The_Rorab

Jon has heard your offer for 3-5mill for Thomas on an expiring deal, but he doesn't think that matches the value of the player so unfortunately it's a no, but you can always wait to get him on a free next season instead!

The irony of someone decrying the egos of the protest whilst putting on the most holier-than-thou tone and making up numbers and storylines based on their agenda is fascinating. Did you ask 100% of the fanbase their opinions? Are you of the opinion there can never be an occasion where the majority can be wrong or that a minority can have valid perspectives even if you disagree? You surely must also have thought then that the Super League protests were stupid and invalid as they surely didn't have a turnout at each fanbase of more than 50%, so therefore surely can't have represented the majority of fans or had their backing right? I have to assume that based on your post. Can you explain in precise detail why exactly it was a childish debacle? I agree that some of the messaging was maybe misguided, but you clearly have multiple different points of contention about it that it would be interesting to hear.

Just to get big picture for a second, but I can't help but feel like there's been a real rise in people just flat-out ignoring responses and cherry picking responses that fit a narrative nowadays - it's honestly very Donald Trump - it's the way of fighting against fact and logic if you just ignore it and scream your point even louder, stick your fingers in your ears and just drown anything you don't want out. I say this here because for example, Saxondale has had numerous responses from people with genuine arguments to what they've said that they have largely just ignored in order to instead tackle things they want to continue to say and generally ignore salient arguments or characterise them with absurd or unlikely hypothetical or just straight up untrue statements like the noone else has signed players line. Similar to my mind the FoxesTrust account that prefers to not engage in responding to actual arguments made or things said directed to it, and just deflects or hits back only on their terms on what they want to say. Maybe that's simply my perception of things, but that's what I take from this. I think it's fine to have a contradictory opinion, even if I very much disagree with the line of disagreement, but it just feels like there's such a big move in general towards obfuscation and a refusal to engage with other points that seems to be growing more and more prevalent everywhere. Anyway just my two cents. As others have mentioned I can definitely see aspects of yesterday that maybe weren't perfect, but it still was something and that's for a first attempt pretty decent going.

I feel like it speaks volumes that whoever was manning the FoxesTrust account has ignored all posts where whoever it is could provide helpful or nuanced insight or just any sort of tidbit to questions and thoughts raised - and instead just tried to bat away one specific criticism and ignore the rest. I've noticed that they tend to just ignore most things asked of them when manning the account if it is the same individual. Like owner, like trust it seems. Utterly unwilling to even attempt actual dialogue or transparency. CosbehFox notwithstanding of course.

Anyone other than Alves particularly notable missing that might turn up in our match day squad with our injury/suspension misses?

One of the biggest concerns I have long-term really is that I feel like with our board that we'll either be relegated under Cooper or scrape 17th and that will be seen as a success, so Cooper will therefore remain in charge until the cycle is broken by him not keeping us up. I don't see how Cooper ever breaks the cycle of relegation battles, and I don't have the confidence our board would ever see that and make a change unless we're all but relegated.

No, it's a football forum of a club struggling somewhat and the natural result of that. If you don't like that, deal with it on your own - it's not your divine right as an almighty holy righteous better fan because you're optimistic to tell other people how to feel; the same way it isn't my right to tell you you shouldn't be positive. How dare people have emotions or feelings that aren't approved by the ultimate arbiter of Leicester fans. To clarify, I don't think we'll lose 5-0, but also no one has actually said that, you've lied and made that up to make a point. I see maybe 2 posts in the whole thread saying we'll lose more than 3-0 so you've just overexaggerated to vent your feelings. A bit like how maybe some people on the negative side might do the same. Be optimistic yourself and say why, let other people feel what they feel. Simple as.

I think at the end of the day, there's not really a huge amount to be done at this point - the reason I'm drawn to making posts is to vent the frustration caused by the fact that I know Cooper won't be sacked anytime soon. Our board won't do that, and there's definitely a real valid argument to be made that they shouldn't do that with us not currently in a dire position in the table, even though that's not something I agree with as a reason. I think really, that the only real recourse is to just have to hope Cooper learns - that he'll be able to figure out how to get us playing like that first Bournemouth half and not have us just collapse in the second or that we just continue to get lucky all season - as honestly I doubt we get rid unless we're utterly marooned with the glacial pace our board take to do anything. But that's the thing, it's just incredibly frustrating to feel like you know what's coming and yet have absolutely zero control over what you see as, maybe not easily fixable, but fixable errors being made in real time - which is why people are more prone I think to hyperbole and strong sweeping statements about our prospects. Obviously it's more complex than that in reality, but it's hard not to become frustrated by it. So I'm choosing to hold on to the vain hope Dahnsouff offered about maybe the confidence from winning a game, and maybe the break can result in us working on things and maybe hopefully we can come into the next set of fixtures and look less like a car crash over a full 90. I'm a very pessimistic person, so I don't hold a huge amount of hope for it, but that's all I've really got - but unfortunately in the intervening period, and likely after I'm afraid I'm definitely likely to have a moan about things periodically I don't think shutting people down who have these frustrations is helpful, though I also think that shutting down people who don't think we should get rid of Cooper is helpful either - but we all desperately want us to succeed so it's always gonna provoke heightened frustrations and feelings and cause friction.

If I was confident the board would act soon I wouldn't be anywhere nearly as frustrated! Again I'd also reiterate though that there are also people who are posting here believing that Cooper shouldn't currently be sacked confidently asserting everyone should/must agree with them. It's not unique to people who are Cooper out, I think it's just there are more people on that side of the fence.

What's the balance you keep expecting? Most posts I've seen come in 4 flavours - people saying we've been shite and Cooper should be out, people saying we've been shite but in a diplomatic way pointing out why and laying out reasoning, people saying Cooper out is ridiculous, and people saying they disagree with Cooper out and laying out reasoning why. Surely balance would be the ones that offer reasoning and non-inflammatory declarations. Of which I can definitely point out posts on both the Cooper out and more time camps. But you only seem to be complaining about people who are Cooper out, even when some people not Cooper out are incendiary and offering absolutely no balance either, and you're making sarcastic comments about people thinking Cooper has been dire. I hesitate to say you don't particularly seem interested in balance to me. You seem more interested in anti-negative sentiment and providing an opposition to people saying we've been shite, which is totally within your jurisdiction to do, but it's not looking for balance. Though I can understand the urge to do so in the face of negative posts. I appreciate that you have made posts acknowledging the issues we've had, but it's a bit incongruous with the sarcastic quips about people wanting Cooper out and the bolded twisting of words to suit your quip for example and then decrying a lack a balance - especially when there have been balanced takes in this thread. I think Cooper is out of his depth, for example, and I believe the best move for us as a club would be to get rid. I am however not going to be vitriolic to Cooper, and I desperately would love to see it work out for him here, because I quite like how he presents himself as a bloke, and it would make things so much easier for us if he would learn from his mistakes so far and improve. I just don't think that's going to happen based on the months and games he's been here, on the evidence on the pitch and stats and everything I've seen him do in games. If he turns it around in the next few games then I'll be the first to admit I was wrong in writing him off, but I'll stand by the fact that I think under his management we've looked worse than the sum of our parts so far. I don't think you can deny there are valid reasons to be unimpressed with how we've played so far. Even if you disagree with the takeaway being Cooper should be sacked. Even though I agree that statistically we've been dire - there is a definitive point to be made that we do have more points than a chunk of clubs, and that's fair - I do think there's a valid reason to give him more time based on that. I just think based on the underlying stats that what we've done so far isn't sustainable long term. I've said repeatedly, I really hope I'm wrong, but I can't deny statistical evidence points to the contrary to me. I kind of want to look at previous years' relegated teams and see what their average xGA and xG and maybe shots faced or something were per game and see where we're currently trending - but that's a lot of effort so might have to wait. Bugger. I've just gone on another bloody rambling tangent. I blame this thread and my lack of impulse control!

I'm not quite sure why you've fixated on the bit about Rodgers' reign of terror? I was using it as an analogy really, that it was a period where we finished 8th but by both the eye test and the stats we were nowhere near as good as the table would suggest - it was nothing about harking to his playstyle, or an attempt to compare the squads or records. Just that whilst I appreciate we currently aren't in the bottom 3, we're playing like and have the stats of a team who should be. To your point about the last time we were in the Prem, I don't think that's particularly relevant? If you're ranking success as just being better than that rock bottom start to the league, then that's your prerogative I guess. Our start has been better than that horrific show, but that's not exactly a high bar. And no, I wish I was wanting to see some fancy long passing build up play, because at least then I would be confident Cooper had a plan and had attempted to drill any sort of tactics into the team. I like a fancy passing style when it's done well, but I also really liked when we had a fast countering transitional playstyle. It's not about the playstyle, it's about the execution of a playstyle. I just don't know what Cooper wants us to do, because it just looks like he throws players onto the pitch without much of a plan. I'm sure that's not true, but there's times they look bereft of any idea what to do. I'm perfectly happy to have a pragmatic manager in charge as long as that pragmatism actually has some kind of planning and execution. I'll ask you, what tactically is Cooper trying to do in your opinion, and why in basically all of our games are we having long stints where we just cede all forward momentum to the opposition and invite pressure that's yielded a frankly horrific statline of shots against and xG stats? What do you see that's pragmatic about Cooper's approach - despite seeming to set us up and gritty and defensive, I wouldn't exactly call us defensively stable so far. Where do you think Cooper's methods excel for us, and what makes you confident we won't just regress to the mean that our stats and performances display going forward?

I really need to stay out of this thread and ones like it, because I start getting worked up and frustrated by every second post. I don't understand how anyone can be content with our football and with Cooper currently, I'm never gonna bollock someone for disagreeing but I don't think I will be able to bridge any kind of understanding about it - it seems insane to me for anyone to think that Cooper is going to lead us anywhere other than downwards long-term based on his tenure so far other than relying on just hope. He's been here for over 3 months now, in training every day, can anyone please tell me what he's done in those 3 months in terms of a tactical plan or trained passages of play on the field or where there's any examples of play that seems like there's been any training or planning put into it? I'm desperate for signs of coaching. Signs that he has any bleeding clue what he's doing. Signs that he actually has some sort of plan, some form of competent game management, some form of tactical understanding. I'm genuinely not trying to be facetious, what is his actual plan for getting the ball in the opposition goal? The problem with relying purely on the table and results is it takes me right back to Rodgers' 2nd last season where we came 8th. We were so clearly nosediving that season, but even though performances were getting worse and worse we were overperforming basically every statistical metric, and we all know what happened the next season where suddenly we weren't. It had been coming for ages. I wish I had the same level of assuredness and confidence that other people seem to, but it's just incomprehensible to me, and will be until I see any evidence on the pitch that we actually look like a team that know what the everliving hell they're doing for a full game. I dunno, I'm just rambling at this point. I bloody wish I could just enjoy the fact we won a game, but unfortunately it just feels like a temporary reprieve more than anything to me.

So what changed in the off-season? He was perfectly capable of playing 90 minutes regularly last season and was one of our best players, it makes no sense he suddenly wouldn't be able to without another injury in the intervening months since last season surely?

Ah yes. The man who played 39 games in the league for us last season cannot play suddenly at this level with no change in between. What on earth are you basing that on?

Yeah, I can understand that - the problem is that I see zero signs of us growing into better performances - but we'll see with the next game whether today's result has an impact. I hope you're right. I think my biggest frustration is that it just feels so damn similar to the Rodgers situation to me, it felt obvious he needed to go ages before he finally left and it left the season feeling like watching an excruciatingly slow avoidable train wreck - and now it feels like it's happening all over again which is just maddening. It's hard to feel much of the short-term joy of the win for me when it feels like we're in a downward spiral long-term. Maybe I'm just a bit too jaded already or overly pessimistic, but it all feels so futile with every new just abject performance.