inckley fox

You are ignoring the bit where he said he's always done a decent job! And the fact that most of the arguments against him have been about how ugly he is, or that he once worked for Forest (ah-hem, Martin O'Neill, Wes Morgan...) which means that countering it with 'well, he doesn't seem a bad chap' is perfectly valid. The question for people who are unhappy, or saying 'is this the best we could do?' is: Who, that might realistically have been interested in the job, has a better-suited record than Cooper? I think if we engage in that argument, those who feel Cooper deserves a fair chance are on the steadier ground.

I honestly have no idea why we're unhappy about the idea of any of the three supposed main candidates. On paper, Cooper's record is a good deal better than I was expecting of our new boss in that he's improved both clubs he's managed, achieving a very tricky EPL survival in the process. In fact, I'd argue that his record is the best of those on offer given our circumstances. Yes, he's ugly, but if that meant anything Paulo Sousa would be our greatest ever boss. Yes, he was at Forest, but several of our best managers had close links with rivals (e.g. Milne and O'Neill at Cov/Forest). So that counts for nothing either. I certainly see no benefit in being up in arms if we make any sort of sensible appointment. After all, remember how underwhelmed we were by Little (ahead of Lee and Beck), O'Neill (ahead of Walker), Pearson (over Ferguson, then O'Neill) and Ranieri. On the other hand we were mostly ecstatic to see Pleat, Eriksson and Holloway walk through the door, and unduly seduced by the unknown pleasures of Taylor and Levein too. We get it wrong as often as not because the right fit for the right club is hard to predict. Our new boss will need a lot of patience - possibly even beyond relegation - so from our perspective we've got to summon a bit of positivity if it's going to have a chance of working.

We'll be defying them from the Championship though, and sued left right and centre. If we are going to end up going down anyway, it'd be nice to think a future existed for us in which we wouldn't be talking about huge deductions, and might actually be able to become competitive again. We can't resign ourselves to years of uncertainty on the basis that we, and very few others, might think we have a point. Even if we stayed up for one year, it'd only make what happened the year after, or the year after that, more costly.

It made me chuckle to hear people dismissing the credentials of Potter, Cooper, Moyes and Corberan, because I'd been pleasantly surprised to hear them even linked with the job. I hadn't expected managers of that standing to want to shackle themselves to a club which has been accused of failing to communicate key matters to its past two permanent managers, and which is widely expected to be relegated after a potentially record-breaking points deduction. Not when all four could expect to be in contention for other EPL jobs in the near future, and when they'd be coming into an atmosphere which wasn't entirely welcoming to Maresca (even during a league-winning season), possibly on a promise that 'in principle, we'll stick with you if you go down'. I honestly wonder how compatible that kind of assurance would be with the mood around the KP, and the likely mood over coming months. Any incoming boss can expect hostility to their playing style and an increasingly noxious atmosphere as relegation looms, to the point where the board are going to struggle to keep people on board unless they act. The chances of anything other than the sack or, if you're lucky, getting so far as to see relegation become reality, are minute. If you had a shot at literally any other top flight, or top-end FLC post - as these guys surely do - then it might be better for your career, and self-esteem, than us right now. I'd expect most interest to come from people who are more desperate, less sought after, or perhaps unscrupulous enough to be willing to take the hit in exchange for a handsome pay-off. I'd imagine people with tenuous links to Pep Guardiola, or someone who's desperate (and malleable enough) to find any which 'way in' - I'm not sure if Van Nistelrooy comes into that category - to be more up our alley. I may be wrong, of course, and I'm sure some would be more excited by someone untested and exotic-sounding than by anyone who has previously bored them with their competence, but I'd be ecstatic if we attracted any of those names.

I think it's the phrase Kasper used when he talked, in his post title-winning interview eight years ago, about what set us apart from our rivals. There are also plenty of sides out there who aren't particularly tippy-tappy. The fact that we can all understand these distinctions, and that they were relevant eight years ago and still are today, means that it's as valid as any other term you care to use for elaborate and control-based styles of football.

I'm not sure it's about what the papers might call 'exciting football'. I doubt he's asking for Keegan-era Newcastle! We've had some sides that were plain dull over the time period he's referencing. The way we played under Puel, or even Levein and (arguably) the second year of Pearson's first spell wasn't easy to watch, irrespective of the success. It was very conservative. And people rarely talk about the great entertainers of the Little and even O'Neill years. However in the case of those last two examples we were defined by our work-rate. We might have been defensive at times, but a combination of lower expectations, charged atmosphere and spirit made those eras more exhilarating. By contrast, last season seemed to be about playing in a way in which superior players could suffocate the game with possession. When that didn't work, we seemed to lack many of the qualities which you'd tend to associate with Leicester teams, like the ones that yo-yo'd between leagues in the past, occasionally upsetting the top flight apple-cart, or even the one which was our most successful ever side, eight years ago. So it's perhaps more about identity. You won't get away with playing O'Neill or Pearson-ball at Barcelona, and you'll struggle with Puel and Maresca-ball at Leicester, simply because it's not what the public responds to, it's not what excites us, and it's not even what brought us our greatest successes. People say 'but what about Bloomfield?' But the response is easy; at the time many preferred the more industrial football that preceded it under O'Farrell. In the end, Bloomfield was being booed from the terraces while we finished 11th. As for those who loved those goal-shy Bloomfield sides because they played 'the right way', well those voices have mostly gone now, albeit after years of complaining that the more successful sides under, say, O'Neill, weren't honouring some tradition which everyone else was in the process of forgetting. It's different now, of course, and harder to forget, because everyone can remember us being far more successful - playing a different way - in recent history. Until those achievements are eclipsed, that identity could hold strong for decades, as it did after Bloomfield, or longer. All of which makes Top's determination to reject that longer-standing footballing identity (which was the making of King Power's ownership, after their previous dalliances with a possession-based game under Sven) a hard sell. It seems both very un-Leicester, and less effective than something in recent memory. And the argument that it's more sustainable, based on the past few seasons, is clearly baseless.

I'm by no means devastated to see Enzo leave, but at some point you have to pay attention to the noise coming from successive managers. They both said they'd had the club's financial predicament kept from them and, while with BR that sounded like a lie (because we'd all done the maths and realised that the lack of a big sale one year would catch up with us if we weren't successful in 2021/22), it was all-too-familiar when you heard the same from Maresca. The board have presided over relegation and at least one financial breach, and failed to communicate the state of play to two different bosses in the past few years. In theory, I'd have had some sympathy for the initial breach because we found ourselves in a position to compete and were caught out for trying to stay among the elite, but when you look at the bigger picture, it's harder to defend. You can call Enzo a 'poundshop Pep', but that's what he was employed to be. One of my many issues is this 'vision' which the club has, and which binds us to employing 'poundshop Peps'. Whose vision is this? If it's a question of the club's identity, it must come from the fans and people throughout the club, and I doubt that this is the case. After all, Top's message to Enzo at the outset was simply 'I want us to play like Man City'. You have to wonder about the health of the sport if those same lines are being heard throughout the game from highly empowered people who are low on expertise. It smacks of Mel Morris and his 'Derby Way'. At least Enzo did actually go some way towards making it work. And I'm not sure he, Rodgers, the EFL, EPL, or even many of the behind-the-scenes figures (e.g. Rudkin, who is at one point responsible for everything that ever goes wrong, and at another Top's lapdog, when he can't be both!) can keep taking the flak for the impulses of an owner. These really are just the guys trying, and occasionally succeeding at giving him what he wants.

Bassett took newly-promoted Wimbledon to 6th (pre-EPL, admittedly) and kept Sheffield United up on a shoestring for a couple of years, so it seems a bit harsh. Especially if Taylor isn't on the list!

Yes, I can totally understand that. Really, I'm only speculating, because you have to imagine that something, somewhere, which seemed to make sense at the time got us into this fix. I'm not sure what it was. Maybe we could have accepted apparently underwhelming offers for players here and there. Maybe our recruitment shifted too much towards established talent. Maybe we splashed out too much on contract extensions. Or perhaps it was general incompetence. I just thought it was interesting that we'd turned down bids for Praet, because there was so little evidence that we'd ever had offers to turn down for anyone. It's a reminder that there could have been more, some of which might have been more respectable. And it obviously begs a question as to whether accepting the bid could have improved our financial situation in any way. But you're completely right. The answer to that question might just be 'no'.

I totally agree that on many occasions it's simply cheaper to keep hold of a player who's going to be of use, rather than accepting a fee which wasn't what you hoped and being forced back into the market. That could also be the case with Ndidi, Vardy, or even Tielemans some time back. You could also extend that argument to contract extensions for the likes of Mendy and James in the past, who might have represented a lowish-cost risk on renewal instead of prompting the need for more costly recruitment. Okay, people criticised those decisions with hindsight, but these are players who had looked useful at times, so I get the logic. When the books are well-balanced, at least. However when that player is Praet, who hasn't impacted on this season (nor any of the last few) to any significant extent, then you have to wonder a bit. Especially given that the prevailing point of view is that we should have been looking to cut wages across the board in ways which we failed to do. Presumably not all of that is a case of the club having done literally everything in its power to adhere to the rules, otherwise it'd be a truly hopeless situation for the future, and leave no lessons to be learnt. Of course, without knowing any of the details it's impossible to draw any watertight conclusions, but it is an indication that offers come in for relatively unneeded players without us knowing, and that we don't always choose to clear the decks.

People often say that you can't sell people unless offers come in, so I thought it was curious that Praet said the club had previously held out for a higher price for him, after receiving an offer. It goes to show that, on at least one occasion, we were turning down bids for unwanted players. Obviously I understand that there's a balance to be struck between getting a good fee and having your pants pulled down, but it might add some weight to the argument that the club could and should have been doing more to clear the decks.

I also think that most people who saw both men play were clear that Chandler was considerably better than Rowley. He scored his goals in a much better team and mostly at a higher level.

Fair enough. I've been travelling all night, and was a bit annoyed. I've re-read my own post and it looks like the ramblings of an angry, tired person.

There's a thread on this forum in which many of us confidently stated that Enzo's team was superior to that of Pearson in 2014. It was daft at the time, and it seems a whole lot dafter now. Any leader who only entertains one system, one set of players (with minimal rotation), and one shape, is clearly going to fall short of the most basic requirements of a manager. If you're inexperienced in any line of work, you have to be open to ideas. It astounds me that the board were clearly looking for someone with such a single-minded vision. It suggests that their vision of the club is at odds with that of the fans, and that which brought us success. It feels like an on-going and utterly unjustified fixation with their weird notion of 'sustainable' football. Our FFP charges are also testament to that peculiar obsession. And any notion that he's an astute tactician or competent motivator should be quickly dismissed. Still, I don't believe he should go. And I do believe he can take us up, and end up being considered a reasonably successful boss. But I have grave doubts about how much we've progressed under his leadership, and what might happen next.

Yeah, and if there were a greater element of uncertainty about how someone would go about beating the press, then perhaps the 'three men in the six yard box' build-up from the kick would be less predictable and more effective.

I'd love to see an objective, scientifically-conducted study into the effectiveness of that particular build-up from goal kicks. Of course, I understand the potential benefits of beating a press, but I'm unconvinced that the success rate makes it justifiable to build up in that way as a matter of course. In the Norwich game, much of our pressure could have been attributed to their failure to make that specific move work (including one of the goals). It's something I see across football which often seems not to work, and in our build-up play too. I'd love to see a study which shows where the possession goes in the next 8-10 passes; who has the ball and where. In modern football I can never decide which aspects are the natural evolution of the game, and which are fads encouraged by people trying to replicate the best sides (with mixed results) or a consequence of incredibly rich owners contracting managers with the primary purpose of doing just that. I suspect this is something which has caught on without managers properly evaluating when to use it, how to use it, and how often to use it. But I could easily be shown to be wrong.

Yes, absolutely.

I could be wrong, but I believe the fee is 15-17m. That seems way, way too high for what I've seen.

I don't see it in him at all. But I have been wrong before.

You can have an opinion on any entity without wishing to be part of it, especially if it's supposed to represent you. I'll never join the Tory party, but I have the right to have an opinion on the decisions that their members make when those decisions determine the country's next PM. And that's definitely not a party political statement! At some point in time it will apply to Labour too. People can have all sorts of opinions about all sorts of organisations that they choose not to be a part of. As a Leicester fan, I don't think I'd be an appropriate member of the Trust, given my circumstances and the time I could devote to it. Many others could say that for all sorts of reasons. But the Trust claim to represent us, and I expect their language to reflect that. There are many valid ways, beyond joining the Trust, in which a City fan can voice his or her concerns. Publishing your thoughts on social media is arguably one of them. What you say on matchday another. You can't take the view that those voices should be ignored by the Trust because they didn't sign up.

What leverage have they had? It certainly hasn't been employed to any effect. If, in the current climate, the Trust pushes just a little more and the club violently resists, I think LCFC would be extremely unwise to do so. I don't think any body representing the voice of the fans should be emphasising the decency of the board right now more than they're emphasising the questions that need to be asked of them. If they are doing this (and, not for the first time, they are), then I don't see how the leverage they aspire to have could, in any way, be productive. I'm not asking for scorched Earth stuff, and I wasn't the last time that one of the Trust's statements came across as benign as this one does. I'm expecting their rhetoric to reflect the gravity of the situation if they're expecting the fanbase as a whole to feel it's voicing their concerns.

In the context of what's been going on recently, I'm not sure they can lay claim to representing the fanbase if the emphasis remains on how thankful they are to KP. Dropping in one diplomatically querying adjective doesn't help either. That said, unless they have a great deal more information than any of us do, I don't see how they can demand resignations, because we don't know who's to blame. Even so, it would be completely reasonable to insist (far more forcibly) that the club reach out a lot more, establishing new points of contact with local media / fan groups, and acknowledge the need to address - over time, but also openly and humbly - some more serious questions. I don't think the Trust comes across at all well when its proverbial tongue appears to be searching so hungrily for the club's rear end.

You'd prefer a season of misery in the PL, followed by god knows what sort of season the year after in the 2nd tier...? Is that better than simply getting that season of restructuring in the 2nd tier (which should have happened this year, perhaps) out of the way next year? Maybe our future would be more secure in the first of those scenarios, in which case I'd welcome it, but if we're simply putting off the inevitable readjustment at a lower level, then personally I'd rather do that sooner, not later. I'd have thought we were all fed up of short termism.

Alternatively, they could keep recruiting in the way they have done for the past half decade or so, and accept that they'll have to develop those players and sell on their costliest talent. As they have done up to now. Why change? And why did we change?

I'm sure Rudkin and Whelan also have a team working beneath them. So maybe they're the problem. Maybe Top, Rudkin and Whelan can all hide behind Jon's PA, or Whelan's head of staff. Or maybe those guys can hide behind their subordinates too. I've always been a bit uncomfortable that people look at Rudkin - the only person in that executive team with any sort of footballing background, the only one who's served the club over decades, and one of the few with no financial responsibility - and assume that he is to blame for everything that's gone wrong. And with absolutely no evidence to back any of it up. People are grasping for anyone who they can blame, other than Top, because they don't want it to be Top. Yes, it would have been reassuring to see heads roll when it all went wrong. But maybe heads didn't roll because those people weren't to blame in the first place. Maybe, if we're blaming JR for everything that's gone wrong, he should also be given credit for much of what went right. Maybe his statue should be standing there! In all seriousness - clearly not. And it would have been reassuring to see Top respond to our collapse by making changes which reflected the gravity of the situation, which may have spelt the end for Rudkin. I, like you, suspect he's one of many incompetents in leading roles. But I don't think Rudkin should distract from tha fact that Top has the ultimate responsibility for the financial catastrophe that we've sleepwalked into. And I don't think people should feel an undue sense of gratitude to our owners.