leicesterseddon

It was really unfortunate today because we didn’t start well and unfortunately we’d had to deal with the international break too, which was unfortunate as well. Fact is the energy wasn’t there and we lacked energy unfortunately and the levels weren’t there, that’s the reality. And it’s frustrating unfortunately, because we had a lot of the ball and lots of shots, but we just couldn’t convert. What more do you want? What people have to realise is that our young players are young. They aren’t experienced players, actually they lack experience because they are young unfortunately, and that’s the reality. What more do you want?

Trying to work out why he keeps mentioning the number of shots we’ve had. Is that his counter-argument to the charge that his football isn’t entertaining? Or is he trying to say it shows the underlying level of performance is good, and we just need to be better at finishing? On the plus side - at least he didn’t mention possession!

I agree. Sticking it to the man on PSR is just a displacement activity from our own failure Our level of spending on player wages just a few years ago was completely out of whack and totally unsustainable Without FFP we would still be in this division, only in an (even) worse financial position than we are

Question has always been, how will we break down teams that sit behind the ball The answer so far is crosses with snow on directed at nobody in particular, and endless triangles on the edge of the box followed by weak shots

Might need to look at another option on the corners apart from Page…

Same old story so far Been numerous times we’ve had the ball in a decent position and nobody in the box Burns has looked awful

I thought they were crap at the time, but I think almost every player in our 2008/09 team would get into our first XI now. Unfortunately that also includes the “youth” players like Braybrooke (who will turn 23 this season, in contrast to Andy King who turned 20 during 08/09). There was also a base level of fitness and application that has been missing from the squad for a couple of years.

Yes it just shows total income tax paid by the residents of different local authorities (not necessarily where economic activity is actually happening). In and of itself it doesn’t affect the city council budget because income tax is paid to central government (although deprivation scores are relevant to the amount councils receive in government grant funding). What is more relevant to the city council budget right now is 1) the base for council tax and 2) the base for business rates. However, a future idea that has been floated by Burnham is to allow mayoral/strategic authorities to keep a designated % of income tax paid in their area in exchange for giving up some central government grant funding. This would not currently apply in Leicester because (unlike Nottingham) there is currently no strategic authority. But it would be relevant if/when there is one.

Re: leaving it late to sack Ruud because of accounting considerations Is that even a factor in League One? From what I’ve read, we are moving from a system that caps overall losses to one that links player wages directly to revenue What I’m not sure about is whether they need to delay a sacking again so as not to breach this year (under Championship rules)…

IMO some of our older fans believe the generation below them have been spoiled by success, and regard relegation as just another turning of the wheel Which of course totally overlooks the fact that anything other than finishing top next season will be an all-time historic low, and the speed of our decline… Fortunately there are also plenty of older fans who are capable of comprehending that what the club is facing now is probably not just a repeat of previous dips, but potentially something much more serious

We’d definitely need to have a fire sale of anyone on decent wages. Do any of the current squad have relegation clauses? As others have pointed out, reduced player wages alone probably wouldn’t cut it and we’d need to fire other club staff too. Probably need to look at reducing costs at the training ground (e.g. maintaining fewer pitches) and I imagine maybe selling Belvoir Drive. To be honest though nearly all of this will have to happen anyway, even if we stay in the Championship.

Was dealt a bad hand, and played it badly

Our underlying level of performance is not 3rd in the table. We will start to drop eventually unless we can create more chances. Dropping Soumare/Skipp is a good start but the problem really is that we have nothing up front. Has been obvious all summer but the club only acted on the final day of the window, and then only to bring in a loanee who has since failed to start a game. Personally I’m still seeing us as upper midtable at the moment, unless I see something to justify thinking otherwise. And that’s before the inevitable 6-7 point deduction

Do we know that? As far as I can tell, Cifuentes has never said what the target is this season, and our board don’t do interviews…

Despite a reasonable set of early results, I've been pretty horrified by the standard of football we've been churning out. The fact he hasn't yet rumbled players like Skipp and Soumare is pretty worrying, whilst benching Ricardo is just plain odd. Our first five games under Maresca in 23/24 also weren't great, to be fair, but I'd argue we had shown (a bit) more promise than this.

Awful again, as we have been all season (including our “great” performance at home against Brum mustering two shots on target) Initial sympathy for Cifuentes rapidly running out if he continues with Skipp, Soumare, Vestergaard, Ayew, and Hamza over Ricardo

So many red flags with this team selection from Cifuentes

Pretty hard to “build” a team these days given manager churn and the fact anyone decent will eventually be sold/leave. Given PSR, the only route for clubs like us is to gradually increase revenue from matchday/commercial so we can sustain a higher wage bill Rather than what we did, which is massively increase wages over a short period off the back of overperformance and player sales, which was never going to last, then crash when we inevitably regressed to the mean

I will feel better once we’ve mustered more than a couple of shots on target against a team that wasn’t in League One last year or likely to be next year. The team is just desperately crying out for a decent striker and someone in midfield who can actually pass it forwards more than a few times a game.

Stolarz Ricardo Okoli Vestergaard (God I hate saying that) Thomas Fatawu Winks Alves Monga Ayew Daka Will never happen though

Went today. Believe me we were absolutely rank, against a side that was playing in League One last year. Few conclusions: 1. Okoli was rubbish 2. He may not be popular, but Winks is a much better player than the dire Skipp/Soumaré 3. Good to see the academy lads playing, but it’s not fair on them or us to expect them to suddenly constitute the spine of the team 4. We are still an accident waiting to happen playing out from the back. Although it’s the new orthodoxy and the data boyz love it so can’t see it changing 5. My God do we need a proper striker

One of the big lessons from the Rodgers relegation season is not to stuff the first team with players out of contract at the end of the year, with no realistic prospect of staying…

We need to sign a proper striker or we have absolutely no chance of promotion. We cannot try and get by with Ayew and Daka in a 46 game season. As others have said, if you take out the wingers we are a pretty poor side.

Even factoring in a lawyerly thirst for billable hours, I really don’t understand why these cases require much more than a week or two to decide. In fact I still don’t really know why clubs aren’t required to publish their PSR-relevant overspends alongside their accounts. Surely the only thing that can really be disputed is which elements of spending are allowable, and even then I don’t see much scope for disagreement.

I won’t ever think it will happen until we get an estimated cost and precise details of how it will be paid for.