Ric Flair

18 month loan then

The Director of Finance will have little involvement with the individual purchases, they'll be part of recruitment discussions and all the planning and strategy but ultimately Rudkin, Maresca and Co will have strict top level figures that they have to work within.

@Tommy Fresh Have we talked about Fidel Ambriz before?

What a price that is and then someone will pay £35-40m for him within 18 months.

As a Leicester fan it's very possible to feel that but in order for us to actually do that would be quite incredible. We'd need to drop from averaging around 2.5 points a game to 1.2 points a game for the final 19 games. It would be a monumental crisis of confidence/bottle job/nose dive.

Well I presume because someone didn't tell him that in the meetings they had ahead of January. Bottom line here is the voice of Maresca, the only one we'll hear from as the rest of the club are mutes. So folk can question Maresca's integrity and honesty or we have to assume history is repeating itself.

Maresca might be fibbing, but Rodgers wasn't and they have ample opportunity to comment or at least prevent our managers keep publicly saying it. The fact they don't suggests there's something in it. The Mercury seemingly won't leave it alone either. Another article today on it. There's previous for astonishly poor communication so it's no surprise the criticism keeps coming.

Petty came from Aston Villa so I can see where that narrative comes from...

Wages for the rest of the season would be what £1-2m ? Could possibly afford to take £10m for him and book the saving on wages to offset the loss but I presume we harbour intentions of signing a player who we'll book a proportion of the transfer fee this year + signing on fee and wages for the rest of the season.

Hopefully Brentford are called as a witness and say they'd have paid £55m in June had Forest demanded it.

Only just turned 17 but already making an impact in Europe as well as domestically for Rosenberg. Sverre Nypan. Still can't work out whether we can or can't sign players under the age of 18 from overseas, there's been examples of British clubs doing so but then reports of that being the barrier to signing. Either way, one to watch.

I agree, it's why I think we have to bake some flexibility in to our strategy for these scenarios.

If certain clubs had Luke Thomas on their books having played 50+ PL games, been part of major trophy success etc with contract close to expiry, they'd get £5-10m for him. Naive clubs would be queuing up to pay it, like Liverpool get for their fringe players and other clubs. We'll loan him out, then either let him go on a free in the summer or take the option of another year and then loan him out and release him the following summer.

Interesting, I was told by a former FGR manager that the club weren't overly happy with how McAteer got on there and it put paid to any notion of bringing others in on loan in the summer of 2022.

Yes and no. No being that you've spread the transfer fee equally over x amount of years that's been planned for. Yes being you retain a player you don't want, they don't want to be here and you still incur their wages each year as a result. The happy medium which fans get frustrated over is loans with options to buy. The loan fee is a + in the year they go on loan as well as covering the wages. There's no additional expense to the amortised transfer that hits the accounts over the term. Unfortunately this is how football finance works, it won't change any time soon. In order to cut your losses you need financial flexibility to do so. Maybe sell others for a profit to mitigate losses on others etc. A prosperous academy of generating players both good enough for rhe 1st team but also a reputation for other clubs wanting to buy others that might not be ready for decent fees can help with that as it's pure profit. Overall, a collective improvement in recruitment strategy is needed.

I think when a large chunk of the squad is aged 19-21 then it's not just that its a young side being fast tracked earlier and therefore results in the short term aren't important. We've been relegated 2 out of 3 seasons but for a stay of execution. We've got better from when Beaglehole was in charge in getting players in the the U21s (was U23s back then) in to that level earlier but presumably we also retain academy players to make the line ups competitive to help enable those who have a chance of making it here prosper in the environment. Our U21s going on loan has dropped off a cliff, possibly because we got relegated and Enzo wants to keep Nelson, Wanya etc but still should have some of them on loan this season.

How high is his Villa reject ratio and 5ft 2 wingers up front ratio being two agenda items.

Yeah, got no issues with that. I was explaining why we do what we do. If we sign a player for £20m, they flop and we accept £10m a year layer, we're booking a loss which unless you have the financial flexibility to do so, ain't happening. You end up worse off. Lessons need and hopefully have been learnt on the reasons for what puts us in this position though. Wages and transfer fees on incomings have been questionable and then you swap what you sow. Criticism is valid.

Yeah I've said the same, he's not going anywhere. He's a massively respected and trusted disciple of Top and his family. So have him heading up all those positions but have someone closer to it that can do each role justice. A sporting director is needed under Rudkin at Leicester.

Don't even get me started on effectively 4 full time positions that he holds across LCFC, King Power and OH Leuven.

Which in itself is absolutely farcical. You're in a position that managers actively want players gone, they would leave if they could but its unlikely they will. This is why I've repeatedly called for better financial flexibility. We're never going to get every transfer right but you need to have a mechanism that tries to prevent being snookered if it doesn't pay off. We've had the double whammy of most of our purchases prior to this season in the £15-30m bracket on 5 year deals on salaries north of £70k a week. Most of these players doubling or tripling their salaries too. Not so sure these signings were anymore successful than when we took a few risks on talented but unproven players for modest fees either. I'd like to see us redefine our recruitment strategy, only pay more than £10-15m for a player with exceptional potential. Wage structure should be performance based in that players aren't starting on salaries near to those who've achieved success with us. But contracts increase with the players contribution, it usually becomes quite clear within a season whether a player is going to be a success or not. If this prevents us signing certain players because we now no longer pay over and above what our rivals do then so be it. Likewise if we need to completely overhaul our recruitment network to a model that works exclusively on value for money with huge upscale.

Is it any surprise the criticism starts when our manager confesses he only found out two weeks ago about the financial position. His direct line is to Rudkin. We've been here before. This isn't even about whether he's failed in his role as a DOF in the aspects of recruitment for sensible fees and wages. This appears to be either a lack of basic communication or being economical with the truth. It would be beggars belief that the footballing gods have gone against us twice in 2 years on unplanned financial compliance that has meant the goal posts are moved.

Apologies everyone. I'm in a bad way from Saturday, and I don't mean from swigging. That result has made me physically sick. Not having that outcome at all, don't want to hear people's excuses. The one non-negotiable is them arseholes, we beat them every time we play them, however infrequent they maybe, and we show no mercy. Disgusting. The lads are refusing to entertain a pod whilst I'm this unreasonable and aggressive. I'm not backing down, I'll never forget this. Don't care if we win the league by 40 points. Season over for me, I'm just going to disrupt everything now.

Hermansen Hamza Faes Vestergaard Ricardo Akgün Winks KDH Albrighton Cannon Mavididi Thought about this all morning, although there's an obvious lack of physicality and height without Casadei, I think Akgün being able to interchange with Albrighton on the right side counteracts the obvious lack of 1 v 1 ability that Fatawu gives us, but also he can drift in to the pockets that frees up Cannon to play on the shoulder and get in behind. Hamza being in means that he can again support the physicality needed, rather than Justing. I'd not pick Doyle for this I don't think.

I've missed it. Don't condone most of the guff but I want this fixture and the needle to not be something that happens every two decades. Let's both get through the 4th round of the FA Cup and have a 5th round royal rumble down the King Power. I think sooner rather than later they'll come up to the PL as well, so hopefully these fixtures happen more frequently.