Claudio Fannieri

Been thinking a lot more about all of this, and whilst all my above points stand, I think there is further context to add to this discussion. When Enzo joined in June there was still 2/3 months of the transfer window left and I am fairly sure the club at the time were confidently telling Enzo that players such as Ward, Iversen, Souttar, Wilf, Praet, Iheanacho and Daka etc would be moved on and create further opportunities and budget to bring in players that fitted the philosophy and style of play the club and Enzo wanted to introduce. Fast forward to now and with the exception of Iversen who ended up joining Stoke on loan in January, the rest are still here. So in the summer Enzo and his team crack on coaching the style they want to play fully expecting the majority of the above to leave and for new players to come in, better suited to play the required roles, however risk never materialised and Enzo ends up having to utilise players who are not necessarily fit for purpose. Of course he should adapt but at the same time he can’t just bin off the whole summer’s work, I think what we saw was a genuine lift at the beginning, but now the technical limitations of some has meant they have now reached their peak and as a result performances and results have levelled off and their limitations prevent them kicking on again. As an example in this type of system in an ideal world would you really want Ndidi as an attacking midfielder, no you wouldn’t but he has had to play square pegs in round holes due to the clubs inability to move players on. If he does stay I would be interested to see how different we would look next season with a number of players off in the summer and the opportunity to bring in players who fit the profile for the system and whose skill sets are more suited to the style of play. However for the remainder of this season he needs to find a way to get the best out of the squad he has and secure 4 wins and then look to refresh again in the summer, if he stays.

Up to the end of January I felt he could do little or no wrong, we had obviously had mini blips and off days but overall we were flying, we were scoring goals and on the whole looked to be getting better and stronger each and every game. Since the Middlesbrough defeat at home the drop off in performances, results and most concerning the mentality has been unbelieveable. The football has become slow and predictable and if we go a goal down it’s very rare we show any signs or capability of recovering. We rarely throw the kitchen sink at teams and it does feel like our attacking intent is too regimented and is therefore stifling our creativity. His stubborness with tactics, selections and use or lack of use of subs and some squad members is causing concern and I have to say he has gone from being a breath of fresh air to becoming a clone of Rodgers, the style of football and use of squad is now very reminiscent to Brendan and dare I say the weak mentality is also very similar. I really hope he can turn it around and maybe add some flexibility but I fear he will die on the hill for his footballing principles. However for what it’s worth, whichever way the season concludes I think he will leave.

I have slept on it and I will be honest I am even more raging this morning, players will have off days and play poorly but what was totally unforgivable was the complete lack of effort, intensity, commitment and leadership. It was clear at half time that h things needed shaking up, and yet 2nd half just more of the same. As a collective that was utterly appalling, Enzo had an absolute shocker and the players were equally as awful. As I said I can forgive mistakes but a lack of effort is criminal and I am afraid that can be levelled at each and every one of them. They threw in the towel last night. Embarrassed and ashamed by that performance.

Good point, the reality is you can only emulate Manchester City if you have the players to do so. This obsession with playing a certain way is detrimental to the clubs progression. We need to be more flexible in our thinking and approach. Yes of course we should have a style and identity but it shouldn’t be so rigid and inflexible.

That was absolute horse muck from start to finish and soon as we conceded you just knew it would end in a defeat. That was as bad as anything served up under Levein, Pleat et al. Devoid of ideas, effort and sort of intensity. We looked like a team in mid table with nothing to play for. Absolutely disgusting performance and result

Another great pod as always 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

😂 my lad sent me this, I have just got to hope I live to the ripe old age of 85 to see it happen 😂

I love the owners however doesn’t mean we have to also quietly accept when elements of the club are frankly shambolic. I don’t necessarily see wanting Rudkin out meaning you are by default slagging off the ownership. Something has to change and I really hope Top sees sense sooner rather than later and gets rid of Rudkin and brings in an innovative and progressive DoF that can operate us through this current mess.

Wonderful, if there is no dissent shown after those financial results and the potential fall out for next season, then too be honest I really can’t see his position ever being under threat. Relegation followed by financial results that will potentially impact us for years to come and yet hardly a whimper, we really are so passive and accepting as a fanbase and to some degree get what we deserve.

Wasn’t at the game and couldn’t watch it via stream as flying back from holiday, what if any reaction was there towards Top and more importantly towards Rudkin? Was there any Rudkin out chants or any kind of fan frustration towards him or the ownership for the situation we find ourselves in?

Completely agree that the process shouldnt be circumvented however if the boot was on the other foot we would be raging

If it was the other way round we would be saying exactly the same sort of things, imagine how we would feel if Leeds has a massive breach, they went up we stayed down and then they start next season with a hefty deduction, we would be properly pissed off and rightly so. Still hate the whinging gobshites mind you 😂

Absolutely criminal if true, I cannot believe given the gross incompetence of the last 2/3 seasons the only change was Rodgers. I remember feeling like we were absolutely stuck with Brendan and it felt so frustrating to see someone systematically destroying what had been built and we were powerless to stop it, it feels the same with Rudkin, I can only hope and pray that the crowd at each and every game show the feelings of the fanbase and chant for his removal at every given opportunity.

Really frustrates me as I have always felt clubs especially in the lower leagues miss a trick by not offering heavily discounted entry fees to kids/families especially for fixtures where low attendances are anticipated, at the end of the day an empty seat will not buy a programme or a hot dog or get the bug to want to go to another game or buy a replica shirt or kit. A kid for a quid or a family ticket of 4 people for say £20/£25 would really help smaller clubs attract new fans and increase attendances and revenue. Currently as it stands our club are in the fortunate position of not needing to do this and as a consequence dare I say have got to a stage of taking the fanbase for granted. If we end up enduring a long stay in the EFL then it will be highly likely we start to see average attendances are of no more than 20-22k and then all of a sudden the club will be desperate to attract a new wave of supporters but it will be from a standing start. The club needs to be more proactive in its fan engagement and taking the opportunity to attract new fans. A few years in the EFL and the club may lose a generation of supporters to the big 6 so need to wake up smell the coffee and act now.

Couldn’t agree more, for me it’s not about spending huge money on players or wages that gets me excited, it’s clever recruitment and the signing of players for a relatively modest fee and the potential for them to generate a decent sell on or the development of a healthy conveyor belt of academy prospects. To be honest any investment of £15m plus and I am nervous as I know we are out of our comfort zone as a club and also that a deal of this magnitude if it doesn’t go well will severely impact us. I would argue our summer transfer business in the main was better than anything we completed in the previous 4 or so windows as a premier league club.

It does beg the question as to whether there will be mass redundancies and cost cutting across the non football side of the club, following the recent financial results. If I recall correctly despite relegation there were no job cuts, whilst this will likely be a drop in the ocean, I can see it being done to try and control non football costs. if this does happen then surely Whelan and Rudkin cannot survive in those circumstances.

Just my opinion, but the higher up the leagues you go the less influence the trust will have, I think when looking at Premier league clubs and the bigger championship clubs they tend to see engagement with fan groups/trusts and the role of Fan Engagement as a tick box exercise for PR purposes, only when the shit hits the fan, or clubs are in the lower echelons of the league does it feel like these fan groups and supporter trusts have any real voice and valued contribution to their club. Somehow we need to use this current plight as an opportunity to support the Foxes Trust to become a vehicle for positive engagement with the club and transformational change in the traditional supporter experience of the club.

Read my post again, I never said about the 2 top 5 finishes or the FA Cup win, I was talking about the mistakes made during that summer when the club gambled by not selling a star or two and then went out and spent a kings ransom on wages for Daka, Soumare, Bertrand and Vestergaard to please Brendan. my issues and concerns relate to how we operated following the FA Cup win, certain individuals seemed to have been pissed on power and success and our well structured model went out the window.

The truth is we will never ever know if things would have turned out differently under Vichai, maybe just maybe a club of our size was always going to come a cropper trying to consistently compete and disrupt the big 6, or accept that from a long term sustainability perspective, we reigned it in somewhat and traded mid table obscurity in exchange for a long stay in the premier league. It has been a unique journey where we have tasted the sweetest success but also the bitterest fall from grace, instead of being Vanilla we wanted to be an exotic flavour, became the flavour of the month only for it to reach a glass ceiling and we faded away whilst Vanilla (Palace) continue to be a mid range but sustainable club. The FA Cup win was the perfect opportunity to cash in and refresh, start a new cycle whilst also enabling the club to bring finances under control, we didn’t and as a consequence it folded like a deck of cards and we collapsed in quite spectacular fashion. We were just not in a position, have the infrastructure or the right people operating at a senior level in our club to sustainably compete at the levels our ambitions targeted. The negotiations and signings in the summer following that FA Cup win is exhibit A in demonstrating how inept Jon Rudkin is to operate as DoF at a club of our size with our ambition and resources. To oversee such a criminal overspend on wages to 4 new signings, even if the 4 were all 1st choice targets and the manager is pushing to sign them all, the wage demands should have been a red flag and we either played hard ball and negotiated more sustainable contractual terms or moved onto plan B. We seemed to have struck gold in hiring Maresca, a manager with a freshness and passion, attention to detail and to build sports science, data analytics and recruitment teams very much in the way Pearson did, however it now feels the rug has been well and truly pulled from underneath him, the messages from the summer about rebuilding the club and long term projects are absolute pipe dreams now due to the dire financial situation we find ourselves in and the repercussions this will have to our ability to compete in whichever league we end up in and also our ability operate in the transfer market. How he transformed the atmosphere within the club was very Pearsonesque and I genuinely do feel for the bloke as I am convinced he had no inkling of the financial carnage that lay ahead and it only became apparent approaching it during the January transfer window. I don’t feel sorry for Enzo in terms of the budget and players he has to work with, but I do feel some sympathy towards him in relation to how the club appear to have only told him part of the story and have effectively thrown him under a bus from half way through the season and the goal posts have moved to significantly that of he does stay he will effectively be managing with both arms and legs tied behind his back and blindfolded. I really cannot see how his relationship with the higher ups at the club can be anything other than freyed and how much trust exists now? I think come the summer unless there is significant change in the structure and operators at senior levels in the club, we will see Enzo walk away and I am really not sure where that will leave us.

This for me is where the lack of transparency and communication from the higher echelons of the club, absolute frustrate me, had they been open and honest with the fanbase regards the financial gambles they were taking I am fairly sure most of the fanbase would have appreciate the situation and accepted 2/3 seasons of mid table mediocrity whilst we cashed in on a couple of stars and reinvested in young hungry players and started another cycle. Instead the club at the behest of Brendan and maybe others involved at board level, continued to gamble and chase the dream, was it the fans dream to see us in financial meltdown. Of course we all wanted Champions League football and further success, but had we known the full picture I doubt any of us would support the risks being taken and the price we are now paying for the irresponsible spending. Just like the car crash summer of 2016 following the league title success when our recruitment was all over the shop, we managed to make the same mistakes yet again following the FA Cup success. We claim to want to be a top club, but our issue is as soon as we get a sniff of success, we lose our heads and make poor decisions that take years to rectify. That is why we need a change at board level, with experienced and skilled operators at DoF and Commercial levels who can capitalise on our successes and build sustainable strategic growth both on and off the pitch.

I take it from this you are saying it is all football related issues that have got us in of this financial meltdown rather than the performance of the commercial side of the club. interesting as I seem to recall reading somewhere on here that SW and JR had fallen out and were barely speaking, has Top backed the wrong horse (excuse the pun) and our esteemed DoF got all giddy with our successes and his subsequent decision making has sent us into these murky waters, maybe SW was warning against decisions that were being made. I really do hope, that one way or another these results force positive change within the club.

Couldn’t agree more, and why we stopped selling a star player each summer and refresh with young hungry players who we can then rinse and repeat with. truth is finishing 5th and being so close to champions league meant everyone got giddy and took a view to go for it with our golden generation, trouble is we had reached our peak and instead of capitalising, refreshing and going again we went stale and had nowhere to go and it all came tumbling down like a pack of cards. the Forest humbling in the FA Cup should have been the catalyst to remove Brendan and in the summer sell 3 or 4 higher earners for sensible fees, reinvest and freshen the squad, we may have struggled or even still got relegated however our financial position would be nowhere near as precarious and we would have a few more saleable assets.

Maybe some of the wage increases could be linked to yearly % increases as part of multi year contract agreements. I think it’s common practice on say a 4/5 year contract for a player to start on £x but then have a yearly wage increase written into the contract of y%. Also there will be the pay off to Brendan and his mob and whilst only for a short duration, there will have been the costs for Dean Smith, John Terry and Shakey, whilst i also think the likes of Stowell and Wier also left the club and there severance packages will no doubt have been wrapped up in the figures up to June. I think Enzo joined in that month too so could any compo payments to Man City be wrapped up in this too?

Yes the rules are frustrating and to a degree are anti competitive however it’s not PSR that made us change our business model, scout and recruit poorly and pay massively overly inflated wages to bang average players. The rules are crap but that does not gloss over how badly we have been managed on and off the pitch these last 2/3 seasons. It is shambolic and the only sustainable course of action is for Top to pull the trigger on Rudkin and Whelan with immediate effect and recruit people who can come In and help rebuild the club. I really can’t see outside investment or being sold as viable solutions at this current stage and given the challenges we face over the coming years, anyone interested at this stage I would have serious reservations as to their intentions and whether they would see us as asset stripping opportunity.

I have joined, as a foxile living 150 ish miles away we get to go to maybe 10+ games a season. This is an opportunity to be more actively involved and voice my opinion. I have always felt that because we are a provincial club and a one club city we have always had that family togetherness spirit however since Vichai’s passing I feel the club has become more of a corporate entity and there is a growing disconnect with the fanbase, however do I feel it is irreversible, no I don’t and here is my reasoning and it comes from my own personal experience. As you may recall in October I undertook a challenge to raise money for Prostate cancer UK where I ran 5km each day for Prostate FC. I got in contact with the club to ask if it was at all possible to complete a run at the KP or at the training ground initially I was very disappointed by the response from the club. However Top stepped in and ensured I got to run at the training ground. For that morning my family and I were treated like royalty it was a fantastic experience, but at no time did the club follow it up and offer to promote what I was doing or help raise awareness. I believe Top still sees the club and its supporters as a family but he is now tol far removed from the day to day running to maybe appreciate the disconnection. I believe the people employed to run the club. In a day to day basis no longer see the fans as the lifeblood of the club but as mere customers. I really hope the fan engagement manager fully appreciates what our fanbase is about and that they are given a mandate and genuine accountability to be able to drive though transformation and change in the current fan experience of our club and not just on matchdays.