LCFCJohn

Well yeah, MON did it all. Won trophies, built a squad the fans (at the time before the fan base become soft) could relate to and left the club in a better place than he took it on. Pearson did much of that but didn’t win a ‘major’ trophy. But he picked us up in a worse position but he achieved MON’s first achievements which was to win the 2nd tier, get promoted and stay up. I don’t think we’d have won the league with Nige as it was a perfect storm and any individual factor that differed would have prevented it happening. But he would very likely have kept us up consistently and may well have matched MON’s achievements with the league cup. I recall we had some good runs under him even when outside the top flight. It wasn’t like he left for on field issues, it was his son and his antics.

Some people think the only thing that is important is winning trophies. There is much more, as you say, to being a great manager and how you take over and subsequently leave the club is one of those. Nige is the greatest as he is the only manager, arguably this century, to do that. Puel to an extent. Even Ranieri left us in a mess despite what was achieved.

That poster, I have never seen post anything contributing to the forum, just goes round posting laughing emojis. Ignore, for the best.

I haven’t seen anything of Chelsea, but if those stats at the bottom of your post are correct, they obviously sound good. I don’t know how they compare to where we would have sat in the same stats for the Championship that season (I know we scored the most goals with 89). But the eye test was that we were a hard watch a lot of the time which is what Chelsea fans probably find. We were regularly poor and all over the place defensively and were easy to beat (simply ball down our right defensive channel). Don’t get me wrong, there were times we looked very good, particularly the October/November time. Teams started to figure us out towards the new year. Had we been good defensively, and played with more tempo and moved the ball faster, I’d have been easier to watch.

Yep. Coady, Winks, new contract for Vestergaard all costing us. None of them are the characters we need around the club. Then there was Cannon who at least we turned a profit on somehow.

Disagree. We still wouldn’t have had positive recruitment and wouldn’t have had anywhere near the squad needed to make his style work as a newly promoted club into the PL. And he hadn’t shown himself to be adaptable in that he would have tried a different approach.

Agree with all that’s been said. Little substance, quite waffley and will get KP people back of side. I don’t know if it was the language barrier when he was saying ‘maybe it’s my fault’. I’m none the wiser as to whether he was actually taking accountability or being vague about it. He did seem quite sheepish and that is hard to fake. Maybe he has genuinely woken up or maybe a bollocking from him mum! Actions speak louder than works anyway.

Would probably still have been better than our options had we picked him up!

My view on Rodgers, as one of the first to want him gone, was that the appointment was not the problem. The excessive contract, the control given over and the delay in removing him (the latter affected by the former no doubt) are what killed us. I also don’t think he deserves too much credit for the cup win. Where he gets credit for me was taking it seriously with his selections in earlier rounds. But it was Schmeichel’s heroics and Tielemans wonder goal that were what won it. I actually thought Rodgers did his best to throw it away going very defensive with his subs. If Chilwell wasn’t a lazy t**t and had cut his toenails that morning, they go on to win as we had nothing left and were under siege.

Sorry to break it to you, but anybody who brought us the success left the club a long time ago. Vardy was the final one.

My 2 year old already says, if she comes in and I am watching us, ‘turn it off daddy, your football team is rubbish’! Smart kid

I said something similar the other day. Whatever we think of Rudkin, he has still been around football for an awful long time, probably his whole life. No doubt he has been promoted beyond his capabilities with stuff like negotiation and no doubt his integrity is in tatters given his part in all this and not walking away. But, given he is a football man, do we really think he truly thinks all this is just normal and acceptable? I’m really beginning to doubt this which then puts it firmly back as him being as you say, a yes man and Aiyawatt being the true decision maker.

Why does everything have to be either or? It can be both. As fans, we can absolutely condemn the chants and comment how vile and unacceptable it is whilst also seeing through the statement for what is. An attempt to play victim and get those wavering in their support for them, back on side. To comment on their motive for the statement as well as pointing out what it has unfortunately taken to break their radio silence is in no way defending the chants. Those suggesting it is are more of a problem imo.

It’s true that Aiyawatt and Rudkin get free rein to do what they want without being accountable due to the passive fan base though. Many other clubs fans would not accept their club is being run as we are now and would be together in demanding better. It’s not even about hounding them out, or it wasn’t. It can be about putting pressure to do better and be accountable. But whenever sections of the fan base have tried to do that, and I mean in the right way, not like this issue at Norwich, they have been turned on by large sections of our own fans. So our fan base generally is partly to blame here. Yes, things might have happened the same but we will never know, as they have been allowed to do this without being allowed to be criticised.

If this is the case, up to and including Rudkin, it just shows what a vile person Aiyawatt is to use these people as shield for his own incompetence and leaving them hanging out to dry.

Whilst the words to the chant shared above are unacceptable and cross a line, this response from the club is hugely embarrassing for the reasons other have said. They have caused this, not the fan base.

Yep that was me. And I got told that was rubbish. But they do a pre-season for a reason. Essentially going that long without playing at all needs some kind of ‘pre-season’.

2 hours and nearly 100 along the coast. Quite a way. I shouldn’t laugh anyway, we are a points deduction away from renewing our own rivalries with Northampton and Peterborough next season

This feels like the season we were relegated under Rodgers. Really poor but managed to get a win or wins when mattered to keep himself in a job longer but ultimately to our downfall.

Massive disrespect you are showing to Brighton and Bognor Regis’ rivalry here On a more serious note, surely Crawley is a more appropriate local one for them!

Buck stops at Aiyawatt. Despite Rudkin’s incompetence and being in a position he shouldn’t, he has still been around football all his life. I reckon Aiyawatt dictate things more than many care to believe.

Far down the last last summer after Skipp and Ayew. I felt it seemed the sort of signing Pearson would have made. I think it’s more what his signing was alongside than in isolation.

Agreed. I don’t think we have had enough turnover over recent years. Lack of positive incomings and many of those who have come in (Ayew/Skipp) have just added to the problem. We made some decent sales profit wise in the summer but let’s be honest, McAteer, Justin and Ndidi were hardly the problem in terms of the toxic squad. For me, the excuse that is regularly made for the club, you know the one, ambition blah blah doesn’t wash any more. I forgive Daka and Soumare as nobody criticised those signings at the time and that summer maybe yeah, we did show ambition, even if it failed. Since then, it is a string of failings. It would have been easy to implement a more sensible transfer policy. Most of the dossers now have been signed or renewed (Vestergaard/Thomas) since the start of the first relegation season. Even if we had taken it seriously since the moment we were relegated, by this next summer the worst case scenario would be the following left; Faes - 1 year VK - 2 years As it is, we will still have Vestergaard, Skipp, Thomas, BDR along with those 2 as ones I see as being a problem for us moving forward. Obviously if we don’t do anything stupid we will shift some in the summer that are out of contract but do we trust Aiyawatt not to give them all new deals for the reason you say?

It feels as though Aiyawatt hasn’t yet clicked that PSR is actually wages as well as transfer fees. The thick t**t has completely stopped transfer fees yet renews Thomas’ contract with a wage rise to boot. I can’t remember the numbers but apparently doubled, might have been around £20k more per week. Over a year that is £1mill which would cover the transfer fee of James over the contract. So if we don’t sign James, let’s just remember that Aiyawatt chose 3 more years of Thomas over James….

Surely the option was set in the event of promotion? If we stay in the Championship or even went down to L1, I would have thought it would be another summer of no transfer fees spent and loans/frees only.