smudgerfox

Brendan cannot generate a strong defence . It really is as simple as that. Whereas most managers build a team and squad on a solid defence - he is incapable of creating that. It was the same at Liverpool and it’s the same now. Brendan would not sign Huth, Coady, Tarkowski - defenders who love clean sheets and defending,

I think if you go back over the past five years or so - we have nearly always been short of quality and numbers at centre back and we haven’t recruited to the position well at all (Fofana and Evens apart of course). I think Wes Morgan’s last season was a high risk - he never looked capable of playing ten games on the bounce. The arrival of Ryan Bennett suggested we’d abandoned our careful scouting and recruitment in favour of sticking a pin blindfold on a wall chart. I refuse to believe anyone watched him play and thought he’s the man for us. If they did they really should have been sacked. Benkovic proved to be a waste of money too and Amartey was only ever a last ditch, versatile option who’s now become our third choice, Ideally you’d want an under 21 option which wouldn’t eat up a squad place , but our strategy seems to be to loan out young players until they’re 22/23 which means they have to earn a full senior place when they’re deemed ready. The loss of little Wes without us acquiring a reasonable quality replacement would leave us with a relegation defence.

Our problems aren’t just about a couple of bad signings …if only they were

Hilarious I suggest you look at the subs bench yesterday. a mixture of players who have variously been snubbed or at the very least have gone under appreciated by our manager. In truth, thats why he cant use them. Praet welcomed with open arms - a few months later not a Br type of player. Mendy, one minute behind hamza in the pecking order, the next minute ahead of him {without actually playing for us!} Soyuncu - thrown under a bus for a tackle v Spurs, Perez - not sure what he did, but he was signed under Brendan, like Praet. And of course Kelechi, the prolific scorer and assister who has no place in the purist footballing style of a BR team…. Now you can agree with Brendan and say none are good enough - but you have to accept that some arrived here while BR was manager {and to those you could add Soumare and Vestergaard}, others have been given attractive contracts which makes them difficult to shift. id say of the nine on the bench only Daka, Albrighton and possibly Thomas have the full confidence of the manager.

I have some sympathy with BR here though the inadequacies of the bench are at least in part due to poor decision making by him in the past. Any substitution would have had its risks. NDidi had a poor game and was visibly declining as well. His replacement would have been Mendy but what you lose is NDidis defensive strength at set pieces. Against a team of giants - esp after the subs came on that was probably a risk. BR has constantly dithered between Mendy and Hamza as NDidi back up and we re left with neither of them being a fully trusted and integrated squad member. Praet, Perez aren’t like for like replacements for anyone in yesterdays set up, they don’t really fit, Thomas would have reduced physical presence and set piece strength, Soyuncu might have helped shore us up but it depends on which version of Calgar turns up (pre 2020 or post 2020) so I do understand Brendan’s hesitancy - especially as he’s made it public he’d like a lot of these players gone .. the problem is that is his squad - and his job is to get the best out of them ..

In the same way that our defenders have been “switching off” for pretty much two seasons without either being replaced or improved.

On the back three - as it stands the squad is really set up for a back four - which is after all BR’s preferred formation. You have Evans and Forfana as first choices with Amartey back up for Wes and Vestergaard and Soyuncu back up for Evans. The problem when you move to three is that the two outside centre backs need to be highly mobile. You can’t really play Evans as LCB he has to be in the middle organising things. Wes is a natural for RCB, and Amartey is a reasonable backup match but at LCB it has to be Soyuncu or Amartey not playing on his natural side. What surprised me is that he close the latter rather than the former.

At the time KDH was subbed there was no problem. We were overrun after the substitution not before it. The game was literally in the palm of our hands. But once again Brendan can’t get us over the line.

We were being overrun in midfield and the solution is to take off or most effective defensive midfielder and replace him with a striker? Is that what you’re saying? Thank goodnesss I’m not in your Sunday League side…

I can buy that. And we certainly can’t afford to lose KDH. I think the issue is replacing him with Daka as part of some bizarre effort to counteract Brentford’s change in formation. Why are we bothered what they’re doing? We’re completely dominating them - bring on a like for like replacement (or as close as we have) and keep playing the same way. The trouble with BR is he tries to turn every game into a whiteboard tactical masterclass instead of doing the simple things to rack up the points. And by the way we had most of our defensive players available yesterday (cant blame injuries) and we still concede twice, still gave up a winning position, and still conceded late.

I for one will have more sympathy for BR - if the turnover is as large as many of us fear - then pre-season (other than for fitness) will have been a waste of time - rehearsing tactics and moves with players who are on their way out the door. Add to that identifying and incorporating new arrivals and it’s hard to imagine we’ll find any kind of stability this side of the World Cup.

I’m pretty sure there’s a sell on clause for St E so the profit may not be all ours. Norwich are similarly licking their lips about Maddison going to Newcastle.

I think a statement from the club on our current situation is long overdue. We have left ourselves chronically vulnerable to losing our best players. I could see the whole spine of the team- Schmeichel, Fofana, Tielemans, Maddison having left by the end of August. There will be little time to find adequate replacements and an expensive and hostile market - no one wants to lose players this late in the transfer window. If we were going to let these players go why not force it to happen earlier? Why the hell is our Head of Recruitment on gardening leave? From last years summer transfer window - the club seems to have completely lost its way.

Cant believe anyone who supports LCFC thinks he isn’t a legend.World Class shotstopper terrific leader on and off pitch. Banks and Shilton more commanding in the air and also world class shotstoppers - distribution not an issue in their eras…

Exactly - we prioritised the Conference over league position just as we prioritised the FA Cup over 4th place the previous season. These are not hard-headed business decisions…and we are paying the price of them right now…

He did say it but I don’t have time to find it for you. Sorry. My main point about Brendan’s media statements since Forest is that they are transparently self-serving. They provide an alibi for failure this season ( as injuries did last season) and an alibi for walking away from the job. Essentially - I wanted to rebuild the squad, the club couldn’t afford it, in fact we had to sell and I can’t/couldn’t be expected to maintain previous standards in those circumstances. That’s why we’re losing/ that’s why I’m walking. Set piece fiasco. Forgotten. Last minute capitulations. Forgotten. Farcical summer transfer window in 2021. Forgotten. Missing out on fourth place - twice. Forgotten. Pathetic performance in Europa League group stages. Forgotten.

He said at one point in the last few months that he came to a club which was happy to stay in the Premier League - in other words he’d transformed our horizons

On Rudkins job - yes I agree. But my point is that it’s almost impossible and potentially reckless to buy players that the manager explicitly doesn’t want. In that role you want to bring in players which meet the manager’s needs - otherwise you do have two crucial parts of the club pulling in opposite directions. For reasons I stated earlier, I have no doubt that RB was a BR signing and any attempt to blame Rudkin for sealing the deal is really far fetched. On Praet, Perez, Hamza, Vestergaard and Bertrand - and you could add Soumare - the question is not whether they are first teamers for us but whether their use as squad players has enhanced their value and attractiveness to potential buyers. Most have regularly been deployed away from their natural position and used only when all other options have dried up. Apart from Bertrand they gave all been rejected by the manager either publicly or implicitly which makes them difficult to sell.

I’m not sure what you think is illogical .. Did BR want Ryan Bertrand? Yes. Was BR in a good position to assess what RB could bring to the squad? Yes. Did he fight against the transfer? No. Was the head of recruitment at the time, Brendan’s best mate? Yes. Did Jon Rudkin bring the player that BR and his head of recruitment both wanted, to the club ? He did. So rather than argue with the manager and the head of recruitment and effectively defy them by imposing a left wing back more in keeping with the clubs recruitment policy, our DoF backed the manager and his head of recruitment. And it is precisely these kind of signings - Vestergaard, Perez, Praet - all made on Brendan’s watch, which clog up the squad and make further recruitment financially unviable. And btw if you listen to his interview he IS saying that there are players on the books which aren’t good enough …

Okay - so we offer RB £30000 a week for one year and he turns it down. Then what? Sorry Brendan no can do. Anyone else you want at that price point? What Brendan’s interview makes perfectly clear is that he takes no responsibility for the mess we’re in or for an underachieving season this time out. In fact he’s pretty much admitting defeat in maintaining standards at previous levels. He only just found out about the need to balance the books. He makes no mention of last seasons disastrous transfer window which saddled us with three players who fulfill no function with no possibility of getting rid without incurring further expense. Or the likes of Praet, Perez, Hamza, Mendy and Kelechi - players he’s cast to the outskirts of the squad - gaining little to no value ..in the case of the first two players brought to the club while he’s been manager …

Well if Brendan says he wants Ryan Bertrand - Rudkin goes off and negotiates fees and contract to get him. You can’t blame Rudkin for that. He’s backing the manager and the head of recruitment’s judgement in assessing the value of the player concerned and getting him for the manager. Where it goes wrong is when those initial judgements are so catastrophically misplaced. You could say the same about Vestergaard, Praet, Perez possibly Soumare - though I think the club had identified him as a potential recruit before.

Raineri - Mendy Puel - Tielemans, Ghezzal, Diabate Leicester managers always have input to transfers as the list above shows. In addition Brendan had his best mate Lee Congerton as head of recruitment. Neither of the above had that. The agent of Ryan Bertrand is from a company in which Brendan’s son is involved. Putting aside conflict of interest issues, Brendan was ideally placed to know of Bertrand’s availability, to persuade him to come (relationship with agency, coached the player before) and to understand Bertrand’s likely value to the team. Plus Celtic and Liverpool fans say poor recruitment limited their clubs’ horizons under Brendan. How much evidence do you need?

“I became aware towards the end of the season of that the club would have to balance its books.” Brendan to the BBC. Does he really expect us to believe that?

Yes let’s see if Atalanta come in for him

Kasper missed one game and look what happened to the defence Fofana may be off to Chelsea Evans is ageing and injury prone where we finished last season is irrelevant - our defence may well be worse than last season - and let’s be clear it was abysmal for most of the season