Finnegan

Umm. People hold Rudkin responsible for the maintenance of the squad, for buying and selling footballers and negotiating their contacts. They hold him responsible for that because he is, *checks notes*, the Director of Football. Which is... well, it's their job? Nobody expects the Director of Football to be hiring and firing solicitors, barristers or accountants? I've never seen anyone on here complain about Rudkin over ticketing issues, catering, referees, IT or merchandising. But I suppose if we're just making shit up to win arguments on the internet, hey everyone, remember that time themightyfin used his extensive contacts at the club to tell everyone we'd sacked Brendan Rodgers during an international break early in the 22/23 season, some six or so months before he was actually sacked? Oh wait, hold on, that's not made up.

We don't know yet. Last year's finances aren't out. But it wouldn't be a surprise if we overspent and will be in trouble if we go down.

Love that because we've appointed Cooper we're still getting relegated anyway and the EFL are waiting and they've thrown away the lube

We're going to get absolutely ***ed by every ref, every rule, every excuse the Prem can find to shaft us this year aren't we

Think it's pretty obvious we're not selling him between windows, yeah.

Vards would be proud of this level of shithousing.

Almost certain to get a good contract in Italy, Spain or Portugal or even go back to Brazil. Wouldn't come here in a million years.

Don't particularly want many if any of these and the ones you would want wouldn't come to Leicester anyway. But it's hilarious you can make a better team out of free agents after the window has closed than we have. Navas Atal, Matip, Hummels, Telles Yazici, Rabiot, Gomes Martial, Depay, Muniain It's a sad reflection of how ridiculous the money, the greed and the draw of the Champions League has gotten in football that any of those are out of work because it's pretty much got to be all wage demands. Crazy seeing the likes of Maxi Gomez on there. I swear it was only two minutes ago he was the next big thing at Celta.

Love Fatawu, he's absolute banter. But surely we've bought him partly to profit? I don't want to sell to Saudi quite frankly but if someone comes in and buys him for a shit load then surely we've done our job? He's only just signed, presumably a 5 year contract, if they're going to offer 50, 60m then we're probably going to sell? That's a lot of money to reinvest.

We need to take a leaf out of the Bundesliga fans' book if they try this here. As in, marches in the streets and fall scale boycotts.

Ballsy move. They have a crazy passionate fanbase that already hate the owner as it is.

Yeah but he's not Messi, it's just Nicholas Jackson. I'm not sure his value needs "protecting." I think he's decent but they can't possibly belive they've found the next Drogba or Lewandowski. More likely they'll want to upgrade in the next couple years and they'll find it hard to get him off their books.

Isn't the "new" rule that they can only amortise a fee over 5 years? There's no actual restriction on the length of a contract? That said, there's no sensible reason for either a player or a club to commit to 9 years so there's obviously some sort of shenanigans going on you'd imagine. Having literally just spoken about trust, paranoia and conspiracy theories I'd love to say something to the contrary but given how Chelsea have operated in the last couple years you'd have to imagine their must be some accounting creativity behind that decision?

I think it also doesn't help that we're living through quite a significant cost of living crisis coming just behind a global pandemic and football clubs are still paying record fees for players and agents, living on mountains of debt they see no consequences for, selling tournaments and clubs to monarchies and dictatorships and raking in billions in sponsorship deals all to try and sell shit we don't need back to us. Money in the sport isn't exactly new but I do feel it's getting to a breaking point. The sale of the World Cup, the ridiculously new Champions League formats, the constant changing up of the rules to benefit the elite, the non stop chatter about Super Leagues, the invasion of "investors" buying iconic clubs, the greed, the greed, the greed. It just gets harder and harder to ignore to mention it making a farce of the ideas of a level playing field and genuine meritocracy. The fact I find myself, a formerly rational and normal human being, increasingly like some sort of conspiracy theorist believing every second VAR decision to be paid for just tells you how far my trust in the game has actually gone as a result of all the wealth.

Yeah this is the thing. I think if everyone in the squad has his personality the year we were relegated, we'd have been mid table at a minimum. He's got lots of fight, effort and spirit. I just don't rate him as an attacking force.

Something died a little in me in the last year of Brendan Rodgers and it hasn't really come back. I'm finding it very hard to love football these days. I used to watch Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1 all the time, was constantly on the BT app watching highlights, would watch multiple Champions and Europa League games every round, be glued to every international summer tournament. Barely watched any football at all last year other than Leicester. I told myself I was just sulking because we got relegated but I absolutely don't give a shit now we're back up either.

I like Stephy a lot but even I raised an eyebrow here

Cooperball™

He doesn't stand out as significantly better than the rest of our attack when he's playing with Harry Wilson, Dan James and/or David Brooks tbqh.

Our ****ing fanbase, man

I hate the concept of leaving your best players to be impact subs. It's daft. If he starts you can push a team back from the offset, what's the point in having impact subs for when you're two nil down because you started the game with no attacking impetus and had no threat? He has to start. Ayew and Reid shouldn't be anywhere near the starting lineup unless we're trying to just park the bus and salvage a draw in a midweek away game when Fatawu or Mavididi are tired and need rotation.

I hope not

Try to understand, this is why we're frustrated. We believe in the potential of this squad, we believe the team we've assembled isn't as bad as people expect it to be. We believe it can achieve more with a coach who has any kind of talent for progressive modern football tactics. When Cooper was forced to bring on decent attacking midfielders and wingers and make a game of it, we scored. But before that with his cowardly defensive line-up we didn't look like creating a chance all day. We can't give every team in the league a two goal lead.

Ricky > Steve