track, and accept that maybe we need to be recruiting players for next year and beyond rather than another raft of desperate signings designed for little more than the next few months. You can still sell that to our fans. That said, I agree with people who believe that our success had more to do with Pearson's team than with wild investment or football-savvy from those at the top, and I obviously agree that Vichai was a more accomplished leader than his far less experienced son. But people want to like Top and they'll back him if he shows willingness to embrace real change. The Rudkin Out thing has grown so loud because people just want to see evidence that people who have been very slow on the uptake are finally learning. His sacking - whether it's the root of our woes or not - would indicate that we were actually acting, and understood the gravity of the situation. But at some point, to get fans back on board, you're going to have to show that you're willing to learn from this catalogue of ****-ups.

What exactly did Vardy do wrong?!

You know, I have to go along with this. I try to be balanced and occasionally even positive, but I really dislike this set of players. In fact, I reckon we've steadily been losing our identity ever since the Pearson years. But I am aware that saying this makes me sound like my grandfather.

Signings like Cannon and Coady! And are Winks or Mavididi good enough at this level? Did Fatawu look good enough when he was available (Southampton game excepted)? We weren't even in promotion form for the second half of last season and plenty of people on here wanted Enzo gone. As misguided as that might have been, there's no reason to believe that this squad is mid-table material. If it were, we should stop getting on at the chairman and concentrate on getting rid of the manager. But that would be totally nuts, because the truth is that we're nowhere near a PL standard squad. Part of our problem now is that upon relegation we went for an instant return, spent big and invested in a style of football that we weren't willing to carry on into the PL. And it's quite expensive to pay for PL-quality players who can play the Guardiola way - too expensive for what we had at our disposal. As such, Maresca isn't that great lost leader at all. Many of our current problems stem from what we did, and what we didn't, when we had to rebuild in the FLC. Of course, well done Enzo for taking us up, and well done for being a good coach, but the nature of our promotion has added to our current problems, and is in keeping with the long-term mismanagement that we've been seeing since Top took charge.

Based on the second half of last season, our limited resources in the summer, the fortunes of sides who went up with us then chose to persist with the would-be Pep football that Enzo favoured, and the fact that we've been rubbish under two different managers since then, I reckon the evidence suggests it wouldn't have been great.

Well I wouldn't argue with you on any of that. People who believed Maresca would have done more with this squad, or that Cooper should have had them upper-mid table were utterly deluded, and responsible for some of the strangest posts I've ever read on here. I have some sympathy for Ruud and the graveness of the mess he's inherited, and there's still some hope that he'll get a handle on things, but even so he's making some awful, awful decisions.

He might be symptomatic of the problem, though. Those who are nicest about Top absolve him on the grounds that he knows nothing about football and has entrusted Rudkin with that side of the business. And yet it was Top who took the lead with the Ruud appointment, acting on concerns of senior players who have not looked the part, and bypassing those like Rudkin who supposedly come from a footballing background. If - as seems likely - that appointment improves nothing, then it wouldn't be out of keeping with the pattern of consistent mismanagement, and the chairman being the most culpable for it.

He's made some weird, weird calls. I'm sure he has his reasons, and it's way too early for me to call for him to go (as with Cooper, until it became clear that the toxicity from fans and players was making his position untenable) but my god he looks like he's struggling. I just get the feeling that he hasn't read the room at all with us.

Would he not get any credit if we won because of individual brilliance, then?

My memory might be hazy, but I think the midfield was often James and Drinkwater in the promotion season, and that it was - especially in the second half of the campaign - typically King who he'd vie with for the shirt. It was in the 'Great Escape' season that he tended to be ahead of both of them, until the injury. As for whether there was ever any indication that he was PL standard: well, three points spring to mind. Firstly, that your form in the second tier can also indicate whether or not you're good enough for the Premier. The only nice things we've got to say about Winks and even Ricardo, in recent years, are based on how good they looked at that level. When he was in the second tier, he was often preferred to players who later featured regularly in a title-winning side, so that in itself is something of an indication, even if it's a not-entirely-reliable one. Secondly, he was pretty decent in the 'Great Escape' season. Better than Drinkwater, who we know was PL standard, and King. We were well into our end-of-season run when he got injured, and the fans were widely impressed by how he'd been getting along. Thirdly, his injury problems were among the worst we've seen in the past few decades at the club, and it was no surprise that he was half the player he had been afterwards. Even so, he put in some fine performances (specifically one against Chelsea, if I recall) which earned him a new contract, and reminded us of just how good he could have been. Further injuries intervened, he dropped off even more, and in the end the new contract seemed a bad idea with the benefit of hindsight. But I reckon it's a tad unfair to say there was never a suggestion that James was PL level when you're talking about someone was was, at the time, a young player who'd been in a great second tier side and who'd done well in a mid-season campaign - often preferred to two eventual PL-winners - and who still occasionally looked the part at that level after a series of crippling injuries.

I have no idea what any centre forward in the world could have offered us in that half. It's hardly been a paradise for goal poachers. Occasionally, as in the last game, he's been wasteful and deserves criticism. But over the years there have been plenty of games when we've had one of the greatest ever strikers on the pitch, barely touching the ball, and this forum has been awash with people blaming him for it. When that clearly isn't the main issue at play.

Again, I'm not sure you're characterising the nature of these injuries accurately. Most players in most squads pick up some sort of injury over the course of a season. The Winks injury and (hopefully) the Hermansen one are the norm rather than the exception for players. Ricardo wasn't first choice under Cooper, and had been in and out of the side even when fit under our previous PL managers. He may have played 40 games at a lower level, in a custom-made role in a system which many thought would see us too exposed at this level, but you also have to look at how these players were doing in recent years at the highest level. That kind of analysis certainly doesn't suggest him to be our great lost saviour, as much as I'm a huge fan myself. Fatawu had been in and out of the team this year, and it was only in the Southampton game (unless I'm mistaken) that he truly stepped up. I believe he has a lot of potential that we hadn't yet seen on a consistent basis at this level, but it's a stretch to even call him an established first teamer this season. Ndidi, who has picked up a medium-term injury every year since - what, 2019? - was indeed a first teamer, but I'm not convinced he'd displace Winks, Soumare or the chap (be it Facundo or Bilal) ahead of them in the centre at the moment. So yes, we probably only have seven players, maybe less, who are PL quality. We have been hit badly with our right flank options. We miss and have missed Hermansen and Winks badly, and we've lost another established starter in Ndidi, once again. But we don't have an exceptional number of injuries overall, and I don't think we can categorise those to Ricardo or Fatawu as having deprived us of nailed-on PL quality starters. In truth, we have a normal number of injuries, with a medium-term one to a regular starter (Ndidi), troublesome shorter terms ones to Hermansen and, previously, Winks. And then we have a long-term injury to two players who hadn't really established themselves in the starting line-up, in Ricardo and Fatawu. It's not all that severe, on paper at least.