funkyrobot

We need to accept that every road this transfer window is going to lead to Jordan Ayew. We need a replacement for KDH, tried to get Soule, we’ll sign Ayew. We need an alternative winger, tried to sign Zaha, we’ll sign Ayew. We need a 2 new centre forwards, tried to sign Hozlek and Fofana, we’ll sign Ayew. We need a new back up keeper to Mads, tried to sign Johnstone, we’ll sign Ayew. We need a new left back, we’ll sign Ayew. Just fkin announce us signing him at 33 years old on a 3 year contract on £80k. Then within months get the club to talk about needing to manage his hours due to his age.

I’m not saying necessarily replace Fatawu or Mavididi, I’m just saying we need some key players - we need a replacement for KDH, we need a quality alternative to Vardy etc. To get players above their level yes you are looking at plus £20m, and that’s why loans are a very likely option. At some point the academy player rule will change. It’s forcing clubs to use the young players as a commodity rather than developing them at their home club and it feels wrong both from a player treatment perspective and from a fans perspective. The KDH transfer feels wrong, the Gallagher transfer at Chelsea feels wrong. Both clubs have lost players that had a significant connection with their home fans.

It’ll be just our luck to re-sign Chilly and draw Millwall away in the cup.

I don’t see either Mavididi or Fatawu quite at that level yet. *Based on what I’ve seen of BDCR I’m not sure he’s much better than K-Mac! I always feel Kasey is a goal threat.

My concern over Ayew (and BDCR) is both age and that whilst they were both liked by their respective fans, they were both support players, neither were game changers and Ayew excelled in a team were the heavy work was done by a combination of Olise, Eze and Mateta. Ayew’s energy was a great addition but he was not their game changer. Here at Leicester we really need some key top level potential game changers and not more and more support players.

The VK transfer has always seemed a bit fishy to me.

If you are paying £80k a week you aren’t paying for potential. Daka earns significantly more than players that you would see as potential here and at big 6 clubs - Doku at Man City is on £60k, Gallagher at Chelsea was on £50k. Based on our wage structure Daka is paid as an established pro which he was at Red Bull. If you want to compare, Faes is on £50k, Justin on even less, A good analyst also uses the eye test, scouting is done by watching a player and looking at his stats. A footballer plays on a pitch, not a spreadsheet. The fact that your statistics appear to show you that Daka has been a success when he clearly hasn’t backs that up.

No that stat doesn’t address his all round ability. It’s a figure that doesn’t outline if the chances were his own or ones he’d created for others and it doesn’t change the fact that he doesn’t hold the ball up well , isn’t a great passer and isn’t a dribbler as this is absolutely clear from watching him. He’s like the modern day Gary Lineker without the world class finishing ability and it nearly cost us winning the league last season. Your comment about his age etc conveniently omits that when a player is signed for over £23 million and accepts an £80k a week wage he will be judged accordingly.

He struggled in The Premier League, he struggled in The Championship. You’ve damned him with faint praise by saying he’d be good in a lower half team. He was playing in the team at the top of the league last season. I notice you didn’t even argue with my comments about his all round ability. Daka hasn’t demonstrated a skillset to contribute as a forward creator through his passing, hold up play or his dribbling so he has to score lots of goals to justify his position. He hasn’t done enough of that at any stage in his LCFC career.

I think Patson has been afforded lots of time and the fans have never got on his back at the ground but he has no stats, including the ones you have provided, that would make anyone spaff themselves silly about him or any player. If you aren’t going to score a massive amount of goals as a striker then your all round game needs to be able to provide opportunities for others and Patson’s skill set, his running with the ball, hold up play, dribbling and his passing are simply not allowing that. He’s really a finisher who has struggled to finish. That’s nothing to do with his colour or his nationality it’s just a fact. It’s exactly the same with local lad Luke Thomas. He’s one of our own in the sense he’s a Leicester lad who’s come up through the ranks and has been relatively successful in the past. It’s not unfair though to say he’s struggled recently and it’s understandable that he’s not currently in the 1st team plans. Again that’s nothing to do with the colour of his skin or his nationality, it’s just a fact.

I trust that the vast, vast majority of LCFC fans rate or don’t rate Daka based on his football ability and not at all on his colour or his country of origin. Who’s this Patty Deck btw? Is he any good? Danish?

Unnecessary use of the race card there at the end of your comment mate. Anyway, there’s been very little evidence of Patson succeeding at Premier League level so maybe it’s not such a stretch to put another unproven striker in there. Cannon can’t be much worse.

We didn’t play a low block during the great escape and whilst we relinquished control of the ball during the prem league win we didn’t deploy a traditional low block. We often left 3 attackers on the halfway line during opponents corners and there were always 2 strikers higher read to counter. I don’t share your views on our pacey attack, Mavididi isn’t particularly fast & nor is BDCR. Vardy has lost a couple of yards. I’ve not seen this amazing pace in Daka despite frequent chat about this mythical speed. Fatawu is pretty rapid tbf as is K-Mac.

Can’t wait to watch Cooper employ deep block football. It’s going to make even the most vociferous former manager detractors yearn for some Enzo-ball.

Based on the tune ‘Robin Hood Robin Hood’ Bobby De Cordova Reid Struggling on the wing Bobby De Cordova Reid Doesn’t do a thing Does he regret, leaving Fulham? Course he does! Course he does! Course he does!

I’m not sniping at any fans. I’m just laying out facts based on what we’ve seen under Enzo and under Cooper. I personally wasn’t wanting Enzo to leave and I don’t think the majority of fans outside of social media actually did, particularly if they knew who the next manager was going to be when he did leave. The best, most successful managers have a game plan and a game plan that will earn positive results. Cooper hasn’t actually been pragmatic in his approach. He just hasn’t been anything. His LCFC team have combined the conceding of lots of chances whilst created virtually no chances. That’s definitely not being pragmatic!!

Belgium are a better team than Denmark and significantly a better team than Wales. You can take also take Ward out of this argument as there’s barely any Welsh keepers playing senior pro football!

Your Enzo prediction is a guess mate, nothing more. We’ll never know. Based on what I’ve seen pre season, I’d take Enzo’s way over Cooper’s way every day of the week. I think the majority would. You’d be crazy to think Cooperball has been anything other than utterly dire to date. That’s not sniping, that’s an undeniable reality. Hopefully he can change it around but as we speak he seems as far away from being a success as you could imagine. Even if the outcome is the same as you have guessed with Enzo that we’d be relegated, there is no enjoyment in watching the anti-football of the past 3 friendlies and I’d rather be relegated trying to enact some coherent plan from Enzo even with its inherent frustrations for some spectators. Cooper didn’t have a single plan in the prem btw. Firstly his team scored goals but could defend, then he switched to pragmatism and couldn’t score. He never found the balance and was sacked. I also genuinely don’t see what’s wrong with comparing what we had with what we’ve got btw? Assessing whether Cooper was a good replacement for Enzo is exactly what the senior management should be doing over the next few months. Isn’t that how we could learn from mistakes? Unfortunately judging by the many repeated failings Rudkin et al seem as unwilling to try and learn from history as you do.

Guessing a future performance of Enzo at Leicester had he stayed is way more of what you would call a ‘pointless gotcha.’ If we look at their two pre seasons - Enzo’s LCFC team in pre season looked way better drilled on his plan than Cooper’s team has done this season - that’s an undeniable fact. Even when we were smashed by Liverpool, there was a clear plan. It is also entirely reasonable to compare the two managers. I would’ve expected the new manager to carry on the project Enzo had started and indeed Cooper indicated this with his comments when appointed. Enzo brought clarity and coached and enthused players with his approach irrespective of whether they were perfect for his system from the very beginning - Cooper simply hasn’t done that and fallen into the Brendan Rodgers approach of demanding transfers as the only solution when that can only be part of the solution. Btw what was Cooper’s plan at Forest in the prem? I’m not convinced there was one, he flitted from one approach to another, stopped attacking when his team couldn’t defend and became entirely pragmatic. His success was to be very slightly less worse than a LCFC team that had downed tools under Rodgers.

Lens looked so much better drilled and had a clear collective system of play and yet their manager Will Still was appointed at the same time as Cooper took on the Leicester job.

I think the point is it’s way better to have a stubborn coach in Enzo with a detailed Plan A identity and no Plan B that can work to an extent with the cards he’s been dealt and develop an existing player (e.g Ricardo) to fit that stubborn plan, than a coach in Cooper that appears to have no Plan A whatsoever and is expecting mythical new signings as his ONLY solution to the problem.

Faes is good enough. He’s a Belgian international. You might not like him but he has to start over Nelson. Nelson hasn’t had enough game time & specifically pre season game time to be dropped into the spurs role in such a critical position on the pitch.

You can only play either Ndidi or Hamza alongside Winks, otherwise you are effectively setting up with a deep pivot and 2 CDM’s. There’s no creativity. Cooper wants a number 10 to replace the creative number 8 that we lost when KDH went. He could’ve played Alves, Golding or a utility player like Reid in that role or accepted that he can’t really fit an out and out 10 with our current squad set up and revert back to the very successful two number 8’s with an inverted Ricardo! Alves and Golding may not be quite ready but in a pre season situation that’s surely fine, the more they play, the more ready they’ll be. Cooper’s interest in developing youth has proven to be a fallacy during this pre season. His reputation with developing youth comes from his spell with England youth when he had no choice. Now he has a choice of playing younger players in their position or playing older players out of position, he’s steadfastly stuck to the latter.

That is true but I was just assessing on a more basic level that Holloway did try and encourage his team to try and get possession of the ball in the opponents half some of the time.

It took me back to the very bad old days of Ian Holloway’s LCFC. Tactically inept, no game plan, players playing out of position, better players benched, a lack of creativity. Tbf to Holloway I’d at least say he had more attacking intent than Cooper has shown in the last 3 games.