ClaphamFox

Given that would have been a penalty to us AND a straight red, do you think they’ll stop moaning about the ref now?

We didn't sign him from a Ghanaian club. He had just come out of the US college system and was a free agent.

We didn't pay anything for him so anything we get for him, even £100k, would be pure profit. The club's ambition next season will be to get back to the PL. Many will find that incredulous given how this season has gone, but that will be the aim. Opoku will not be in the squad.

No it doesn't.

Opoku will not be in our squad next season. He's been offered a contract to stop him leaving for free. That's all there is to it.

Maresca undoubtedly had a better squad in 2023/24, but Cifuentes still had a very good squad to work with at Championship level. The other week Kieran McKenna said our starting 11 was as strong as any club in the division, and while I don't necessarily agree with that I don't think he was a million miles off. Yes, I saw that comment from Albrighton. Yes, clearly the novelty of being back in the Championship would have been less the 2nd time around, but I've no doubt Maresca would have had our current squad in a much higher position than Cifuentes. The leadership vacuum at the top of our club has made it a very difficult place for managers to work in recent years—it takes somebody with a lot of confidence and gravitas to create a strong squad culture in a dysfunctional club environment. Maresca had those qualities, Cifuentes didn't. It looks like Rowett might.

No. Options to buy are still dependent on the consent of the player. If he decides he doesn't want to join us, there will be nothing we can do about it.

Maresca also gave them complicated instructions—the difference was, he was able to coach the players to follow them. Cifuentes’ basic philosophy is probably very similar to Maresca’s, but unlike Enzo he wasn’t able to get his ideas across in training—resulting in confused and chaotic performances on the pitch. You get the impression that Rowett walked into Seagrave and just said to the players, “This is where you’ve been going wrong and this is how we’ll fix it.” It would have been music to their ears.

Rowett on Winks' reaction to being told he was dropped on Tuesday: “Winksy was a really interesting one because certainly in the first four games, he’s been our best player in possession of the ball. “I just felt I wanted to play with two eights and I wanted to test them (Bristol City) in a different way. I felt it needed someone with more defensive diligence (Skipp) at the heart of our midfield. “He (Winks) understood that. He said it to me: ‘All that matters is that we win.’ I’ve seen it with the way he scored against Stoke, I’ve seen it with the way he came on today, he was fantastic and he cares. He does want to really finish the season strongly." https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/harry-winks-dropped-leicester-city-10862370

Most likely so we can sell him this summer.

All nine of our remaining games are winnable, including Hull and Millwall. That's obviously not to say we will win all of them, but we shouldn't be writing any of them off. I think we'll end up with 55-56 points, which will be enough.

I think we’ll get more points than our xTPts in all three scenarios above.

We won't get a better opportunity—QPR's recent form has been even worse than Bristol City's.

Well as both the club and the PL are appealing the six-point deduction, I would assume he is very much still on the payroll.

47,298.

I completely get the logic here and a large part of me agrees with you, but I’m just a little concerned about our ability to recruit somebody with ‘upward mobility’. Based on our recent record of manager recruitment, it seems just as likely that we’d replace Rowett with a young manager with bright ideas who ends up being sacked after three months because he’s lost the dressing room and we’re hovering just above the relegation zone again. It wouldn’t necessarily happen this way, but it’s a genuine risk. Given how horrendous the past few years have been, if Rowett keeps us up comfortably (as I think he will), I’d be inclined to play it safe and stick with somebody who appears to know how to control a dressing room and coach a defence. Right now, a season or two of stability appeals to me like a bucket of iced water would appeal to a man dying of thirst in a desert.

He didn’t sulk at being dropped after playing very well at Ipswich —he just came on and did a superb job at helping us regain control when we’d started to look vulnerable. A first rate attitude from a proper team player

Possible season changer.

Now would be the time to prove my theory correct, Gary.

The only logic I can see in tonight’s team selection is that Rowett is conscious of our tendency to drop off massively in the second half and has kept some of his best players on the bench in an attempt to prevent that.

Please point to the bit where I used the word fact or suggested anybody with a different view is in denial. For some reason I still can't see it....

When did I say it was certain? I expressed an opinion—I didn't state that it was 'fact' or accuse anybody who disagreed of being in denial. That was you.

We're one point below West Brom, four points below Blackburn and five points below Portsmouth, with a better goal difference than any of them. There are 10 games to go. Please explain—preferably in way that at least has a semblance of logic—how relegation is a 'fact'? Or is it merely that some people are so emotionally fragile that they insist on rigidly claiming we're definitely going down—when that clearly is not the case—as a bizarre coping mechanism?

We won't be in League One next season.

What rumours?