Claudio Fannieri

Rodgers delivered some of the best football I had ever witnessed as an LCFC and an FA Cup win I never thought I would see, so he delivered some good times, however he did this with the best and most expensively assembled squad in our clubs history, despite those amazing highs, he also single handedly oversaw a capitulation and fall from grace that is absolutely criminal and far worse than anything Taylor oversaw. The difference with Taylor was despite inheriting a decent squad, they were over performing under O’Neill and then some poor business in the transfer market meant we effectively ended up back at the level of the collective squad. However with Rodgers the squad was more than capable and to effectively down tools, sulk and disengage a large proportion of the squad and fanbase resulting in relegation was a far bigger crime than anything Taylor accomplished.

Without doubt Rudkin carries a proportion of the blame/responsibility, he is a senior executive at the club, however he will be working within an agreed financial framework and structure which has been signed off, he will not have been making decisions without some level of governance, sign off or pre-approval. Our current plight and the restrictions we have placed ourselves in are a result of collective decisions taken over the last 4/5 years to roll the dice and gamble on achieving champions league football. The weight of accountability sits with a number of senior execs/managers not just at the door of Rudkin. What we are unlikely to ever find out, is who was the catalyst in moving us down a different path following our FA Cup success and moving away from the established model. Did the owner and board get giddy and excited by the success, did Rodgers use it as an opportunity to exert some pressure or a mix of them both? The real acid test moving forward for Rudkin, Whelan and Top is have learnt from the mistakes made and have we used this season in the Championship to reset and negotiate lower base wages with promotion based incentives, bonus and wage increases. In relation to the academy, Maresca has actually bailed Rudkin out big time, whether the relegation has helped or hiring a manager who isn’t afraid to promote academy prospects but the fact that as many as 7 academy graduates have been involved this season and 4 of those have been given their competitive LCFC debuts this season, probably takes the heat of the DoF in that respect. The next 2 years are going to be massive and it wlll be interesting to see how the club and Rudkin operate once the decks have been cleared, personally I think it’s time for Rudkin to move out of the role and look for somebody new with a fresh outlook, ideas and network, however as @Ric Flair says I honestly cannot see a change happening as long as Top owns the club unless Rudkin leaves of his own accord.

Some of our fanbase are complete and utter helmets, of course the defeat at the weekend was a hard one to take but the players gave it their all and but for inconsistency from the referee in deciding to only book Thomas for his assault on KDH and then send Fatawu off for his tackle, probably cost us the game, so I really cannot fathom why some of our fans are crying that the players have been given some downtime after a hectic Christmas and New Year period and I think it’s well deserved given the context of the season and the recent run of results, one defeat in 11 but yeah let’s cancel a couple of days off and run the feckers into the ground…….beggars belief, it really does 🤯

Disagree, I have seen him quite a few times and he is a very talented and clever player, who would thrive in our system and would make us undoubtedly better. Yeah he might be a bit of a helmet and plays for our rivals but taking my blue tinted goggles off he is the best player in a very good team. Would have here in a heartbeat

As @Suzie the Fox says young lads make poor decisions at times, clearly he got caught up in the emotion of the game, it was a poor tackle to make as it gave the referee a decision to make at a time when he was getting a lot of stick from the Cov fans over the penalty, the fact he didn’t take 10 seconds to gather his thoughts and then make the decision, instead issuing the card immediately said everything you needed to know about the referee. The timing was terrible, just before half time gave Cov a massive boost and the opportunity to regroup and plan how to take numerical advantage. Hopefully Abdul will learn from this as he can be very rash when making tackles. I am just glad it wasn’t Casadei as he would have been absolutely vilified.

FFP was introduced to protect the interests of the big 6 and extend the competitive advantage they have over the rest, whilst everyone lauds our title win, in reality within the game, it rocked the big 6 and powers of the game to the core and it wasn’t long afterwards this was introduced to stop clubs like us disrupting the big 6. We have already seen its impact on ourselves, Everton & Wolves, whilst Forest look likely to fall foul very soon and the rumours are that Newcastle have to sell before they can buy, You can already predict that Villa and Brighton will be the next to hit the glass ceiling imposed by the authorities via FFP. I am so glad it was us that achieved the miracle because i honestly believe it too be the greatest ever sporting miracle it was also the event that changed the landscape of football and will become impossible to ever replicate again.

The only decision I could question was replacing Cannon as he looked a threat on the counter, however I also think it was a pre-mediatated change as Cannon is still working his way back after a lengthy injury and is pretty much our only striker option. It hurt us but I do think there was some sense in it. Other than that not sure what else Enzo could do, the options on the bench wouldn’t have strengthened us or necessarily given us the physical presence to see it out. Doyle and Coady could have come on but up to the 2nd goal I felt the defence had done well.

I am amazed at the criticism aimed at Enzo, not sure what people expected him to do, whilst the red was possibly harsh, the actual tackle was nothing less than reckless and stupid given the context of the game. The ref had just given a penalty that had rattled their crowd and then Abdul gives him a golden opportunity to even things up and the reality was it was always going to be an uphill struggle to defend a lead against a decent team with a man down for an entire half. Really not sure what other subs he could have made that would have strengthened us in the last 15, I actually thought up to their equaliser we were playing well and containing them, goal came a little out of the blue and from then on they made their numerical advantage count, truth is all 3 goals from Cov were quality finishes, however we still created chances in the 2nd half albeit they were sporadic. Of course it’s disappointing to lose but I would be interested to hear what changes, tactical tweaks and formation the so called experts on here would have done to ensure that we not only won the game but also dominated. Let’s dust ourselves down, pull together, back the lads and Manager to put it right next week. There will be bumps in the road but we have shown after setbacks we come back well and learn from them.

Don’t know why and I might be wrong but I think I remember seeing / reading that the decision was made to move away from the model following just missing out on the champions league for a second successive season and winning the FA Cup. That same summer we also had our highest net spend, buying Daka, Soumare, Bertrand and Vestergard if IRC

End of the day the move just hasn’t worked out for either party, as VK has quoted he joined a dysfunctional club, with a Manager desperately eyeing a get out and pay off and a squad that was fragmented. Add in that he seems to be quite forthright and it was always going to be difficult to integrate last season, we then get relegated and appoint a manager who wants to take us in a new direction and we desperately need everyone to be onboard with his ideas, so it made perfect sense for the club and VK to part ways as he has stated he does not want to play the role in Enzo’s formation. Let’s hope his performances are of sufficient quality that come the summer he has attracted sufficient interest from other clubs and we can recoup the original outlay and move on.

I don’t have an issue with rolling the dice but we made a conscious decision to stop selling one marquee player and then reinvesting, problem is it became stale and we had too many players then running down contracts and losing the hunger and buying into what we are as a club, once we hit that point we were goosed. Moving forward I want the club to take calculated risks but at the same time realise when the right time to cash in. We all knew after the FA Cup win and failing to reach the Champions League for a second year running it was possibly the right time to cash in on Youri and use the money to reinvest and reenergise the squad, it was also the right time to let Rodgers speak to Spurs, trouble was we held firm and the drop off was clearly evident and played a massive part in our demise. We need to keep refreshing and reinvesting it is what we have built our success on and hopefully moving forward it’s a model we move forward with and retain.

Also paying good wages hamper us, as any future sale is then dependent on the buying club matching the package for the player and often leads to them offering a relatively low fee in comparison to our valuation to make a deal financially viable. We rolled the dice when Rodgers joined in an attempt to secure Champions League football and when it didn’t quite happen we have been left with a squad that were largely very well remunerated and therefore makes it even more incredibly difficult to do a deal to move them on when balancing the need to secure a decent fee to cover FFP book values and also to find a club who can also meet the wage demands. We have hamstrung ourselves but hopefully over the next year or two the situation changes massively and we should have significant room for manoeuvre, I just hope the heirarchy have learnt from this harsh lesson and stick to an agreed model and not allow themselves to be influenced to repeat the same mistakes, that eventually led to our demise last season.

I think he has a fantastic back up to Mads as he plays in exactly the same style, very competent shot stopper and most importantly he enables to play exactly the same way. When you play the style we do and the keeper is asked to play out as much as they do then they will make the odd stray pass, I actually thought over the duration of the game he looked pretty good.

Was very good 2nd half last week against Huddersfield and was brilliant today, think the injury to Wilf will provide him with the opportunity to get consistent game time and I think as a result he will flourish for the remainder of the season.

I think Zian Flemming from Millwall would be a great addition and would be unreal in the #8 role alongside KDH, offers goals and assists a plenty and also has great physicality. Think he could be just the type of signing that would blossom and the type of punt we need to take.

I thought he was superb, looked like a seasoned professional, has more than shown he has the ability to play in this team and can play an important role in the run in. Has a massive future and will flourish under Enzo and his coaching team.

The issue with selling players is FFP, you can accept any old fee to get them off the books but the problem with FFP is if it’s lower than the current FFP book value of the player then it shows as a loss. For example if we paid £20m and offered Soumare a 4 year deal his transfer value depreciates by £5m per year, problem is after year 1 if you have signed a dud you need to recover a minimum £15m fee or it shows as a loss in FFP. This is the conundrum the club has had with moving on players, especially ones in the first couple of seasons with us, our valuations are being driven by the need to stay FFP compliant rather than being able to just get rid, take a loss and move on like you could pre FFP Hopefully his FFP valuation will now be at a level we can do sensible business at and get him gone, not only bringing in cash and saving wages but also a positive in the FFP box as well.

The stance the club is taking makes complete sense, we currently have a full squad and that includes some very high earners. Remember this is a business that needs to be sustainable and also has some pretty strict FFP regulations that we have to be compliant with, therefore, and quite rightly so , the club cannot just go out and sign 3 new players. We will need to move players on to create space and budget for the remainder of ‘this season. We have hit our ceiling in what we can do, our only hope is to move on fringe players on loan or hope we get an offer for one of our fast approaching out of contract players, similar to Perez last January, which would free up squad space and budget to bring players in. come the summer the landscape will significantly improve as some very very high earners will be out of contract and highly likely, with the exception of Wilf and possibly Jannick, they will move on, creating lots of opportunities to bring in younger, hungry players on lower wages and allow us to be more creative in the transfer market again. The main challenge of the summer will be to get our incomings in ready for pre-season so they have the opportunity to work with Enzo and his coaching staff for the entire pre-season which will help with the transition to our style and team structure.

Decent keeper but doesn’t fit our style, realistically he is better than Ward but the signing of Mads and how he has performed has proven that Iversen is championship level at best and wouldn’t be shocked to see him play out his career in this league as a very competent keeper.

Just a thought but imagine if we cash in for £5-10m for a player who struggled on loan in league 2 last season, whilst he has done well this season, I think he may have a fairly low ceiling and if there is genuine interest, Enzo and the club might see an opportunity to do a deal and use the funds to bring in players better suited to the style and system.

I like him, as Ginger Fox says very much in the Bernardo Silva role, very technically gifted and therefore operates superbly well in tight spaces and he does have good vision and the ability to play slide rule passes that create goal scoring opportunities. At the moment he is still taking a bit of time acclimatising to the physicality of English football and the championship but I think we will persevere and next season really reap the rewards.

It was good to see Enzo make changes and whilst the incoming players looked a little rusty and understandably took a bit of time getting to speed I thought this was a pretty accomplished performance with Cannon, Yunus and Casadei looking better and better the longer the game went on. JJ was absolutely superb and another example, like Ndidi and KDH of how Enzo and his team, are having such a positive impact on improving players both technical and tactical play. Thoroughly enjoyed watching that performance and I also thought the referee was top drawer.

I told you give him a little time and paitence we had a diamond, the lad is class, a little rough around the edges but today has shown what a class player he will be for us. Our fanbase at times need to calm down and stop writing players off after 5 or 6 cameo’s.

I can see Kel and Praet moving on even if it’s for a small loan fee and wages being covered as this would free up funds for Enzo to bring players in better suited to his style and system. Nothing more than a feeling but I also wouldn’t be suprised to see Vardy head to Saudi in this winter window. His injury has been a bit of a strange one, with no real confirmation of what it is or timeline for his return. Probably wrong but does make me wonder if we are open to a deal to again free up funds/budget for incomings.

I think there will be a semblance of truth in this. I would imagine it wouldn’t be a massive fee or wages so would appeal to lower half prem teams with limited budget, however I also think this will end up with Kasey signing an improved long term contract.