Lillehamring

Exactly - if he makes the difference between us going up and not going up - whatever wages he's on will be money well spent.

Why has no one in this thread mentioned braybrooke? When we're up and running: 9 - Bristric (possible new striker, cullen, academy player) 8s - Braybrooke, Cullen, Chaplin, Page on rotation, mix and match (poss Hamza if we draw a big team in a cup game) LW - Mavididi (i think he'll start and watson will start to be involved later), Watson RW - Burns, Alves on rotation. I think coulibaly will cover the wings, BDCR cover the 8s and the odd run on the wings. I think, all things considered, to have 2 quality players in each position is great - I think all of these players are capable of getting into double figures at this level.

If Russell felt Otchere wasn't ready for L1 (he's playing in L2, so you'd figure this was his opinion), and a good move comes up, why hold up his season by holding onto him, just in case, knowing full well he's not in the manager's plans? We also have Opoku, Hutchinson and Evans, so there's your worse case scenario.

Wellbeck got 2 years, he's 35, henderson got 2 years, he's 36, butland got 2+1, Morita got 2+1, targett got 2+1, darlow got 2+1, long got 2 years at southampton, Larin got 2+1, ince got 2 years from tranmere It's not exactly unheard of.

If you think about it logically, he's probably going to be paid the same amount whether his contract is 1,2 or 3 years - just getting a different amount each month. By giving him three years, if he's good we have a player ready to play next year regardless of which league we're in. If he's only on a 1 year deal, we'd have to either resign him (on championship wages) or spend money on a replacement. If he's poor, he's easier to move on on a low monthly 3-year salary, than a higher monthly 1 or 2 year salary. If he turns out to be crook, and can no longer play, don't we have insurance for that kind of thing? I think they've thought this through.

Apart from those who think he's - too old - too expensive - too injured - blocking Alves' career - earning too much - not good enough

Sure, I figured it was called something, but you got my meaning - i'm still inclined to call it FFP!

Well I think that shows just how different this season is going to be!

With regards to the supposed three year contract - would i be right in thinking that it would mean, from a PSR POV, we can spread the cost of his fee over three years? isn't that a good thing?

I think the other factor here that is crucial to remember is that all those players are versatile: Aluko - can play RB, LB, CB, RW. JJ - RB, LB, RW Page & Braybrooke can play #6 or #8 Alves - can play as an #8 , RW possibly even up front. It's not like any of them are waiting for one specific first team to drop out.

There's nothing (apart from recent historical managerial precedent) to suggest these players won't get game time - even the most pessimistic of fans has to believe that if he's giving Joseph and Aluko the armband in pre-season, he has every intention of using them. Even last year under cifuentes, whilst he started with the experienced players he was gradually phasing in the younger players (ironically when our form started to dip). I know we've been here, year in year out, hoping this year will be different. I think what gives me hope is just the sheer numbers of young players with L1, L2 or EFL experience, available to him, that the risk, especially at this level is not so great.

I agree - but I think what the tinkering has shown him is that he has lots of options: as it stands he has 5 players who can play at #6 (skipp, hamza, page, braybrook, neale). Plus various options at 8 and as a false 9. This is what I'm happiest about - in previous years we've known who the first XI will be with little variation and pretty much where every player (perhaps bar skipp and page) was going to play. We have so many options this year, the chances of things getting stale, of players getting complacent is exponentially reduced.

Those of you expecting to see thomas, skipp, okoli & mavididi absent, are probably going to be disappointed. Maybe long term, but I suspect he'll feel it's too soon and too much of an unknown to start Watson and Macfarlane. And Skipp, I know a lot of you hate him, but he's been good throughout preseason and has been pretty much first choice - as good as page is, he's not ahead of skipp in the pecking order, and i believe braybrooke (a natural 6) has been earmarked for one of the 8 spots. Also, unless Alves is considered fit again, it'll probably be Couliabaly on the right. If he opts for what he feels is his best available XI, i'd expect to see: Jakob - Joseph/Okoli/Souttar/Thomas - Skipp - Alves or coulibaly/Chaplin/Braybrook/Mavididi - Cullen Which I think is a) a nice balance of young and old and b) more than good enough to get a result.

I can only say that, although the outcome is concrete, the exact reasons and causes of this outcome are at best, and always only ever have been guesswork. I have seen so many people blaming things on Rudkin, for example, that are not and were never his responsibility. I've seen so many people screaming 'mismanagement' and overlooking the fact that they are talking about things that dozens of other clubs are also guilty of. So much blame thrown on the owners, when a good deal of the problems are unpredictable things like defensive errors in games, missing penalties and so on, unfortunate injuries, maresca leaving. Too many people have oversimplified an extremely complicated spider's web of issues, by simply blaming top and rudkin, effectively, for everything. And i'm frankly sick to death of fans claiming to know the financial and administrative ins and outs of the club - a club that are famously secretive and insular. Even now, in this thread, posters claiming to know how much Burns' salary will be! And I have never 'stuck up for' anything, i only ever suggested that there is always more than one way of looking at a situation, against a barrage of fans who simply took their one idea - 'universal incompetence' - and beat the rest of the forum to death with it. So i finally come back and already get hit with the same criticisms and challenges,. This føkking forum - I give up.

You only have to look at how quickly our own fans turned on Monga last year, and the rate that his performances dropped off - and, though younger, he was for more experienced than Carr.

I have been off and on this forum for many years now; I still have a browse now and again, but don't post - the reason being, over the last few years I've tried to give a point of view that maybe our fall wasn't through neglect, incompetence or mismanagement, but an ownership doing their best to survive an unexpected series of events and the unfair restrictions of PSR; yes, they've been naïve, yes they've made poor decisions, that happens... Essentially for being an eternal optimist! And I stopped posting because I got sick of the inevitable 'oh, you most work for KP' comments, and the, yes, abuse, i was getting from members simply for not toeing the seemingly universal 'KP OUT' line. The forced negativity, the scapegoating and the bullying by posters/cliques of posters on here made it unbearable and a waste of time having an opinion that tried to look at both sides of the coin. It feels now that the club has started to come out of the other side - we seem to be operating within PSR, we've lost most of the high earners, Seagrave is starting to churn out the future, we have a new DOF, and there seems to be a willingness here to be positive again. For what it's worth - i think this is a good signing - Russell will hopefully switch between burns and Alves from game to game and within games. Just imagine a L1 defence having dealt with burns for 70 minutes suddenly having to cope with Alves!

Calm down. Firstly, i've never denied we need signings, just pointed out that we, erm, have actually made some and aren't really performing that badly in the market, all things considered. I certainly haven't accused anyone let alone everyone of being 'raving disillusioned loonies' - entitled, yes, sheep, yes, some other stuff, but not that - i just couldn't let such a false opinion, repeatedly stated, go by without comment. Thanks for sharing these predictions - but i have no interest in reading speculation of this kind and no idea what relevance it has to anything i've posted in this thread. Oh, and "Norwegian Tourist Fan" - ha ha - cause i'm the only fan on here who doesn't live in leicester. You know **** all about me or my connection to this club, so save you snide petty name-calling for someone you actually know the first thing about.

I'm sure there are many reasons to do so or not - my thought was entirely from the point of view of not wanting to strengthen a rival club. It feels like selling to us is likely to be more appealing to them.

This is also assuming that they'll want to sell him to a rival club.

The hypothetical element is that no one on earth can predict how a player will settle into their new team or what impact (good or bad) that will have on a team. No one knows - we can only conjecture. Regarding the striker situation - Nacho, for me was spent - he was ripe for replacement. The other 2 we've 'lost' are injured. And even if fit, clearly we're looking to add to them otherwise this thread wouldn't exist. What then do you expect the club to do - you can't sign players to cover short term injuries? I wouldn't have you down as the type of poster who has unreasonable expectations - but maybe we'll just have to deal with having ndidi/hamza/soumare as back ups this year - gasp! i know - shocking, but maybe we can't just go out and by superior players. FWIW, i expect us to play much deeper this year, in which case i agree with cooper, i'd put ndidi in the middle rather than ricardo.

Yes, but, as i said, most of that list are on it by virtue of the fact of having brought in 6 rather than 5. I'd argue that our FFP transfers weren't quite as cynical as the others, and also we only did one deal. As pointed out elsewhere - that southamnpton and ipswich have brought in more players than us, doesn't mean they've done better business than us - we shouldn't piss on our club just because other clubs have taken a different approach to recruitment. Besides, my point isn't that we've done better than everyone, it's that we have, despite what the OP suggested, done something - that we haven't done nothing and that more-or-less we aren't any worse than most of the league. If you step away from your hatred of the board to objectively look at our business this summer you'll see that it is fairly reasonable and in line with our position, that it stands out as neither remarkable or catastrophic.

Can't we? We managed to get Fatawu and Hermansen immediately after being relegated, with an untried manager and in the 2nd tier - or was that a different club that pulled that off? Not to mention getting players like winks and coady to drop down a league. We also have the best academy teams we've had in years - i think you underestimate what we've managed to get done.

I haven't said that. Southampton have brought in 13 players with only (jesus) Adam Lallana the only one with any PL experience, even downes and taylor have spent most of their careers in lower leagues - so there's really nothing to suggest they've strengthened. Whilst ipswich have gambled on some PL u21s who may or may not be able to step up to the top flight, whilst losing the keeper that pretty much got them promoted replacing him with a keeper with no PL experience. I fail to see how that business can be classed as 'strengthening'.

Unlike you and most posters here, i'll wait until i've seen the new players play before condemning them to the also-ran pile. And is our base really that much lower than these other clubs - we have stacks of PL experience, it's not like we're coming up with a first XI of PL virgins.

I suppose that depends on how you view KDH as a premier league player - this idea of strengthening/weakening is all hypothetical - my issue with these kinds of posts is that a) they're unproven conjecture and b) they seem motivated more in this fashion amongst our fans to be seen to hate the club and the board, this desperate need for something to moan about now we're no longer fun-winning leicester.