OntarioFox

Hereford away still ranks as my favourite ever.

I love our group of players.

I just want the final post on this thread before it's locked - the one that will go down in history at the end of this marathon when people do a reverse thread search - to be one taking the p1ss out of @Shamomoa's choice of phone font. Make it so, FT.

Yeah... let's go with that.

Scenes when the announcement video for Youri is Brendan walking in on him on the computer, pants down, browsing for Yuri which Shinji told him to check out before he left. *The door to Youri's apartment swings open as Brendan enters without knocking* "Youri, you were supposed to sign last week, what's the big d- *awkward eye contact* "Boss, I can explain!" *Fades out to blue with a #WelcomeYouri hashtag while "Girls Girls Girls" by Motley Crue blasts out"

I dunno, it gives a pretty good impression of visiting the Mercury website nowadays. A noisy mess of limbs and god-knows what flying around left-right-and-centre, with the constant nagging thought in the back of your mind - "what the hell am I doing here?"

For sure. Though I would say that our general trajectory in the league has been upwards since the league win, albeit from a position of an almighty hangover. Take that season out of the equation, and our points return is slowly increasing year on year in the Premier League - 41, (81), 44, 47 and then 52 last year. Factor in our various near-misses and our bad habit for slow starts and mid-season managerial changes and those finishes probably undersell our squad's potential, even if the league win skews our ambition slightly. Man Utd's by comparison is all over the shop, but they can be expected to take somewhere between 60 and 70 points. That's three or four extra wins to be breathing down their necks, especially if we take some of those points directly from them. Their tally since they last won the league is 64, 70, 66, 69, 81, 66. That 2nd place finish really glosses over their complete stagnation since Fergie left, and there's a case to dismiss it as an anomaly in the same way that our title can be. With the squad we have, a bit of managerial stability and an actual plan and playing style which plays to our team's strengths, they are definitely catchable, whether Maguire is wearing red or not. Basically, if we stopped spaffing points up the wall against relegation candidates at home, we'd be regularly above Man Utd. in the table at this point, and possibly causing Chelsea / Arsenal a few problems too.

No, I'm saying that the bad blood between us is probably over-hyped to begin with. If we drew Forest in the cup, the atmosphere would be nowhere near as febrile as the two fixtures you've listed. I honestly expect more bad blood at our game with Sheffield United next month - they're still insanely bitter about the administration thing in '03, and for some reason they also seem to lump that hatred in with the completely unrelated Tevez affair, like missing out on promotion in '02-03 was the starting point for their prolonged downfall despite them getting promoted after the fact. Thanks to Warnock for that legacy, I guess, should make for an exciting game. What have we got with Forest that's comparable since we were last both in the top flight together? That end-of-season game at the City Ground, with a play-off place on the line for both teams, is the only match against Forest in recent times that I can say was truly emotionally charged. Otherwise, to call it a tame rivalry would be an understatement. At a real stretch, I guess you could include our tussles in '09-10 - a 5-1 loss at their place and 3-0 win at ours while we were both pushing for the playoffs, but I was at both and don't remember the atmosphere being particularly charged. The 3-0 win felt a little bit like revenge at the time, but I think it ended up being blown out of proportion with some wheeler-dealers in our fanbase going as far as to print cringe-ey DVDs of the match, like it was a cup-final and not a relative dead-rubber that didn't change either club's trajectory, not least since we both blew the chance of what would have been an admittedly massive playoff final in our respective semis. I might be sat here now with a completely different view if that match-up had happened, regardless of who had won. But it didn't, and our clubs have been on different trajectories ever since. God, I'm glad we're past that point - the "rivalry" during those doldrum years between '04 and '14 was tinpot to be frank. I can go for the Schadenfreude when Forest lose, but I'd be lying to myself if I said I was really all that bothered about them. As an aside, I've been praying for West Ham to get Millwall at home in the cup since they moved into the London Stadium. As a taxpayer and subsidiser of them getting a national stadium we all own on the cheap from the government, I believe I'm within my right to want to see them tear the seats out and steal the corner flags... wait, never mind, the Hammers already did that.

I think you'd be hard-pressed to argue that it really would weaken us, or strengthen United. And the fact we're unironically talking about Manchester bloody United as a top six rival just shows how far they've fallen.

So I guess that's both Sheffield clubs that hate us now then.

The hilarious thing about this is that, club value and total spend aside, nothing has happened in the last three years to suggest that we aren't on a level with Manchester United in terms of our place within the league. They've finished top four once in three seasons (an admittedly good second place), and sixth twice. And, one-off or not, we won the league the year before while they finished fifth. We're both Europa contenders but not realistically breaking the top four, and for the sake of a few good or bad runs could finish anywhere from 5th to 10th. That is the reality of Manchester United in 2019 - the fact they've spaffed hundreds of millions if not north of a billion pounds to end up in a similar bracket to ourselves, Everton and Wolves says far more about them as a club. They're welcome to Maguire at the price they're supposedly going to pay. It's an inflated market, we have other players waiting in the wings, he's underperformed for us for large chunks of the past season and he isn't going to solve any defensive problems there may be at Old Trafford. He's a popular player for his exploits with England, which inflates his price. Bonus for me. He'd leave with my best wishes, but the fact is that he's being outperformed week-in week-out by £3m Jonny Evans. Jonny is objectively a more reliable defender, and we have two others in the form of Benkovic and Soyuncu waiting in the wings to learn from him and get their own run in the team. He'll be popular there if he keeps popping up with goals at the back post, but ultimately it's a sideways step both for him and Manchester United at this point in time. And honestly, I think we can afford to lose him. So let "Yanited" fans be arrogant. They're a circus of a club at this point - I just feel sorry for Solskjær having his reputation at the club dragged through the mud due to the rot having already set in. It's a very different beast to the club he left as a player.

Based on a combination of his solid goalscoring record and him, Rondon and Ki collectively pulling our pants down during last season's comfortable home reversal, gerrimin. He was a big part of one of the most impressive away performances I've seen down the KP. Which is exactly what he did in that performance - while he of course scored the winner, his main role was to pressure our full backs, Shinji-style, while Rondon bullied our centre backs out of the game (as is tradition whenever we face him). I imagine he'll have much the same role for us in doing that legwork. If his workrate is consistently what I saw that day, we're pretty much signing an out-wide Okazaki who is actually better at finding the net.

A key reason I dislike them as much as I do. My brother was at that game and it ended up being the last he ever went to - he was 9 years old and seeing the Spurs thugs doing their thing on Wembley Way put him off footy for good. (Still, Dad then tried to get me into it in his place and the rest is history to be fair)

I'm leaning towards agreeing that our rivalry with Forest and Derby is kind of irrelevant nowadays. It's been 5 seasons now since we were in the same league as either, and AFAIK we've only played either team once [ok technically twice] since (Derby in the cup + replay, 16-17 season). Geographically, it's as easy for us to get to the Birmingham clubs as it is to our East Mids foes either by train or the M69, and until their collapse at the same time as our rise this made for a pretty intense rivalry building with Coventry in lieu of those up the M1. Unless something dramatic changes soon, our future rivalries, as mentioned, lie with Wolves and maybe a resurgent Villa. Possibly Sheffield United if they stick around. I don't give much thrift to long-distance rivalries, so the Spurs thing is over for me, as much as I still think that fans from North London are absolute melts in general. All that said, you can tell that our success over the past decade - not even just our Prem win, but the whole rise from League 1 - really irks the more diehard Rams and Trees. That's because we've gone from playing them on the regular, fighting for promotion, to getting that prize at their expense... then going on to acheive something that largely diminishes on their now ancient acheivements in the same division. Both can no longer claim with a straight face to be the "pride of the East Midlands" or the "most successful", and neither feature in the conscience of the average football fan anymore, save for the media obsession with Lampard momentarily putting Derby in the spotlight. We've really dented the pride of aspects of their fanbases with our silly little Title Win. That said, for some reason I don't particularly dislike Derby, unless we're playing them. If anything, it amuses me that even as perennial failures at the business end of the Championship season, Forest are still undeniably in their shadow and have been for 20-odd years.

It certainly is a nice way of getting around the offensive hoarding of talent which big clubs seem to keep getting away with and does indeed level the playing field slightly - and offers non-pros a route into the game which is simply not possible at any level in at least the top five tiers of the English league structure nowadays. The Canadian PL have tried to adopt something a little wider-ranging with their own draft which has multiple pools for College graduates, European players and so forth, but again that's relatively low risk at present because multiple tiers aren't going to be introduced until more teams join the league. And, of course, the overall standard is nowhere near the top level of the English game - I'd put it somewhere between Leagues 1 and 2 in terms of overall quality, save for a couple of early standout performers like Ryan Telfer and Emery Welshman who I think could cope in the Championship. You'd realistically need to accept a hit to the overall quality of players in at least the top three tiers to successfully implement it. And all that said, even with the Draft system you can't vouch for ingrained crapness - it took the Cleveland Browns more than two years to win a game.

I mean, if we're staying grounded then 10th remains an acceptable finish at present, so I'm not too bothered by our placing. Yes, the ambition is to crack the top 7 this time out, and the stretch goal if we get a good start is top 5/6. But honestly, if we get to the end of the season and end up 10th, I don't think too many of us will have too many complaints, especially if we fail to hold onto Tielemans who, let's be honest, is vital to how our team's current development pans out and will take a good season to replace to any comparable level. (Heck, I'd imagine this dumb computer analysis thing is based on current squads, and as his loan is up Tielemans is no doubt not included in that, hence the apparent regression). No way the Toon are finishing top half though. Sure, they picked up towards the end of the season, but let's not mistake them ultimately limping to safety for the sort of form that one can carry through to the next season and build on... and we Foxes fans should know exactly what can happen when you do carry that form through! Until there's real change at that football club, they're going to be perennially looking over their shoulders at the trapdoor, even with Rafa at the helm. I always have to laugh, too, when an unknown quantity are completely underestimated in their first season in the Prem and automatically dumped at the bottom of these lists purely because there's no previous data to go by. I would put good money on Sheffield United not only staying up, but being the highest placed of the three promoted sides. They're a solid and well-balanced outfit, with some real firepower up front in the form of Sharp and McGoldrick, who I expect to both be able to bag a few in the top flight. Friendly reminder that Fulham were going to piddle survival because they spent stupid money on journeymen that happened to have "Premier League experience", and that Wolves were going to be right down there due to their untested squad. (Side note - That a striker as prolific as Sharp has only two career appearances in the top flight is equal parts baffling and damning - history is littered with sides short of firepower in the bottom half who would have sold their grandmother for his goalscoring ability. For his sake as much as United's I hope he puts that right next year.)

We lost 4-1 actually - Ulloa bagged a brace and that kn*b who likes to swan around hotel rooms live on social media got one of the other two. I do wonder, in a parallel universe, what Pearson's reaction to Lingard's latest antics would be were he managing him at present. Even the players managed to blank that one out though - I distinctly remember Gary Taylor Fletcher getting the consolation, which we celebrated like the winning goal. He then scored a few weeks later against Huddersfield, and in a collective lapse of memory Radio Leicester, most of the fans and even Gary himself in his post-match interview were quick to claim it as his first goal for the club.

I've got to admit, as much as I enjoy the schadenfreude of the continued failure of Leeds, Sheffield Wednesday, Derby et. al to make it back to the Prem, if you gave me a choice of those clubs or these Super League Judases at present I'd definitely take them and make a point of letting the door hit our so-called "big 6" on the way out. Especially the ones with the nerve to declare themselves as such despite having less Premier League era titles than ourselves or Blackburn Rovers. It's frankly a disgrace that the idea is even being entertained. And if it did happen, I'd expect significant disruption to the "product" on the ground from disgruntled fans. Would look great to the world audience to have games delayed and cancelled because of pitch invasions, people blocking turnstiles and stealing corner flags a la West Ham, but on a far greater scale. It's not something I would normally condone, but if it happens, it's a fight for the future of the entire game as far as I'm concerned.

And they'll never admit it, but Vardy is definitely in ahead of any of their forward line too at present.

I still have a packet of Vardy Salted that have gone a bit nuclear after 3 years on top of the fridge if anyone wants them. £150 plus P&P, since I'll have to declare them a biohazard at this point. Own a piece of history. Just try not to pop the bag, or you may die.

Great to tie Harvey down, he's an important part of the new system we're playing and was there on merit by the end of the season. If he works on his finishing in the summer, he'll have a huge season in 19/20. Now Harvey, do the right thing and tell Scotland to do one so you can one day play with Ben, Harry and Madders for the Three Lions. Honestly, keep it up and it could happen for you next season.

Maguire and Stones are too similar to play in the same back line. It's about time one of them was dropped and someone in the "classic" centre-back role was brought in to sit, and while Stones' cockups were ultimately more costly last night let's not kid ourselves that Maguire isn't a similar bombscare and got away with a few last night. At the very least, go back to the 3-5-2 to give them extra support if we must persist with two Beckenbauer types. Even though he had a similarly crap game last night, Walker has done that job well for England when he wasn't constantly having to track back.

So apparently Chilwell isn't too popular with the Spuds fans and Danny Rose should have played last night. https://tbrfootball.com/tottenham-fans-criticise-target-ben-chilwell-for-his-england-performance-in-nations-league/ Never seen such deluded b*ll*cks in my life. He wasn't just the best English defender on the pitch, if it wasn't for Pickford keeping us in the game he'd have been MOTM by a country mile. And in this game of fine lines, he'd have been getting the plaudits as the matchwinner for his marauding run if Lingard's goal had stood. That isn't my Leicester fan bias talking either, because I believe it's fair to rip into Maguire all you want - he made some howlers. But Ben had a good game. The Spurs contingent on the other hand were invisible and it's a joke that a blatantly unfit Kane got gametime ahead of Callum Wilson. Spurs fans really are the most deluded bunch of-ers going.

Gonna stick my neck on the line here and say that Dunk is every bit as good as Maguire and worth the investment if we do sell him on for more than the £40m they're supposedly asking. Has a similar record in terms of goals and assists from corners too, so well capable of filling in Maggie's role of ghosting in at the back post to finish / knock it back across. Friendly reminder that most people's first choice centre back last season ended up being £3.5m Jonny Evans. Harry had a few immense performances and his attacking threat is in no doubt, but I still think he's inconsistent and also got a free pass from the media, and a lot of us too, for some dire ones too and on that basis I'd sell if someone does come in above £50m.

Cult hero, and an unironic favourite of mine during that promotion season. Still maintain that his all round game was under-rated because of his figure. I'm also fairly sure that I am the only Leicester fan in history to win a bet on him to be first goalscorer (away at Hudders, when he was brought into the first XI half an hour before kick-off while I was having a pint by the betting kiosk. Absolute scenes). Thanks for the memories, and more importantly for reminding us that Dad Bods can do it too, before Ruiz made it cool.