Sooper Steve's shin

Gone! On a permanent to Shabab Al-Ahli in the UAE. Good riddance.

It was the massive overhaul we wanted and needed. 30-odd players out (albeit including some end of loans and some developmental loans), 14 players in. That must be about as complete an overhaul as any team has done. We could arguably have got shot of a couple more, but we were clearly trying to do that and (like the property market) it’s quite complex with chains of deals happening. We should also recognise that we held ground/pushed back on a few that we wanted to keep - Souttar, Page - and we’ve used the opportunity to bring through what is an exciting crop of youngsters. Would I have chosen Russell Martin as our manager? No. Do I think all the incomings are great? No. Am I happy that we are in League 1? Of course not. But am I happy we’re not seeing Winks, Mavididi and the other silly bunch who’ve stunk our club out for two seasons? Yes. Am I enjoying watching Page, Alves, Braybrooke and Joseph strut their stuff in the first few games? Yes. Am I going to get behind the team and hope we have a decent season? Absolutely.

With a Russell Martin team - particularly at this stage of its development - that seems unlikely as one inevitable mistake will let in the other team for a chance or goal. We have already seen unforced errors cause most of our goals against this season, so we always have that in us (and probably in the team’s heads) until we get more confident with Russell-ball.

I also think this is a good wake up call for any players that needed it. We won’t stroll this league just because X has played in the Prem or got promoted before. Everyone’s fighting. It was a decent test against two teams coming into the season on very different trajectories. And yes, I am clinging to positives!

Maybe going against the grain, but I don’t think it was as bad as the reaction on here suggests. We did let them in a few times - absolutely inevitable with Martin’s style of play unless you have a Man City budget. Every possession-based team faces that issue. But we put some reasonably good moves together for a new team, scored a good goal and there were some very good performances. At the very least, there were some green shoots of life to cling onto - something we haven’t really had with any manager since Enzo. There were some obvious negatives that should hopefully get addressed - Thomas was woeful (but we have a loan left back who will surely get a chance) and Souttar looked off it (but we will recruit a CB and if he stays, I think his performances pick up). Cullen and Reid are tidy enough but need to play off a focal point - either would be fine as a second striker, but don’t seem reliable enough to bag us 20 this season. Otherwise, JJ is excellent, midfield and wingers pretty good (Burns didn’t get going but we have options), Hamza even looked decent coming on. Ideally, one of Choudhury or Hamza [edit: obviously I meant Choudhury and Skipp here - although happy to see Hamza leave twice!] leaves and we get in someone solid in the middle to complement what we have. Overall, as a work in progress with a new manager and one of the biggest player turnovers we have seen in one summer, I don’t think we can get on their backs too much. Did I want Martin? Hell no. But we have him, we have to see he’s trying to do something and we may as well get behind it to try and make it work.

Not true. I have Notts County game on TV and FoxesHub.

I can confirm that we have Foxes Hub live stream available even though it is also live on our local channel.

The one player of our old guard that I would happily see on garden leave or training with the kids (bit harsh on the kids). Arrogant, toxic and a liability.

Stadio Ranieri

So has everyone else! When there’s a build up like this, everyone gets excited - if he doesn’t score a couple and headbut someone in his first game, he’ll already be disappointing half of Foxestalk.

Exactly. And you’re right, Pearson and his team definitely had elements of this - those two are good examples and I remember an article with his chief scout or analyst at the time talking about the acquisitions of people like Wasilewski and Huth on the defensive side, plus we found the likes of Knockaert, Kante and Mahrez who had particular skill sets we needed. Arguably, the 2015 Great Escape team and 2016 PL winners were the pinnacle of this - teams put together by Steve Walsh that combined to much more than the sum of their parts.

7 goals in 42 apps in his first season with Swansea. We underestimate the adjustment/time that will be needed (see also: Jamie Vardy), which makes it mad to pin our hopes on this guy. Hoping we get someone a little more proven - probably on loan - otherwise we may have to Moneyball our way to scoring enough goals via all the wingers/attacking mids we have accumulated already.

Not sure why this deal is generating messages like this. We will always want one goalkeeper and one sub keeper every first team match day. If one of them gets injured (and one already is!) then we'd be scraping by with an untried youth teamer player - that's bad planning by any stretch of the imagination. Three reasonably first-team keepers is the minimum we should have if (as we hope) we are going to challenge to get out of this league. To put in further context, what would everyone be saying if McCarthy's current injury kept him out until Christmas? Stolarczyk had injuries last year in his only season as our number one and he'll be even more exposed to challenges/potential injury in Martin's style of play. It would be reckless NOT to sign anyone when you think of it like this.

28 years old. Been with us more than 20 years, first team debut for us nearly 10 years ago. 120 apps (more than half of those in our two seasons in the Championship over the last three years), loaned out to Burton (twice), Watford and Sheff U. None of them wanted him, we don't play him regularly and I would still struggle to say what his position is. Time to get rid.

This isn’t what the club advertising or the EFL website says - poor Jim thinks we are still Championship.

If Nelson is fit, he plays. Otchere has had a good pre-season, but enough to rely on him as our main striker? And if we bought someone else, it hinders his development just to keep him as sub. That said, I hope we have at least two strikers lined up now we've let him go. Page and Alves definitely step up into the first team squad, which neither of them have in prior seasons so they are still on track - but a deeper squad gives them a bit more competition and they will get their chances to show what they can do. For any of our youth players, if we throw them in too early and they struggle with the pace or physicality or mentality of constant L1 football then we've probably set them back more than helped them. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see all of those you mentioned become our next generation of talent but it has to be managed.

Why would Top sell for a cut price? He/his family/KP have invested a fair amount, including writing off loans. They could have sold for a major profit after we won the league or maybe they took a slice of that pie; they probably got significant value in publicity and prestige from their association with us at that time if nothing else. But as we drop down, there seems to be less sense (from a business perspective) in KP letting us go at a below-market valuation when they might think "we've done it once, we can do it again" in terms of getting us at least up to the PL. To be honest, what is our value anyway? I am not sure how football clubs are valued apart from assets (land and facilities probably more so than players, whose value is much more subjective) and revenues (ours will have dipped this year, but with the right investment could jump back to Champ or PL levels if we get ourselves promoted). Regardless of what we think about our present situation, we would still probably be looked on as a club with the facilities and structure to be playing at a higher level - the "sleeping giant" with potential that would be attractive - but maybe we haven't been sleeping long enough that we'd be available for a real bargain. It's probably why the Saudi sheikh has been rumoured to be looking at Derby; they've been down a lot longer than us and their value will have dropped off. I'm also interested in why you think we will need tens of millions in player sales next year? We've had a decent chunk of wedge in this summer, our operating costs should be a lot lower in L1 this year (wage reductions + younger and cheaper first teamers replacing some of the more expensive talent) and it seems to me that the financial strife we have had in the last few years has been from spending over our means according to the EFL and FPL rules. The model of one or two big player sales per season kept us up to speed for a few years while we chased the dream in the Premier League, but only after we had the title-winning success. If we readjust expectations and go back to the model that the likes of Brighton have since adopted and now overtaken us, I think we have our place (until the rules change again).

The loans from Macquarie are just for liquidity, I don't believe they have this big impact on our overall financial picture that everyone seems to think. They are secured on future transfer instalments or TV/parachute payments, but we presumably either structure them to pay off in more manageable amounts each month/year or the bank takes the full amount from the relevant income at the end of the term. There will be a charge for it, but I don't see it as any sort of trick or major debt issue. It's similar to a standard consumer mortgage where the bank effectively advances you the cost of your home to help you buy it and then you pay them off in manageable amounts over X number of years (plus an interest fee). If you don't pay, you forfeit the house and the bank sells it to recover their money. You don't repay them by sending a few bricks or a door every month!

From the Football League official site: All Championship matches can be streamed by Clubs internationally, except for any games selected for international broadcast. Sky Bet Championship matches selected for international broadcast during Championship midweeks can still be streamed internationally, apart from in the following territories: [link] All League One and League Two matches are available for Clubs to stream internationally even if selected for international broadcast. Carabao Cup games cannot be streamed internationally, while EFL Trophy games can be streamed internationally up to and including the Quarter-Finals.

It doesn’t exclude those games this year - ALL league games will be available regardless of whether shown locally.

Looks like this season it will also carry any games shown live locally: ”All 46 Sky Bet League One games will be available to view for audiences outside of the UK throughout the season. This is also the case for games selected for TV broadcast. If applicable, ”

Yes, but Monaco didn’t want him so he’s back in for the moment.

Faes out in a heartbeat. We are already struggling to come to terms with Russell Martin as our manager, I do not want to see him and Faes together.

Steve Guppy as assistant?

I knew exactly what this thread was from the title. I was there but have watched (and still have!) that VHS tape many times. A game and a season that sums up Leicester over the last30 years - sometimes nightmare, sometimes fairytale, never boring! We had also built a bit of a template then for giving a chance to young and ambitious managers (Little, McGhee, O’Neill) and either lower league talent (Lennon, Elliott etc) or some deemed a little past their best (Parker, Marshall, Cottee), and just making it all work. I think that held right through until 2016, but we’ve since flown a little too close to the sun. Once we recognised again the size of club we are and the blueprint that we adopted with great success for several decades, we’ll be back.