Staffs Fox

I had this debate with my mates on Monday, two are Villa and one is Wolves. All of them said the same things ‘na, you’ll be alright, you’ve got the players’ but when I actually broke the team down to them and also explained who was in our rivals team, they soon came round to my way of thinking. Very quickly our squad has become very poor and it shows the damage only a couple of bad windows can do. Add to that key players like Evans and Vardy getting older and former key players like Ndidi and Soyuncu either losing form or being frozen out and here we are. The last truly successful signing was Fofana imo and that was nearly 3 years ago.

Is that a barbers for balding men?

Soccer AM has finally been put out of its misery it seems. I happened upon an episode a few months back and it was a shadow of its former self. I actually don’t blame the presenters but it was apparently they didn’t have any budget, it was very sad. I actually have tremendous memories of this growing up in the late 90’s/early 00’s. I believe it used to be 3 hours long and be an awesome start to the weekend. I understand it hasn’t aged well, due to its lads culture vibe but it used to be ace. Bits were genuinely funny, good music and of course football. If you’ll indulge me a little nostalgia trip, it takes me back to a brilliant, innocent time in my life. When I was doing my A-levels, this show was probably at its peak 2003/04ish and I used to work late Friday night then have Saturdays free. I used to wake up, put this on, watch until 12. Quick shower and then out to watch the lunchtime kick off with my mates in the pub. Bets on first scorer, round of killer pool, loads of beer, just a great time of youth. Bit of tangent but when I heard Soccer AM had been scrapped my mind immediately went back to those days

Top tier football is heading for a tipping point, it’s on an unsustainable trajectory which will in the not so distant future come to an abrupt end. The actual game of football will not die but it might split. Reform (whether it be Super League or not) is inevitable and i for one am actually all for it. The likes of Chelsea, Man City and PSG are not currently playing the same game as us so the sooner they go off and do their own thing the better. They can pander to the global audiences and fifa players who are more interested in football shirt than the actual game and actual football fans can go enjoy what’s on the pitch. I regularly go to watch my local team (Tamworth) in the 7th tier and it’s great. Yeah the standard isn’t fantastic but the excitement and the essence of the game is well and alive. Give me that over PSG vs Man City played in Saudi Arabia (give it 3 years). What our part in this will look like is yet to be seen but whatever form it is, as our season in League One showed, it doesn’t matter if we have Youri Tielemans or Matt Oakley in midfield, the love for the club and will to win is no different

Gutted not only as a City fan but also a fellow Tamworth native to see a genuine club legend leave but this really does make sense for all parties. When you read he has only started one league game this season and that’s without Tete and with all the injuries we’ve had it puts it into perspective. He’s probably only got 2 to 3 years left in the game and he wants to play regular football at a decent level. Good luck Marc and hope that we haven’t seen the last of you in a Leicester shirt

A part of me wonders if they know this is the general opinion of it and just play along. Those two guys are beyond a joke and I haven’t met a single person who can take them seriously, yet they get wielded out every year to spout utter shite. Stop.The.Press I am hearing sensational news that Stoke City have signed Kevin Doyle on a 3 month loan deal or other such rubbish

Good draw but shit it’s midweek though

Whilst the owners haven’t done themselves any favours with the recent penny pinching, I do have a certain amount of admiration for the approach. It’s far too easy to throw money the club doesn’t have for a short term fix. I honestly reckon we’ll be looking at half a dozen Portsmouths in a few years, spending above their means, unsustainably, which will ultimately lead to relegation, fire sales and a collapse through the leagues. However I really do think they have their head in the sand if they don’t think we can go down this season. They either need to back Rodgers one last time with some funds or sack him. This limbo we’re in is killing the club. All that said, the training ground now seems to be the biggest ****ing waste of resources!

Some good ties there, on tv I think will be Our game Man City v Chelsea Oxford v Arsenal Sheff Wed v Newcastle

I feel with all the JJ and Maddison news this has gone under the radar a bit. Congrats lad! Well deserved after a truly excellent start to your City career!

Really unlucky this and you just have to feel sorry for the lad. Can’t believe some are still blaming Rodgers. Our schedule has been pretty light this season and the league cup is a decent trophy. It wasn’t as it if it was away on a dodgy pitch either. Just bad luck, nothing more Get back soon JJ

I’m in two minds about this to be honest. On a personal note for him, I hope he goes, he fully deserves it and would be a great reward. Also won’t do the chances of him signing a new deal any harm. However for me personally, I don’t want any of our players represented at this World Cup. I want our club far away as possible from this. This World Cup is abhorrent on nearly every level. From the way it was awarded, the 1000’s of deaths just for 28 days of football, the country’s disgraceful political views and pretty much everything else associated with it is disgusting .

I think the Football Authorities thought they’d set the precedent and postpone the fixtures and thinking other sport would follow suit therefore looking like the good guys Turns out the other sports actually thought logically and went ahead. Now Football looks stupid because not only professional leagues but grassroots games and non league are also cancelled whilst International Cricket Matches will go on

True but they shouldn’t cancel dozens of games and disrupt people schedules, jobs etc for a few idiots who’ll boo anything. The vast majority will have observed it correctly but like usual, the authorities will not trust football fans

The fact England v South Africa at the Oval is also on tomorrow (which Im buzzing for as I’ve got tickets) makes the decision to postpone all football matches even weirder, How is cancelling sporting events a show of respect?!

Commercially we’re way off it. It does seem a little unrealistic to look at those figures but when you factor in how much clubs like Man United and Chelsea generate through Merch and other deals, then you add in our Training Ground, plus the terrible recent signings we can’t shift, it does start to make sense. However what is surprising is how this has been allowed to happen. For example The only benefit of having your parent company having the naming rights for the stadium is it enables you to do some dodgy bookkeeping ‘last years sponsorship was worth XXX’ to explain over spending (see Man City). However obviously KP aren’t doing that, so our stadium name should have been sold years ago to maximise revenue. In addition any commercial deals we sign whether it’s on or off the pitch seem second rate and do not match our recent ambitions. For example our kit deal with Adidas is less than Newcastle’s with Castore and half of West Ham’s with Umbro. They’re clubs of similar size and when you factor in the ‘Top 6’ teams get 10x even 15x that per season, we’ve been foolish to think we can complete without extra investment. it’s been good whilst it lasted

I actually have no issue whatsoever with that team. KDH has been poor recently and Vardy has looked like he needs a rest, Plenty of attacking in that team! Come on boys!

To answer your immediate question; yes it well and truly is a complete farce. However I do not think it is entirely to blame for our board tightening the purse strings. We are known for being a well run club, with an owner that actually cares and that is all I see here. A recession is here and christ knows how long it’ll last for. The cost of living is sky rocketing and we are in the biggest period of uncertainty with a post Brexit world and with a war raging not too far away. To think that football will be exempt from the repercussions all of these factors is foolish. Clubs can go spending hundreds of millions they don’t have chasing the dream if they want but when the bills come to be paid, who knows what the situation will be. Dont get me wrong, I wanted a big summer rebuild but it hasn’t happened and we move on. The talent in the squad is way better than we’re showing and whilst it’ll be a rough season I don’t think for one minute if applied correctly our squad will go down

If they pay the £85m then fair enough. The 2 most expensive defenders in world football will have been bought from Leicester City! Imagine thinking that 10 years ago, Of course I want him to stay but every player has his price and a world record fee appears to be his

A player who is entering the final chapter of his professional career wanted a new challenge and having given us 11 years of exceptional service we granted his wish.

Blimey some people are so dramatic. If he leaves, he’ll go for a big profit for essentially one seasons work and we move on. This happens in football daily. Players move clubs. We signed him from St Etienne, he plays well, another club wants him, we make money, rinse and repeat. We have a fantastic recruitment policy which means bigger clubs want our players. Prefer that to the Man United school of mismanagement, where they literally have to give their players away. It’d be a shame but nothing else.

Totally agree regarding the insane emphasis which is put onto how many signings a club makes as a sign of improvement or intent. A flux of new signings either means you’ve come into a lot of money either through a huge sale (eg Bale at Spurs, Suarez at Liverpool and look how those replacements faired), a new owner with cash (Man City, Chelsea etc) however this should in theory be more difficult in the age of FFP or the squad was shit in the first place and needed a complete overhaul, non of the above applies to us. Regardless of how many signings clubs have made, how many players from clubs who finished below us last season or the three promoted clubs would get into our starting XI?? I bet you could count on one hand from all of them combined. We have a squad the envy of every club outside the top 6. Let Forest do a QPR or Fulham (worked well for both of them) and see others splash cash in panic. We’re an extremely well run club with a plan for the future. Not just to entertain the media and fans for 10 mins with a yellow headline at the bottom of a screen

I think the time is right especially if he wants to have one more challenge. He owes the club nothing, his £1m fee must go down as one of our best ever transfer and he’s a bona fide City legend. However he’s also 36 in a few months and even for a goalkeeper it probably means 2 maybe 3 years tops. If the club has told him he’s not guaranteed to start which no player should be especially one who’s form has been sketchy recently and he’s rather spend his last few seasons as a pro down in Nice then fair play. We’ll move on and have two adequate replacements immediately and have the luxury of seeing how they fair in the first few games before seeing if we need to sign anyone else.

I am 100% behind the clubs strategy of sell first before buying. Last Saturday just proved that when pretty much everyone is free our squad is currently massive, with us being able to put out two completely different decent XI on the same day! We have too much deadwood to clear. The Brentford squad is likely to look similar to the below Schmeichel Ricardo Fofana Evans Justin Ndidi Tielemans KDH Maddison Barnes Vardy Bench Ward, Soyuncu, Castagne, Praet, Mendy, Thomas, Daka, Ihenacho, Albrighton That means senior players not even making the match day squad hypothetically would be, Iversen, Vestergaard, Amartey, Perez, Soumare, Bertrand, Choudhury and that’s excluding any youth prospects we may wish to promote. We have no European football this season so the chances of rotating are very limited. Get rid of most the on the non match day list and it frees up some space but that is much easier said than done

I agree but he’s going to be on £360k a week apparently, so there is that to factor in