Lizhang

Thank you, King Power, for backing our retarded coach for 4 seasons of hell, to the point the CEO quit because the owners refused to listen to the CEO who repeatedly requested the coach be fired. Speechless. Oh, and also thanks for appointing one of the people who flushed the club down the crapper to begin with, as the new CEO. Get. Bent.

I think it was in the spring of '83.

Nsingi comes out of the youth ranks, i'm quite impressed by him

Any club paying for Hirst is getting mugged. Yeah i'm still salty, lol.

To be perfectly honest, i don't think he's ready. His strength is in his runs. Which means to benefit from him, he needs to be a starter. Any 25 minute sub can do what he can, the difference is he can do it for 90 minutes. His passing game sucks. Mind you, i'm not saying it's bad, it's outright attrocious. Technically, there are quite a few players in our squad that are a lot better. A lot of supporters have been getting disgruntled that he is still a starter in the team. The reason, and the only reason, is his runs. Maybe he can get away with the rest of his game here, but i don't think it will fly at Leicester. Still very much a work in progress.

Did you see the game? Before the sending off, we were controlling the game and could have scored 2 more. "A chance" is a very subjective term. Henry's header was saved from within 3 yards. His other chance got diverted by a defender to go into corner. Can't remember Kortrijk having had such chances. And i'm not being a fanboy here, because i'm usually rather critical, but saying the 2-0 was against the run of play is simply a fallacy.

You mean after they got to play with a guy extra for an hour?

Hardfought, those are the best.

Giving the ball away way too often and too easily.

Three great goals. Can't complain. No frommelgoals, great attacking play for each goal. If you guys don't know what a frommelgoal is, it's a goal that came from pottekestamp.

I think he means they should be sent to OHL, because by the looks of it, Brys wouldn't put them in his team anyway, so they could get some rest here.

Great win. Too bad it had to be with that "double pen" but the victory was hard fought and well deserved. I'm very happy with the determination and willpower the team showed. Something i've found missing on numerous occasions the past few months.

Maybe read your own statement again: "Another reason is that quite a few players got their development in the youth system outside of Belgium, which were at that time far better: Hazard (Lille) Vermaelen, Alderweireld and Vertonghen (Ajax), ..." First of all, the fact that ALL of them got their development IN BELGIUM until they were AT LEAST 14 years old, an age where the most important part of your development has already passed, shows that the youth system outside of Belgium was not at all "far better" at that time, like you are claiming. At the age of 15-18, you already received 80% of what you will learn in the youth leagues. The overwhelming majority of top class players who actually stayed in Belgium at that time, further proves that statement is utter bollocks. That brings us to the second part of your claim "quite a few": Vermaelen moved to Amsterdam months before turning 18, and didn't even join the youth academy, but immediately joined the first team! Alderweireld was 15. Vertonghen was 16. Only the Hazards moved away at 14 and Eden only played in the youth academy of Lille for a measly 2 years before moving on to the first team. Chadli & Januzaj were both 16 at the time they went abroad, Naingolan was 17 and all of them debuted well before turning 20. All the rest debuted in the Belgian divisions after completing their youth training in Belgium: Courtois, Mignolet, Witsel, Defour, Fellaini, De Bruyne, Castagne, Praet, Dendoncker, Tielemans, Mertens, Lukaku, Benteke, Batshuay, Dembélé, Meunier, Kompany, Carrasco etc etc.You name 'm. So out of an entire generation only a few of them joined a foreign youth academy, and all late to very late into their development, and after +/- 10 years in the supposedly "inferior" Belgian youth academies. In conclusion, Alderweireld and Thorgan Hazard are the only players who had their development for more than 2 years in a foreign youth academy. As for "Or are you gonna say that the Ajax youth development had nothing to do with the qualities of Alderweireld, Vertonghen and Vermaelen in their career?" Well, to be honest, i'll say most of the work had been done for Ajax, so while i wouldn't say they had "nothing" to do with it, i will say they had as little to do with their development as possible regarding their actual youth development, yes. Ajax recognized their talent, snatched them up and finished the job. Most of what they learned at Ajax, they did not learn in the youth academy of Ajax, but as a full-fledged member of the first team. So instead of acting butthurt when someone points out the errors in your arguments, you could also try and reflect.

It's a joke, a popularity contest, nothing more. The newspaper behind the awards has strong ties to certain player agents. And since OHL isn't playing nice with their mob connections, this is what you can expect. It's a cultural thing. Pop media will hardly ever talk about Belgium, because important / well known people here, are not known in Wallonia and vice versa. Artists, singers, actors, etc. Politically since a few decades ago, Brussels, Flanders and Wallonia can decide a large part of which course they will follow, autonomously. On top of that, there is the ever present language barrier. While notion of French is slipping in Flanders, notion of Dutch is still nearly non-existent in Wallonia. Eh, no they weren't. Fellaini, Witsel, Dembélé, etc are all older than Hazard and were all molded in Belgium. Hazard was molded at Tubize (Belgium) until the age of 14 and only played at Lille from 2005-2007. Vertonghen, Alderweireld, Dembélé, Vermaelen... they all came out of the Beerschot youth academy and went to the Netherlands after turning 15 - 18. Please do some fact checking. Not to mention De Bruyne, Courtois, Mertens, are the same age or older than Hazard, all molded in Belgium. Lukaku is one or two years younger, came through Lierse before moving to Anderlecht.

Just to be clear, i was kidding. OHL isn't owned by Leicester. Leicester didn't invest anything, @StriderHiryu, King Power did. While i'm sure both clubs will work together in mutual benefit, i very much doubt we will turn into a satellite or feeder club. That's not the way KP is communicating with OHL. And even if it were, let me remind you that King Power does not own the grounds, does not own the stadium, does not own the training facilities, doesn't even have the option to pull the money out of OHL that they put into it. Young players that aren't good enough to play for Leicester yet, and that could grow at OHL, or players like Sowah who can't play in the UK at the time and need to get a work permit, sure. That will happen, but in such a situation if it is beneficial to both parties, and not one being a tool for the other. Should we sign or grow the next Tielemans, i'm sure he'll be off to Leicester after a year or two, and not Man City or PSG. I see it as a symbiotic relationship rather than one taking advantage of the other. If that balance would be disturbed, it would not be in the best interest of King Power or Leicester.

Well that settles it.

I'm all for an arrangement like the one with Sowah, where he hasn't even set foot on the Leicester pitch so to speak, and after signing for you, he came straight to us. Imho, he's more a Leuven player who will move on to Leicester in some time, than a Leicester player who is playing for us. He wasn't a finished product that got dropped in our laps. That said, i agree with Klaaz. And especially in a season like this where we are no longer in danger of relegation, or in no hurry to win the title... there is no real need for more player. Due to injuries we were a bit short in defense etc, so no problem with the current situation, but no need for more at the moment. Leuven needs to follow its own trajectory as much as possible, which isn't to say both clubs can't help each other out, but we (the fans) don't care to become Leicester-B. The current situation is perfect to give some opportunities to OHL youngsters or look for a striker to work himself into the squad with next year in mind.

Conveniently putting the Beerschot game in the "before the renewal" period, while everybody knows, that during that game, he was talking with Genk already. So while strictly speaking the renewal happened after the game, the "contract issues" were very relevant at the time. That would make it: LDLWWWDLL (11/27) since Genk started courting him. vs DDLWWLWWDW (18/30) before Genk came knocking. And more importantly, the opposition in the period since the renewal was much weaker than before, and regardless the outcome, the actual play was atrocious.

Ever since Brys signed a new longterm deal, the team has been quite shit. Whether there is cause and effect, i don't know, but it's very remarkable. His motivation to drive the players is "not to get relegated" (by his own admission), i'm not quite sure that's the best motivation when you're 4th in the standings and playing relegation teams. We've won 3 out of 9 games, of which we initially said those were the games we'd need to score our points. Worst of all, we lost because we were bad, and really didn't deserve any better. If he is serious about wanting to train a top side one day (either by building OHL to be one, or to move to one), he'll have to come up with a better plan, because it's been monhs since OHL has been sparkling. And i haven't seen any significant change in tactics or mentality on the pitch over the past few months, as if Brys and his team have ran out of ideas. Let's hope the winter break gives them some newfound inspiration. Props to Brys and his coaches for what they did until October, but i hope they realize that doesn't offer them unlimited credit.

Have to agree with Klaaz here. Mercier has been roaming the Belgian league for years and years, going from one lower-mid tier club to another. He's 31 already. Everybody knows him, they've all scouted him in the past and faced him a dozen times. For him to play like this for the first time, means the pieces of the puzzle need to fit perfectly, or he would have had performances like this in the past. It would also mean they have to acknowledge to be blind to not have seen what was right in front of their eyes all these years. Is he going to earn more at those clubs? I think he has better chances at getting an improved contract at OHL, than earn more at Anderlecht or Gent. Basically the only club with money to spend is Club Brugge. Then he needs to think about whether he would rather like to sit on the bench in a "big" club while most of those big clubs are currently in financial trouble or are playing like crap. There is also a history in Belgium of big teams going after "small team stars" with little success, because they don't consider the way in which the other team plays or functions and assume that player will fit into their squad and be equally effective, which usually isn't the case. Also, considering what happened last month, a "big team" tried to poach our coach, and the club offered him a better deal and assurances for the future. Mercier stands to lose more than he has to gain. OHL also doesn't fit the mold of traditional small teams that have to sell off their best players at the moment. I could see them coming after Henry, but if the club and King Power can persuade the coach to stay for the long haul, they could do the same with Henry. Keeping this team together at least until the end of the season, is more important than selling a player for a few million.

No, I'm from Leuven.

Go back where you came from Dennis! Go back to Leuven!

Well, anything goes in covid times, but i would say no. If one of Sowah, Mercier or Henry get injured, we will lose a lot and won't be nearly as prolific. He's steadily improving, but he's still some ways removed from Robson greatness. No, that were Waasland Beveren and Mouscron. They had us figured for a lower-mid spot in the ranking.

Well, OHL needed two new good goalkeepers they only had a guy from the youth ranks, one of their two main keepers of last season left, the other one wasn't good enough and had to leave. So Iversen came, but then Romo was a free agent and he had worked with our current manager before. I think Iversen is the better "player", and Romo is the better "stopper". If you know what i mean. Yes, there was some confusion at first. OHL isn't Leicester's feeder club, but feedING club. As in "Leicester's to nurture and feed".

Imho, first definitely offside, second definitely onside.