OntarioFox

If he plays it's purely transactional. He gets one chance to put himself in the shop window by putting in something approaching effort. We get an extra body for a one-off game to tackle how light our midfield suddenly looks with Skipp and JJ out. I am not even going to acknowledge the other waste of space who just left. I won't be there but I wouldn't be hostile personally. I doubt Kingy particularly wants to pick him, but he (King) seems to have his head screwed on and acknowledges that three points in a game like this will be vital when (not if) the points deduction comes. The alternative is to rely on a 17 year old, a shite footballer who's only still here so King Power can sell shirts in Bangladesh, and an out-of-position fullback who has been woefully out of form for most of the season. The viable academy prospects are all out on loan. With all that considered, I honestly will not blame Kingy one bit for selecting him on this occasion, even just for a bench spot.

Should it happen? Yes? Will it happen? No. I'm still hopeful that one day we will see him in a director's role, whether that's DOF or Technical Director. But his health is more important, and I can imagine his blood pressure would spike every time he clocks Rudders in the corridor. I also would question quite how much appetite he'd have to yet again be tasked with taking a hatchet to our mess of a squad - I imagine it was bad enough having to do it the second time post-Sven when he was in good health, I wouldn't fancy the cortisol spikes of having to take the Matt Mills approach to the likes of Winks, Ayew, Vestergaard and whoever else when you've been through long covid and struggle to walk nowadays. Plus there's the obvious elephant in the room - it was apparently Top that made the call to 'sack' him in early 2015 before Vichai rolled that back and the rest of the story unfolded. I don't believe he'd want to work with the current hierarchy regardless of how much say he'd have on the future trajectory of the club. Why would he want to help save face for someone who couldn't wait to get rid of him during the great escape season? If the dream scenario ever unfolds and Top sells up, that's the point at which I think he hopefully comes back in that role. It would be the obvious way for any new owner to gain fans' trust. But in a similar way to how I don't want Kingy to get the manager role right now and have his legacy tarnished by what seems like a potential disaster waiting to happen, I don't want Top and Rudkin wheeling out Big Nige to distract the fanbase from what a mess they've made of LCFC both on the pitch and financially.

Ah f*** it, I can't not get a bit excited with Kingy in the dugout. Even though I know our team is garbage, I'm excited for a game for the first time this season. 4-1 win, don't care who scores. We aren't keeping a clean sheet - I'll order an Andy King body pillow if we do.

Those games under Sadler and Stowell in 22-23 were shameful, absolutely no response from the players and arguably looked worse than they did under Brendan. I'd expect similar from this motley crew. Really was a shame with regards to Stowell in particular, who had always been a steady pair of hands during interims. I think he had a 100% win record over 2 periods sharing it with Chris Powell? Like I say, probably reflected more on how rotten the squad had become overall towards the back end of Rodgers' tenure, but it's not like it's that much better three years later.

Our lot would probably end up striking for Top and Rudkin in that scenario

In fairness, it only takes as much as Carrefour running out of croissants to cause a strike in France

Closes the book on one of the most shameful bits of transfer business we've ever done. Glad we've seemingly got money for him, but epitomised everything wrong with the club for the past half decade. Just feel a bit numb to it at this point until we get more Jordan James types through the door to replace him. Good riddance. As turgid as our squad still is, this goes some way to starting to rectify the cloud of laziness and entitlement that has hung over us since Rodgers took a hatchet to our squad.

Obligatory "let's all laugh at Marseille and Gr**nw**d"

Nothing happening today then?

I'd also like to take this moment to laugh at Sheffield United, who now have the worst Soumare in the league by default.

#GambleOut

kermit scored a goal against Boro, instantly clear

gobshite, sweet prince

Didn't realise Hull were on the same points as Ipswich. They don't play either them or Boro now, already played both twice - they do have Cov to come though... While there's also one more Boro / Ipswich fixture to come, the three teams below Cov have the opportunity to catch them 100% if they turn up in their games against them. The Tractor Boys already did their bit - 6 points out of 6. If the planets align and Boro decide to actually turn up for their own reverse fixture against Cov, they could not only be off top spot but potentially out of the automatics by mid-March if not sooner. Who knows, maybe by the time Ipswich and Boro play each other again in April it'll be those two fighting for the top spot (or trying to keep pace with Hull) while Cov are floundering in 4th or 5th... come on Football Gods, we've had enough torture the past few years, let us just have this one ray of light!

Imagine thinking you're the bollocks and your season's back on track because you beat us 2-1

Don't worry folks, Top can rest easy on his flight back, he's left Seagrave in Rudkin's capable hands.

As much as I 100% want Hearts to win it, and the planets do seem to be aligning for them now, it would be kind of funny if Rangers did win it out of nowhere despite Russell Martin's best efforts The equation is pretty simple for Hearts now, they just have to avoid losing those games against Rangers and Celtic and keep up their PPG otherwise. They have Rangers one more time before the split, so that's three cup finals for them between now and season's end - but you could say the same for Celtic and Rangers too in the circumstances. Bear in mind the Old Firm will play each other twice more as well, once before and once after the split. As it stands right now they could probably do with Celtic winning the OF game in March, but as long as Hearts continue to do the business and avoid silly slip-ups like in the Edinburgh derby they're well on-track. Fingers crossed - it's about the only football story i'm actually invested in this season, besides my hiding-to-nothing hopes of Forest and Cov falling apart.

Well let's see, we wasted the first ten days trying to rehabilitate a crash victim, then flirted with signing a player from West Ham who's clearly too good for us, then some random cast-off from Sweden... ... then got distracted by our Manager shitting the bed so badly that we had to sack him instead of focus on the main issue, namely our appalling playing squad... ... oh you sweet summer child, haven't you figured it out yet?

I just hope Kingy has the balls to tear up the overly-patient build-up and go back to basics. We have zero competent strikers at the club but we could probably kludge together a half-decent outfit if we just set up a basic 4-3-3 and feed balls into Daka or whichever other lump we put in there from the wing. That a club with Mavididi, Fatawu and Monga on its books is sat 14th and struggling to score goals is embarrassing, but tactically we've been our own worst enemy over-playing it around the opposition box and inviting needless pressure onto ourselves with both fullbacks and centre-backs regularly exposed or targeted on transitions. I honestly don't give a shit who comes in, as long as it's not Russell Martin, who will prolong the torture of trying to get this bunch of wastemen playing pound-shop Pepball. It's over. The experiment not only failed, it ruined us over half a miserable decade. Stop it. Play football, for ****'s sake.

I think all we ask is to be run in a sensible, sustainable manner, like other clubs who were in our shadow until very recently are. Brighton, Brentford and Bournemouth have been mentioned on here ad nauseum, but with very good reason. Sure, they haven't hit our heights, but all three continue to do shrewd business, attract the right profile of player, and seem capable of selling star assets without regressing to the point of collapse. A Semenyo-less Bournemouth just put three past the reigning Champions for God's sake. That's all we expect - a plan to be run sustainably and - yes - build a squad capable of maintaining a Premier League position. We on the other hand had that, and chose to destroy it through a complete lack of vision beyond "possession=good i guess", poor managerial choices and a quite frankly insane wage structure. Which continues to be a noose around us even as we're getting humbled by a squad of mostly lower-league journeymen and kids which I doubt has a single player on £10k or more a week.

We shouldn't be marking the 10 year anniversary of our highest ever point by threatening to equal our lowest ever. Thanks to the vast majority of individuals involved with this club over the past half decade though, both on and off the pitch, we are. That is unforgiveable.

#AnnouncePreki

think it was matt mills

Thanks for saying South - because I watched National League North today and the standard from both teams was unironically higher than the shite Leicester served up from what I can tell.