murphy

Should have done that in August. But we bought pensioners for wingers instead.

This team is the worst 'anything' of all time.

Chelsea away. How exciting. I wonder if we'll win?

Barnes, Chilwell, Thomas, Hamza and KDH have made 500 appearances for us so we are not talking about youth players making squads and never getting on to the pitch and you know it. I feel some people are so bitter that they are queuing up to beat the club up for problems that don't even exist. Boo hoo. We never develop our youth players, except for the academy graduates that have come through and continue to com through but don't count for some reason. I have a challenge for these people: 1 - Find me a similar size club that has a better recent record on bringing through youth than we do. or 2 - Find me another era in living memory in which LCFC has developed as many youth players as we have recently or 3 - If you have to be outraged, focus that bitterness on the many, many, many failings of this club that actually exist.

This place is full of people claiming that Cannon is the new Messi. Can't move for people saying he's the new Messi. I wish people would stop going on and on about how Tom Cannon is the new Messi 🙄

'll take that bet....

If Cannon is struggling, I for one take no pleasure in it. I wish him well. Signing for us set him back and he was never really given a chance. He had a good half season with Preston in The Championship and I think he will have a good career at that level.

Bobby Smith, Steve Lynex, John O'Neil, Gary Lineker, Alan Smith, dunno, Andy Feeley. Do I get a prize?

Part of the development pathway is to go out on loan at lower levels and to learn their trade. To make the step up at different levels. You can't claim that the era of bringing thorough the likes of Chllwell and Barnes (who were exceptional btw) is over just because Alves and Nelson have been loaned out rather than immediately integrated, when Chilwell and barnes needed to be loaned themselves before they were ready. I actually think that playing Nelson and Alves this year could have been detrimental to their development. The team is broken, the atmosphere becoming toxic and the jump from academy to Premier league probably too great. I think putting them into a broken team could have broken them too. Much better off at Cardiff and Oxford this year. For the likes of Monga and Nyoni they only need look at the steady stream of academy graduates at LCFC to see a pathway but when the likes of Man City and Liverpool come calling their heads will be turned. We can't compete with them, but let's not pretend that they leave because they can't find a way through.

Well I think it likely that the lure of trophies, Champion's League football and higher wages will be the reason he goes there, none of which we can compete with, not because his development is blocked at Leicester City, Lets remember this kid is 15. He has not been blocked. The point I was making re Palace and West Ham is that they are similar sized clubs and if we are so bad, let's look at their record on youth development compared to ours.

The point I was making was to show that we have developed a lot of players from our academy amid these nonsense claims that there is no pathway. Why are we making comparisons with Man City? They are likely to pinch Monga from under our noses which just goes to show the unfair advantage they have. A better comparison would be Crystal Palace, West Ham, Forest etc. Can they match our conveyor belt? Doubt it.

Its relevant to show how our development pathway has improved. It has been a source of pride for me that in recent seasons we would regularly field three or four academy graduates in the first team. How many other clubs can say that? I hope that we build next year's Championship side around the likes of Alves and Nelson.

Braybrooke and Alves have just come back from injury which has set them back. So has Stolarcyk, who played this year and last. Those players plus Nelson are all in the early stages of breaking through. Do you really expect them to go straight into the first team without going out on loan first? The likes of Chilwell and Barnes certainly went out on loan first..

I think I mentioned 10. Some have had their development set back through injury. Well let's go 10 years before that for comparison. 2004 to 2014...

Does anybody know if there is any limit to the number of youth players a club can have, such as the 25 man first team squad limit? I mean can the biggest clubs just asset strip others with impunity and stack up the best youth players in the country?

By recent years, I mean the last PL era for 2014 to now. In roughly ten years we have had Chilwell, Barnes, Thomas, Choudhury, and KDH come through. Alves and Braybrooke have been set back by injury otherwise they would likely be further advanced. Alves is now starting to make a name for himself already at Cardiff. Add to that Nelson, McAteer and Stolarcyk coming through and your assertion that there is no pathway for our youth players is demonstrably wrong.

Couldn't give the faintest toss about Derby County.

One thing this isn't is 'fair play'. If the vultures are allowed to pick the best talents from smaller clubs (again) for virtually nothing, then what is the point? I don't care what he wants, he is our player and the rules need changing to stop this kind of daylight robbery. To say he has no pathway is ridiculous. You could almost list a full eleven of players that have come through the academy in recent years.

This is obviously where we we've been going wrong. Someone should have told our bone china fragile defence to just "be solid at the back"

I remember that game very well. We won the Filbert St leg 1-0 but we peppered them and it should have been more. After every attack came the ironic chants of "boring, boring Leicester"

I thought the 'grinders' thing was Brian Little?

Loved Claridge and loved that team. My favourite ever era. A team of rag tag journeymen moulded into a well oiled machine. Unlike today - a team of rag tag journeymen moulded into a team of rag tag journeymen.

I hadn't noticed it until you pointed it out. Now its making my eye twitch and causing me to make an involuntary fist.

Cooper's recruitment killed us. His legacy is Ayew, BCDR and Skipp and no one will convince me that those signings were not as a direct result of his fetish for PL experienced plodders. We are worse now because the fight and the stuffing has been knocked out of us. That would also have happened under Cooper by now.

The club showed that it has effectively given up with the inactivity during the January window. Maybe it's a wise move at this stage rather than throwing good money after bad, but I don't think that our demise was inevitable given our squad. We were Championship champions and thus here on merit, we had beaten Bournemouth and given Chelsea a game as a Championship club. After losing Enzo, we just needed to recruit well and go into the season with a plan. I look at how Nuno has set up Forest as a counter-attacking side and feel that that is the way we should have gone. If you don't have the quality to go toe to toe, rope a dope is often very effective. If you're going to park the bus, Cooper style, make sure you have an outlet with pace (not Ayew and BCDR) add in some defensive quality (not Okoli and Skipp) and we might have been able to make a fist of it. As it stands now, the club has given up and the players are demoralised and beaten before they get on the pitch.