inckley fox

Some of it's good, but they should have run it past a few on here before writing that Rudkin helped set up the scouting network that brought in Mahrez, or that we should have sold Fatawu in 2023/24 (when we didn't own him) because EPL clubs were interested. That said, the general gist is about right. I'm being picky. Edit: I've just seen that Dan has already said all this and more. Apologies!

To me it'd be the same club. I'm sure Rangers is to Rangers fans and Fiorentina to Fiorentina fans. If there is a phoenix club and it's recognised as the successor it will be to all intents and purposes Leicester City. Its history will be bound to the current club and even of it doesn't inherit the accolades, which it may, it will be the moral owner of them, much like AFC Wimbledon is now (a fact complicated in their case by the old club still technically existing). Unless you're too bothered by the legal ins-and-outs of when a business itself was technically founded, it'll still be your club. Key names from its history will be there in the rebirth. The colours, the fans, maybe in time even the stadium will be the same. For those of us who say football is about the fans, not the business, or say it doesn't matter what league you're in, you still support your team, then here's a chance, perhaps, to walk the walk. And, on top of all that, it would be something totally new, a fascinating journey and a chance to get things right we once got wrong. It will generate unprecedented excitement and coverage for non-league football and, best of all, may even be a quicker path back to the big-time than wallowing for years in the lower leagues under Top. It's not what I want to happen, but if it does, I'm totally up for it.

You are right. But in 1914/15 we were also 39th in the overall league placings, which would have had us comfortably safe this season. So yes, there are two ways of looking at everything!

You make a really important point about both sides contributing to the toxicity. When people are saying 'KPFC fans shouldn't be welcome at any phoenix club' or accusing pro-KP fans of being the root of our problems (when in truth, compared to the immense incompetence in our club leadership and the apathetic culture among our playing staff, their unwavering support is hardly a major issue) it's adding to the toxicity. No doubt whatsoever. And at some point we're going to have to be willing to all support the same club, regardless of our views on the ownership. However, I'm starting to see more and more evidence that a great deal of aggression and anger and resentment is coming from the 'get behind the lads, no matter what' brigade. Katy's story, for instance, of totally unacceptable abuse for simply handing out Foxes Trust leaflets, mirrored what I've heard from others. I know that these people, as few of them as there may be left, feel they're behaving like 'true fans', but this kind of behaviour - and applauding Harry Winks' every touch, or the messaging we get from the official Supporter Club - doesn't look like what you'd expect from a real Leicester City fan to me. They dedicate their efforts to adulation for one of the biggest on-and-off field culprits for our decline, fully back a boardroom leading us to oblivion, placing their interests ahead of the club's welfare, and they bemoan the sorry state of our fanbase... Are you sure they're being such great fans in these regards? So I totally agree that those of us who want to hold Top and Rudkin responsible for their negligence should be conciliatory towards those who still back the ownership. But equally you have to remember that every football fan, journalist and pundit would think that the club has been badly mismanaged and that the default position, rather than singing the board's praises, would be to hold them to account. To be so resentful of those who are doing what pretty much everyone would expect a fan to be doing will, by its nature, pave the way for immense toxicity. It's a very extreme argument, in some ways. I understand that there are always fans who toe the party line no matter what. I've seen fans choosing not to participate in protests at plenty of other clubs, including Wednesday. That element always exists and some of the same key figures who remained pro-Shipman and Pleat back in 1990, and who have already clearly found themselves on the wrong side of history, are doing the same now. We shouldn't be surprised by this. But I'm starting to believe that the primal frustration we're seeing from these quarters now is symptomatic of what happens when people discover that a deeply held conviction has been proven wrong. How do Brexiteers who swore to all their mates that we'd prosper eternally and boast the world's finest NHS feel now? Or, in a slightly less dramatic example, how did fans who wanted Bloomfield out and McLintock in feel come April 1978? If you truly believe in something, it hurts to see your truth dismantled before your eyes. It was hard, for instance, for me to say I was wrong for my many critical posts about Pearson and Vardy, having spoken with such certainty about how crap they both were back in 2012 and 2013. I held my hands up as best I could, but others lash out or cling on to some faint semblance of increasingly tenuous hope. And so here we are. You can't sensibly defend Top. Your only argument is that things were once wonderful with his old man in charge, and that the son has the best of intentions. But that isn't really an argument, and evidently it hurts a lot to see the staggering margin by which the KP critics have been proven right, and their deeply-held faith in the owners wrong. At some point there will have to be a degree of acceptance on that score. And I hope those who consider themselves to have been proven right don't revel too much in the moment either, because it's a fairly hollow victory. All that said, though, you can have your opinion, as silly as it may seem to me, and I mine. That shouldn't mean we have to go out of our way to wind each other up. If I ever meet you, I'm not going to hit you or call you a ****. More likely I'll spend half an hour talking about how underrated Muzzy Izzet was. And hopefully at some point we can all get back to that stage. And while we're at it, Manwell Pablo, I'm sure you remember that very spiky debate a decade or two ago. In spite of your superior argument to the contrary, I still believe I'm right. Muzzy Izzet was clearly England standard. We might actually have to fight it out on that one...

Fair enough. Not worth much though, is it?

I try again and again to show sympathy for the Pro-Top/'KPFC' brigade, to argue that we can and should all unite once again without recriminations for those who were daft enough to defend the Top/Rudkin double-act, but these sorts of gestures make it harder. How on earth can anyone who even loosely likes Leicester City be applauding Winks? Maybe we were too harsh on Dennis Wise too. I can't get the idea out of my head that, if you planted a few hundred Cov or Forest fans in there, they'd be applauding Harry Winks too, just to piss us off. Which begs a few obvious questions of those among our own ranks. And at least one of the answers to those questions might be that the most divisive people in the stands right now aren't those who want KP out.

I'm still trying to figure out what the point is that you've been making. Are you trying to say that we're alright?

Too soon! Too soon!

Most phoenix clubs, if they"re recognised as a successor, get all of the trophies and history. I think there are some pretty specific guidelines on the time period (5 years, maybe?) and preconditions. That's what the modern day Fiorentina are, I believe. And I think AFC Wimbledon now own the historical accolades rather than MK (edit: I've just seen that this is wrong, though AFC do include WFC's honours among their historical honours, and it's generally agreed that they are 'theirs' even though they're yet to regain the physical accolades). There are quite a few more examples of major phoenix clubs. Wouldn't that apply to Rangers too? The phoenix club, in a matter of a decade, would to all intents and purposes be Leicester City. Unless of course we fans still can't agree on anything, and therefore can't have a single recognised successor, which to me would be the ultimate catastrophe. The club folded back in 1919 and was reborn as Leicester City. Yes, I know they weren't entirely separate entities, but if we ignore the legal technicalities, it was still a case of a crisis-stricken club being reborn and re-elected to the league with a slightly new name. In time, this episode will be looked on in the same way. Of course, if you decide you feel like more of a Quorn / Hinckley / Coalville / Leicester Nirvana fan these days (which would strike me as a wee bit odd) then yes, I suppose the club would be kind of dead for you. But that's a matter of choice. I suspect some very big names and a good few club legends will rally behind a phoenix club. It'll be a long way back from the 10th, 11th or 12th tier, but we'll quickly get some momentum behind us. We may even see the Premier League again sooner that way than if King Power choose to bankroll us in the lower leagues till the End of Days. I'd be fully behind it. I imagine many others will be a bit more optimistic than you about it too. I can't think of many phoenix clubs out there in the doldrums of football which were once of our stature, so I'm not sure why you think we'd go the same way as other failed phoenix clubs. There would be a huge amount of interest in resurrecting Leicester City. It won't be Hinckley Town Part Two.

He's just said he's going to ask if anyone doesn't fancy playing the last two games. If so, can they please tell him and he won't pick them, because he'll be picking a side that wants to play for the next two matches. You do have to wonder why he didn't think of doing that on Day One.

I heard the interview, and just learned that I can add his character deficits to the huge list of others' which were key to our downfall. He was utterly unaware of the gravity of the situation, of the role of a captain at a time like this, and of the need for him - as a spokesperson for those responsible - to hold his hands up and clearly, sincerely assume that responsibility. It's this obliviousness and detachment from reality which has characterised our decline. So yes, he gave us a nice season-and-a-half before injury decimated his career, and was very decent when we first came back up, but over the course of his eight year stay (bearing in mind he missed the FA Cup) he'll be remembered as much for the three relegations and captaining the worst ever City side as he will for being a worthy successor to Danny Simpson. And, based on that interview, he probably doesn't deserve a great deal more than that.

It's a terrible trait to dismiss people who don't agree with you as thick. But it if you read the substance of what they say - how unfathomably removed from reality it is - and then just their sheer illiteracy, then yeah, thick is probably kind.

It wouldn't accept my phone number right at the end! I think it's because it's foreign. Oh well.

It does make you wonder why no manager has bluntly put it to them that the primary reason for their decline is their lack of willingness to do their jobs. It's been the most obvious conclusion to draw for a long time. Yet it feels as if every managerial appointment, and every decision made by said appointee, has been made without awareness that sheer laziness, entitlement, incompetence - on a crazy scale - is the main reason for us being where we are. The eye test tells us that. And, it turns out, the facts emphatically agree. To a comical extent. I'll ignore, for a moment, the obvious observation that only a club's owners can be responsible for contracting so many incompetent bosses on the bounce. It's almost as if these managers are given the job with a clear, unattainable agenda to pacify and placate a bunch of individuals of very, very limited professional merit. Technically nice players who have had a lovely year in their five star hotel / training spa....whatever you call Seagrave. But can't bring themselves to do their jobs. For anyone who questions the right of these people to earn these sorts of pay packets, Leicester City must be proof, of historical proportions, that there are many people on 'elite' wages without the level of professionalism to match. There are hundreds of lower league and non-league players looking at Mavididi's stats (assists / goals / running) and rightly saying 'given those opportunities, I'd do better'. You and I have played with people who would have done better too. Now if you ever hear Mavididi speak, you understand fully why this is. He's a born loser, clearly, obviously, if ever there was one. And that should have been spotted way back in 2023. But he's not the only one. We've accumulated players (and occasionally technically decent ones, like Fatawu and Winks) who embody the characteristics which guarantee failure. The easiest thing is to call them what they are - born failures. Characters who make success very unlikely, in spite of their flashes of quality. As others have asked, has there ever been a side in any division with the biggest wage budget which ended up relegated? The career-defining event for nearly all of these players will be that they managed to suffer back to back relegations with a major footballing force. That will eclipse anything else that has happened in Reid's / Ayew's / Winks' / Pereira's / Mavididi's / Vestergard's / Fatawu's careers. It's what they'll be remembered for. And good. They deserve to be remembered as utter ****s. The lot. They can tell their grandkids how horrendously **** they were. They may have nice houses and cars, but their place in history is something which no amount of money will ever erase. They are losers of historical proportions. And by god, I've never had such a black, demonic, vile, evil, virulent feeling towards a set of human beings as I have towards these players. You couldn't get any lower. I wish them long and healthy lives, but their disservice to this club, and the game, should haunt them for the rest of their days. Apologies. Had to vent!

It couldn't be much worse, obviously!

You might want to have a chat with Valencia fans about Corberan. They absolutely loathe him.

...and that's where we went wrong, alas!

Okay, I see your point. But I'm a teacher. I can't tell you how many kids have told me to **** off. And I've been hit a couple of times down the years too. There are plenty of nurses in my family, and the abuse they deal with at times is staggering. Among my old friends, one is a copper, another is a social worker. Again, it's unbelievable what they have to put up with. And I've known quite a few performers in bands and theatre who have a few stories to tell about people who gave them a tough time when they were trying their best to do their job. I thought about all of these people I know and realised that our combined annual salaries amount to a good deal less than, even according to conservative estimates, Winks earns in a month. And if any one of us told one of our 'critics' to **** off we'd lose our job and never work again. Fine, a good part of that is because we aren't as valuable to the world as Harry Winks. Economically, at least. But it also leads you to surmise that he's a lousy professional who deserves no sympathy whatsoever. He can thoroughly **** himself.

I think there's a genuine case, for what little it's worth, for Skipp being one of our best three performers this season. Mostly awful, granted, and leagues below James, but even so. He was dropped today, of course, in favour of two players whose presence in the side, statistically and factually, makes us vastly less likely to get a result. Decisions which, for me, neatly sum up how unable Rowett has been to grasp the reason for our malaise. And which, in addition to the complete void of new ideas throughout his tenure, have rendered him the least significant manager in our entire history. In the 1980s the Tory government supposedly responded to social problems in Liverpool with a policy of 'managed decline'. That's what the Rowett reign has felt like to me. There's no point in searching for solutions, let's just try to reduce the damage.

There are two things that strike me now about Cooper and Ruud, when you place them in the context of the overall club management in the 2020s. The first, as some have pointed out, is that recruitment has been consistently poor over that time under everyone, but that the main criticism of Cooper seems to be, specifically, his recruitment. While he most certainly did push for experience, and most certainly welcomed the signings of Reid and Ayew (and therefore deserves a share of the blame), I still think it's hard to say that he was wholly responsible for the poor 2024 recruitment, above all because it was exceptionally poor for many years before that and continued to be poor after that. The second is that manager after manager seems to have been brought in to steady the ship and give a second chance to supposedly top drawer players who have fallen foul of the previous incumbent. We've seen that again and again, with the return of Soyuncu and Soumare under Smith, then Faes and Vestergard under Maresca, then Winks and co. under Ruud, Cifuentes and Rowett. Most of those managers have realised in time that the mandate they were brought in on (i.e. to take advantage of the squad's technically most gifted players, irrespective of their track record) was flawed, and that they should have learned their predecessors' lessons more quickly, but only Ruud went so far in his criticism of the culture and standards at the club. That he was right to do so is surely beyond question. Another matter entirely is whether either of these managers were right for the club. And then there's the question as to whether you can mount a meaningful defence of what they did in charge. On both counts, it's a clear no. For balance, I disagreed wholeheartedly that we were too good for Cooper. He was a good boss for Forest, among others, and it was no surprise to see him get another chance with a lower end PL club. The references to his looks and his links to Forest were totally irrelevant, much like the dodgy pre-season form, and I thought he came into an extremely tough set of circumstances with us: a side out of form for months, in need of a major tweak in playing style which the players were unlikely to embrace, with limited funds, and with a pending points deduction. Results were better than expected even if performances weren't, and many fans wanted him out because they thought that we should be a top-half side with the players we had. Most objective football fans thought we were deluded when we fired him and, given what happened next, you'll struggle to formulate much of an argument to the contrary. In spite of all that, I'll try. I think he was the wrong appointment. We were too unimaginative in appointing him, too safe, too keen to opt for PL experience, too reluctant to allow a manager with ambition to get a grip on the club. The players were never going to buy into him and he was never going to have the mandate to put them in their place. Like Ruud, and others thereafter, Cooper's appointment was a predictable symptom of an underlying chronic disorder. Of course he was the wrong man, because he was employed by the wrong people for the wrong reasons. And probably fired for the wrong reasons too. Ruud was appointed for his aura, by a man who knows less about our performances than your average fan. Cifuentes was willing to pay to come to us, had Barca links, and had a few nice videos about his clever football on Youtube. But it doesn't mean that these 'wrong' appointments like Cooper and Ruud didn't occasionally get something right, or learn a lesson that their successors would have benefited from heeding. Nor, by the way, does it mean that they were among the main reasons for our decline.

I understand this sentiment because I think the KP apologists are most likely going to have a lot to answer for when we finally reach the bottom of all this. But if the phoenix club is ever to be recognised as the successor, and eventually inherit the name Leicester City and its history, then there needs to be only one phoenix club. The KPFC brigade, the Ginettas and co, will want to push a successor club. They'll look for backing. Maybe they'll peddle a narrative that negativity from those who turned on the club led to our downfall, rather than their blind loyalty. And then you'll get the rest of us who want our club and who, like you, don't really want the KP apologists on board. This has happened already with many non-league clubs. Hinckley United was a case in point and that kind of split would be the true end. But it's entirely avoidable. If this does go as badly wrong as it could, then it needs to be a unifying event. There'll be no pro-KP argument because there'll be no KP. And no argument as to whether they can rescue the club, because there'll be no club. The outcomes will be there for all to see, and it won't matter any more whether you were marching, paying for plane protests, staying away or applauding to the death. The scale of Top's failure will be undeniable, so who cares whether you were right all along, or a hopeless optimist to the last? There will be the chance to have a massive phoenix club to get behind. A new 'LCFC', which can inherit the club's accolades and soar up through the pyramid. But it will depend on the Ginettas of the world accepting that they were wrong, quietly at least, and the rest of us not expecting them to self-flagellate through the streets of Leicester with the letters K and P crudely branded on their foreheads. Whatever anyone thinks or thought and wherever the money comes from, we're all going to have to be willing to unite behind the same Leicester City at some point or other.

I understand why he's in the side and I get what he brings to the table. He's a match-winner and, at his best, one of the best players at this level. He struggled in most of those pre-injury PL outings, but at his age clearly has some potential to play at a higher level. I'm not sure we can class him on balance as having been a particularly good purchase, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility of him having a very decent career either. Obviously when someone is a team's principal outlet they get flipsides of the same coin - on the downside, defenders doubling up on them all over the pitch, and on the upside, plenty of exposure, plenty of the ball in dangerous areas and so on. For me, the trick is to separate what those players actually deliver from their invariably impressive highlights reels. And the outcomes when it comes to Fatawu, regardless of how threatening he looks, just aren't consistently positive enough for it to be clear that he's a major asset. Maybe he's taking on too much responsibility. Maybe another manager could make him a little more unselfish. Maybe he's trying too hard to put himself in the shop window. Whatever, it's hard to say that, over ninety minutes, game-in game-out, he does the basics well enough to make it worth the wait for those flashes. So you could say that we're kind to him because Ayew, Daka, Stephy, Bobby and Mukasa have offered so little. Those names alone render him 'undrop-able', and I wouldn't dispute the fact. Or you could say that he'd look a damn sight better if any of the aforementioned stepped up. Either way, it all amounts to him being pretty ineffectual. As regards the 'blame game' comparisons, with how Maddison and Barnes were also our most productive players in 2022-23 and yet got a disproportionate number of fingers pointed in their direction, I'd argue that this isn't as unreasonable as it seems. In a PL relegation dogfight you need James Maddison like you need a bullet to the head. And not only for the 'you're mad to think we could ever go down' tweet or the penalty miss. He was the epitome of everything wrong with us back then. On his day - wonderful. A superb highlights player. Technically brilliant. When on form, a massive asset. But he was also totally representative of the cultural malaise at the heart of our decline: Arrogant, unaware of the gravity of the situation. A showboater, perhaps. Not up for the fight. And that, for me, is also Fatawu in a nutshell. Sometimes your very worst players aren't the figureheads for your demise, just as your best players aren't necessarily the figureheads of your ascent. Maybe some of us preferred Rooster to Kitson, Walsh to Joachim, Claridge to Heskey, Albrighton to Mahrez and so on. Some of them just seemed to sum up the character of those sides better than technically more gifted players. And conversely I think Maddison and Tielemans tell you more about our downfall in 2023 than Amartey or Ndidi. And - on the pitch at least - Fatawu and Mavididi have more to do with our current decline than, for all of their endless faults, Thomas or Nelson or Skipp or Bobby Reid. So yes. A technically very nice player. Highly rated and valued. On paper - he should be great. And yet it's all for nothing because he doesn't work for the team, and doesn't appear to have the stomach for a proper fight. That summarises the current squad and its plight pretty much perfectly.

They did buy into it, but after the six-month mark they weren't in automatic promotion form. After the eight month mark, they weren't even in play-off form. There were plenty of players out of form who were still in the squad and in the first team. We limped over the line and it was clear to all and sundry that the tactics were going to need a rethink in the PL. And this was a guy who had significant funds in the market, often misspent, no pending points deductions, and who inherited far better players (Vardy, Ndidi, KDH, the younger Pereira etc.) than our last few managers. The downturn which still afflicts us today began over two years ago, when he was in charge. Faes deciding to hang around as a result of Enzo's faith in him merely meant that he was a disaster for the next two managers in the PL, and the manager after that in the FLC, just as he'd been a complete disaster for Enzo's two predecessors. It's not much of an argument in Maresca's favour or legacy that, instead of working on Nelson or Souttar, he prioritised such a straightforward disaster of a player. You could argue that it was the lesser of the evils - especially given the failure of the defender he himself brought in at great cost - and ultimately justifiable as a result of him actually achieving what he was appointed to achieve. But I'm unconvinced that any of that represents a significant achievement on his part. Would he have done a better job than Cifuentes? It's very possible because I think he was a manager with a clearer vision and greater ability to get people (initially at least) on board than those who followed him, but the circumstances in which he achieved his success were very different to the ones that Marti faced. Many, many managers would have achieved what Enzo achieved with what he inherited. And many, many would have struggled as severely as Cifuentes and Rowett with what they inherited. The two situations are barely comparable. And the key factors dictating the outcomes were not the specific bosses in charge at the time, but rather the worsening chaos in the boardroom.

I wouldn't argue with you for one second on Glover. I appreciate that this environment might not be a great one for him to thrive in, but the track record - on expensive and budget signings at both this level and higher - suggests a major overhaul is needed at recruitment level. That'd cover his unceremonious dismissal and that of Rudkin, you'd tend to think. For that reason, the failures of our post-Puel managers in the marketplace (and I'd include Enzo in that for the money spent on Cannon, Coady, Winks etc.) has to be put in the context of five different managers, some of which haven't been entirely awful in their recruitment elsewhere, failing at LCFC. Rodgers will get zero sympathy for that because he brought in his own incompetent Head of Recruitment, but he still had to deal with Rudkin, and everyone since him has additionally been saddled with Glover and a whole raft of financial difficulties. So when I say that Enzo did well, I'm not just saying it for a little balance before I go on a rant about how his achievement was nothing remarkable, how the wheels were already coming off, or how his team-building did nothing to establish foundations for on-going development. He really does deserve ample credit for what he achieved. He was a good City boss in an era of managers who were either substandard, or unable to cope with the cascade of **** splashing down from 'them upstairs'. That doesn't apply to him. Was he a shining light in the darkness? Hardly. But he did a sound enough job for a while. Would he have signed Okoli, Skipp, Ayew or Reid? Regardless of them being well-known players, and Cooper publicly embracing the need for experience, it still doesn't mean that the recruitment department weren't the main players in preparing that shortlist. Nor does it mean that Enzo had had no involvement in creating the shortlist, or disagreed about the need for top flight 'know-how' in the months before his exit. After all, targets are usually prepared over a period of months rather than weeks. Enzo's own aforementioned errors in the market mean that we can suppose he would have (together with Glover and co., of course) made mistakes of his own, whether they were the same mistakes or not.

Has the PL's appeal (to deduct more points) also been rejected, or only ours?