StriderHiryu

Last season we signed a lad on loan called Fatawu. He weren't too bad. Of course, the big difference is we had the option, which we don't this time round. But you never know, Ipswich didn't have an option with Omari Hutchinson either and yet they ended up signing him permanently. We also signed Callum Doyle and Yunus Akgun on loan last season too. Those players weren't quite good enough, so we aren't stuck with them for this season. That's the upside of loans, it derisks investments. Yes it sums up the fallout. But it's crying over spilt milk at this point. It's happened, so what can the club do about it? There's only a few options: - Spend like crazy and take any PSR fines / deductions on the chin and try to get so many points it doesn't matter. - Sign lots of players on loan to boost the squad quality till we are in a position to sign players ourselves. - Don't sign anyone and get relegated. At least something is happening now. If we get 3-4 more players of that quality, we will have a real chance to stay up. You can be both frustrated at the club / upset with the fall off and still be accepting of the moves we have to make in order to try to rectify things. And that's where I find myself.

100% but that's where we are. Is it better to use this strategy now to stay up, or to do nothing and definitely go down? We are all massively upset and frsutrated at the club. But it doesn't mean that this is a bad move.

Regarding Alves, he didn't play in the Championship. In the preseason friendlies he looks OK, but anyone thinking he is PL quality right now is being way too optimistic. The succesful blueprint this club has used numerous times to create PL quality players is to loan them through the leagues till they are ready. It worked exceptionally well with Chilwell, Barnes and KDH, and to a lesser extent with Hamza. Luke Thomas is the use case of it NOT working, probably becuase he was kept around. Let Alves go out on loan for a season, get confident and he might be ready for the first team. As it stands Buonanotte is further ahead development wise than Alves. Let's all hope Alves gets there, he was super unlucky with his injury. But to have any chance of staying up we need players that are operating at a high level NOW.

This is a great signing. I understand the frustration about not developing our own players, but a good strategy for this season is to sign players on loan so we have a chance to stay up, but don't get financially ruined if we go down. We also need cover. This guy is an Argentine international, proven in the league, high ceiling. For this season, a great acquisition.

https://www.fck.dk/en/news/fc-copenhagen-sign-gabriel-pereira Signed for FCK in Denmark.

It really is. Outside of the lack of new signings, I also think it's depressing that the lineup and tactics of the team feels like it's going backwards. We saw in last friendly that Kristiansen as an attacking left back didn't work, Ndidi next to Winks doesn't offer the same build up as with Ricardo and it means we don't use our wingers in quite the same way. Here's a goal we scored against Bournemouth last season, as well as some of the rest of our play. For me this was the blueprint to work with, but we have seen nowhere near this level of fluency in preseason. It might only be preseason, but we saw moves like it this time last preseason, so it's a back step in terms of change of approach for me.

He was really underwhelming when he moved to Spurs, despite good numbers in the Eredivisie. Interestingly this is not the first time we've been linked to him. When Spurs brought him from PSV we had an offer accepted too, but he chose Spurs instead. I often wondered if we would have got Champions League football had we had signed him, but looking at his time in England that is definitely not the case. Scored just 4 league goals, 2 of which were against us. If we loaned him for a season with an option to buy, that would be a different story.

What was the reason then? This was what was reported by multiple outlets: https://www.getfootballnewsitaly.com/2024/why-leicester-citys-move-for-inters-stefano-sensi-collapsed/ It is stated that Sensi did have a medical with Leicester in England and it proved to be a successful one. But after that, the move didn’t progress due to FFP issues at the Foxes’ end. Leicester were not able to complete the permanent signing as FFP didn’t allow for that to happen. Sensi will now return to Milan and would be available to Simone Inzaghi’s side till the end of the season, with his current contract at the Nerazzurri expiring in the summer transfer window.

I think the reason we didn't get Carvalho is that we couldn't pay the loan fee due to PSR restrictions. Look at how we couldn't pay 2M to get Stefano Sensi over the line as evidence for that. It was a shame as I think him coming in would have prevented the slump we went on.

Taking the absoulte piss out of one of the teams in Blue in these clips...

I wanted this guy back in January! He’s got output, 10 goals in the 20 appearances he made for Hull last season.

Clips backup what you’re saying. He was highly rated in Norway but screams of someone that needed an in-between move before going to Chelsea. Interestingly to me he seems like someone that drifts out onto the wings too rather than an out and out target man. So could offer cover for multiple roles. If it’s a loan with an option to buy rather than compulsory, then it seems like an ok signing. Our squad is very light at the moment.

This window has serious 22-23 vibes

Interestingly Galatasaray divulged all of the details of the Sara deal: Fee: 18 million Euros over 9 installments in 3 years 5 year contract 2.75m Euro annual salary (About 50K Euro a week) I suppose the 5 year contract is the biggie there, but otherwise all of the above you would think would be well within our ballpark. So I can only assume we aren't prepared to go that far for potential signings...

If that is the situation, that is exactly what I would want them to say. I would get behind the lads, especially the ones that have come through the academy and take a long term view of things. It would manage expectations and clarify the direction of the club.

It's not so much about pressing the panic button, but more like the "resigned to relegation" button. It's likely we are expecting a fairly big points deduction, so are thinking about a muti-year plan. Probably looking to sign players who will accept wage decreases if we get relegated, and that's making it hard to sign good players. I imagine we end up with at least 2-3 more players, but probably loan sigings. But it's the lack of communication from the club that is hard to swallow. We are just customers to the current regime who are there to lap up the LCFC product. This is something I hate so much! Fans will actually get behind the team and club when times are tough. Instead when there's radio silence, increased season ticket fees, membership card fees, £10 for a friendly, etc, etc, it just makes you incredibly apathetic.

The 100M they got for Rice will help them out a bit I think. Some of that they spent last season, but with some good accounting, they should have a bit to play with. Each time a "mega" sale happens for a smaller club, they are able to put a good squad together and make a go of it for a few seasons. - We sold Maguire, then got 5th twice and an FA Cup. - Villa sold Grealish, brought in Emery and made Champions League. - Brighton got 6th after selling a ton of players and their manager to Chelsea. Though since they sold Caceido and McAllister they took a step back. But might be ones to watch this season as they spent a lot. - West Ham sold Rice and now this season are spending big.

To be fair, it's quite refreshing to hear someone as candid as this.

@Finnegan Great post! For me this is a case of Cooper copying someone’s homework but not understanding how they arrived at the answer. Cooper might have watched every game but on the pitch it’s just an inferior version of what went before. Your examples are excellent. To add to that, we’ve also taken away a key element to our buildup in Mads pushing up and Ricardo being next to Winks. That would help us entice opposition players to jump, creating the spaces to work with. Further more there’s a disconnect between the back 5 and front 5. Last season after we had control of the game, the wide CBs would push up and underlap our wingers to pose more problems. See Faes driving into the box. And finally we aren’t compressing the game onto one side before switching it to the other to leave a winger 1 on 1. Which is where Mavididi and Fatawu excelled. If I was an opposition manager, my strategy against this Leicester would be to let them have the ball. They won’t do anything with it!

Pre-season isn't about results, it's about understanding the style of play, the structure and fitness. Getting relationships working together and improving on them. My notes from the Augsburg game. Nominally we are a 4231. We have a defensive 5 and an attacking 5, just like last season. When off the ball, we press and defend in a compact 442 shape. However, the difference is that one of the fullbacks pushes up to become a winger, with the starting winger (Mavididi) drifting in to become a 10/8. In the Augsburg game, that player is Kristiansen, and we have found him a lot. The 10's make the inside channel runs like Ndidi and KDh used to make last season. A big difference from last season is that Mads is not coming out to make an additional CB. That means that we don't have the box midfield from last season to play out from. However, we are still clearly trying to play the ball out from the back, using Winks as the main person to build through. Ndidi is more of a destroyer compared to the way Ricardo used the ball a lot more last season. In fact at times Winks is the sole pivot for building with, with Ndidi pushing up ahead of him to create more free men to find further upfield. We are running a high press with the front 5, and the back 5 are stepping up like last season. We didn't do this as much in the last few friendlies, but it's notable today. We have turned the ball over to make chances a few times, but also got caught out once or twice on transition too. Probably the biggest overall chance is that we don't try to compact the game down one side so we can switch play to a winger who we can isloate 1v1. This is how we got the best out of Mavididi and Fatawu last season, and it also freed up the 8's. With Cooper the wingers are more narrow and not stretching the game as much as under Enzo. Overall we have more control of the match than the opposition and did start making half chances eventually. However, creativity was rare to see. The biggest frustration was Viktor Kristiansen. He got the ball so many times, but always turned back in. Moving Stephy inside *could* work, but if the player out wide doesn't pose the same ability to beat a man, or support the inside player, then it's a waste. Last season Mavididi and KDH combined really well. The Elephant in the room is we have not replaced KDH and his 26 goal contributions and it shows. There has been a real lack of creativity in the last two games. We are huffing and puffing but don't look like scoring. That was not the case under Enzo where in most games we did create chances, even if at times it wasn't as often as we would have liked to. Some of the moves we make are from last season, but they feel like inferior versions of those moves rather than well drilled and practiced ones. My worry is that the moves are muscle memory from under Enzo and not patterns coached by Cooper. One more pre-season game to go before the season starts. I feel like we are in dire need of some creative players. Bobby Reid felt invisible at times.

The story of the games so far has been a real lack of creativity. Huffing and puffing but rarely carving teams open to make clear cut chances. It was always going to be difficult to replace KDH's goal contributions, but these displays have really compunded it. Without some significant signings, it's going to be a long old season. As it stands there will be plenty of "Leicester were alright, but beaten and ultimately never looked like getting anything from the game."

Posting this here, as VK is being used to join the attack as an additional winger this season, and not been too impressive as yet. Here's how he was used at Bologna. In some clips he does actually try to beat his man and cross it in, so he does have the capability!

It reduces our creativity. If Mads steps up, another player can push forwards. It does of course pose a lot of risks in a very competitive division.

One highlight has been Harry Winks. Looking back to his best and easily our best player.

For me that half wasn't bad. Pre-season isn't about results, it's about understanding the style fo play, the structure and fitness. Getting realtionships working together and improving on them. In this game it's clear what the attacking and defensive strcutures are, we are going back-to-front a lot better and in general have controlled the game pretty well. Creativity is not the greatest, but better, but I can see what we are trying to do at least. So my notes. Nominally we are a 4231. We have a defensive 5 and an attacking 5, just like last season. When off the ball, we press and defend in a compact 442 shape. However, the difference is that one of the fullbacks pushes up to become a winger, with the starting winger drifting in to become a 10/8. In this game, that player is Kristiansen, and we have found him a lot. The 10's make the inside channel runs like Ndidi and KDh used to make last season. A big difference from last season is that Mads is not coming out to make an additional CB. That means that we don't quite have the box midfield from last season to play out from. However, we are still clearly trying to play the ball out from the back, using Winks as the main person to build through. Ndidi is more of a destroyer compared to the way Ricardo used the ball a lot more last season. We are running a high press with the front 5, and the back 5 are stepping up like last season. We didn't do this as much in the last few friendlies, but it's notable today. We have turned the ball over to make chances a few times, but also got caught out once or twice on transition too. As the half went on we got more and more control and did start making chances. But the biggest frustration was Viktor Kristiansen. He got the ball so many times, but always turned back in! Vary it with some first time crosses, try and attack the full back from time to time, then vary it with coming back inside. Moving Stephy inside *could* work, but if the player out wide doesn't pose the same ability to beat a man, or support the inside player, then it's a waste. Last season Mavididi and KDH combined really well. I am sure many will be disapointed with the display but for me there's a lot to work with here. The season is only two weeks away which is a worry, but from a coaching / tactical perspective there is a clear identity. Someone needs to tell off Kristiansen!