Levi Port

I actually liked the coverage of Enzo from him. Yes it’s biased but at least it’s someone else reporting on us other than the usual and he did offer interesting insights into the club and Enzo. Happy if he carries on, it’s better than Fryatt

Really hope he doesn’t have a release clause as he’s a proven prem player and we could get 15 for him I’m sure

I recon it’s because they’ve forecast our operating costs for the year to be around level with our revenue even with parachute payments. We don’t seem to cut staff etc when we’re relegated ( which I like) even though our revenue will drop significantly this year which will make everything tight.

He’s going to be working his balls off here. Massive opportunity for him to catapult himself with a promotion onto the football stage and he evidently wants it. Nice to see hunger coming to the club. Hopefully the scale of this opportunity for him means that he’ll be ruthless in culling those that don’t want to be here, or who’s attitudes stink. Only issue is when managers are very much under pressure, which he is to get this right, they don’t usually trust youth too much.

Yeah very much agree, there’s a real fine balance with possession football and it just looking boring on the eye. The fact he looks not to be to wedded to it is a very good thing. As long as he’s adaptable, integrating all of our youth consistently, gets a squad competing for promotion and playing for the badge we’re all happy. ( hard task but we have top championship players )

Biggest positive i see is that we have a squad that largely suits the style he would like to play. He will also play the style of football this squad wants to play, as post Enzo it’s evident most are wedded to that style of football and believe they’re good enough.

Hope he likes dickheads as we’ve got plenty

Pints in O’Neill’s first game of the season

It’s a training game being played in a training kit at the training ground

Yeah I do agree and I think he probably gets a bit too much stick, as ultimately he has been our best defender over the last 3 years. But his body language just comes across so arrogant, as if nothing is his fault and he’s above this club and frankly he’s not, he’s part of the reason we are where we are. It makes him an easy target and it’s his fault.

Living off scraps, there’s been nothing to talk about for so long

Realistically nobody knows, this club have ironed out most leaks, the press are also given nothing to work with. We try to operate in the utmost secrecy. There’s been hardly a rumour about him, and you’d think it would get out via the Jorno’s on the Wednesday side of things but no, pretty much nothing. Twitter IKS aren’t even gambling in this news. He may come, but to expect this to be a forgone conclusion and he should have signed from extremely little evidence is wrong.

We’re always after Brownhill so I’m sure we’re after him, on a free it’s a no brainer. Free transfers always manage to play the field and get higher wages than they’re worth through… Ramsey to Juve on 300k a week comes to mind

Great post and I hope this is how we play but I do think he’ll have to play a little differently here if he comes. Teams would try and play against Wednesday much more often than they will against us next season and we’ll find space won’t be given to us often. Space in behind wasn’t common for us last time, that’s why Enzo loved to bait the press. He’ll have to coach a good build up when we’re up against a block which can still be boring to watch, but that’s the same for anyone coming in. We do need to sort out our press desperately as it was the worst in the league last season and in the modern game so many goals come from high turnovers and Röhl as you say can coach that. One of the few advantages of Vardy going, is that we can play a 9 that can really put the pressure on them all game to help change that.

No I agree, the point was that it is possible based upon the rules and that’s why it’s being quoted by Tanner, The Athletic etc

I agree that it will be hard to make it stick, but it is still possible for us to receive a 12 point punishment, despite that being the reserved for administration

They won’t give us 12 for one charge, we’re potentially going to be charged on three separate charges, so accumulatively it’s been touted as 12

Brendan was by mutual consent I’m sure but we paid him full whack

Short answer, yes

If there is a steep drop off then yes that isn’t good, the figures I quoted were from February 2025 from AOT but we’ll see, they probably cited those of 2024. KP certainly have challenges as a business that are lingering from Covid, liquidity issues on top of that. But I just think the quotes and headlines from these articles, citing the end of KP Duty Free, and the company starving of Oxygen are a gross misrepresentation of the truth. On a side note absolutely peruse a life out there, I know a few people who have done so and non regret it !

Completely agree with the first point, these contracts were negotiated in 2019, Covid KP want a better deal. They’ve brought in a new CEO from AOT and they’re going after a better deal from AOT, starting from the base. ‘Removing ourselves entirely from the industry’ must be a quote that has translated from Thai poorly. You only have the change the wording to ‘those Industrys’ to gain a different picture. To suggest that ‘King Power Duty Free Company Limited’ are going to remove them selves entirely from the Duty Free industry is, and I’m sorry, simply a wild statement. That is not going to happen. I’m not trying to be a twat here, but you can’t draw that assumption as it’s not only cutting off their arm, it’s severing the head from the torso. King powers issue at the moment is its liquidity, they have had to borrow a lot from banks to cover their losses post covid. They have to pay that back, whilst also maintaining MAG, minimum annual guarantee payments to AOT, this is a challenge indeed, but something not out of the ordinary for any international business. Liquidity is an issue when profits are dropping, the article in question on this thread that I have questioned states the industry is declining. AOT actually stated earlier this year the below and it paints a different view. ‘ The CEO also mentioned the ongoing recovery of Thailand’s tourism sector. Although Chinese tourists are at 76-77% pre-pandemic levels, visitors from India, Russia, and Taiwan have helped compensate, supporting the duty-free sales recovery in line with passenger growth’ ‘Mr. Kerati affirmed that despite slight market concerns, AOT has seen a 17% year-on-year rise in revenue, driven by consistent passenger growth and MAG collections’ The Duty free market is still there, KP still have their Monopoly and that’s not changing. Yes they need to sort out their liquidity issue due to Covid loans. So they are going after an re negotiation for MAG’s at three airports. This is a perfectly reasonable approach and to be expected after the pandemic. Earlier this year they successfully negotiated with AOT for these MAG’s to be paid over a longer period of time, whilst also reducing the payment penalty for late payments, this will help their liquidity issue. The article I question paints a doomsday picture and that is my issue , the action KP are taking seems to me, reasonable. The article Forbes posted in 2023, a reputable source, paints a much more positive picture, talking of growth and expansion for KP. Tourist rates have only increased from 2023. I am only trying to make the point that this scaremongering article is a complete exaggeration of the truth, that’s is all. It sounds like I’m defending top to the hills, I’m not, the state we are in is due his and Rudkins poor decision making and negligence. But this article is blowing something out of proportion that I believe doesn’t deserve to be.

The ‘profitability’ he mentions, relates to the three regional airports, they’re losing money there. The ‘conditions’ is a renegotiation of the fee they pay for the monopoly in those three regional airports as the fee is based upon pre covid figures. They want this fee for the three airports lowered. ‘removing ourselves entirely from the industry’ relates to ending the monopoly of the three regional airports if they can not have the fee they pay lowered. These quotes are not about the entire monopoly.

All of those quotes are in relation to three regional airports, not the overall monopoly

Top is evidently out of his depth running LCFC, but these articles are akin to taking financial forecasting advice from page 3 of the Sun.

We can only speculate nobody knows why to be fair. But this planned renegotiation will not have just been decided on the spots international organisations like KP don’t just suddenly decide to renegotiate on that day, fly top back and have talks. It could be anything.