DJ Barry Hammond

Oi! Behave! I’ll simply take a clean sheet tonight as an extra bonus and not look any further than that. 😂

Any news from the “I won’t be watching this shite tonight” crew yet?

King has certainly got these guys playing for him.

That was on a Saturday I believe. Anyway, any other issues, take it up with the BBC’s statististions, I merely copy pasted.

Apparently we are winless in our last 11 midweek matches - consisting of four draws and seven defeats. Our last midweek home win was in December 2024 against West Ham… with our last midweek win in the Championship being a 5-0 thrashing of none other than Southampton in April 2024. Fawatu scored a hatrick that night.

What I find astonishing is you addressed a sum total of zero of my points. I still have no idea why you’d think having Skipp drop in as an auxiliary centre half would be a good idea.

As do a lot of football clubs. This is much more to do with needing liquid funds up front for heavy spend periods - like transfer windows. TV money and transfer fees will come in tranches across the year, so borrowing the money allows you to get that cash up front. And you know - leveraging future income is a common business practice across any business - it’s not a strange thing to do.

Why not?

The club has borrowed money yes - but there’s been no suggestion the club hasn’t maintained it’s repayments on those loans. I believe the last batch of debt to equity swap made by King Power was £124 million in January 2025 - so I don’t believe the underlying balance sheet of the club is a problem.

If you’re going to spend £100 million + on a football club, you’re going to speak to a lot of people about the subject. You’re going to speak to football people, finance people, commercial people. You are going to want to properly know what your bidding on before you make an approach. It’s not something you just keep to yourself and then suddenly one day go “excuse me Mr Top, would you accept £x for your football club.”

Couple of examples of football club takeover rumours by the way. Bristol City https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c1j8rdy1l4wo Spurs https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/13426968/tottenham-takeover-club-unequivocally-reject-two-expressions-of-interest-in-majority-stake-and-insist-it-is-not-for-sale Manchester United (again!) https://talksport.com/football/3629120/turki-alalshikh-cryptic-man-utd-takeover-update/ None of these clubs are actively up for sale as far as I’m aware.

Buying a club would require a lot of due diligence - so if a party were interested they’d be sounding out all manor of people about the prospect, to the extent you’d imagine there should be some sort of rumour surfacing if there was anything close to a bid being made. The fan unrest would have been noted too by any party - would give them leverage in any deal - although admittedly, any party looking at a deal might wait until the end of the season now. That said, I doubt there is anyone in the wings - someone would have got a hint of something.

Your comments make no sense. If Top is looking for a few hundred million - why would he place the club in administration? Equally there’s nothing at present suggesting the club is not meeting its credit obligations - which is a scenario that could force administration. Yes the club is running at a loss - but so does pretty much every professional club at the moment - and those losses have been underwritten and converted to equity by King Power.

Our losses, whilst they are significant sums - they’ve been between £20 - £90 million a year - the Top’s families reported net worth is around £2.6 billlion, so those amounts remain in a sustainable position for them financially. And I’d say if there was a party actively interested in buying the club - they’d would have let themselves known during this fan unrest. They don’t have to wait for Top to put the club up for sale to initiate a deal.

Well he’s playing against a good calibre of player, so he will get beaten by wingers - just like Fawatu tournaments opposition wingers. But I’d say there are wider issues in our defensive setup and midfield that don’t help. Like say on Saturday with Birmingham’s second goal - Wink’s ended up as essentially a third centre half between Lascelles and Nelson marking Stansfield, which is a horrible mismatch. Now if your defensive setup and shape is more cohesive, one of Lascelles or Nelson should probably be taking charge and taking Stansfield off Winks so he can push on into midfield and help apply pressure on the ball carriers in front - which highlights another issue with Birmingham’s goal, because we were far too passive on Ducksch, we gave him time to pick his head up and spot the pass. On your comment about the “drifting” I assume you’re on about Dykes goal for Charlton the week before - where Thomas is splitting his position between his man on the edge of the box and providing extra cover for Dykes who is being marked by Nelson. Now, again, Thomas vs Dykes is a mismatch, so you’re ideally wanting Nelson to be the primary marker. But a key issue with this goal was Page being too aggressive in the press - which allowed Chambers to easily cut back onto his favoured left foot and pick out a ball of real quality… mean it has to be said, it was sublime by Chambers, it was an inch perfect cross! And then the other thing to remember with Thomas is Marti was asking him to do a lot in his system - he’d often find himself inside the 18 yard box via open play and that was by design as one of Marti’s “free man” fullbacks.

I wouldn’t worry about it - based on the sources below he’s either not interested or dead.

Maybe. However, we know King Power has transferred some £400 million of debt to equity. We also know the club runs at a significant loss. That means any potential buying party will need deep pockets. And as I say - there’s been zero rumour of any interest - so if there is no willing buying party, what happens then?

I think he’d struggle to get a tune out of this squad.

You sure he’s well enough for the job?

I didn’t think Vardy had a problem with the owners? Focus on the key priority of “Rudkin Out”. That’s the thing that could be achieved. There’s no rumoured interest in buying the club so “King Power Out” isn’t going to happen anytime soon. Plus, you can’t guarantee any new owner(s) wouldn’t turn out to be a Venky’s / Panjab Warriors / Chanseri type.

I get where it’s stemming from, I really do. And it’s not a situation just isolated to our club, it’s seems to be a growing cultural thing in football now (eg Coventry fans boooed their players off last weekend), especially on social media; nothing constructive, just “x player is shit, blah, blah, blah.” BUT - I think our fan base has crossed a line at times; like the booooing of Faes at the start of the season. That wouldn’t have just affected him; that would have reverberated across the squad and has no doubt been a factor to the “can’t be arsed” looking performances that have been witnessed from some since (aside from Ayew who always plays like that 😂). Negativity sucks energy from a room. Mean, I hate seeing the level of abuse Luke Thomas gets, because I bet he’s a good honest lad at heart and well liked within the squad. And you know, the players will see this stuff - and it will effect them as well, not just Luke. I expect Mavididi is also another one that has consumed too much of his own social media.

60% of relevant turnover is permitted on player expenditure in Leagues One and Two under the “Salary Cost Management Protocol.” That could be difficult for us - I recall Wrexham and Birmingham had bumper sponsorship deals that helped them with their spending when down there. We don’t have that.

That is awful. Any manager that sent out that formation/line-up should get their P45 immediately. 1.) You’d get killed, both down the flanks and in the middle with that. 2.) You’ve picked 3 centre halves… but then have your midfield ball winner dropping into the back line - WHY!?! 3.) If you only have 2 players playing on the flanks - you do not want them on opposite sides to their stronger foot so their instinct is to drive inwards. You already lack width and have plenty of bodies inside - so to put Fawatu on the right and Mac on the left in this formation is nonsensical. 4.) A box 4 midfield is something you should be created as a rotation from original positions - so say the 3 midfielders, plus one of the wide men, the striker or an inverting full-back. That makes it fluid and unpredictable. Having it set on paper as the starting formation however like you have done will cause issues because your asking players to make that shape from the get go - at which point it becomes very rigid and predictable for the opposition. 5.) The formation has no deep threat. Having that many bodies positioned that high from the get go will be counterproductive; players will be filling space rather than moving into it and just become very easy to zonally mark out of the game. 6.) Despite the supposed 3-2 base of the formation; it would be week in transition due to the intended high position of your wide men and the two advanced midfielders. A direct consequence of this would be your central defenders having to go into wide areas to defend; increasing the spacing between them in the process, lessening their ability to cover through balls / track runs. Additionally, if Skipp is to slot in to make it a back 4… that leaves Winks on his own in the middle and it’s very notable he is not Kante. Anyway - to conclude, these are just some of the reasons why you won’t see anything like this… from any manager of any club. And honestly - a back 3 is not the answer to not only our defensive problems… but also our emerging attacking problems.

Problem is, there is plenty of evidence from on the pitch performances that our fans hostile stance to all things around the club is having an impact on the players. Take Ricardo’s mistake on Saturday for example - an unthinkable one from someone like him; That mistake had nothing to do with his physical condition regardless of whether you think he’s past it or not - that was a mental mistake and that comes from pressure and lack of confidence. Monga is another, who’s performances don’t look as free flowing as they did - and it becomes difficult for a manager to give and young kid minutes if the general stadium atmosphere is less than supportive (even if the abuse isn’t aimed directly at those younger players - because if they see senior players getting stick, then are they not going to play it safe and within themselves as well?). For another example, look at how much better James Justin is doing at Leeds now he’s being used properly and moved away from a set of supporters that were calling him shit on social media every week for the past two years. Now I’m not appealing to you not to protest, “boooo” or shout obscenity towards any of our players etc - you pay for your ticket, you can do what you want. BUT - don’t kid yourself that those sort of actions are not becoming a significant contributing factor to the plight we’re in now and the performances that you are witnessing. The bond between fans and players, the mutual love, that was so powerfully there on that wonderful night in Preston - has gone; and that is a big, big issue for the club.