Golden Fox

I have zero confidence in our ability to keep within the PSR rules. Our management have a track record of failing abysmally, and we have the same people in the same roles. Pleasr Top just sack Rudkin and get someone competent and experienced in.

Time for a new picture... To me, this screams "it is what it is" but I'll open the floor up...

I'm trying to! But the awful City Connect uniform they unveiled this week was enough to kill any goodwill! But this weekend's series is in the Bronx, so f we win this series against Judge and the torpedo bats, I might start feeling more positive...

Only a week in, and the Giants are already stuck in no man's land - 3rd in their division and 2 games off the division lead... ....despite only having lost 1 game and having an 83.33 winning %, which is good enough for 3rd best in the MLB. F**K the Dodgers and their 8-0 record. What did cheer me up is that I've seen the Giants play 3 times: twice at Candlestick and once at McCovey Cove. As their "new" ballpark has been opened 25 years, their website had an article yesterday ranking the top 10 moments in its history, and out of over 2,000 games, the best moment was at the 1 game I've been to! (Barry Bonds hitting HR no 756).

Tell me about it... As a Giants' fan, I've seen the Dodgers win the NL West 11 out of the last 12 years - and the other year, the Giants had a miracle year to win 107 games: and then lost to the Dodgers in the first round of the Playoffs anyway. It does grind you down and you have less and less hope each year. So the biggest news for them this off-season being Blake Snell leaving them to sign for more money with the Dodgers is enough to suck out any lingering hope. And then the news broke in the last couple of days of the Giants selling a 10% stake to a private equity firm. Yes, it will fund a few improvements here and there, but the only reason they will have done this is that they think they can monetise the sport even more, which will only lead to more disenfranchisement in an already disenfranchised fanbase. But the big thing this season that you haven't mentioned is the A's being ripped out of the Bay Area by a pr**k of an owner. They have no concrete stadium deal in Vegas, so are playing in a minor league ballpark in Sacramento, which is a joke - and the league has let this happen. (The Giants haven't helped by being gifted the San Jose market by the A's when they were on their knees, and then refusing to let the A's then explore a ballpark there). When I was in the Bay Area, the whole backdrop to baseball was the Giants v A's rivalry, so to see MLB facilitating this so soon after the Raiders' move to Vegas, it just kills a lot of the passion. I'll follow the results, try and catch an early game if its the "free game of the day" but I can't see myself being as invested in it this year.

Really stupid article in The Athletic matching NFL teams to football teams. I don't know why I'm such a glutton for punishment that I clicked the link and scrolled down to Leicester, but I did... Only one response to that:

Shame he hasn't been given a Project Reset flag to wave during this trophy presentation!

Not sure where else to put this, but won't be any more '24-'25 shirts from Le Coq Sportif, or any more at all as they have filed for bankruptcy. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-14309781/Shirt-brand-footballs-iconic-kits-goes-BANKRUPT-set-end-partnerships-financial-collapse.html https://uni-watch.com/2025/02/02/iconic-french-sportswear-brand-le-coq-sportif-files-for-bankruptcy/ A shame - they won't go down as a classic Leicester shirt manufacturer, but I did like a couple of their away efforts: particularly their first yellow shirt & our first black kit with the sash for over 100 years... Considering the garbage we wore on Saturday, would have either of these back quicker than it would take for us to concede from kick-off.

Is this even a question? Filbert Steet was a football ground. The KP is a Matchday Experience venue.

I watch less amd less rugby these days, but thought I'd make a bit more effort with this 6 Nations, but moments like that just mean I lose faith in the sport. Clearly forward. No TMO review. No mention of it on commentary, and no mention of it on the BBC text - thankfully some sanity here, but if the rules are broken and nobody cares, what is the point?

Depends who their opponents are. 49ers have Cleveland away on their schedule for next year. And are interviewing Robert Saleh for a return as Defensive Coordinator.

Not as high profile as others on here, but living in this part of the world, it still really stings... December 2007, Ipswich away. Back in the days when both were middling Championship sides and (I was working in Suffolk among them): a good mid-week battle under the lights, and having gone 1-0 down, we'd fought back to 1-1 closing in on half time and it was a good game of football. Then with Ipswich through in the penalty area, Kisnorbo makes a fantastic tackle down our end to get the ball away - clearly not touching the player. Ref sends off Kisnorbo, gives Ipswich a pen, and we're 2-1 down at half-time with 10 men. 2nd half a non-event, and we end up losing 3-1. Bloody awful decision that just ruined a good game. Afterwards, I believe the red card was rescinded as no contact. (And they also subsequently bought in the double jeopardy rule to stop this). Still pissed off today that so bad a decision ruined the game, and was shown to be really bad on review: not that it could make any difference to us!

There is really something about the Lions this year. (My 49ers really should have won it last year, but they were getting schooled by the Lions in the Playoffs: somehow turned it around and got through, but the Lions have moved up a notch from there & look even better this year, and I think after that disappointment from last year, they will go one better and get to the Superbowl). The Chiefs have looked so ropey at times this year despite pulling out result after result somehow. I know they did at times last year before pulling it together at the end, but I think they must be exhausted after so many games in the last few years and their luck has to run out (please!). I don't trust the Ravens in the AFC, so I'm going for the Bills. I think the Lions then freeze on the big stage & the Bills finally take the Lombardi. (Amended to add that I came up with that all by myself - despite realising I've just echoed @CheeseHead's prediction right at the start!)

There is a lot to dislike about modern football, but there is a lot of nonsense written above about ownership. I'm pretth sure in the past, most football club owners would have been pretty nasty businessmen who would have tried to get as much money out of the fans as they coupd have done. One of my big memories of my early days of supporting City was the plane with "Pleat out, Shipman out", and then later, we had the boardroom fall outs with The Gang of 4 etc. so you can't look back on the good old days beong because of good owners. Not defending modern owners: just doubt they are now more greedy than they were in the past!

Christ - the last few months have been so s**t, I'd completely forgotten how good winning the Championship felt.

Sorry, but I'm getting a bit sick of this narrative that we are useless, have a Championship squad, and don't deserve to be anywhere near the Premier League. Firstly, look at Sunday's team. The starting 11 all had Premier League experience before this year, excluding Mads (who will have a long Premier League career), McAteer and El Khannouss. Even the likes of Kristiansen and Soumare, have shown in patches the ability to compete in the top division before this year, and were incremental to last year's squad. Off the bench, 4 of the 5 had Premier League experience, with just Mavididi without. This is not a bunch of no-hopers. Secondly, some of the results over the weekend showed we haven't been as far off the pace. Forest at home? 1-0 down, 1-1 by half time, then 3-1 down. Our result matched by Man Utd apart from 1 late goal. Getting 4 stuck past us at Brentford? Matched by Newcastle. I know people seem to get a kick out of putting us down. But listening to my boss talking about Ipswich having to draft in players that couldn't get in their team in League 1, its another world from where we are. We've been in the Premier League all but 1 year in the past decade, and the year we went down we came back up easily. We are a Premier League club, despite a dodgy start, we are outside the relegation places, and the constant putting us down from out own fan base is not helping anyone.

Admittedly this one probably needs a video to do it full justice, but can't believe we've got part way down page 5 without this truly special moment in our history!

Too soon?

The policy is there for the rich clubs who complain about too many fixtures while they are off galavanting around the world instead of looking after the structure that made them. Not going to change, unfortunately.

A bit out of date there... the money-grabbing NFL is the only major sport now taking a stand on jersey adds. The NBA started (small patches on vests), followed by the NHL (started as helmets & now small patches on jerseys) and MLB (sleeve ads, and then helmet ads for Playoffs this year). They aren't as front and centre (literally) as football, and not on all retail shirts, but the leagues all used the excuse of revenues down during covid to open the floodgates. More importantly for us, does anybody have any idea on the cashflow from BC game? Deal was reported at $40m, but was that $20m up front for each season? Monthly instalments? Paid in arrears? The size of the financial hit we will take will be dependent on this. (You never know, if it was a money laundering scheme and we got all $40m up front, and can re-sell next year's shirt space having already received payment for it once, so there is a (slim) chance we actually gain out of this!)

To be honest, the timeline makes sense that following the crash in 2018, Vichai's estate was looked at and the shares reallocated in Feb 2019. My feeling is that the auditors (or someone similar) have reviewed the ownership structure and told the club they hadn't filed the correct paperwork - so this is just a paper exercise to correct that. The shares will all be registered: Companies House is just a reflection of what the company position is, but is not the legal record. There are penalties for incorrect information late filings, but I don't think there is anything for ownership. In my experience, auditors all too frequently raise items that they themselves have missed for 4 or 5 years! (OK - this is just repeating what @Benji has just posted!) Or it could have emerged as part of the due diligence as part of a sale...

Worth looking at that relegation team again. I've gone with total appearances - whether subs or not, and this is a list of the 15 players who played in at least half the games that relegation season. Of the 15, only 6 remain: Daka and Ward, who nobody wants & can't get near the pitch this year with 1 sub appearance between them, so there are only 4 players who are still contributing. Premier League Appearances in 22/23 Out of those matches: players gone = 59%, Ward & Daka = 13%. Still contributing - 28%. This squad that got relegated got asset stripped. Nobody was willing to pay up for Soumare who has only just re-emerged, but you are looking at an older Vardy, Ndidi and Faes as the only real survivors of that season. This is not a defence of Cooper (if anything, it is praise for Maresca for doing what he did with what he inherited), but just that comparisons to the squad we had in the Premier League last time round are a bit redundant at this point.

I may be looking for things that aren't there, but wasn't the big sticking point with Potter that he wanted a lot of his backroom staff that were still at Chelsea, and they weren't going to release them cheaply. And yet, a day after hosting Chelsea & wining and dining their decision makers, we might well be revisiting those conversations...

Two weeks since you posted this... Any new favourites out of all the recommendations?

I just don't understand the communication coming out of the club. This sounds like a real step forward, so its an easy press release to let the fans know there may be progress, rather than having the article drag out a 3 year old quote and leaving us to speculate. Yet we get articles about shop opening times, writing messages for programmes, kids writing in to their heroes etc in among the attempts to put a positive spin on an inept 3-0 thrashing. Its no wonder I go on the official site so rarely and always come away with the feeling that I've switched on to watch the news and have instead had to sit through a party political broadcast!