The_Rorab

So you believe every manager is always correct with their judgement on a player every single time ever? I'm not even saying Ric is right that Evans is good enough to start, but if you truly believe Marti's or any manager's judgement to be infallible in player evaluation then that's definitely a choice.

Thing is, based on the squad selection so far this season - even if this were to be the case, it seems like Okoli is likelier to slot into the defence if Faes leaves, not Nelson.

I mean, I think it's eminently reasonable to be frustrated with Marti and the club for not playing Nelson - we are on a downward trajectory and the only real way out of it is going to be investing in the future, or hoping to magically get promoted and then somehow stay in the Prem or just get relegated and promoted indefinitely, which is obviously an unsustainable model. Vestegaard and Faes are not going to improve us in the long-term, I feel like I can pretty conclusively call that fact despite it being supposition based on just experience, nor are they going to garner any particular money for us either - likely both on inflated wages and with expiring contracts and unlikely to generate much of a fee for a potential sale. So it stands to reason that people will be frustrated to see them both trotted out week in week out as our mainstay CBs ahead of the likes of Nelson and even Okoli, who are both a lot younger with potential to grow and also generate money in the future. The defence of the defence we're sending out is logical in that sort of wait and see mantra, that hopes that eventually Marti will have bedded things in sufficiently to transition over the season towards this younger core, and I can definitely see why people like Dahnsouff are saying this, because it is the measured response. We can't know if this is something that is the plan behind the scenes, and if so, then that will hopefully see us achieving the personnel changes we want to see etc and leave this a moot point of contention. The problem is that in order to believe that, we have to trust the people running our club. I do not trust any of the people who run our club to be running it in a logical and in a manner beneficial for long-term planning. I like Marti superficially. I like what he says, and his energy and passion he's brought to the club. Currently I don't particularly like the very recent trends in his squad selections, or the playstyle we've put out under him. I never trust a manager to be fully invested in doing what's best for the club long-term, because they are generally operating in short-term self-preservation methods, very validly, in order to continue their job security with immediate results. The problem being, that we desperately need some sort of long-term strategy and thinking in the club to counter-balance the absolute idiocy we saddle ourselves with year on year. CB is one of the roles where rotation is much less frequently considered comparative to other positions, and lest we also forget as well games this season where when both Nelson and Faes were on the bench, Marti subbed on Faes every time, 4 times to be exact - and since Okoli dropped out of the side to pave the way for the inimitable Faes and Vestegaard pairing, Nelson hasn't even made the bench. He's very clearly 4th choice as it stands, whether that's for performance in game, training, personal unknowable reasons, whatever. I can't help but feel like hoping for eventual rotation with Nelson ignores the fact that presumably Okoli would come before him in the queue for a rotational cameo. I think that's a mistake, and we risk losing out long-term on what I deem pretty insufficient short-term success (that I doubt will actually lead to any meaningful success short-term) persisting with Faes and Vestegaard - and I don't trust that the club in general will do what I deem the logical thing to do in our situation - and I don't think I'm alone in that perspective - hence the frustration. The thing with MPH's point about the fact that there might be some unknowable thing going on behind the scenes which explains Nelson being out of favour is plausible, but it also fails to really help in any way because it's just completely unverifiable - so whilst plausible, it's not really going to help people feel less frustrated because it could just as easily be Marti doesn't rate Nelson and that's it - we just don't know - ditto the talk that he's not good enough or whatever, but again we've not really seen enough to weigh in - so it's just more unknowable frustration. I dunno. I hope he changes the team selections up to phase out some of the likes of Faes, Vestegaard, Soumare, Ayew, Reid, Kristiansen, Daka from the squad or at the very least the starting 11 etc but I'm just not super confident, and it's a shame given how I felt positive we were going to see sweeping changes which was the main source of excitement I had for the season.

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.

It's almost like some people just cover their eyes, read a final score and then assume that means everything is fine and dandy and that no one should be able to pick faults. I'm definitely glad we have 3 points, don't get me wrong - but you can't just pretend today was good or showed anything other than an outlier result to our level of performance in my opinion. If your main takeaway from that game was that Cooper is doing a good job setting us up in games and deserves months more then I don't know what you were watching other than the final score. How we have played so far is not sustainable over an entire season, occasional wins and tight results or not. I know people will want to just bask in 3 points finally, and I understand the feeling that criticism should be lessened in response, but I just didn't come out of that feeling any more positive about our survival other than the cold fact of the win. I still think we desperately need him gone unless he miraculously becomes a competent tactician and with game management in the new few months, apologies for the negativity.

I desperately want to give him more of a chance but every selection and every new game just deflates me more and more until I can't help but go in feeling like it's a chore before the game even starts.

I think the biggest issue I have with Cooper isn't necessarily even down to Cooper himself - it's about us as a club. Say what you want about Maresca, but it felt like we actually had a plan as a club going forward after years of stagnation under Rodgers - there was a concrete intention of playstyle, that seemed to map up with players we'd signed or already had at the club (Winks, Ricardo, Vestergaard etc), there was a real sense of momentum and whilst I know a fair few people had misgivings about the potential of Maresca in the Premier League, I at least felt like we'd have an ethos to stick to, patterns of play, playing an 11 that seemed to understand the tactics and know what to do. Obviously, there's not a lot we could have done about Maresca leaving, and obviously we were hamstrung by the at the time looming PSR points deduction, but the appointment of Cooper just felt like the absolute antithesis of everything we'd just done and built. He doesn't seem to have much of a tactical plan, he has a history as Ric keeps mentioning of horrific away form, his entire ethos seems to be as far away from what we were doing last year as possible - and it just seems so self-inflicted. His marginalisation of Ricardo, the 3-year contract extension to Vestergaard who didn't even make the bench against Palace, the fact that for large stints of games we seem clueless about how to even do the basics right from being a well-drilled unit, the signings of players in the profile of Bobby Reid, the complete lack of Alves in the matchday squad over Soumare, the shambolic game management against Palace of just lumping on as many defenders as possible and hoping. Obviously these aren't all equal issues, and some are subjective opinion, but there's very little that feels like Cooper is doing right currently - and I don't feel confident that he knows how to change things. For some attempt at balance, I do think the grit we've shown in a few games is absolutely something to laud him for - I think he's likely a pretty good man manager and motivator. The problem is that you have to be able to pair that up with tactical ability, otherwise you end up in the Southgate scenario, and we don't have nearly as good players to compensate for a bad tactical manager as England did. I have some sympathy given that we definitely would have struggled more in the transfer window with the looming PSR threat, and I appreciate that he's only been in charge for a few games, I'd absolutely love it if we suddenly clicked and showed more signs of being a solid team, but right now I struggle to see where points come from. I don't think it should come as much of a surprise that we are near the bottom for a decent chunk of statistical metrics so far this season. Yes, we're newly promoted, but many newly promoted teams manage to acquit themselves in the Premier League far better than we seem to be, and given how we played last year, it feels like there should have been groundwork for playing at lest somewhere slightly better than this. Which is the frustration really - the only recourse I think people have is lashing out at Cooper himself, and I both understand and feel similarly, but it's hugely on the board as per usual as well in my opinion - we've ripped up everything good we did last year in a panic and now we're left with what seems to be a complete mishmash of personnel and tactical style which just isn't getting the best out of anything - and it just feels like such a letdown after what felt like we actually had some semblance of real long-term planning for once. I genuinely think Cooper as a bloke seems pretty decent. I don't dislike him, the way I utterly loathed Rodgers by the end, he seems like a fairly straight-talking well-meaning guy. The problem is that that isn't enough, and without success on the pitch, my patience is very thin for him being a decent bloke versus our play so far.

I get your overarching point, but this... didn't happen? So I don't think that it's in any way relevant? It could have worked brilliantly bringing on an attacking midfielder and we could've scored more for example - but we'll never know so we can only judge on what did happen - he subbed Coady on and we ceded momentum and he conceded a penalty. You've literally rewritten what happened to fit your narrative whilst complaining about the same thing? I personally think Cooper's only positive is his man management and instilling of work ethic, as you've touched on, and we have shown some positives from it but in my opinion his tactical shortcomings outweigh that. Hopefully I turn out to be wrong and we pick up some wins In the next few games.

I mean, based on the 112 year history, I'm going to go with they would probably, given that they've been doing it for 112 years. I'd be surprised if you think they've never been desperate for points in 112 years - although whether they'd play youth players versus try to buy better Basque players from elsewhere, I couldn't say - I don't exactly follow Bilbao. Anyway, I don't think Ric or anyone is genuinely suggesting we should be only playing English players, or even that our academy players should be constantly playing every game - I think there's a balance that can easily be struck here - Alves for example could be on the bench for games over the likes of Soumare surely? Then he could be used or not used as the situation may allow. It shows the progression and pathway, but can be situational - and doesn't really jeopardise anything unless you think Soumare can offer something off the bench for us (which I do not). Like it or not, we need to keep producing players through the academy in order to compensate for less than stellar financial management - and for me, what Cooper is currently doing with Alves in not having him in any first team squads is a mistake. Which isn't to say he won't do something different going forward, but I don't think it's surprising that it's a disappointment in a thread about our youth players.

I mean, they've been playing only Basque or Basque-raised/related players since 1912, and have been in seasons where they could have been relegated such as a 17th placed finish in 06/07 where they didn't decide against the policy - I highly doubt they'd suddenly reverse 112 years of tradition for a relegation fight.

I don't understand the concept of not trying players with zero experience - playing them is how they get experience and there are countless examples of players thrown into first team football and thriving. There obviously are cases of players being thrown in and not succeeding too, I'm not saying it will always succeed - but this idea that you just can't ever throw in inexperienced players into a first team is ridiculous, especially if it's just stuff like being given sub appearances off the bench on occasion with the huge amount of subs we are now afforded. Sure, loan players out too to give them experience yeah I can get behind that but if you're always too concerned about experience then you'll never develop players and always have to spend more money, which we can't really afford to do. And people saying oh well we can't blood players this year, we're in a relegation battle - when exactly do you want to blood youngsters? Next year will the line not surely either be we desperately need to avoid relegation again or get promoted back at the first opportunity? Why would that be a better scenario for playing youngsters exactly than now? I'm not saying let's just play every academy lad but I dare anyone to give me a valid reason to have Soumare on the bench over Alves for example. It just screams of our short-termism that seems to be part of every decision we make.