ClaphamFox

We do have an option to buy. If we stay up and want him, we can have him at the price agreed.

I don't think it's tougher as such. It's different—Ligue 1 is more spaced out and tactical compared to the Championship, which has more physical duels and less time on the ball. So it doesn't automatically follow that a player who has done well in Ligue 1 will be good in the Championship. It will depend on the individual player's attributes. Soumare won the title with Lille the season before us and has been a flop in the PL and the Championship. Ngolo Kante came from a much lower-ranked French side and was arguably the best player in our PL-winning side. Edouard seems like a classic example of a player suited to playing in France and even Scotland, but not in England. Faes is not quite as clear cut as he occasionally showed flashes of being able to play in English football, but did not do it consistently enough for us to say that he successfully adapted to either the PL or the Championship.

With those two the common denominator is English football. If either had gone on to thrive at another English club you may have a point, but they haven’t. In Edouard’s case, Palace fans also thought he was absolute dog shit. Stephy’s case is different because he was actually decent for us in the Championship last time. I don’t think that can be said of Faes, though some may disagree.

This is one way to look at it. The other is that we’d played eight league games in 2026 before Rowett joined and had lost six of them, including four consecutive losses just before he was appointed. Our form was in sharp decline and we were freefalling down the table. I agree that all he’s done so far is steady the ship rather than fully change course, but he had to start somewhere. He now has seven games to build on that and start racking up the wins.

Ha! For some reason I seem to have wiped the memory of the last 50mins v QPR from my mind. I obviously meant two.

I agree. Stats are a useful way to look at longer term trends but they don't effectively capture short-term patterns. I think our underlying trajectory under Rowett is positive. We haven't lost away from home since he joined and have won our first home game since early January. In our last three games we've kept two clean sheets. Progress isn't always linear, especially when a new manager is trying to turn around a horribly dysfunctional dressing room. An improving team can still have bad games. But Saturday was our best performance under Rowett and one of the only 90-min performances we've turned in all season. I think this upward momentum will continue and we'll be safe before the final game.

Not just attitude—also the fact that Daka actually plays like a striker, albeit a poor one. The Mercury published some stats on Daka vs Ayew today—apparently Daka touched the ball 22 times against Oxford vs 11 touches by Ayew touched against QPR. And six of Daka’s touches were in the opposition box vs zero for Ayew. Like many others I’d prefer Mukasa or even Hutchinson to be tried up front over either Daka or Ayew, but if Rowett won’t do that then it has to be Daka because he at least he gets into the kind of positions you’d expect a striker to get into. Ayew is a forward in name only and seems to identify as a left back.

Yet the bookies have Portsmouth and Oxford favourites to go down ahead of us. We're on 11/8 with Blackburn on 13/8. West Brom are 6/1.

Possibly, but it didn't look that way when he came on at the weekend. He got stuck in, made a few decent tackles and almost scored the winner. It didn't seem like his head had gone to me.

If Rowett plays the same team as Saturday (though preferably with Mukasa as the striker), we probably will win it. There are some decent odds available on a Preston win for those who are confident in that outcome.

Yet we’ve comfortably outscored everyone else in our five-club mini relegation league. Which would suggest if scoring goals is a big problem for us, it’s an even bigger one for our rivals.

Seriously. Many were predicting a thrashing yesterday, yet we went there, dominated, and should have won. Two of our rivals lost — one already looks doomed — and Lascelles looks exactly like the missing piece we hoped for in defence. Yet half this forum has gone full Ant Hill Mob and is screaming “We’re all gonna die!” Genuinely amazed some of them make it through a Tesco shop without declaring it the end of times.

The pre-match thread was full of predictions that we’d get thrashed today, all our rivals would win and we’d be cut adrift by now. As it turned out, we’re in a slightly better position than we were before the game. When viewed in the context of our remaining fixtures, today was more of a ‘must-not-lose’ than a must-win game. And for the first time in a very long time we actually looked defensively sound. Yes we’re shit but I suspect that over the remaining games we’ll no prove to be less shit than at least two of our rivals at the bottom and survive. Today made me more confident in that prediction, not less.

What use is a game in hand to Portsmouth the way they’re playing? Have you seen their run-in? They’re down. Today was an opportunity missed but we gained ground on Portsmouth and Oxford, and didn’t lose any ground to Blackburn. West Brom’s win is annoying but overall our position is slightly less bleak than it was before the game. And the return of Lascelles is a major positive.

True but he had one of his better games last week and I can’t see Rowett dropping him after that.

I'm pretty sure it will be something like this: Jakub Ricardo Lascelles Nelson Thomas Skipp Winks Fatawu James Mavididi Daka

Our away performances have been better under Rowett. When we're not playing at the KP, the team actually manages to show the kind of qualities you'd expect from a Rowett side. We should have won at Stoke and could have won at Middlesbrough (although a draw was fair). You might say we rode our luck towards the end at Ipswich but then if the ref had spotted the 27th minute foul in the box that later earned Leif Davis a retrospective ban, we might even have won that one. So I'm with Rowett when he says we should probably have got more out of those games than three draws. Rowett's first six games have been a bit of a rollercoaster: optimism after the Stoke and Middlesbrough draws, depression/pessimism after the Norwich loss, the return of optimism after the Ipswich and Bristol City games, then a slump back into depression after the QPR game. I'm aware that some are now predicting we'll remain depressed for the rest of the season as the losses rack up and we're relegated with games to spare. I respectfully disagree with them—I think we won't be allowed off the rollercoaster early and our mood swings will continue for a while yet, possibly until full-time at Blackburn on the last day.

Our previous away games under Rowett suggest it is likely to be tight tomorrow. Tight games can go either way. An away win wouldn’t be an outrageously surprising outcome.

That's not been happening in our away games under Rowett.

I want my season ticket to rise in cost by 25% and I also want to be made to crawl on my hands and knees to the ground to beg for it. But then again, I haven't felt quite the same since I attended that Fan Advisory Board meeting and was ushered into a room where there was a bloke in a white coat with a syringe and everything went a bit hazy...

I can still clearly remember the radio commentary for Steve Thompson’s goal. I bet the locals were delightful outside after this one…

The red card for Millwall on Saturday, which was followed by Blackburn scoring twice and winning the game, has been rescinded. Which is nice.

The best individual central defensive performance from a Leicester player in recent years was Souttar away at Newcastle in the penultimate game of 2022/23 under Smith when we drew 0-0. He was immense that night and was the official MotM. He clearly wasn't Enzo's kind of player but he was very good at Sheff Utd before he got injured. I think a fully fit Harry Souttar as one of our CBs would be an upgrade on what we've got now.

The responsibility for our downfall is collective. I just think that trying to navigate a relegation scrap with two very raw centre-halves, one of whom is terrified of the football, puts us at something of a disadvantage. I'm no fan of Vestergaard and have slated him relentlessly in the past, but at the moment I'd prefer him alongside Nelson than Okoli. I'm also not a particular fan of Winks, but there have been games under Rowett when he has looked closer to the version we saw under Maresca. He's also one of the few players we have who are vocal on the pitch, which is a quality we will likely need over the next eight games. Did you calculate those PPG stats yourself, by the way? Kudos for the effort if so... Yes, it is desperate. It's a shame that Souttar has been out for so long as he's the one CB we have on our books who I think might actually make a real difference if fully fit.

Over the season as a whole, the PPG stats for the games in which Vestergaard played vs those he didn't are stark. There is a huge difference. I don't think that can be glossed over by narrowing down the frame of reference to Cifuentes' last nine games. Okoli is not good enough for this level. Nelson is talented but is extremely inconsistent. We need at least one experienced head in there, whether that be Vestergaard, Lascelles or Souttar. I suspect when everyone is fit Nelson will be on the bench and Okoli will struggle to make the squad.