Staffs Fox

Not at all, it’s bad but it’s not unprecedented. Man United got relegated 6 years after winning the European Cup, Aston Villa did the same but in 5 years for example 10 years is a really long time in football and it can work the other way. Look at our rise from 2011 to 2021. That said, let’s see where we are in 5 years and we might be looking at the worst collapse in 15 years if the rot doesn’t stop

There must be a limit but I know originally Casement Park in Belfast was chosen as a host stadium but when they realised it wasn’t going to be redeveloped in time they decided not to pick a replacement stadium. That seemed so odd to me given the amount of great stadiums we already have available. Celtic Park, King Power (not bias but the Midlands does seem a bit overlooked), Amex and a redeveloped Elland Road would have made most sense

Think it’s a bit crap that the only English Quarter Final as well as both Semi Finals and Final are at Wembley. Thought it should have been shared round a bit more. Compare that with Euro 2024 when the Semi Finals were in Dortmund and Munich whilst the final was Berlin

Whilst Wes was a pivotal part of our success, as others have said, the biggest ok field mistake we made which lead to our downfall was letting Kasper go and thinking Ward could replace him. If we have Schmeichel in goal, we don’t get relegated, it’s that simple

It’s all about context and for that reason it has to be Skipp. That summer we really didn’t have much to spend as we looked to reestablish ourselves back in the Prem. We still had Ndidi, Winks and Soumare as CM options but we decide to spend £20m on this guy when we were crying out for attacking reinforcements. The fact we went into the season with a 38 year old Vardy as our main option whilst this man warmed our bench is so bad. The fact he’s still warming our bench in a terrible bottom house Championship team just compounds it

I was so encouraged by our first 55 mins or so, we played arguably our best football of the season and looked a tier above Wrexham. The midfield 3 looked the best combination so far which with Ramsey now to come back in is a good sign. I am confident that if we play close to that (and the first half against West Brom) we’ll turn these draws into wins not before too long. I am optimistic we can still challenge for promotion. That said, that is the last time I want to see VK and Skipp in our team. I’ve tried to support Skipp since he’s been here and genuinely thought he’d be decent at this level but he’s awful. You may as well have a training dummy there, at least that might get in the way once or twice. With Winks, James and Soumare ahead of him there’s no need to play him at all. He must go down as our worst ever signing and I am not forgetting about the other dross we have but I can at least think of at least one good thing other players have done, with him I can’t

I’m fairly happy with this transfer window. I would have loved a statement striker signing but apart from that our squad is balanced with cover in most areas. Reducing our wage bill, raising £75m in sales (inc BEK) and adding some decent loan signings. Its been a strange start to the season, as largely we’ve played poorly yet we’ve ended up with 3 wins from 4 and with the window now shut and the squad now together until January at least hopefully we can push on even further with these loan signings

I don’t think he’s burnt bridges at all. He’s not done an Isak and gone completely awol. He was at the stadium watching our game and wearing a Leicester City top. It’s not an ideal situation but at least we’ve won the two games he’s been left out and by the next time we play we’ll know. The worst case scenario would be a loan with an option to buy (don’t rule it out with that lot negotiating) but at least by the next time we play we’ll know for certain if he’s part of our squad or not. I think mahrez acted worse than this guy and we got another year out of him

Great win which I have to say was unexpected. Every player on the pitch looked like they cared and put in a shift. That said, if we don’t buy a striker we are more ****ed behind the scenes that we know. How anyone can’t see that if we spend a decent chunk of the £50m we’ve raised in player sales (or £75-80m if BEK leaves) we have an amazing chance of going straight back up and whatever outlay we pay will be repaid 10x. Yeah if Winks and VK go too we’d be short in their positions too but we are desperate for a striker and there’s no reason on the surface why we can’t go and spend £12-15m on a first choice striker. I genuinely don’t think we will though🥺

Jesus Christ if that starting XI isn’t a cry for help to the Board to spend some of the £45m we’ve recouped I dont know what else to say. It isn’t a slight on the young lads who are involved but the Championship is a tough division and they should be able to ease in gently but it looking increasingly likely we’re pinning our hopes on them. Skipp and Soumare as the midfield is just soul destroying. We’ve gone from Tielemans, Maddison, Dewsbury-Hall and Barnes to that midfield in 3 years it’s shambolic

I don’t know what to say, he was great for us for the most part but this is painful to watch; Mads, Potter, West Ham this is shameful

Mads having an absolute mare😬

When this thread popped up I thought it was laughable, ‘of course we won’t get relegated we have one of the strongest squads in the league’ I thought. Then I went to Deepdale and witnessed the reality of the situation. We reek of Sunderland 17/18, going to into a season expecting promotion with a squad of overpaid so called Premier League players who ultimately aren’t up for fight and weigh the club down with their egos. Yes Preston is one result and if we go and beat Charlton 3-0 on Saturday this will seem laughable but I was very concerned with what I saw last weekend. Players were either not bothered at all or thought they were too good for the division and could either not try or could simply run past everyone. The fact we’ve raised over £30m in sales and still not brought in a striker just goes to show how dire things are behind the scenes Do I think we’ll get relegated? No. But it’s a lot more likely that it was 7 days ago

Real long shot but I’ve been let down last minute and my ticket has inexplicably not arrived in time for the game. If anyone has a spare adults and lives in the Narborough area I’m willing to pick up and pay cash. Late notice but I was pinning my hopes on the ticket being here when I got back from work

He’s been booked and saving him for Saturday

I saw this lot get beaten by Tamworth last season in the FA Cup so we’d better not **** it up tonight😂

People should see the positives that Soumare and Skipp are starting, it means that they’re probably not going to on Saturday. This is very much the 2nd XI apart from Stolarczyk and Thomas.

3 points is all that matters and that’s what we got. Contrary to popular belief, I never thought that’d be easy because I thought their players might be pumped up due to the issues surrounding the club. That said that first half was ****ing awful. I never understood the Skipp signing but I’ve always wanted him to show something. Yesterday was a big opportunity, first game of the season at home against a lower championship side and he was the worst player on the pitch. I just do not know what we can do with him. I’d maybe start him on Tuesday to see if we can get some sort of confidence in him because he looks lost. Really liked Ayews performance but as others has said it was more like a 10 and we still need that focal striker. Mav struggled and was outclassed by Monga when he was replaced. Again, despite playing over an hour, I might start Mavididi tomorrow and save Monga for Preston. If we have another season of Vestergaard and Faes so be it, their attributes are better suited to this level. Hopefully Ricardo can come back soon to add a bit of class to the team but I think we’ll be alright. We’ve raised £30m in the last week in players sales, I’d just love us to now go out and spend 1/3 of that on a proper striker. Do that and we’re golden

Southampton let their number 1 go on loan who they spent £25m on last summer. We make a £12m profit for a player who let’s face it was average at best for the 2nd half of last season and we have adequate cover for, I’m ok with this to be honest

I’ve just read the BBC’s preview of the new season and they have us down as finishing 4th. Obviously I read our preview first so I was intrigued who they have in the automatic places. Lo and behold it’s Ipswich and Southampton respectively. The same teams we finished above last season, were unbeaten against and have lost less key players than. Ipswich have lost Delap, Morsy and Tuanzebe, Southampton have lost Ramsdale, Sulemana, Walker-Peters, Bednarek and let’s face it they’ll lose Dibling too and neither side have made any noticeable additions imo. It’s just lazy journalism peddling the negativity around the club rather than actually looking at the squads. Any side in the Championship would take Fatawu, Mavididi, Monga, BEK, Ricardo heck even players like Nelson, Thomas, Winks, McAteer, Justin and Ayew would walk into pretty much every other Championship side such is the level

I have a lot of time for Sheffield Wednesday and it’s really sad what is happening there. I remember in 07/08 we played them right near the end of the season. If memory serves if we’d won we’d be all but safe however if we lost we were basically down as we had Stoke away on the final day and they were flying. Lo and behold we lose 3-1 at home (we were utter dogshit), I was at Leicester train station after the game and it was packed full of Wednesday fans and I feared the worst. They were the soundest away fans I’ve ever met, they basically said they know what we’re going through and hopefully you can bounce back from League One and just enjoy some different away days and we were a great club. I know each club has good and bad supporters and I was lucky to bump into some decent lads but you can only judge based on what you’ve seen and I’ve always thought of them positively since then I really hope they manage to get out of this mess and the club can move on to better things

Sorry I think I might have written it wrong, I certainly don’t think this is some masterstroke by the people behind the scenes. They have certainly ****ed up and Kbet was certainly the preferred sponsor a month or so back. But I think now they’ve realised they can’t do a BC Game/Kbet (they probably didn’t even that rule was coming in!) and are now having to wait for the right one. The encouragement comes from the club planning for us being in the PL next season therefore not being able to sign a multi year deal with Kbet. That’s my naive take on it anyway. They probably just haven’t paid the internet bill and haven’t realised why there’s no interest

I don’t understand why people are so bothered or baffled that the club don’t have a sponsor yet. I agree the club isn’t in the best position right now on a whole but that isnt the sole reason for this. Quite a few clubs recently have done the same recently (Chelsea and Forest spring to mind and I think Chelsea went almost the entire of last season with a shirt sponsor). This impending PL gambling ban on shirts is going to have a seismic effect. Look at the Premier League and see how many clubs have betting companies, that has been the trend for 15 years or so. Next season that has to change. If we as a club have any ambition it’s to be in the PL next season, so we have to plan for that scenario. Therefore we can’t have a gambling sponsor on anything more than a 1 year deal. Also we don’t want to undersell ourselves by accepting a ‘Championship’ size fee for a few years and then we get promoted and realise we undersold ourselves. Why KP don’t just sponsor us I don’t know but I wouldn’t get worried about the next sponsor. If anything I’d be encouraged we seem to be thinking carefully

I was listening to the The Athletic’s Totally Football Podcast and they were previewing the Championship and we didn’t even get a mention😂😂😂 Ipswich will be strong, Southampton are unlikely to go back up, interested in Birmingham and Wrexham, good that Ryan Mason now has a job at West Brom, the Foxes however completely anonymous😂

Covid? Whilst I appreciate Covid was an unprecedented time for everyone, it also affected everyone the same so why is no other team in as much shit as us and had such a fall from grace? We’ve gone from challenging for the Champions League to possible points deductions in the Championship. Name another team with that trajectory in the same period. Covid didn’t sign Daka, Soumare, Faes, Bertrand, Vestergaard, Souttar, Coady, Skipp, Kristiansen whilst also letting Schmeichel go for next to nothing and allowing Tielemans to run his contract down.