Claudio Fannieri

We have lost 1 game in our last 13, how the hell is that a slump, please please please make it make sense, yeah we lost last week in disappointing circumstances and last night was frustrating but for crying out loud, let’s have some context. As for Saturday, I would freshen it up and certainly rest KDH and a couple of others if possible. Stolrcryk Riccy P Nelson Coady Doyle Hamza Praet Akgun Albrighton Vardy Wanya subs Hermansen Jusin Faes Vesty Alves (if fit) Winks Maswasnishe McAteer Cannon

Frustrating result and the manner of the result makes it feel a lot worse than it was is. let’s be honest we should have been out of sight we crested more than enough chances to win this 3 or 4. Keeper was man of the match and there were a couple cleared off the line, it was a sucker punch but we created more than enough to win that game tonight, we need to be more ruthless when in the ascendency. The reason we are conceding late goals is because we haven’t been killing teams off and then that gives them the opportunity to release the shackles and have a go.

Decent line up and subs bench doesn’t look too shoddy either if we do need to make changes. Let’s hope we can get a positive result and look to build another winning run and momentum.

Absolutely brilliant episode as always, what I love about this pod is it even makes defeat against those scruffy elephant shagging goons just slightly and I mean only very slightly more bearable. well done fellas keep up the great work 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Given the size and stature of our club, these are the kind of signings that we need to make, he is a excellent player with a flawed injury record, the reality is if his fitness record as better we wouldn’t get a sniff, we have to be creative and this type of deal is what we need to try and do to get back and be semi competitive in the premier league. Our history has been littered with these types of signings some have worked and some haven’t but given the decent recruitment in the summer then I am more on the positive side of this deal then against it.

Surely Rudkin didnt hold sufficient power over the owner and Susan Whelan that he could effectively block the sacking of Rodgers, if that is true then that is absolute madness and on which case the relegation is pretty much on him, which you would have thought would have led to him losing his job. although it does make you wonder just how much accountability and responsibility he has taken within the club’s heirarchy for last seasons utter shit show and maybe as a consequence Top stepped in to oversee the appointment of Enzo, which does suggest Rudkin has lost some support and credibility. My only hope is if he is as complicit in our demise last season and some of the other things being bandied out about him have even a modicum of truth, that he has been given one final opportunity to clear up his own mess or better still he is serving a pre-agreed exit from his role which has a severance package linked to outgoing performance in readiness for a new sporting director to come in from next season. His lack of involvement in the recruitment of Enzo demonstrates that Top has lost some trust in the man.

Ooooooh you tease, joking aside though it is very very concerning the level of power he seems to hold and whether that will create tension with Enzo in the non too distant future and whether this level of power and control is detrimental to the long term success and development of the club.

What will be interesting is how long Newcastle’s owners hang around, they have been here for 2 years and have already hit a ceiling in terms of FFP and will have to sell before they can invest further in improving the squad. They have had a taste of Champions League, however they are now back in mid-table and fairly restricted on what they can do in the transfer market, how long before they get bored and move on? You have to ask the question does this stop or restrict poor owners or does it lead to initial investment, but once the FFP restrictions kick in, owners become bored, frustrated at being restricted which then leads to them withdrawing funding and looking for the exit door. Not sure if this is possible but if they left the £105m threshold in place, but any overspend could be allowed for in the event the owner(s) funded it out of their own pocket, therefore not saddling or crippling the club with debt, but also allowing ambitious owners to retain some opportunity to take calculated risks to be competitive, whilst also safeguarding the clubs, the current model effectively strangles that and therefore we are likely to see lots more Readings etc where owners just lose interest.

£55k per week for a back up keeper who barely played a game for 3/4 years and when he did finally step up proved to be no better than lower end championship quality. At what stage did he do anything to justify such a wage and the powers that be that sanctioned such a package, and no doubt many more to bang average squad players, demonstrate they have completely lost the plot and any modicum of sound business sense. I had a degree of sympathy when we were pushing the FFP limits tying players like Vardy, Fofana, Barnes, Madders, Wilf etc to big contracts, but then you hear stories like this. where we are paying bang average squad players, who have done nothing to earn such recompense being rewarded with contracts and salaries that are 50% or more above their worth. Mismanagement of the highest order and bordering on sheer incompetence.

I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but Talksport has been a pretty interesting listen over the last few days regarding FFP, if you can try to listen to White and Jordan, which has provided genuine insight and debate on the situation. Also Adrian Durham has been quite vocal regards this, one valid point that has been made, is since its inception there has been no allowance or increase to the £105m net loss threshold for inflation or to reflect increased running costs etc. It is farcical and purely in place to prevent clubs like ourselves, Wolves even Newcastle from disrupting the established big 6 for anymore than a season or two, before you are slapped back down from where you came from. As previously mentioned, our relegation will hit us if we do go back up as it will mean the threshold for losses reduces for every season in the championship, hence why Forest have been hit, it means whilst we will have room for manoeuvre in the summer we will still need to be very sensible and innovative in how we recruit.

It’s a strange one with McAteer, during the summer we would probably have been lucky to get an offer of more than 250k, a few games of promise and a few goals and all of a sudden there is premier league interest, I like Kasey but if we get an offer of above £7-8m then I think we have to take it, and use it to reinvest, as I am not sure he has the creativity to be a consistent premier league attacking player. And therefore can see him back in the championship within 12 months and plying his trade there for the remainder of his career.

I know on paper it looks like cutting our nose off to spite our face, What we don’t know is how the deal was structured, could have been quite a low initial payment and heavily incentive driven, might be £4m but we only see a £1m of it upfront and the rest could be if, buts and maybes and all for a deal that is 33% below our valuation, not exactly attractive or necessarily savvy business. Also Iversen will have been due bonuses and loyalty payments as he hasn’t requested a transfer, so there is those additional factors to cost in, especially when completing relatively low value transfers. I am not saying the club haven’t made some serious errors of judgement and decisions, however without all of the facts in front of us it is very difficult to say if we are needlessly holding onto players or we are being low balled to a point where it doesn’t make financial sense to do the deal.

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.