The Fosse Way

I’ve noticed your arguments seem to be based entirely on things that haven’t happened (getting terrible new owners, Brighton getting relegated).

Spectacular goal

Probably someone more like Tony Bloom, Matthew Benham, American owners at Villa and Bournemouth who seem to make sound business decisions. This is the same logic that sees failing managers backed for too long - “because who else would you get?” All the while, there are other clubs managing to thrive because they either have intelligent people in positions or they have excellent succession planning. But again, it feels like you have no aspiration for the club to be as successful as possible and instead value sticking with people out of some kind of sentiment. Out of interest, did you want Vichai to sack Claudio?

Genuine questions. Putting aside pushing for honours and the top six and so on, what do you put the decline from established Premier League club to yo-yo club down to? Don’t you aspire for the club to make better decisions? Is it just that you don’t like conflict? It’s interesting to know the mindset. Surely you can see how the phrase “the club is in a relatively healthy state” can seem mindblowing to people watching clubs like Brighton, Bournemouth and Brentford become stable at Premier League level while we’re losing every week and set for relegation again?

Who remembers ALF? https://www.thefosseway.net/viewpoint/leicester-city-f623s-a7l6l

New from @ProjectReset 👇 On Saturday 15th February 2025, Leicester City fans will take to the streets to voice their frustrations with the club. To many outside of the club, Leicester City are exactly where they are expected to be this season – fighting for survival. The notion that Leicester fans are entitled for expecting better on-field performances entirely misses the point. Let’s explore five reasons why… https://www.thefosseway.net/viewpoint/leicester-city-project-reset-february-2025

Enzo acted more like a director of football than Rudkin does. Enzo set the strategy, even used his network to identify players. It was a quick fix but unsustainable, especially when you don't replace him with someone with similar values. It wasn't "luck" that we appointed Enzo - it was a good appointment - but it still reflected badly on the club's leadership that we constantly need managers who are strong personalities to make up for the weak leadership and non-existent communication from those above them.

Could use some of those hundreds of millions of pounds sloshing around to appoint some people who know what they're doing to run the football operations.

From watching the games, most fans wouldn't think we're worse in general play now than we were under Cooper. The biggest factors that are leading some people to think Cooper was better than van Nistelrooy would probably be: Injuries to Hermansen, Ricardo, Fatawu and Ndidi Red cards for Ipswich and Southampton Change in Vardy's goalscoring form May as well look at some stats to back up that feeling though. The xG under Cooper and van Nistelrooy has remained pretty steadily at a 2-1 defeat on average across their games. The big difference is that under van Nistelrooy we're conceding 0.34 goals per game more than our xG would suggest we should be. If you look at the underlying numbers for xG and goal over and underperformance, there are 8 outlier games (our numbers first for consistency) Under Cooper Crystal Palace (A) - xG 0.4 - 2.5 (actual score 2-2) Arsenal (A) - xG 0.3 - 4.4 (actual score 2-4) Bournemouth (H) - xG 0.8 - 2.1 (actual score 1-0) Manchester United (A) - xG 0.6 - 0.8 (actual score 0-3) Expected points: 1 Actual points: 4 Under van Nistelrooy West Ham (H) - xG 1.7 - 3 (actual score 3-1) Wolves (H) - xG 0.8 - 1.1 (actual score 0-3) Manchester City (H) - xG 1.3 - 1.3 (actual score 0-2) Crystal Palace (H) - xG 1.7 - 1.8 (actual score 0-2) Expected points: 3 Actual points: 3 If you equate the Bournemouth and West Ham home games as one under each of them we won when we should have lost, it's the Wolves, Man City and Palace home games which make the difference - all of those should have been draws based on the xG. If RvN had Hermansen, Fatawu and Ndidi available for those games as Cooper did for the most part and/or the opposition get a red card and/or Vardy converts as he was earlier in the season, we probably win at least one of them, if not all three.

We don't usually post full articles elsewhere but making an exception for this due to the feedback we're getting about it and the current circumstances around the club. We're also speaking to people organising protests to try to help bring their ideas and activities into one place for people who don't use messageboards or particular social media platforms. And it saves you a click... Link here for anyone who wants to share the article: https://www.thefosseway.net/viewpoint/leicester-city-matchday-experience-january-2025 -- Why are Leicester City fans starting to protest? Take a look at our “matchday experience” If you want to get a feel for fan sentiment on a matchday, you don’t need a repetitive ‘Tell Us About Your Matchday Experience’ email or endless surveys. Walk amongst them. Down Raw Dykes Road. Or Saffron Lane. Or up Tigers Way on the traipse back to the train station. You’ll get a palpable sense of the mood and overhear snippets of debates and discussions that you’d never be able to fit on a PowerPoint slide in a boardroom. Walking away from the King Power Stadium on Saturday, as we passed the away end, I heard a Fulham fan ask with enthusiasm to what I assume was his young son: “Did you enjoy that, then?” The excitable answer came back. “Yeah!” It’s becoming a stadium at which away fans make memories. Where young fans of teams without a fox on their shirt deepen their enthusiasm for the game and their club. While young fans of our team often can’t get through the door. Did I enjoy that, then? It got me thinking… You get to the stadium and you’re greeted by queues. Queues to be frisked within an inch of your life by a Showsec steward. Queues because this overzealous security was brought in on a whim, or because people can’t get through the couple of turnstiles with the digital tickets the club has forced upon them. If you’re one of the many who objected, you swipe the piece of plastic that the club charged you £25 for, which is actually no different to the piece of plastic the club gave you for free the year before, and you’re into a soulless concourse. You might need the toilet. If so, you squeeze your way into toilets that haven’t changed for 20 years and which would not look out of place in a prison. You pass up the concourse catering because it’s of no creativity and little quality, or because you’ve taken a vow not to spend this season after the £25 ‘Loyalty Tax’ in the summer. By being in the ‘stadium bowl’ as the club like to call it, you’re actually one of the privileged ones. Either you have a season ticket, or you’ve paid for an expensive membership and extortionate one-off matchday prices. Or you might be a ‘friend’ of an existing season ticket holder and they’ve bought one for you. Hardly a great ticketing policy for bringing in the next generation or ensuring the underprivileged community of Leicester can get through the turnstile. At least they can get a sense of what it means to be a fan and see their heroes they only ever get to see on television, or on their Playstation, at those meet and greet sessions the club puts on during school holidays though, right? Wrong, there’s a £10 wealth filter applied to those as well. Anyway, now you’re in, you’ve got that light show. Or some black boxes that shoot out flames. A spectacle to which no one reacts and which no one ever asked for. Those boxes of fire don’t come for free, in the same way the army of Showsec stewards don’t either. It’s also a spectacle that plays out to largely empty stands as everyone is still trying to get through the frisking outside. The teams are out and the new stadium announcer - the one who really wants you to appreciate the wonder of ‘Number 16, Victor Kristiansen’ and emphasises every syllable - As. If. He’s. Announcing. The. Heavyweight. Bout. Of. The. Century! – is doing his thing. The one who replaced the old guy who’d been there years because he got a little over-enthusiastic in his questioning of Jamie Vardy about his contract at the trophy parade at the end of last season. The one announced with minimal notice and three buses of Thai influencers and hangers-on. The ones who’d been on the pitch with those Showsec stewards guard en masse after the Blackburn match. The team getting ready to start on the pitch aren’t wearing the same shirts as those few kids in the crowd who have been able to get into a stadium where the clientele have gone stale because of the club’s ticketing policy. Why not? Well, that would be because the club opted for a cryptocurrency gambling partner on the front of the shirts. When the billboards aren’t encouraging us to retire in Thailand or drink the horrid Chang beer we’re subjected to in the concourses, they tell us BC Game’s message is ‘Stay Untamed’. Reading about their financial struggles and claims of not paying winning customers online will tell you that BC Game very much live by their mantra of being ‘untamed’. A quick wave of your ‘Honesty Flag’ – you know, the ones you see people walking away from the ground with down the numerous roads away from the stadium – and we’re ready to start the match. Again, those ‘Honesty Flags’ don’t grow on trees – no one asked for them and they’ve contributed nothing to the atmosphere. The same can be said of the clappers the club still produces in volume every home game. The ones you see strewn over the roads and pavements as you walk away from the ground which somehow comply with the club’s sustainability policy which doesn’t allow the handing out of leaflets that signpost supporters to Mental Health support charities during World Mental Health Awareness Week. You know this because the atmosphere once the game gets going is patchy. And it emanates from two sections where there are no honesty flags but heaps of authenticity. The two sections that stand and sing, which at many other clubs would have been encouraged into one combined safe standing block, do so in what one could now assume to be ‘unsafe standing’. No safe standing at Leicester City though, because the club has been reluctant to take any meaningful position on safe standing for years. The treatment given to those in Union FS who operate with a mantra of ‘Leicester helping Leicester’ and run charity fundraisers and foodbank collections for the local community as well as putting on tifos that inspire civic pride? Spurious bans, handed out for minor indiscretions. Contemptuous and suspicious communication from club suits - if they engage at all, that is. Down on the pitch, it’s a squad of players that just isn’t quite good enough. A team managed by a man trying his best to undo the terrible work of the man who preceded him. Who prioritised Premier League experience over ability and resale value or the ability to grow with the club. We’re treated to the declining days of Jordan Ayew and Bobby Decordova-Reid. Halfway through the game, as the team emerges for the second half and prepares to commence a second half where another away section is likely to rejoice until the 90th minute, we’re treated to a mini video on the screen of past glories. Again, a video no one asked for, which has no positive impact on anything and is seemingly just the result of a few overpaid and out of touch people sitting round a table scratching their head about how to drive second half atmospheres. “They seem to like that pre-match video, why don’t we just do like a short version of that?” Up in the director’s box is where the finger of blame should be, and finally is, pointing. A director of football who cannot sell a player for money but can buy one like Oliver Skipp at £20million. A director of football in such deference to an owner, whose attendance at games is sporadic at best, that he daren’t sit on the front row of the director’s box without him there. A director of football who has handed long and bloated contracts to the likes of Jannik Vestergaard, Danny Ward, Hamza Choudhury and Decordova-Reid that will choke us financially for years. A chief executive who we can’t be entirely sure is still there. Last heard of in 2016 and whose approach to communicating with the club’s fans (sorry, customers) seems to be: “Don’t ask questions. Just trust me, bro”. An equal partner in the supposed ‘internal review’ that happened after the most avoidable and disgraceful Premier League relegation, but which delivered no discernible change. She will, at least, attend the Fan Advisory Board meetings, however, to stay tapped into fans’ concerns. The problem with that? The control the club exerted over the FAB selection process to temper any difficult voices getting onto it. And ultimately, an owner who has overseen the failings of both of these people. An owner who, if judged on his record from the day he took control, rather than based on the goodwill afforded to ‘the family’ or ‘the owners’ because of his dad, would be shown to be woefully short of the standard expected. An owner who, even in the aftermath of that disgraceful relegation, could only muster a letter (and I know it was likely written by the communications director, but he still must have signed it off) that essentially said: “Stop being mean to me”. The tide is turning. The fans are stirring. The Foxes Trust has doubled in membership. There are protests being mooted for prior to the Arsenal game. The chants are getting louder and changing from just being about Jon Rudkin, to ‘the Board’ (for Board, see Aiyawatt, Whelan and Rudkin). This is not entitlement as casual observers might try to characterise it. This is a culmination of years of bad decisions, of being treated like rubbish and with contempt by our club. On Sunday, the organiser of the pre-Arsenal protest explained that they had done so under the anonymity of a username and using a VPN. They were fearful that the club may ban them but still wanted to mobilise something to show the discontent amongst the fanbase. At first it sounds absurd to need to do that, but then you hear about the taps on the shoulder fans get from the communications director about criticism of the club online. I’m writing this piece under the cover of anonymity as well, for the same reasons. But then again, why should the club care? I’m just a number. Unfortunately for them, the numbers are slowly, but surely, finding their voice, getting together and getting organised. -- The Fosse Way Fosse Friday - free weekly email newsletter every Friday at 11am UK time

Roll up, roll up. Play the great Leicester City blame game: https://www.thefosseway.net/viewpoint/leicester-city-blame-game-january-2025

Would have been fine this entire time if we'd signed good players we could resell for higher prices. We've bought dross and stuck it on high wages, at the exact time the regulations have come in that require you to be good in the transfer market to succeed. The "we don't want any more Leicester Citys" doesn't work. Remove PSR and the likes of Newcastle and Villa would just have spent even more replacing us at the top.

He's on the pitch at Preston though, isn't he? He's on the open top bus weaving its way around the city centre with the adoring crowds celebrating a promotion only necessary because of the rank incompetence on his watch. @RYM has covered Brentford above. Brighton haven't won for 8 games and their CEO is going on national radio: https://www.northstandchat.com/threads/barbs-on-r5-now.411410/ They obviously get fans wondering if it's all going to shit - but look at the number of responses talking about the bigger picture, the bigger plan, how their chairman communicated with them last summer: https://www.northstandchat.com/threads/have-we-spunked-our-money-on-average-players-or.411226/ Until clubs like Brighton and Brentford overspend, have catastrophic seasons, get relegated or start signing terrible players on a consistent basis then you'll have to put up with our fans continuing to point to lots of different things they're doing as good examples of how to run a football club, because there's very little evidence they're going to do any of the stupid things we did. It's free learning and our club needs to take what it can before it's too late. This was 6 months ago, again referencing Brighton and Barber, and pretty much all still applies now: https://www.thefosseway.net/viewpoint/leicester-city-grand-vision This is a timely discussion right now anyway, as it's the Foxes Trust AGM next Monday and there are 3 new board members to be ratified, all ready to help bring a fresh approach and do what they can to hold the club to account: https://foxestrust.co.uk/membership

Meanwhile, on planet sensible... https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c7247423mmdo https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/sport/24343903.bill-foley-afc-bournemouth-hired-tiago-pinto/ https://www.brentfordfc.com/en/news/article/the-long-read-brentford-director-of-football-phil-giles-transfers

New nickname https://www.thefosseway.net/matchday/leicester-city-match-report-wolves-home-24

From here: https://www.thefosseway.net/viewpoint/leicester-city-94-ridiculous-things-2024 (There are 47 things to find in case any of you need a family-friendly Christmas activity)

Ruby Mace is a Lioness 🦁

Yeah that’s a very fair point. Will be interesting to see if it ever has a real effect to the point where the authorities feel the need to do anything. Seen so many Leicester fans say they don’t watch Champions League football any more for instance.

Probably a lot of the same thoughts covered here since the game but hopefully worth a read. There isn’t a huge amount of coverage elsewhere. https://www.thefosseway.net/matchday/leicester-city-match-report-manchester-united-women-november-2024 It’s stark just how little interest there is in the women’s team from the wider fanbase though. Visits to our site are about 5-10% for any women’s coverage. Games and seasons like this can’t help. But there’s still something very likeable about this team. They seem to always give 100% even if ability lets them down a lot.

We’ve just started up there if you’re looking for LCFC to add to your feed - TheFosseWay.bsky.social

Foxy Figures #2 of the season https://www.thefosseway.net/viewpoint/leicester-city-foxy-figures-september

Over on The Fosse Way we’re publishing long read articles about past away wins at each of our 19 Premier League opponents this season. Number 3 - Arsenal in the 1890s https://www.thefosseway.net/viewpoint/leicester-city-arsenal-death-disorder-decampment

Probably at the end where it says Rudkin in?

Today we ask: what is Leicester City’s transfer strategy? — When Jordan Ayew, Leicester City’s latest summer signing, came on for his debut at Craven Cottage, the away end burst into chants of “We want Rudkin Out”. To say Ayew’s signing has been met with scepticism in some quarters would be an understatement. To say Leicester’s summer transfer business has been a frustration would be similarly so. To say the jury remains out on Jon Rudkin as Director of Football would be stretching the concept of the word ‘understatement’ to breaking point. The Leicester fanbase doesn’t agree on much at the moment, but it does agree that the squad needs reinforcements. The away end on Saturday reflects an increasing frustration as August has drifted on, a feeling that the club has had so long to improve the squad and has found itself flailing around desperately in the final few hours of the window to try to strengthen the team. Steve Cooper has been open about his desire for new signings. It has been widely reported that he wants at least two more players in attacking positions before the window slams shut on Friday evening. Even the players themselves seem to be eager for reinforcements, with recent reports suggesting Wout Faes is ‘surprised’ by the lack of transfer activity this summer and considering his position as a result. Perhaps some of this is unfair. In many ways, if you exclude the managerial change, Leicester look like a classic promoted team from a previous era, where you keep the core of the side together and try to stay up on a limited budget. Of course, this approach now feels outdated, in an era when promoted sides go out and buy an entirely new squad to celebrate their achievement. Even in 2024, though, Leicester aren’t that much of an outlier in the Premier League. It’s easy to focus completely on your own club but when you zoom out, this whole summer has been a strange one at the top level. There have simultaneously been so many signings and not enough, with a handful of clubs signing an enormous number of players without improving their first team while others scramble around for scraps, bound by the limitations of the financial rules. — Full article: https://www.thefosseway.net/viewpoint/leicester-city-lcfc-transfer-strategy