inckley fox

Without playing well, we've deserved it. I can't decide whether Ipswich haven't bothered to study us properly, or just felt they had to turn up to win. They've been pedestrian, and failed to make our defenders defend. Second half, presumably, will be very different.

Shape's good. Personnel less so.

It's the reason why I hope it doesn't take too long for us to 'reach the bottom', now it's clear that Top will never do the simple things that could reunite the club. Maybe 'the bottom' is second tier stagnation, prompting KP to sell up because they see that things are never going to get any better, nor the club any cheaper to keep afloat. Maybe it's calling administrators and a consortium with money to burn bailing us out. Or maybe it's the extinction of the current club, and rebirth as a different one which is seen as the successor. Any of those would give us a Leicester which is 'ours' to unite behind, and have some enthusiasm for. Even if it's looking up from the ninth or tenth tier. And if that's where we're headed, I hope it doesn't take too long to reach that critical moment.

It does look a bit like that though. You'd have to be a tad daft to think that they weren't scrambling to address the discontent. That they've done such a remarkably miserable job of it is another matter entirely. As far as highlights of their 'reconnect with the proles' campaign go, I really did like the bit where the chairman recorded a media interview designed to be released over the course of several weeks about an hour before he fired the manager, and therefore rendered almost everything he'd said irrelevant. That'd also be the one where he also said we could still get promoted. O'Neill once remarked that there were teenagers out there who could do a better job than Barrie Pierpoint. If there were any truth in that, then there are slobbering four year-olds who'd be less damaging to the club than Top. Those who still feel some kind of nonsensical loyalty to the family, on the grounds that Vichai did a sound enough job, are a bit like 17th century Spanish monarchists who held out that Carlos the Mad probably wasn't going to wreck their nation (even though it was clear to everyone else in the world that he was). Even when it became clear that there was no hope, they clung on, because they'd nailed their colours to the mast and, regardless of the undeniable evidence before them, felt they'd look like cowards if they confessed the glaringly obvious. Like King Philip and his useless son, there is no argument left to defend the current owner, other than that his Dad was probably a lot better than him. And that isn't really an argument.

The issue in those days was the midfield. The only thin thread of a midfield we had post-Izzet lay in Joey Gudjonsson. And when he sodded off, there was nothing. In defence there was McAuley, Stearman, Kisnorbo, McCarthy. In attack Hume, Fryatt. But in between, for years on end, it was a vacuum.

Well, I'm not going to argue too much. 2004/05 he was one of the best players, albeit in a poor side. There was that thing in Spain though, I suppose. The point I'm trying to make is that if you tier Leicester players in ten descending brackets, with Vardy, Chandler, Mahrez, McLintock in the top one, and the likes of Barry Hayles or Marc North in the tenth, then Stephy is going to be keeping Norman Leet, Junior Lewis and Tony Spearing company. Regardless of whether he cost more, or could - in a parallel universe - have been a more effective player.

Well, it's not really a 'move' if it's written in his original contract. If it was, given our current financial position, it would be insane. And he was average at best for the second half of that season. Vardy, Ndidi, Pereira and Fatawu all had better start-to-finish seasons than Winks. Maybe you could add Mads and Vestergard to that list too.

Too true. Something isn't right inasmuch as he's not a particularly talented footballer and has a lousy attitude. He's shown flashes here and there, at times in a decent second tier side, but mostly in awful second or first tier sides. As well as being mostly poor, he's been the embodiment of our passive, uninterested and entitled culture among the playing staff. His body language on the pitch has almost always seemed petulant, sulky, immature, mentally weak, and whenever I've heard him speak I've been utterly unsurprised by how he comes across. If he'd been subjected to the kind of character-check we'd implement in the Pearson/Walsh era, they'd have had his picture up on the office wall as the epitome of the kind of character you shouldn't touch with a forty foot pole. In the all-time league table of our players, he's in the same mire as the Keith Gillespies of the world. If anyone remembers him, it won't be with any fondness. If I were him, given that he's never had such an extended stay in the first team of any other club, I'd want to do something about that. But he hasn't got the gumption, the pride, the motivation, the humility, or the self-discipline.

It's very possible that you're right.

He didn't pick Skipp initially though, so I do wonder about that one. I groaned audibly when he signed Reid and Ayew, but he felt we needed experience - which we might have - and so, with next to no funds at hand, we went for what was readily available for next to nothing. Very poor signings, but not entirely beyond comprehension. I honestly couldn't go into the dynamics of who signed who with any conviction. I'm sure he made suggestions and imagine he gave his green light, but the only thing I can say for sure is that recruitment was awful for years before him, and hasn't been up to much since. It's hard to pick Cooper out as a standout bad manager on that score, from the current era. As regards the Forest side of things, you only have to go back and look at this forum at the time to see how much was made of that, and his looks, and this slightly odd notion that we were way too good for a boss who'd done well in the second tier (better, you could easily argue, than Maresca) and kept a side up in the PL. O'Neill hadn't been at Forest for 15 years when he joined us, and even then we hated him for the first four months! Granted, Cooper was never right for us and I agree that we'd have gone down under him, but I don't know the degree to which the players' reluctance to adapt to his methods, and the negativity around the ground towards him from the off, made it harder for him to do his job effectively. I think it would be a bit of a push to argue that those things (especially given our players' track record!) weren't factors. People can be overly dramatic about managers at times. 'This guy is a competition winner' / 'that one's utterly incompetent' / 'he's nowhere near good enough for us'. Even bearing in mind how poor our board are at appointing managers, when you get to the point of saying that the last three were all total no-hopers, in spite of some of them being respected by other clubs at the same level, you do have to wonder whether we're looking in the right places.

Really good post. I'm not sure I know enough about the old, old days to say that there was nobody worse as a 'manager'. And I suppose it's hard to separate the Head Coach from the manager when it comes to winning trophies, as he did. But I certainly get your point. I also suppose you have to place things in the context of club-level mismanagement which carried on for years after Rodgers I mean, it's not as if recruitment can entirely be pinned on him when, Pearson era and (very debatably) Puel aside, most of it under KP has been shockingly bad. But yes his legacy is unbelievably grim, and may yet prove to be the outright worst of any City boss. The only thing I'd dispute is what you say about no other manager having such a lasting negative impact on us, and then including Taylor in your examples. The club couldn't re-establish itself as a top flight team for fourteen years after his departure, and we were cash-strapped for nearly a decade (almost going out of business along the way). And to think the decline started with an 8th place top flight side, and recent cup winners - it's staggering. Within a couple of seasons we were a bottom half second tier side and, financially hamstrung, we limped towards an eventual drop to the third tier. Bearing in mind our post-2022 collapse also saw us dropping from 8th in the PL to the lower echelons of the second tier with a whole host of potentially-terminal financial problems along the way, a short-lived and fairly pointless promotion, and possibly a relegation to the third tier a little further down the line, you could argue that that bears some similarities to what happened post-O'Neill. And, with regard to your well-made points on Head Coaches / managers, you could say that even the nature of the managers in question is comparable - both hands-on Head Coach types, well-hyped within the game, supposedly tactically astute, initially impressive on the training ground, but catastrophically inept at club level. Of course, if we go out of business then, while that may well have a good deal more to do with Top and co. than Rodgers, you'll be proven 100% right. But as it stands, I'd say the two of them are jostling for the Worst Ever Legacy accolade. I am nitpicking though!

Rodgers has such a weird role in our history. He's like the DeMille epic movie (intermission included, by the way) adaptation of the thirty-minute Peter Taylor episode: A brilliant start, some dizzying heights despite concerns about his ability to build, then a spectacular decline which crippled us for many years thereafter. Something similar happened, actually, with the guy who nearly won the league with us in the 1920s (Willie Orr), who achieved unprecedented success with a squad put together by Peter Hodge, couldn't add to it, and left with us spiralling towards the drop zone. Rodgers, unlike Taylor, can genuinely lay claim to being both one of our best and worst managers. He'll appear in rankings at both ends of the scale, a bit like where Bowie might sit in Best Artists and Worst Artists of the 1980s. I always had a very personal dislike for the man (Rodgers, not Bowie that is), so I don't think I can speak about him with a great deal of sensible objectivity. Where Taylor's concerned, I suppose you must have something about you as a coach to have a side top of the EPL in October, or 4th in March, or even 13th over the course of a full season. There is actually a level of achievement there, unlike the reigns of McLintock, Pleat, Bassett, Sousa, Ruud or Cifuentes. But it was with someone else's squad, and we finally crumbled under the weight of his own sheer incompetence as both a recruiter and a matchday manager. Until Rodgers, I don't think any manager in our entire history had such a dire legacy. He's got to feature on any list, even when he's got competition from so many bosses who literally never experienced anything other than failure. For the very worst, I'd have Holloway down there too, even though I agree with the points people have made in his defence. People who worked with him said he seemed to completely lose his grip on things - as understandable as that was in the circumstances - and as a result we reached our lowest of lows to date. I'm not sure that can happen under your watch without you being considered one of a club's poorest managers. We were 17th and still looking up the table when he took over. For those who mentioned Tom Mather's 0% win record, I should add that this was only because he never took charge of a league game. His wartime record was awful too, but a bit higher than 0%! For bad old managers (based on Fossils and Foxes / Foxestalk History / my grandad!) I reckon George Johnson, in spite of getting our first ever promotion, and Louis Ford are worth a very debatable shout, but as a general rule you'll find the direst of the dire in the past fifty years. Still, the very worst, and thank god I wasn't there to see it, must have been McLintock. He took over a side which had just finished 11th, albeit in poor form. And while fans felt the squad needed some younger blood, the average age was still only about 27, and he was given the most ample funding anyone had enjoyed in almost a decade. To be so dramatically relegated, blame everyone else for your failings, and leave the club unable to re-establish itself as a top-half top flight force for two decades, with no manager being trusted with such relatively ample financial resources until the mid-90s, really is shocking.

I tend to think of it as Rudkin being an unbearable, debilitative symptom of a chronic problem. He's not the massive degenerative disorder which is terminal if it goes untreated - that's clearly Top. Rather, Rudkin is the unsightly sore which proves that it's gone, and is still going untreated. I thought Top had three potential cards left up his sleeve before things got truly untenable (and on a much wider scale than now). These were to show recognition of the need for (a) him to step back from hands-on involvement, (b) the arrival of a name in leadership that we could get behind and (c) Rudkin to go. I thought that even two out of three might buy him time. It won't be immediately obvious, but I think - just as he's spectacularly blown every other chance he had for redemption - Top has also thoroughly shafted himself with this final fragile lifeline. Everyone still reports to him and a board with nobody on it who knows the first thing about the game. Rudkin is promoted, or at very least moved sideways, and stays in charge of all things football. Still the right-hand man. Glover remains intact. So I honestly can't see the way back for him any more, because even the staunchest of his supporters will recognise that this is just a fancy way of saying 'we'll change these peripheral bits and bobs - but of the stuff that really matters (e.g. football leadership, recruitment, chairmanship) we're not going to alter a bloody thing.' The main argument from the 'Pro-Family' faction is that considerable changes are needed, though not a change of owner. Rudkin - yes, he goes. Glover - him too, perhaps. A change of approach from Top? Clearly needed. But he can stay. That's the Ginetta line, isn't it? And, while critical of him, I'd say that personally I've held back a lot more than most in my criticism of KP. I've always been willing to see where a fundamental overhaul leads us. But, it turns out - unsurprisingly, I'm sorry to say - that this is what patience gets you - no meaningful change at all. And if you're one of those refusing to turn; hoping against all hope that Top wakes up, smells the coffee and makes major changes, then those hopes are out of the window now. Some of them, I'm sure, will wait and see. But whether we stay up or not, when we continue to wallow, continue to fall foul of the authorities, and continue to fail to bring in fresh blood to the squad - things that will become even more abundantly clear than they are already in the coming months - it's not only Top's last card that's gone down the bog, but also that of those who stand up for him. The one last tenuous argument is obliterated. So yeah, sooner or later, and whether the club's demise is the final nail or not, he's a goner.

I honestly think that the idea that the pro-KP voices represent a silent majority are way off. Over recent days I've heard from enough people who still go and have chosen not to protest to get the feeling that there's a very widespread acceptance that we might be better off with new owners now. I think it's a quiet, reluctant acceptance, and without strong, personal anti-Top feelings for many, but I really do think the more rabid KP defenders are dwindling in number. Yes, I agree that there's some complacency to that, but the more widespread protests - in my time as a fan - have tended to be things which bubble under for a long time before they truly erupt. And when people fully grasp how existential this is you'll get a more fierce reaction. I think that could be placated temporarily by getting rid of Rudkin, but in time - with losses, financial losses, possible further deductions - it's going to pick up. Hopefully not too late.

I think if you were talking about a player who had really earned some loyalty from the fans and fallen foul of one manager, you could argue this. The problem is, Winks performed well for half a second tier season. So even under Enzo he wasn't at his best towards the end, leading many to ask themselves whether he justified the 10m price-tag, and how useful he'd be upon promotion. And on top of that there were stories that he'd had issues with past managers at Spurs, and of course he'd just been relegated in Italy before joining us. If you add that to the widespread feeling that our style of play would have needed rethinking even if we'd failed to go up let alone when we did, given our poor late-season form, and there were already plenty of causes for concern. But then after that you have the issues with three different managers. With Cooper it was just poor form as we tried and failed to adapt to a new style of play, but his apparent celebrations on the night of the manager's sacking rightly invited the spotlight, and questions as to whether his role in the downturn needed looking at. After all, Cooper might have been a bad fit for us, but his record in the second tier was arguably stronger than Enzo's and he'd earned PL survival. A good appointment? Obviously not. But an 'imbecile' or complete incompetent? Definitely not. Winks earned a rebuke from the club for that, so the attention shifted to how he did under the successor. And then you get far more clear-cut issues with the next two bosses. Ruud wasn't qualified for the job at all, but someone with his standing in the game can't be simply dismissed out of hand. And the key issue was that he'd highlighted poor standards among players as our core problem - can we truly argue with that? - and, it seemed, Winks as the main culprit. And then after that you get Cifuentes. No, not a good appointment once more, but a guy who'd done a steady enough job at that level - and a bright man who most certainly was no 'imbecile' - and was willing to give Winks a chance. And who, like Ruud, soon came to regret it. So I think we can discount that those three managers, or four if you trace the poor form back to Enzo, were imbeciles. Has Winks had to deal with any other imbeciles at the club? The closest thing, to my mind, would be Top, but I'm not sure he's been guilty of mistreating Winks. After all, every new appointment has plonked him straight back in the line-up, so it actually looks as if there's a mandate coming from Top to give Winks a try. And you could probably argue that that wasn't imbecilic either, on the first or second occasion at least, because technically there's no question that Winks is one of our best players. Yesterday he was by far the bravest in possession, and in general I think he's been the best performer under Rowett so far. But the fact that, statistically, and for a long time, our results have been drastically worse with him in the starting line-up than without, and any case for the defence that you could form just starts to crumble. He's an expensive second tier purchase who went off the boil within six months, couldn't get on with any of the next three managers (whether or not you think Ruud's request of him, which didn't seem too exceptional to me, was unreasonable), epitomised the crippling cultural malaise at the club, and brought with him considerably inferior results whenever he was selected. Of course, I live in hope that he can earn a degree of redemption. I hope, in the face of damning evidence to the contrary, that with someone of his degree of ability it could happen, and our survival may even hinge on it. But up to now I feel he's pretty indefensible.

Again, with all due respect, this is utter tripe. The overwhelming weight of evidence doesn't back up any of these points. If we work on the principle that Winks and Coady weren't the work of any manager (because if Maresca didn't sign them, then neither did Smith or Rodgers, did they?), then it begs the question: can we blame any boss, from Rodgers to Cooper, for any of our recruitment in any way at all? If we can't, then surely that makes Cooper a pretty damn good manager, doesn't it? A guy who not only had to overhaul our playing style and deal with a pending points deduction, but also abide the most miserable set of players in our history, and the signings of Ayew, Reid, Skipp and Okoli, regardless of whether he wanted them or not. And still had us in 16th, way after the players had turned on him. Do you really believe that version of events? Or do we accept that managers, several weeks into their reign, do actually have a say in who they want? You can't have your argument both ways. Both Coady and Winks were signed over two weeks after Maresca's arrival. If you look back on this forum, the only links to either of them which preceded Maresca were over a year before the manager arrived. The idea that they were 'already on their way' is an absolute fabrication, and even if it were true, it would mean that the manager had no hand in transfer policy, and therefore not in the acquisitions of Hermansen and Fatawu either. And, by the way, while we made a profit on Mads, and have compiled a nice highlights reel for Abdul, neither were particularly great signings for the club. Big money second tier buys that don't make the step up are, as a rule throughout footballing history, nothing exceptional. If we go down, I doubt anyone will be poring over the Fatawu documentary when, in an ironic after-fart, it appears on Youtube in the wake of our extinction. Maresca spoke, publicly, of how he'd felt we needed a leader like Coady, and a ball player like Winks. What more evidence do you need that the manager gave a green light? And, while we're at it, you most definitely can't defend Winks on the grounds that he was fine for six months (before being a nightmare for much of the rest of his contract, and the very epitome of the cultural malaise at the club). Every sensible pundit has said that our downfall has been a result of a serious cultural problem at the club, and dreadful application from the players. As talented as Winks is (the best player today, by far, I'd add), you can't deny that he's been the epitome of those problems under the last three managers. And our results with him in the side, for nearly two years, have been dramatically worse than when he's out of it. So yes, I'd say that's a pretty crap signing. We were the most expensive ever FLC side when Enzo took over. The clearest cut favourites for promotion ever. As I've always said, he deserves full credit for doing the job that literally everyone in football expected him to. Not everyone delivers the apparently inevitable, so yes, well done. You've conveniently forgotten that his team, in contrast to Rowett's, boasted Hermansen, a younger Ricardo, a younger Vardy, KDH and Ndidi. Even if you consider that immaterial, his aim, as many correctly predicted (and now seems blindingly obvious), was always to use us as a launchpad for his career. And he succeeded in that, just. But it meant that the backbone of our team, and the fundaments of our style of play, were totally incompatible with PL survival. It didn't matter to Enzo, of course, but we still had Faes and Vestergard at the back. Our midfield hinged on a Winks who only wanted to play for Enzo, and a player who we had to sell (because of what we'd spent on Winks, Coady and Cannon). In attack, we still depended on a 37 year-old. We'd not even been on top six form for the final quarter of the season, and even if we'd spent another season at that level we'd have required a tactical rethink. In the PL, it was always going to need that, and more. Oh, and it may yet turn out that our spending in that FLC season earns us another deduction. Perhaps Enzo is exempt from criticism for that. But it doesn't exempt him from criticism for presiding over a team which retained our worst traits from the preceding relegation, and added nothing sustainable - at PL level at least - to it. Contrast that to the sides that came up in 96 and 2014, when the lower levels were used as a platform to properly rebuild. Anyway, my point stands. You can only judge Maresca to be a successful Leicester manager either from his own perspective, or from a painfully simplistic standpoint. Obviously he deserves ample credit for that promotion, but it didn't help our cause at all in the long run. And was never supposed to. Edit: You're a great poster, I do tend to agree with you, and understand your points here too. Sincere apologies for being brusque - it's been a tough day, and I'm feeling more contentious than normal!

When we're either rescued at the last minute in League One, or resurrected as a 9th tier phoenix club, it'll be interesting to see whether people still feel that way. Or disappear entirely. Because this is what's on the line, and I'm not sure the 'it only fell apart because you were so nasty to Jon and Khun Top' argument is going to have any legs on it. Things would be much easier if we understood now that there is no credible defence of Top. A lot of pain could be avoided. But I suspect it'll come down to the last minute rescue / phoenix club instead. And if that's where it's going, I hope it goes there soon, so we can see who really gives a shit about Leicester City. And just get on with the job of getting behind them (which is pretty easy, whichever league you're in and however crap you are, if there's anything which you feel you can get behind.)

You're absolutely right. You're being highly generous! (Hamza, Okoli, Souttar, Ramsey, Mavididi). And your point definitely stands.

Very possible. Maresca, though, for all his qualities, actually ended up being part of the problem. He misspent huge sums of money and scraped over the line for the biggest shoe-in of a promotion in second tier history. We didn't even have top six form for the final quarter of the season. The style of play, and reliance on Faes/Vestergard, or even Vardy and the soon-to-be-sold KDH, meant that we didn't have a base to build on in the PL. And then he jumped ship, and left us in utter chaos, because that was always the plan. He had no long term plan for us. We were a stepping stone, and the media Balague-led machine was a constant reminder of that. Whatever, if people are seriously entertaining the idea that he might be in charge next year, then that's every bit as deluded as - and kind of plays into the hands of - those who believe Top deserves unwavering support. And even if he did return, which he definitely won't, it wouldn't address the key problems at hand. It didn't last time.

So you'd take Bobby off for Stephy. Daka off for Ayew. You'd maybe give James 45 mins when he's nursing a hamstring. Are they necessarily good decisions? His options are limited.

Neither is it to be the next Leicester City manager. That's my point.

Of course. But it's a hamstring injury. Rowett admitted midweek that he'd be twisting the arm of medical staff to get people back. If he plays 45 and misses the next four weeks, which is standard for a hamstring aggravation, then there'd rightly be uproar.

Why do you think they were there?

Obviously not. But I suppose they're allowed to come and watch their old club. Especially if there's any chance of Mukasa being a first team option for the team they're employed by next season!

Completely. All those saying 'oh, come on, it's not got to the stage where we should turn on KP' really need to remember that the existence of the club is at stake. And if it is going to go, I hope it goes fast, so that we can start up that phoenix club without anyone bleating on about giving Top more time. And have some optimism for the future, and unity, again. The reformed club, without Top, will stand a good chance of being a competitive top flight club within a decade-and-half. The current set-up, under Top, might need longer than that. The longest this club, since coming into the league in 1894, has gone without seeing top flight football is - what? - 18 or 19 years? We may well be pushing that this time, which is a sad thing to say when you're in your mid-forties, and it dawns on you that you'll probably be an old man by then. But if it's to be a drive up through the divisions then great. It's the slow, inexorable decline, and the unremitting bleakness which is so unbearable.