shen

You must have a stonking squad for him to just be a backup

Pff same same

Mad if we can get double the Monga fee for Page... The only difference would've been a couple of mil more on his fee if he played more. Once we dropped out of the PL, this was always going to happen. In League One we have no chance of holding on to this type of talent.

More enlightening than interesting

Time for a Diegem update: The key words for this half of the season are injuries, European challenges & inconsistency. Firstly, I have to remind myself that many of the team's niggling problems so far (January window just closed) have come from bad injuries to key players - Koba Koindredi (a star performer at the end of the previous season) tore his ACL before the season started and is yet to return; his replacement Pierre Dorival, who was playing great, got a double hernia at the end of December and is out for 2 months; my new star striker and top scorer Victor Orakpo, was first out for 7 weeks from start of September with a partially torn hamstring, and just picked up a calf strain which keeps him out for another 3-4 weeks; Morsi Machmoum, my Tunisian wonderkid right back, got a lower back stress fracture in November which kept him out for 6 weeks. He's only getting sharp again now; Machmoum's and my left back's cover, academy product Mamadou Dramé, got a hip injury end of October and he's only now come back again; New right winger, Emil Rohd, strained his neck, strained his calf and twisted his ankle keeping him out for a combined 2 months; New left winger, Richard Ndubuisi, got a moderate calf strain (6 weeks) and a sports hernia (5 weeks); Douglas Borel, transfer-listed and my only other right back, got two separate two-week injuries too, which made the situation extremely hairy. This, combined with the stupid Champions League registration rules which meant I couldn't register players later than September 3, a whole nine days before my first match, meant that I had some glaring holes in the team for arguably the most important games of the season. But let's start there - the Champions League: ----------- I felt (and still feel) extremely hard done by with the draw we got - and I was proven right. Away to Crvena Zvezda, we had the upper hand using our counterattacking setup, but despite outshooting them and having superior xG, we only draw 2-2. Following that, we travel to Bodø/Glimt and again we outplay, outshoot, out-xG them and again we let the lead slip and draw 2-2. This one would prove to be extra painful as you'll see later... Then, finally we debut home to Spurs, whom we outshoot, out-xG and just generally match toe-to-toe, but still lose 0-3 to. A trip to Benfica followed and they were ruthless - 11 shots, 7 on target, 5 goals - my team had no answer. 5-0 loss and we leave with our tails between our legs. Halfway point and it's looking extremely demoralizing. Two points from our two most winnable games and -8 GD going into arguably the four toughest final games. The gulf in class was too big. That was it - or so I thought. The next game we're up against Everton at home and we're getting cooked by Thierno Barry. 0-3 and we've barely passed the half hour mark. Miguel Carvalho, my transfer-listed Spanish attacking midfielder, who's frankly not good enough, gets chopped down by Mykolenko on 32 minutes, straight red, and Everton drop their AMC back to keep their defensive shape. I'm thinking "sod it, let's overload the middle and go gung ho". Carvalho turns into prime Messi and pissed-off Douglas Borel thinks he's the second coming of Ronaldo. We pull back two goals before half-time and Borel equalizes shortly after, only for Everton to get their only highlight of the second half - a corner - which Barry duly buries for his hattrick. We keep pushing and probing until defensive midfielder Raoul Danzabe Sanda, the guy who consistently defies his 5 finishing, equalizes in the 83rd minute. 4-4 at FT. A crazy game, in which we were dead and buried only to get resurrected Jesus-style with Carvalho getting a goal and three assists... and still not win. I look at the table and it's a long shot. We probably have to pick up two wins from our last three against Juventus (H), Man City (A) and Porto (H) to have a chance of qualification. I took a bit of heart from the Everton game and pick much the same team against Juve, but I tweak things after the lessons from that last game - and boy does it work. We play the perfect game. With just 32% possession we have 13 shots, 5 on target and score 4 goals with Orakpo getting a hattrick (and his only goals all tournament!), but maybe more impressively we restrict Juve to just three shots on target with a total xG of 0,38. 4-0 at FT and what a boost this is! Easily the performance of the season if not the entire save. The away game at Man City, leading the league phase at that point, was cruel though. We actually played fine and contained them well on the whole, but Haaland is just a cheat code. He scored 4 goals and we get a late consolation. I can have no complaints about this one. The last game, at home to Porto, is win or go home. We're already struggling with Orakpo and Koindredi/Dorival all out, which means we have very little edge or creativity in the team. And this Porto team is at least as strong as Benfica, but we did pull off the miracle against Juve ... Well lightning didn't strike twice. We put up a great fight and with some luck, we could maybe have won it, but it ended in a surprising 0-0 draw, considering the amount of goals we've shipped, which meant we are eliminated on 7 points. The last team to make it through are... Bodø/Glimt on 8 points! That hurts. Annoyingly, they played Maccabi Tel-Aviv, Olympiacos, FCSB and ourselves - all teams that got knocked out, but ironically they were the only team to beat Man City (and who says FM is unrealistic?!), so I guess they deserve it, but still.... urgh. ----- In the league, matters have been less spectacular, but we have been equally leaky it feels. At this stage we've already conceded more goals than last season's total - with 11 matches still to go. And I suppose that's been my main issue. We've gotten weaker at left back/wing back and missing Machmoum for close to 2 months has been bad for us. Despite considerably strengthening the central defense with Kelven Frees and Ukrainian international Maksym Talovierov, we've been let down badly by Milo Roekaerts in goal who has been pretty poor - to the point I dropped him for three straight games for my youth keeper because I got desperate. "Form is temporary, class is permanent" bla bla ... a poor September (with those damaging first CL draws) and a disastrous October gave us our longest winless run of 5 games, which I feared would derail the season, but we're still top of the league and only Club Brugge look like they can keep up with Antwerp (6 points) and USG (9 points) well behind already. With the CL being over and Club Brugge killing us 3-0 in the Croky Cup QF, we only have the league to focus on. So from having tons of injuries, constantly tired players and regular beatings, we're facing a very quiet second half of the season with just 11 games left from beginning of February until end of May. My squad should cope fine with this and I will not accept anything less than a title defense at this point. ----- A quirky thing happened again though and this time I've reported it on the SI forums. Just like Morsi Machmoum, the club have somehow signed a player (Jack Diarra from Espérance Tunis) during the January window, which I had absolutely no prior knowledge of or input on. I just received a message that the transfer was complete. I would be severely annoyed with this if it wasn't because he actually looks really good - and the club got him on a bargain, very much like the Machmoum loan-to-buy deal. Although with Machmoum I thought it may possibly have been a pre-arranged transfer (even though he's got a regen avatar) from the start of the save as he arrived one day after his 18th birthday in the 2028 summer window, so I didn't think to report it. This time, Diarra is a 23 year old Burkinabé player, so that theory goes out the window. Still, he's been promised a star role and it will likely mess with my squad dynamics as I am already pretty well set in his position, so time will tell if this was a poisoned chalice...

Isn't that the RM template? Get used to it. Still better than no goals.

I mean, seven of the XI starting today were first team regulars during maybe our worst season ever. Despite getting rid of most and signing a lot of new players, we've only put ONE new signing in the starting line up along three Academy products. I would've expected more changes honestly.

Just smacks of poor scouting and lack of communication between the recruitment and management staff. We've over relied on agents coming to us with players rather than us targeting certain players.

Surely just retrain as a striker... But looking at his physicals, I'd doubt he's got any leftover potential points to retrain

Absolute trash. "One of the country's most recognisable sporting brands" ... yeah, who are languishing in the third tier due to gross mismanagement and incompetence. How is it "relegation [hurting] everyone connected with Leicester City", yet you seemingly smash merch sales targets and sell out season tickets (is this true?) The scarcely veiled attempt at generating more income from local businesses by "promising to grow alongside and play an active role at the club" sounds so incredibly insincere. Another piece of evidence of how remote this club has become from the general public.

That's a pretty big assumption. Is it unthinkable that a rival young keeper would emerge in the next few years? And because you're England #1 doesn't necessarily mean much either. It's been a long time since England had a genuine top class keeper.

Yeah, I can see your point of view as a fan. It's probably faster and easier to establish defensive patterns of play than good offensive ones. From the highlights, it's quite convenient that Ikwuemesi has looked decent while the transfer window is open. Is he still rumoured to England? What core will Simons build his team around?

But that's my point. I was objecting to the comment that because Monga hadn't "played much for us before jumping ship", that was a reason to care less about how he gets on. Kanté was someone who was here for just one season, but every Leicester fan will hold him in high regard and care about him. The difference was the part he played in our historic season, whereas Monga was part of two dreadful seasons - so the amount of 'playing time' is not exactly a good reason, is it? And then I asked whether Monga's football upbringing in our Academy and his 'local' heritage (certainly more local than Kanté) wouldn't be a plausible reason to care about his career after Leicester. It's fine not having an affinity for Monga, but at least frame it correctly instead of saying it's because he wasn't "playing much".

Wasn't he at Bolton at the time? Edit: ah, he went to Bolton AFTER us.

If you're not trolling, just say it - you don't care about Monga because you didn't rate him and he played in a poor team* which went through two relegations. It comes across petty and argumentative for the sake of it to dismiss him as someone who "barely played before jumping ship" - the lad made 34 appearances before his 18th birthday, surely a club record, and spent ten years with the club. He's shown a helluva lot more loyalty to the club than that to deserve such a callous response, in my opinion. (*Ironically, the poor squad probably meant he was fast-tracked into the first XI and the club made a decent amount of money from him as a result.)

"because he didn't play for us for long, before leaving." Obviously their impacts are different, but then it's just about being honest about that fact - that it's not the time spent in the first XI but rather the impact the player had for the first XI.

Which is fair. Do you feel the same about Kanté?

Splitting hairs here, aren't we? He's been at the academy since the age of 8 or 9 and spent his formative years at our club. I think you have to be a bit pedantic to start arguing he's not 'local' because he was born in a city which is less than an hour away from the club. But fine, have it your way.

But the guy is someone who's spent formative years at the club you support. He's local, has family supporting the club and is a product to some degree of the culture you come from. Surely that's a reason to have at least a passing interest in how he gets on?

So the hype starts. Trey Nyoni already being bigged up by the media and Monga also getting an article on the Beeb after 30 minutes in a friendly. It'll be interesting to see if he can navigate all the noise around him and develop into the player that he's touted to become. Would be great to see a product of our Academy hopefully follow in the footsteps of Lineker, Heskey, Chilwell, Barnes and even KDH.

Kevin Phillips was decent

Feyenoord are looking to offload Casper Tengstedt. Probably outside our price range, but after a few seasons of being a bit-part player there and at Verona and Benfica, he probably hungers for a bigger role.

The poo really hit the fan once we sacked Rodgers. 9 managers in 3,5 years. If you exclude Enzo who was here a full year, that's 8 managers in just 2,5 years, which is bonkers.

I'd be slightly concerned at the gung ho style that meant they've shipped 12 goals in two friendlies. I know the quality of opposition is superior and the floodgates opened late in the games, but still. The goalkeeper doesn't inspire confidence. But some encouraging play going forward. Best of luck for the season!

Probably five, six years ago. But yes, besides FC Midtjylland last season, Danish clubs have been largely anonymous in Europe for a long time. Incidentally, FC Midtjylland were already knocked out in the EL qualis, although they had by far the toughest draw against Besiktas. FC Copenhagen are the worst they've been in decades, so I wouldn't expect much from them this season either.