MonkeyTennis?

Whether you think Cooper did a good or bad job with Forest (and the reality is that both are true at different times), the fact that he was so closely associated with the club we perceive as our main rival means he's surely not the right for us. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just can't see fans getting behind him.

I appreciate it might be a frustrating situation, but I feel like the club hierarchy is picking fights with everyone at the moment (the EFL, the prem, now this passive aggressive stuff about Enzo). Whatever the justification, it's not a great look bearing in mind their own financial management.

Finances, transfers, planning, contracts, etc have all been straight up mismanaged over the last few years. As a result we got relegated despite overspending hugely, we still have a massive wage bill, expensive players sitting on the bench, a transfer embargo and very possibly years of points deductions to come. We're in legal conflict with both the EFL and the EPL. Nope. It's obviously not been all bad, but we are in an abysmal situation and in almost any other sector there would be accountability at board level.

One of my favourite recent sporting memories is being at Grace Road for the semi final of the one day cup last year when the handful of rowdy boys starting singing 'If Leicester win, we're on there pitch.' After a while, one very elderly security guard shuffled over to stand in front of them looking extremely worried. No pitch invasion followed, but there was a very high level of pisstaking.

IMHO: we will get hit with two deductions, eight points each. We might be able to argue it down to six each, but we are probably looking at a total deduction of 12-16 points next season. Two deductions because we haven't had anything deducted for the last season, and will declare a breach again this season. Eight points because our losses are much bigger than other clubs. I agree. We have just had a great season, but there are huge stormclouds on the horizon, and they are the direct result of stunning financial mismanagement at board level. There is no cause for optimism.

I'm not sure what he has to gain by staying with us in terms of reputation TBH. He has got us up, and has established himself as an exciting new manager, slightly away from the greater scrutiny of the Premier League. Job done. Next season anything he achieves on the pitch is likely to be undermined and sidelined by the FFP carnival off the pitch, and the finances mean he's actually going to have fewer players to work with who fit his system. He's got the perfect excuse to leave, and it's the perfect time. (I imagine he would go to Europe, but crazy as it sounds, I could sort-of see him at Man United.)

Can we find a tune that goes with 'That money was just resting in our account.'

Fatawu ABDUL Running up the wing ABDUL Hear the Leicester sing ABDUL Leicester’s going straight back up repeat

It's great to be going back up, but the club has completely ballsed up its finances, and it needs to be sorted out. Spend, spend, spend, and the casual approach we have taken to financial management has jeopardised anything that might be achieved on the pitch for years to come. It meant we went down (so it didn't even work), it also meant we are looking at repeated points deductions for the next few years, and it makes anything you accomplish look suspect. So I guess I'm in the 'be more cautious' camp.

Not ready to think about these sorts of questions at all until it's done. Hubris = nemesis.

I have done it a few times - always want to see the city but sitting with their home fans and having to politely clap along when they score is bloody awful. You've basically got to celebrate entirely within your own head, and you can't even talk to your mate because anything you say will give you away. Don't think I'd bother again.

This team really needs a shakeup, so while we are obviously weakened without them, it might have the positive effect of forcing a change. (That said, I still think a loss is nailed on tomorrow.)

Apparently his most recent transgression is that he was locked in a flat by some 'bad men' (rentboys or drug dealers?) after a 'drinking session' who wouldn't let him leave until he gave them 5 grand. He then rang his aging campaign manager and threatened her until he got the money. The next day he made another payment to the 'bad men' of a further 6 grand. All of this was taken from constituent donations to his campaign. He didn't pay it back, and when it was reported to the party, they didn't do anything. Could happen to anyone.

I was reading out lines from the paper to my family about this story this morning, its so mental: '“Are you on your own?” the man said, with urgency in his voice. “I’ve got in with some bad people and they’ve got me locked in a flat and they want £5,000 to release me.” His 78 year old former campaign manager told Menzies that it was 3.15am and she couldn’t transfer any money without leaving the house. He became angry, allegedly telling her it was “a matter of life and death”, and demanding she instead lend him the money from her own savings.' Then, "Three years later, Menzies was interviewed by police over bizarre accusations that he had deliberately got an acquaintance’s dog drunk and, when challenged over his actions, started a fight with the friend. A source close to the MP denied that Menzies had any involvement in the dog drinking alcohol." Then, at a Katherine Jenkins concert, "One attendee said the MP “started kicking the chairs and poking the people on the front row”, creating a disturbance for ticket holders who had paid £150 each for the event. A source close to the MP acknowledged that he had had too much to drink but said he hadn’t intentionally poked anyone and may have done it by accident when waving a flag."

Probably not. The back seats fold up out of the boot, so you lose most of the boot space and there isn't much of a footwell. You also need to move the front seats forwards, so it reduces space for everyone else. If you think you need seven seats pretty much every day, and your kids are not very young, then it's probably not roomy enough in the cabin. Newer model might be different though.

If you want an endorsement, I love my X-Trail and can't recommend it enough, although its a 2019 4WD 2L diesel model rather than the new one. I would say that the seven seats are fine if you are using the back seats occasionally for kids or young teens, but fitting in seven adults is a squeeze.

Oh, I still think its obscene mismanagement and shows an idiotic level of casual disregard for the rules - but, the PL has allowed clubs to work like this for years. The rules (on and off the pitch) are opaque and irregularly enforced. (If anything, I think the current fixation with enforcing FFP is a kind-of sideshow designed to draw attention away from the grave issues of corruption around agents fees/transfers, failure of the fit and proper ownership tests, sportswashing, front company sponsorship, gambling endorsement, etc, that make the PL look an awful lot like its enabling organised crime on a global level, but that's another story.)

I don't want to justify the club's actions, but I would say: It might not have been widely accepted as a reasonable approach because in 2021, I don't think anyone thought that the PL had any intention of enforcing its own FFP rules beyond the lightest of wrist slaps. That's where the financial complacency seems to have come from - until this year, the PL has basically avoided punishing anyone for anything, so the club management were just assuming it would probably be alright.

Whether every member of the 'board' needs to go or not, none of us know. But any institution that loses money in this way and manages finances in such a complacent fashion needs a root and branch restructure starting at the top. None of the statements made so far about the finances or the legal action seem to be anything other than deluded and unconvincing back-covering. If LCFC were a publicly owned company, the majority of board members would be out within minutes of the finances getting released. I can't quite fathom how KP, as the owners, can look at this situation and think, 'Good job.'

It does feel like the club is being run in an unbelievably complacent 'Ah, it'll probably be OK' fashion. Spending and keeping our fingers crossed that we don't breach seems like (yet another) profound organisational failure. BUT it also feels like the PL (and EFL, it seems), have actively encouraged this kind of approach for years, and have only really started cracking down since the threat of a regulator became real. And even then only on one aspect of their rules, when the reality is that the PL and the majority of clubs have been mismanaged in all sorts of ways for ages. If they actually applied the FFP rules, sponsorship rules, transfer rules, fit and proper ownership rules, etc, the majority of clubs would be in trouble.

Does anyone know, what are the consequences - in terms of punishment and fines - if we don't go up this year? Do we have some sort of sanction from the EFL in relation to their rules which would kick in if we stayed down? And would we then only be on the hook with the PL for the 22/23 season if we went up in 2025? Or do they consider more than three years?

FFP has become a lottery, almost all clubs that spend any money (outside of the top six, sad but true to say) are at risk of being stung by it. The fact that an FFP breach can happen without anyone really knowing they have done it suggests strongly that the entire financing structure of British football is labyrinthine, unfair, opaque and unfit for purposes. But the PL or FA won't do anything at all about this beyond imposing penalties for breaking rules that are arbitrarily enforced. Personally I think football is chaotically organised at a national and global level, but governing bodies are making far too much from it - financially and politically - to even acknowledge there is a problem.

You can't escape destiny: It will be Man City away. Pep v Enzo, master v apprentice stuff.

The appeal was inevitable, as was the reduction in the penalty, but it does now seem to establish a precedent that six points is a reasonable deduction for this kind of FFP breach, which means Everton will likely be hit with another 6 points this season, and Forest will get the same. So their future is in Luton's hands basically.

Sat in the family stand for the last few years. Atmosphere is pretty good this season. It's never going to be properly raucous, but singing is decent - and distinctly better than the West stand IMHO.