kingfox

Can’t say I’m feeling very energetic after hearing him use the word energy about 50 times.

“Russell’s appointment follows a thorough process“

He’s at Seagrave right now getting ready for his photoshoot Should be confirmed today or tomorrow 👍🏻

You’d just love a couple of Japanese players at Leicester wouldn’t you, baffling we haven’t used their market since Okazaki.

Don’t understand that argument tbh. At the end of the day, they achieved promotion by successfully playing a possession heavy system for most of a League 1 season. 90 goals, +40 goal difference, 91 points, nothing wrong with that. It will be interesting to see how they fare in the Championship though and how long things last. Like any successful team, things can work if the recruitment is right, something which we’ve pretty much consistently failed on since 21/22. Is it sustainable? Who knows, but whether successful or not, I don’t really want to see us try and sustain it, because the style of football is bloody boring, but under King Power leadership, it’s highly unlikely anything will change.

I already have my list of ball-playing goalkeepers written down, but no doubt that will be a waste when we sign Gavin Bazunu on a 5 year deal.

Brussel tends to prefer a 4-3-3, so if both Winks and Skipp leave, as I’ve advocated for, Archie Collins makes perfect sense for me. 6’s - Collins, Braybrooke 8’s - Smallbone, Page 8/10 - ?, could depend on how Brussel sees BDCR, Alves and maybe Briggs My biggest concern is if he goes with inverted full-backs, you expect Choudhury to play a role like that, but for Thomas, Aluko and Joseph would it suit them?

Appointing Maresca Appointing Barry-Murphy as assistant Loaning Doyle and Mukasa Appointing McCarron Now we appoint a manager who plays like a poundland Man City. McCarron has answered my fears, coming from City Group shouldn’t have been looked at as a positive, it should’ve been looked at as a red flag. We know what their strategy is all about, and now we appoint the manager who goes around acting like a poundland Pep. When Martin gets sacked, if they are not willing to change strategy, then you can guarantee the likes of Liam Manning will be in the mix for the job. It’s just a shame we don’t follow strategies like Bournemouth and Brentford, because not only will that excite the fans, their styles of football are much more entertaining to watch nowadays.

The only bit of hope to cling onto, is the type of transfer window we produced under Maresca. At that particular time, it ended up being our most successful transfer window under Martyn Glover, many signings made sense and you could see a clear strategy. Since then the strategy has been very random, with Steve Cooper’s fetish of Premier League experience being added to the mix. We need another strategic window like 23/24. I thoroughly expect a few players to follow Martin from his previous clubs, Smallbone probably the best example, but like Russell Martin has produced at other clubs, a bunch of young signings mixed in with a couple of experienced signings is hopefully the route we’ll go 🤞🏻

But on the other hand, Cardiff also got promoted by dominating every possession statistic. But we all know what’s coming with Russell, a way more extreme version of what Cardiff produced last season. I think heavy possession systems still have their place in football, but I mentioned it on here numerous times last season, you were starting to see a real shift in 24/25 where more teams looked to go fast and direct. Cardiff showed it can still work, but with the changes we’re likely to see in our squad, it’s going to take probably a 10/10 transfer window to potentially make it work. It’s just a shame this board are obsessed with being a poundland Man City, when Iraola’s Bournemouth have been the best team to watch in the Premier League in recent years imo.

The work of scouting Scandinavian ball playing CB’s that we won’t sign starts now!

Over a thousand 10+ pass sequences More than likely inverted full-backs 100 passes between our CB’s Sales for sleeping bags in Leicester might be popular over the next few months. Even though this appointment has felt inevitable for about three years, appointing him at any time would be shit, but appointing him on the back of back-to-back relegations, where the fanbase is currently broken and needs a lift, just shows how incredibly idiotic our board is.

Welcome to the most inevitable Leicester City manager in our history.

Interesting comments from a BBC article on his time at Rangers. Didn’t do him much good, but seems he can change when he’s practically shitting himself. The fact Martin has moved away from the philosophy he has stuck by for so many years perhaps illustrates just how much pressure he is under at Ibrox. In the last two league games, he has adopted a 4-2-3-1 shape with summer signings Aarons and Rothwell absent. In front of the defence sits a more positionally strict and industrial midfield duo. Martin would typically ask his full-backs and attacking midfielders to get up the pitch, overloading the midfield and wide areas in attack, but in recent games there has been a reluctance in committing players to attack. In build-up, Tavernier still forms a back three with the centre-backs but there is more support centrally from the midfield. The keeper and defenders have been more willing to punt it up the pitch, too. These appear to be pragmatic changes that stray away from a Martin side. Looking at the league data before and after the Club Brugge loss highlights how stark the change in style has been. You have to take into account the quality of the opposition, but possession is down from 70% to almost 50%, with Rangers spending longer defending deeper and there has been an increase in how often they have gone long. They are also facing fewer shots and the plan appears to have been put in place to solidify the team in the face of conceding big chances. It is, however, hindering their attacking play, with the amount of shots they are taking per game almost half of what they were achieving previously.

So you want to rely on a 17, 18 and 19 year old to fire us back to the Championship. We shouldn’t make any signings in case they stifle the development of our younger players. We shouldn’t sign one of the best midfielders in League 1 over the past few season’s in Archie Collins. Do you only like them young? Are you Leonardo DiCaprio in disguise?

So you’d be happy with Evans, Hutchinson and Otchere as our striker options for next season then? And I really don’t know why you include Briggs and Page in the conversation, when they play completely different roles to Archie Collins. We really should avoid signing players like Archie Collins 🙄 https://www.theposh.com/news/collins-triple-award-winner

We have absolutely zero idea how Braybrooke will fare in League 1, but you can guarantee that if Skipp or Winks stick around, then one of them along with Braybrooke will be our 6 options, if both Skipp and Winks leave, then we’ll need to sign someone. You can rack off the likes of BDCR and Ayew as being negatives, but as I’ve stated, you can use many examples where experienced players, especially under Pearson have helped us massively. We’ve lost some very important experienced characters over the years, haven’t replaced them with similar, and it’s left us in the shit. Look at the squad we had the last time we were in League 1, you could say we struck the perfect balance of experience and youth. The same needs to happen again imo. All those young players that you mention, how do you know that some of them are even ready for League 1 level? I guarantee a number of our youngsters won’t feature regularly next season, just because they aren’t ready to play consistently at League 1 level yet. I’d say that Braybrooke, Aluko, Page and Alves will be the four that will likely feature the most, the rest, I’d put a question mark against every single one of them. Presuming most of our CB’s leave, I’d still look at someone like Kevon Gray being 4th/5th choice at this moment in time.

It’s understandable that some fans have mental scars regarding some of the experienced players we’ve signed recently, but as you say, it’s all about getting the right personalities into the squad, something which we’ve failed to do consistently since the likes of Morgan, Fuchs and Schmeichel left. All those names you’ve mentioned offered something, and of course you can add a few others to that list too. I watched a lot of RB Salzburg in the Champions League a few years back, they averaged the youngest squad in the Champions League, their captain though was a 30+ year old, Andreas Ulmer. And you can list so many examples of that being the case at numerous clubs with young squads, it’s why I mentioned Sunderland getting in Xhaka. Arsenal another example with signing Christian Norgaard, has hardly played for them, but Declan Rice praised his influence in the dressing room. Just like the last time we were in League 1, we’re going to need a few experienced heads to support what we expect will be a pretty young group.

Because he brings certain qualities that we’ve been missing. For the type of player he is, his competition would be Braybrooke, you seriously expecting Braybrooke to start 40+ games next season? If Skipp or Winks stay, then we probably wouldn’t need anybody in that position, but if they both go, then Braybrooke would need competition. Personally my first choice would be Archie Collins who’s now a free agent, if Martin gets appointed then he’d be a no-brainer imo. But would you rather we go down the Chelsea type route, rely heavily on youngsters and hope it sticks? Not done them much good has it. It’s why I mentioned the likes of Brentford and Sunderland in another post, two teams that have recruited sensibly by adding the right experienced players to fairly young squads. Pearson recruited sensibly while he was here, and imo we need to get back to similar. Were you against the signings of Chris Powell and Kevin Phillips for example? I’d very much rather we go into next season with a pretty young squad, but 2-3 experienced heads have to be added to it whether you like it or not mate

Agreed, I fully understood the Lascelles signing, just a shame it didn’t work out. But we’re definitely going to need a couple of signings this summer that know what it takes in League 1. Take Sunderland and Brentford in the Premier League for example, two of the youngest squads in the division, but in recent times they’ve added players like Granit Xhaka and Jordan Henderson.

Fair shout. There’s a few candidates that have become free agents that would fit the bill. There’s two key things to get right this summer imo, 1. Signing young players with resale value, 2. Rectifying our leadership group. We need a couple of players that are captain material, because right now, Souttar is about the only one I’d trust with the armband, if he leaves, then it will probably end up being Hamza if he stays 🤢

I really don’t get why some fans are so against signing the odd experienced player. As I said in my previous post, yes we have mental scars over some of our more recent experienced signings, but look at our Nigel Pearson days for example and some of the names he signed. If we end up appointing Russell Martin, then throughout his career he’s signed some very decent young players, but he even signed the occasional experienced player, Cameron Jerome and Andrew Surman at MK, Joe Allen at Swansea. A lot will of course depend on departures, but at the end of the day, our leadership group in recent times has been appalling, and imo it badly needs rectifying this summer. Many players “winding down their careers” are still doing the business in League 1, take Oli Norwood for example. Whether Sam Morsy or someone similar, we are going to need a couple of experienced players walking through the door whether some fans like it or not.

Beat me to it! I know we all have mental scars with the signings of Coady, BDCR and Ayew. But 2-3 experienced signings to get our leadership group right, will be extremely important this summer imo. I’d take Morsy on a one year deal, option of a second, could be an ideal mentor for the likes of Braybrooke.

10/10 missus 25 match unbeaten run at Southampton Some decent recruitment at MK, Swansea and Southampton That’s about it.