CarolinaFox

I think his value to the club goes well beyond any potential resale fee. The main reason he's been given a three-year contract is because of what he can contribute on the pitch and his ability to help us get back to the Premier League. If, over the next three years, he plays a major role in securing back-to-back promotions and getting us back to the top flight, that would be worth far more to the club than any transfer profit we might have made. Sometimes the biggest return on a player isn't resale value—it's the success they help deliver. Overall this feels like a solid signing.

Don’t strain yourself — it’s basic accounting. If a club owes you money and you owe them money, you net the balances. The £25m is just the PSR headline, not the real cost

You’re looking at it the wrong way. We didn’t buy Skipp to “offset money owed.” The simple point is that Skipp didn’t actually cost Leicester £25m. Cooper wanted him, and both clubs structured the deal so it appeared as a £25m purchase for PSR. That number is just the accounting figure — not the real cost to us — because Spurs still owed us money from the Maddison deal. If we were paying £5m a year for Skipp while Spurs were still paying £8m a year for Maddison, we’re still £3m up each year. Over the term, that’s a £15m surplus. So when you look at the real cost, Leicester effectively took Skipp + £15m instead of waiting 5–6 years for the full Maddison instalments. We needed a premier league player for a survival push, and Cooper believed Skipp could help right away. The “£25m for Skipp” figure is just the PSR number — not what we actually paid, or the real cost to us. That's what I'm saying.

I don’t actually think Skipp “cost” us £25m in real terms. Remember, we sold Maddison to Spurs the summer before for £40m, and they still owed us instalments on that deal. When we signed Skipp, it had to look like a normal £20–25m transfer on paper for PSR reasons, but in reality both clubs probably just lined up the payment schedules so the money basically cancelled itself out. Instead of Spurs sending us £8m a year for Maddison and us sending them £4m a year for Skipp, they just mirror the payments. On the books it looks like we’re paying Spurs, but in real life Spurs are still paying us more than we’re paying them. Spurs get to book Skipp as pure profit, we keep Maddison income on our PSR, and everyone’s accounts look clean. So no — Skipp didn’t really cost us £25m. Not in any meaningful, cash‑out‑the-door way.

What's the deal with Wrexham taking all of our old players...how many would that be now? Coady, Matty James, Lewis Brunt, Danny Ward, Callum Doyle (although he was a loan with us) and now possibly Souttar! Guess we're just a Wrexham feeder club now.

I think your take is solid. My heart still wants him on RM’s staff — especially with so many academy guys likely making up the squad this year. Having someone like Fuchs to help anchor a young group would be huge for the club. But my head agrees with you: he looks ready for a number‑one job. Assistant at Charlotte FC for a couple years, manager at Newport. As you said, he probably didn't feel like he was going to be supported with recruitment this summer and felt like his stock was highest now to get a better job. Good luck to him, Leicester legend, and a Charlotte FC legend as well (my other club). Can't say enough good things about his character. Would absolutely love him back here in some capacity.

Recruitment is the biggest issue in my opinion. If the team can bring in the players Martin needs to thrive, the tactics can work in League One and in the Championship. I think we will have an advantage being in league one, with the academy players we have and the loans we can attract. If we are trying to play possession style football Martin's way with league one players then it will absolutely fail. But it will have to be a full squad who can play this way - not just a few marquee players. Martin's appointment to me says that the club are approaching this as a complete rebuild. So for me its not all about the tactics, its about the players we get to make those tactics work.

I completely agree - I'd expect us to look at loans for younger academy products from premier league teams.

Martin's selection tells me that we will be a primarily youth driven team. Look for us to go get some premier league loans for younger players, to integrate players like Alves, Braybrooke and Page into the squad this season. We will need one if not two new CB's that are quicker, and much better on the ball (one if Nelson stays, two if he is sold). We will need a left back or right back to play the inverted midfield role as well. Winks will most likely stay unless we can sell him and get a better profile of player (not judging character here) to play that same role. And striker. We need 1-2 strikers. Any ideas who could fit those roles?

Its never really done until its announced - Jesse Marsch being a prime example.

St. Pauli just let go of their manager, Alexander Blessin a few days ago. He would be such a better fit than RM. His football is almost the exact opposite of Martin - high intensity, physical, pressing heavy. We could boss League One with him.

I have a hard time trusting people with "inside information" - last year we were told time and time again that Danny Rohl would be our next manager from people with connections inside the club - to find out he never interviewed. "Journalist" like Alan Nixon have everything to gain and nothing to lose by working for agents, putting managers names out there and then backtracking.

If I had to guess, its probably because they don't see Challinor being a good fit for the squad profile we will likely have this year. Challinor is a great promotion specialist, but he isn't known for being a coach that develops younger players. Doesn't mean he can't do it - its just that his teams are generally older. And there's nothing wrong with that. The problem is that Challinor would probably want an older squad for a promotion push with limited resale value and we would end up needing to replace large parts of the team next year if we were promoted. Mccarron may really want to build around our younger players. And that's the only area Martin would have an advantage: his work with young players. Alot of us want to see the younger players integrated into the team, but you have to have a manager who is interested in that type of rebuild, and you would probably want to hire a manager with experience doing that. Maybe Challinor wouldn't be interested in that type of project. Just some thoughts.

Really disappointed is an understatement. We needed a rebuild with a new face and someone we could get behind. This feels like the summer we appointed Cooper. A train wreck in slow motion. Totally surprised if this happens. Martin is not the guy I thought McCarron would go for at all. If they hire Martin they need to put their money where their mouth is and give him the team to succeed. I don't want this brand of football, but if that's the direction we're going we better do it right.

But that actually tells us a lot about him as a manager. His good start masked his inability to be practical when changes need to be made. I just don't think that type of manager is who we need when we are playing on poor pitches, needing to pull out some ugly wins, and against sides that will park the bus and ask us to break them down.