Drain the Swamp

The indications are that finances are much better for the 23-25 period.

What unknown managers have we signed under King Power? Sousa: Big name as a player, poor manager. Eriksson: Huge name as a manager, flattered to deceive here. Pearson: The man they inherited but deemed too unglamorous. Built the foundations for the greatest period in our history. Ranieri: Big name, big personality, greatest season ever. Shakespeare: Literally on the coaching staff. Did well in the UCL. Puel: Ex-Southampton. Horrible football, incredible recruitment. Rodgers: Big name, big rep. Briefly incredible, ultimately ruined us. Smith: Ex-Villa. Appointed too late. Maresca: Man City U21 boss. Arguably the closest thing to unknown in King Power's tenure. Success. Cooper: Ex-Forest. Always the wrong appointment. Van Nistelrooy: Big player name. Somehow worse than Cooper. Cifuentes: Ex-QPR. Out of his depth. So the only managerial appointment I can see they've made who was even close to unknown as either a football manager or player in England was Maresca, and he's turned out to be a class manager. Frankly, I wonder if the club hierarchy actually do better in recruitment when they use their imagination instead of going for the most famous or well-known name.

Compared to who we're now down there with, yes. It's a midtable side, not a relegation one.

I honestly find it puzzling. 'Not wanting Rowett' ≠ Let's see if Pep or Simeone fancy it. We have just dispensed with the services of an underwhelming, mediocre Championship manager whose former team improved after he left. Why employ another? The sensible option is to look for a younger, up-and-coming manager from either the lower leagues or abroad. Cifuentes was on an even trajectory of mediocrity. Rowett is a downward trajectory. Let's go for someone who'll conceivably have a better CV in five years, not someone who had a better CV five years ago.

It's also been a poisoned chalice for most. Since Ranieri, only Maresca has left us with his reputation enhanced. Puel, Rodgers, Smith, Cooper, van Nistelrooy and now Cifuentes have all had absolutely torrid times here. FWIW I think Skubala is what we need. Upwards trajectory, experience with youth and tight budgets, hasn't relied on a glittering playing career or a big reputation or ego. He seems to have built a great team spirit at Sincil Bank as well. He is genuinely the closest thing we could get to a Pearson regen. And that's exactly why he may want to stay where he is currently successful and wait for a more attractive, stable and less risky Championship job. That's not to say we have nothing attractive about us. The deduction is survivable if the players find the right system and play to their abilities. If Lascelles stays fit, Fatawu picks up his form and James picks up where he left off before his injury, 6 wins from here to May becomes doable. Then the new manager will see dead wood carved from the wage bill, probably a reasonable amount in transfer fees and most definitely a shit ton off the wage bill. Indications are that 23-25 was much better in terms of finances, giving an actual transfer budget on top of genuinely world class training facilities and a productive academy. A project manager might be persuaded to look at us and say he could have a club like that back in the Premier League, perhaps even sustainably, by the end of a five year contract. They might even see us as a new Sunderland. But let's not pretend it won't be a sell. The new manager could just as easily be the new Marti Cifuentes as the new Enzo Maresca.

This attitude isn't it. This is how Forest went 23 years outside the top flight while calling themselves 'world famous' between defeats by Cheltenham and Port Vale in the third tier of English football. Now their European titles are a pub quiz question and they're better known for being the most unlikeable club in English football and having a fat lunatic for an owner. They're probably two or three years behind us, by the way. Never mind the past, look at how we can sustain it. We actually did for a good five years after winning the league. We didn't hang on to the past, we built a completely new and better team with the riches from the last. No nostalgia, just careful, thoughtful ambition. Then what happened? The care and thought went out of it. We went from a well-run and sane club to a clown troupe. Balls to being world class ten years ago if all it does is highlight how far we've fallen.

Yeah, they're going to appeal aren't they? I can't blame them in a sense as there's no precedent of a club getting a worse punishment after appeal. If they claw back even one or two points, it could be a game changer.

There is no reason to be positive this season. Unless the entire team gets a personality transplant and suddenly goes on a rollicking winning run to fire us to the play-offs, the only outcomes are disappointment, embarrassment or outright catastrophe. We need to write this season off. And unless we learn from this, we need to write next season off too. Possibly the next five years. What's needed is Rudkin being removed from daily influence, as he won't be sacked for as long as Aiyawatt has a hole in his arse, the vacancies to be filled with people who understand the game and how to build from **** all and a readjustment. Above all, the hierarchy needs to understand that we aren't the Leicester City that won the Premier League, FA Cup, were European regulars and were the blueprint for every similar-sized club in the country. We are now Blackburn Rovers with a better academy and training ground. They need to understand that they are as responsible for the decline as they were for the period between Vichai's death and us winning the FA Cup, getting successive top five finishes, smashing the Premier League away win record and a European semi-final in three years. They need to look at what they did between 2018 and May 2021 and contrast it with everything they've done since. Imaginative scouting, a clear identity, succession planning and understanding what we are and have become. I won't hold my breath, but we quite simply need a project manager who sees the bigger picture. Someone who knows how to work on a budget, how to bring through young players and how to develop a siege mentality. Simple as that really, because the summer rebuild is huge. Massive. We'll need a completely new team. The summer of 2026 will be a crossroads between revival and permanent decline. It is that simple.

It's survivable if some ****ing backbone is shown. Hopefully this will be the kick up the arse these twats need, if only to get them better clubs when their contracts run out. If we survive, they don't deserve applause, narratives of 'survival against the odds' or any of that bollocks. They 'achieved' the bare ****ing minimum. A team with our wage bill should be looking at a six point deduction as an obstacle in our way to winning the title, not something that puts us in real danger of being in the same division as ****ing Salford next season. Aim for 21st, tell the high earners to pack their bags and **** off to Saudi Arabia or whoever else will be ****ing stupid enough to pay them their demands and promote the youth players next season, look for genuine bargains and start again. This is post-Sven Leicester City with knobs on now. We need a new Pearson to get us back to no-bullshit basis. Then and only then can we start thinking about even beginning to get back to the Premier League.

Skubala would be great if we could get him. Don't be put off by the PE teacher origins as his trajectory has only been upwards since. He's worked with academies, Leeds as an assistant coach and now doing a superb job at Lincoln. The issue would be the sell; Lincoln could conceivably cross us as they go up and we go down, and he's absolutely loved there. That being said, he may well back himself to keep us up and, with the monkey now off our backs, could see it as a fresh start with an excellent academy (where he's specialised,) facilities well beyond what he's worked with in his career so far, probably some money to work with after all of the outgoings in the summer and the chance to build his career at a club who, with all due respect to Lincoln, have a much higher ceiling if run correctly. Given he's done all he has at Lincoln with one of the smallest budgets in the league, you'd say there's some grit and siege mentality there as he gets players to play above themselves. Probably the closest realistic thing to a Pearson regen out there.

I don't think it can, can it? Effectively punishing the club for exercising its right to appeal.

Let's take 21st on the chin for this season, totally decimate the dead wood and go back to the model that actually worked under Pearson. Let it be a lesson.

Dear Mr. I’m-Too-Good-To-Call-Or-Write-The-Fans: This’ll be the last package I ever send your ass! It’s been three years and still no review, they don’t deserve it? I know you got the Foxes Trust's last two letters; they wrote the addresses on ’em perfect So this is my season ticket I’m sending you, I hope you hear it I’m in the car right now, I’m doing 90 on the A46 Hey Top, I drank a pint of Tiger, you dare me to drive? You know the song by Phil Collins, In the Air of the Night? About that guy who coulda saved that other guy from drowning? But didn’t, then Phil saw it all, then at a show he found him? That’s kinda how this is, you coulda rescued the club from drowning Now it’s too late, we're on our way to League One, we're drowsy And all they wanted was a new Director of Football I hope you know I ripped all of your pictures off the wall We loved you Top, we coulda been massive, think about it You ruined it now, I hope you can’t sleep and you dream about it And when you dream, I hope you can’t sleep and you scream about it I hope your conscience eats at you and you can’t breathe without us See Top; shut up bitch! I’m tryin’ to talk! Hey Top, that’s Jordan Ayew screamin’ in the trunk But I didn’t give him a new contract, I just tied him up, see I ain’t like you ’Cause if he plays every week, he’ll suffer more and then he’ll leave too Well, gotta go, I’m almost at Seagrave now - Oh, shit! I forgot! How am I supposed to send this shit out?

Great if he stays fit. A decent partner for Nelson at last.

That doesn't look the most challenging of pools....

Let's be realistic here. This is going to be a total rebuild forced upon Rudkin. Begovic, Nelson, Ricardo, Fatawu, Faes, Vestegaard, El-Khannouss, Monga, Daka, Coulibaly, Winks and Ayew will all most likely leave. You could all but make an out of contract/leaving XI with it. There will be promotions from the youth side as I suspect Aluko, Page, Braybrooke, Alves and Evans will most likely get minutes. That still means we'll need five or six new players in.

Kin hell, I'd back the 1997 Coca-Cola Cup winning squad, 59-year-old Ian Marshall and all, over the current reprobates.

That assumes a level of competence, even in spite, I'm not prepared to credit him with. If he tried to destroy the club, we'd probably win the UCL by accident.

Daka and Ayew are barely hobby footballers, so he'll fit right in.

Because Rudkin is an absolute minge of a man.

God, you're not that awful chairman are you?

I just said that name out loud and my furniture started levitating.

I had an ex about 20 years back who was an absolute worldie. Rack like a dead heat in a zeppelin race, superb stamina and a fanny like a mouse's ear. Cracking smile, glint in her eye and a banging arse. Saw her on Facebook a few months back and those wangers have gone further south than our recruitment strategy, she's three kids by three dads, describes herself as 'full-time mummy' and has a feed full of Farage. This is an analogy, by the way. I'm more likely to go back to her than Enzo is to come back here. And for similar reasons.