Dan

Literally play Iversen and Soyuncu and we'd have been OK. Not 'good', and the incompetence would've eventually caught us, but it wouldn't have been as quickly.

2022/23 I don't know if that's just because it was the first real catastrophe but everything else has felt kind of inevitable. 2024/25... we've seriously spent £50mil or so net in fees, and upped the wage bill by around the same amount to serve up a record breakingly bad team who were relegated with 6 games to spare. This season is a disgrace. Tbh probably even worse than 2022/23 the more I think about it. How our fans aren't angrier about this as beyond me.

- Jon Rudkin

Yep - more looking backwards, more delusion.

Even if we survive this season, we'll be comfortable favourites to drop next I'd imagine, we haven't paid for a player since Woyo Coulibaly, we'll lose Fatawu to essentially service the debt, signing James is a pipedream. It'll be a lower standard of player coming in. You see other teams in this division branching out and signing players from Europe - they're spending a fair bit themselves now, while we're just patching up our mess all of the time, invariably getting it wrong. Further decline is inevitable regardless of who owns us now. But I have no faith whatsoever, and how anybody does is beyond me, that this lot could turn this around. What'll add insult to injury is if the ownership changes, you can bet your bottom dollar that the new ones will get all of the blame for the mess that Aiyawatt and Rudkin have put us in. "You wanted them out and it's still bad" or "you wanted them out and we're still in the shit". They are Aiyawatt and King Power above all.

I just can't waste any effort looking at when we'll be 'clear' or whatever because it's going to be the same people, who don't even see themselves as doing wrong, who are overseeing the whole thing. This is just normality now. I feel sorry for people who need this club as a bit of an escape because the chances of it actually being remotely enjoyable in the next three years at best are minuscule. Consistent heavy losses and they actually promoted Rudkin. And you still have a decent number of our fans actually white-knighting them. What the **** is the way out of this?

That sounds very much like benefit of the doubt to me.

Those giving them the benefit of the doubt earlier today in here. What have they done to deserve that?

Haha I had a very similar situation as well. Time did its thing.

Heard the same. I'm sure it'll be all great though because their track record of being utter shit at everything doesn't matter.

Ah it makes sense - Usce's crowds are tiny. I wondered what was going on there.

Which game was this? I'm a saddo and down a rabbit hole of trying to work out who it was * may or may not be doing an FM save in Serbia atm and intrigued.

While that is valid, I somehow doubt Ayew or Daka could've done what Edouard's done for Lens this season which is be a first choice striker for a team that are going to at worst qualify for the Champions League. Ayew of course being another player who was signed for the Premier League. Also I'd say Ligue 1 is a tougher league than the Championship (admittedly nowhere near the Premier League) and Faes was struggling in the Championship this season.

Shouldn't ban people for **** all then should you Their crowds this season have made me piss.

For all I've hammered him though, could totally imagine he left and was steady for another team in this league. I mean Faes and Edouard are doing alright in Ligue 1. We're the common denominator.

I've had my hand forced on renewing or not which is sort of good for me because I had a very high number of points and that would've created a bit of a dilemma, but I do think at this point I'd have had to just bite the bullet and not renew because like I say, I don't think it will be that hard to get back involved again. They're practically giving them away for some of the run in. I've never felt as low about the club as I do now. I think even for the points I did have I'd probably have had to give it up after the last couple of years. I definitely didn't feel like this in 2008 but then again I wasn't paying for my own at that point. I'd likely have renewed. I didn't feel that back then for all the club wasn't in a good place that it was actively antagonising the fans. Just read the Sheffield Wednesday away thread. I just cannot give that lot any money. Any new grounds in League One I'd just home end it. Not normally been a problem.

In came 11 signings for the top tier. Where I think I'm quite good is ability to find undervalued players, both in fees and wages, but in Serbia this is genuinely tricky to gain an upper hand because virtually nobody has any money and yet, pound for pound, the players aren't actually that terrible. It's a weak league, but the equivalent you would get in England for what you pay in Serbia is a fraction of the player. The good news is we had an OK wage budget, well, relatively. It wasn't the smallest in the league which did surprise me. We start the season with quite a hard set of fixtures being sent to cup winners and European chasing Spartak Subotica on the opening day before home games with Vojvodina and Radnicki 1923, all expected to finish in the top 5. We lose all three games 2-0. Not quite what you want ahead of the first trip to Zvezda, but remarkably we do pull a 2-2 draw out of the bag and contain them quite well despite giving away a dumb penalty. We get our first ever win at this level, beating Zeleznicar Pancevo 2-0 at home. This is followed with losses at Radnicki Nis (them and Radnicki 1923 are surely linked in some way, but I can't see it) and 3-0 at Napredak Krusevac, leaving us bottom but one, failing to score in 5 of our 7 games. This is on top of losing our last 3 games in the 2nd tier, and while I consider myself pretty decent at the game, this really seemed like the time I'd probably go down, considering we need to finish 10th out of 14 to avoid it. We follow it up with a last second win over IMT and a surprisingly comfortable win away at surprise package Radnik Sudurlica, but the scurge of the save, Macva Sabac, steal a point from 2-0 and a man down to blow things right up again before another two losses, the first in the last second to Javor-Matis and the other to Partizan at home from 2-0 up. The good news is plenty of other teams look pretty bad as well so we're not out of it. Pick of the signings is striker Milan Mirosavljev. Took a punt on him after winning the golden boot in the second tier with FAP and he's getting plenty.

I think this is why a lot of people do renew, but it won't be hard in future.

The season ticket prices generally have been quite reasonable, albeit a freeze from the Premier League to League One (potentially) is daft. It's the match day prices that deserve more criticism.

Even when they sign the right profile they somehow manage to see literally zero benefit. The most incompetent people in football.

I don't even think we started that well really. The results were alright, but I kept saying it during the time, we will not keep this up playing like that. Sheff Weds - won but we scraped it in the most presentable opening day you could have Preston - totally outplayed and lost Charlton - totally outplayed and won Birmingham - steady defensive display but wasn't hugely convincing either Oxford - really odd game, second best at 11 v 11 but ended up coming back to draw at 11 v 10 and looked better after the red Coventry - still possibly our best 90 of the season but drew WBA - crap performance and lucky to draw This left us about 4th but we were not playing well. Granted I think we have gotten worse since it.

Quite mad that because of their league restructure where 4 went down - both TSC and Cukaricki got relegated. Even madder is that 6 go down from 16 in the 2nd tier and if either have a poor season they could end up dropping to the third tier Vozdovac got out of it. We won the league but my god did we fall over the line. Lost our last three games. The top tier is going to be very tricky - they're gradually knocking the league down from 16 teams to 12, but in two stages, and this year there are 14 teams - with 4 of the 14 going down. As a surprise league winner of the second tier, this makes it a very tough year to survive. It's like 15th in the Premier League getting relegated. But the wage bill isn't totally out of kilter with the bottom half sides and I've brought in a legion of Serbian free agents. The rules are restrictive, but I kinda like having an almost entirely domestic side (there is one Bosnian).

People really need to stop giving LCFC money. They actively hate their own fans. It's because Pol Top and the regime don't like those critical and want to spite the fans.

We'll go if we only manage 1 win from those. Three brilliant fixtures. But you may be right.

Our record at home to struggling teams has been an absolute joke this season. Lost to Blackburn, Charlton, Oxford. Drew with Portsmouth. These games should be bread and butter and they're the main reason we're in this mess.