CUJimmy

When he first started getting minutes in the 1st XI last season he was embarassing experienced Premier League defenders so many of us thought he would rip it up in the Championship. Part of the reason, of course, is that he was an unknown quantity so opposition teams hadn’t thought about how to play him. The same happened with Mahrez when he was effectively nullified for a while by opponents working out that although he was very tricky he was actually quite predictable. The difference was that he adapted and he emerged as an even more lethal threat. We haven’t seen it this season but I still believe with his close control, speed and strength, Monga could be a top player if he were well coached. Sadly I don’t see us attracting someone of that calibre so for his own development he needs to move on.

There is no world in which this makes sense

The problem is there is no accountability. The club is owned by King Power which is in turn owned by Top and his family. This means that there are no other significant shareholders who can put pressure on to make changes. Shareholders at club level would be saying get rid of Rudkin, shareholders at KP level would probably say sell the club. This means that he can continue to be ruled by his heart rather than his head.

This fits. I have a friend who used to work in telecoms and they were in discussions with the club soon after KP took over with a view to implementing a state-of-the-art system. He said the leadership didn’t understand what was being offered so nothing came of it.

We did it once as a family Christmas present. Booked in the October for a ‘fan fixture’ the following April because that was the only one we would afford. Great food, unlimited wine and beer, hosted by Steve Walsh who spent ages chatting with my wife (!!) and kids, seats in the corner 3/4 of the way back so an excellent view. The match? City 4 Swansea 0, the day we clinched Champions League even without Vardy. I suspect this evening might be a rather different atmosphere unfortunately but hopefully the food and drink is as good.

Problem is we don’t know what kind of wages players will be on. It was widely reported that they had relegation clauses if we went down into the Championship but we don’t know if there is a further reduction built in for relegation to L1. The club hierarchy didn’t seem to think this was a possibility until 10pm on Tuesday so I am not confident. With the possible exception of JJ nobody in the matchday squad is PL ready so we are looking at upper/middle Championship teams where average salaries are less than £15k. Like him or not Winks is a better than average Championship player but I doubt anyone is going to pay him more than £25k a week or £30k at a push. That leaves us a big gap to fill for a year until he is out of contract. Best bet might be the relegated clubs but he didn’t like making the easy journey up to Leicester for training so I can’t see him going to Wolves or Burnley. If Spurs get relegated though …

Really in two minds what sort of team I want him to put out tonight. Part of me wants to see a mix of youngsters and those who are going to be here regardless. Hopefully they all get to start the season with a clean slate anyway. On the other hand if they are going to spend 90 minutes being told that they are wänkers and not fit to wear the shirt maybe it’s better that those who deserve it face the ‘music’.

I took it directly from the EFL documentation on their website so I am pretty confident what I said is correct. We can spend all of what we get in from transfers but only a percentage of other income/investment. The percentage we can spend drops still further if we were relegated to league 2. I am not sure what happens to the loan advance either but as the basis for compliance is not spending more than 75% of revenue on player related items rather than overall losses it probably just falls into the other 25% so might not be relevant. Obviously there is a huge risk in using transfer money to pay wages because you can only do that once. It’s like selling your family silver to pay the leccy bill. Whichever way you cut it though it’s a shitshow.

Exactly my point. I can see us being stuck with paying big bucks every week for players who don’t give a shît. We might get them out on loan as others have suggested but that is unlikely to save us more than average Championship wages. We know they had relegation clauses built in when we were in the PL but will the club have even considered the possibility of back-to-back relegations? I have my doubts but would love to be proved wrong.

I think you mean cutting it to a 1/4 of its current level. Average wage in the Championship is around £15k, ours is over £40k. These players have no emotional attachment to the club (unlike eg KDH) so will only be thinking of themselves. Those who have aspirations to play at International or PL level might be prepared to take a short-term hit but how many of ours does that apply to?

If I am understanding this correctly our player expenditure (transfer/loan fees, wages, agents fees) is limited to the sum total of: - Income from transfers but I am unclear on whether this is the fee received or surplus above amortised value. - 75% (falling to 60% in a second season) of income from matchday, TV, sponsorship. I assume parachute payments come in here. - 60% of owner investment. The upshot is that we can survive if: - We manage to unload most/all of the high earners. Any fees would be a bonus. - Top is willing to plough huge amounts in. Running costs of Seagrave are reported at £50m so I think he could cover that and matched it with a similar sum to go towards player costs. - We come straight back up or at worst it takes 2 seasons. Any of these falls and I think we are screwed. Not in absolute financial terms because I can’t see Top letting us go into Admin but I can see repeated points deductions, transfer embargoes etc. I haven’t even tried to work out how Championship PSR would be affected if we went back up. It’s too depressing.

Came here to post the same thing. Unless there’s something they aren’t telling us of course … not that that ever happens.

To an extent but even if a team had 10 aways in a row it doesn’t make it any more likely that the next tie will be a home. Every individual draw is 50-50 unless you are Real Madrid (allegedly)

If it is 13 in a row the chances of that are about 1 in 10000

Ok, I’m retired so nothing better to do and have done the maths on this. The probability of 19 away draws or more out of 26 is 1.45% which means if we are only looking at the 92 league clubs we are probably either the most unlucky or second most. For Leeds, the probability of 9/13 or more is 13.34% so they only sit in the top dozen or so unlucky clubs. If anyone wants any similar records checking shout up, it takes seconds to do.

Please not Mansfield. A lot of my golfing mates are Stags fans and I would have to go into hiding for months if we lost to them.

He also makes himself available and always wants the ball

Only doing what every club does when reporting attendances. Every season ticket holder is counted as attending so that’s 23k before you add in members, general sale etc. I remember watching an Arsenal game towards the end of the Wenger era when the ground was no more than 1/3 full. The tannoy announced 50k+ and the crowd just laughed. Personally I don’t see why they can’t just report the true attendance because they know whether we have turned up or not otherwise how do they send emails asking why we didn’t go. What do they want, a note from my Mum?

Depends what you mean by salvageable. If you mean get promoted then (apart from being relegated) I think that is the worst outcome. This squad is so far from prem quality it would be embarrassing. We have the quality in the academy and the young players out on loan to form the basis of a strong squad but that needs careful nurturing through strong leadership on and off the pitch and will take time. I would prefer another season or two in the championship if it means a strong, and sustainable, future.

Plus Callum Elder for them

At the end of last season when Monga was making prem defenders look like mugs I thought he would rip up this league but that hasn’t been the case. As you say as soon as he gets the ball he is surrounded by 2/3 defenders and flicking it between them and squeezing through the gap is only going to work every now and then. He, and the coaching team, need to work out a way to get the best from his ridiculously good technical ability.

He will never justify his price tag but we need to move on and ask if he can do a job for us in this league. For me the answer is yes if he is paired with a more creative player like JJ. I like that he puts himself about more now. One time in particular last night their winger was heading down our left and you could see Skipp lining him up from 10 yards away. I said to my daughter, “he’s ending up in the stands” and sure enough …

As others have said it was a truly terrible game of football and our shortcomings were masked by the fact that Derby were the worse team I have seen all season. I have been screaming for both wingers to go round the outside more all season and for strikers to make more of an effort to get in front on the defender. Both happened and bingo. JJ’s goal showed both strength and composure. It was good to see the youngsters on at the end to bring a bit of fire and energy but it did feel as though we were one brain fart away from trouble because they lack coaching and experience. One of these can be addressed quickly but the other takes time and patience. Compare that with the way Watford saw out the game on Friday and they are equally shît.

Bloke behind us was late arriving so missed the first goal then had gone down for a pint before the second.

Unless his agent is a total idiot he will know that he isn’t getting a contract with a PL team so we are realistically about as high as he could aim. He should also understand that he isn’t going to get anything beyond the end of this season because any sensible club will want to check on his fitness … ah, I see the problem.