OntarioFox

fear us

Can someone with some Photoshop skills do a Keith Lard on him so he can be sacked without a payoff?

On the pitch sure, but off it I'm embarrassed to be an LCFC fan right now and won't be showing an inch of support to anyone above Enzo in the club structure. We're a basket case and now I guess the job is to ensure we at least make it to the Prem so we can soften the inevitable blow next season. Someone needs to lock the board in a room and play Pearson's Ostrich rant to them at full volume, because they've been burying their heads in the sand since the day we lifted the FA Cup.

Thought that would be the case after the relegation but the happy-clapping mute sods are still here in their droves. Which is what I'm least looking forward to with all this - the sizeable portion of our fanbase who will respond with 'ooooh it's a bit of a shame isn't it' before going back to sitting on their hands through what is going to fast become an existential crisis for our club. I sense things are going to start getting ugly on matchdays.

This is the same hierarchy that thought we were going to be absolutely fine and that relegation was never on the cards. I mean, they had Maddison publicly playing the ostrich, it's safe to assume that was the over-riding view throughout the club until you got to the parts of the fanbase that could see the writing on the wall. It's not a stretch at all to suggest that they took one look at the table in September and assumed we were already promoted and would do so with a massive gap. The lack of contingency planning is bordering on criminal negligence at this point.

This season is starting to give me heavy Micky Adams 2002-03 vibes. Which is ominous considering the 5 years that followed. Let's please not. If there's one common theme I've felt from our fanbase since this all came out in the washing, it's that rather than playing the eternal victim we're fully aware that this is our club's mismanagement of the past 3-7 years (depending on who you ask) coming home to roost. PSR / FFP is a horrifically skewed system, but if nothing else it's finally showing the wider public that we're not all just blindly clapping Top and the board and content to descend into freefall just because we get a free beer or coconut every now and again. It's a rare moment where those criticising the hierarchy are absolutely within their rights to say "I told you so".

This is it. You can disagree with the PSR all you like, and it's absolutely no coincidence that things are going tits-up for a lot of teams after the huge hit the pandemic took, but so, so much of our financial downfall has been self-inflicted. We decided the way to compete consistently with the 'Big 6' was A) to hand out ridiculous contracts to both players and THAT manager to stop them getting poached, and B) to quite ignorantly assume that our squad was good enough to keep maintaining European football finishes for the foreseeable future, with the prize money it brings. The result was an appallingly bloated squad with a number of players who were impossible to shift at the prices we wanted (Soumare, Ward, Tielemans, even Iheanacho being prime examples). We let some go on frees which killed our model of selling prize assets, while others continue to rot away our cash reserves despite either being out on loan or sat gathering dust in our reserves. While all this was going on, a manager who was clearly destroying all the good work we'd spent 6-7 years in the top flight building - admittedly partially under the first two years of his tenure - was impossible to shift because we'd written an absurd payoff clause into his contract. Our ownership was shown up as weak and unwilling to address the iceberg heading towards us until it had already made a huge gash in our hull. Our last throw of the 'sell a prized asset to balance the books' dice in Maddison, which we were all expecting regardless of the outcome of the 22-23 season, was scuppered by our vulnerability after our self-inflicted relegation and the consensus is that he went for £20-25 million below market value. And now we reach the endgame. We've somehow kept the spine of our squad together, but find ourselves on manoeuvres to prevent both the league we're in, and the one we aspire to be back in, from picking our carcass and sending us into irreparable freefall. There are so many points over the past three years you can highlight when our ownership systematically failed to address the elephant in the room - that our entire model post-title win has been built on an unsustainable and naive belief that we are a club capable of continuing to play the disruptor of the big 6 cartel, and one that is secure enough to do so despite only finishing in the top 6 three times in 9 attempts. I would be an absolute hypocrite to sit here, having enjoyed Everton and Forest's struggles over the past year or two, while not holding my hands up and accepting that our own club has been absolutely bloody deluded in its own financial approach, which seems to have been based almost entirely on naive, wishful thinking and an assumption that our top-8 position was going to be a permanent one going forwards. Our fate was sealed more or less from the day we bottled Champions League footy for the second time.

It's such basic accounting too. If you're approaching the cliff edge of a financial year you make the conscious decision to time what purchases / sales you can control to fall within the reporting period they're most beneficial to. They know full well they either didn't understand their own financial situation, or wilfully chose to ignore it. Given the obscene amount they've spent on some absolute cack to stay in the league, I would wager it was both - their model from day one has been to throw enough s**t and hope it sticks to keep the prize money rolling in. We, of course, have all this to look forward to if we go up, even if we do spend within our means. Which is frustrating given that we've been relatively frugal for a few years in comparison to the clowns currently being docked points. But I'd be a hypocrite to sit here laughing at Forest and Everton and then start playing the victim if it happens to us next year. The fact of the matter is that we started handing out obscene contracts to average players and managers who we then found we couldn't shift, and that started the day we won the league.

Given they picked up a vital win and are now only 4 behind, worth noting that Burnley play F*rest on the final day. Factor in Everton's potential further deduction and I'm not sure it's just Luton those two should be keeping their eyes on. It only takes them stringing two results together between now and then for us to face a final day scenario where the perfect result of both of the whingebags going down could become reality.

And there it is. Ffs

That second half gives me hope for the run-in KDH take a bow then an ice bath, son - put in a right shift 👍

I think it's understandable that large portions of our fanbase expect us to sh*t the bed at the business end of the season after having to endure the past 4 years. Doesn't mean we will, though. Let's see what happens tomorrow, it's a free hit, actually winnable with Chelsea as they currently are, and also raises the tantalising possibility of playing Cov at Wembley. It's win-win, we lose and we can focus entirely on the league, we win and hopefully it gives us a kick up the arse for the league form (ok Hull was a misstep but at least we didn't lose) WINNIT

Surely Howe is for the chop once they're out of this one? Last chance of any sort of achievement this season, the Saudis won't like it one bit.

Sheff Utd are done for, but oh what a joy it would be if this ignites a great escape from Burnley that sinks both Everton and Forest in the process.

That'll do nicely once the points deduction kicks in.

Sounds familiar actually

Definitely has the makings of a coach in the future. Same vibes I got from Kingy, who is now a player-coach with Bristol City.

You beauty Ross! Perfect ball through. Luton have been playing like this all season, albeit with varying degrees of success. Think it's about time they got some respect without the patronising edge that it always seems to come with. They've been a bloody good counter-attacking football team for a few seasons now and were knocking about the top 6 of the Championship on merit.

2-0!!!! If they manage to beat Forest at their place at the weekend it could make things VERY fun.

Bit sick of the hyperbole around certain players doing fairly basic things. That goal wasn't 'genius from De Bruyne' as Sky are keen to suggest, it was dogs**t marking at the front post from Liverpool. 9 times out of ten Gomez isn't half asleep ball watching and it's a routine clearance.

Think we grew into that after their goal to be fair. We need to take advantage of the conditions though, it really favours low balls out to the wing, many times it's held up nicely for Stephy and Abdul.

That'll do Jamie,

PLAY TO THE CONDITIONS FFS

Penalty all day, if Mavididi actually puts a bit more effort in he at least brings him down outside the box. Bit sick of him right now, workrate's gone. Big let off, that was a Mahrez at his worst standard penalty.

Squint and you can see Alan Young having a mudbath