New fan here, what is LCFC's long-term player acquisition strategy?

[vanity]

Hey all, I'm an American who has acquired a serious rooting interest in LC the last few seasons (the obvious reasons), and I've noticed a lack of coherent talent acquisition strategy. I know Vichai has made a commitment to spending more, but after losing Walsh and then watching the last two windows, all the complaints re Rudkin, and most puzzling of all the disproportionate influence CR seems to have on recruiting strategy, it all seems rather incoherent. Has there been much public discussion re how LCFC anticipates cultivating talent in the future? I have not been able to find anything concrete. The incoherence this season makes sense if I think about it, going into the season there was CL to consider, so there needed to be a balance of talent acquisition for this season as well as looking forward, but at this point, it seems equally sensible to figure out exactly what sort of players LCFC will pursue. 

 

As I see things, LCFC cannot at present attract truly elite talent like a Chelsea or a Man U. But it can certainly spend that money other teams didn't want in January on building the best scouting network and coaching staff possible. It seems to me a reasonable strategy to target (1) youth and (2) volume. Especially volume, finding youngsters with genuine promise seems as much art as science. The more young talents coming to King Power, the better the chances of finding and developing gems. And young players seem reasonably easy to flip to another team without necessarily incurring much of a loss. I know a lot of teams use a similar strategy, but I also know that English football spends less on talent development and scouting than, say, Germany. And that sort of market inefficiency can be exploited.

 

More specifically, if LCFC were to, say, look to Germany for best practices in these areas -- obv Germany drastically improved its quality of football and number of eligible national team members by investing heavily in national scouting and talent development -- and begin building out this part of the business to rival any in England, perhaps LCFC could have a good long run staying up. The club could exploit existing inefficiencies other clubs practice to build its asset pool from the ground up with a machine that may be costly to build and acquire, but would yield productive young players. If it yielded only one Premier League starter per year, it would more than pay for itself. One per season may be ambitious, but picking up the most talented young players 18-22 or so from the lower leagues around Europe, combined with exceptional training, seems likely to yield dividends.

 

So what's the scoop? I'm very curious what fans on these boards want to see (other than some more generous offers during transfer windows, CR to stop fiddling and allow all the new players to learn to play together, Rudkin's head on a pike, some tidy service for our strikers, etc. etc.). 

 

I really enjoy reading this board, you lot are great fun. Up the Foxes!

[Lestoh]

if we can't get them free we try to get them for £20m

[UPinCarolina]

This is too well-written. You should have spouted some inflammatory bullshit. That would really bring out the responses.

To answer your question though - there's actually no clear strategy. That's part of the problem. No one seems to know what the end goal is. 

[crazyleicester]

Welcome!

 

The plan is simple. With Mandaric the owner and Gary Megson our new manager, I think we can consolidate in the Championship. We have some decent players like Hellings, Elvis Hammond, Rab C Douglas wedged between the sticks and Ricky Bad Boi Sappleton could easily be the new Gary Lineker. My favourite player, probably because he is kind of a local lad is Alan Sheehan who has a wondrous left foot, watch out for that genius. 

 

We havent started the season well and obviously Martin Allen has been dismissed but in the ginger one we trust and we are so optimistic about the future. He seems a loyal knowledgeable respectable man who will be here for years to come and I think will bring us success.

 

I just hope you can stick around long enough to see us back in the premiership one day mate! 

[AyewJoking]

there is no long term plan because the current strategy is a big fat fail and will probably be dismantled in the fall out of relegation.

[dayday]

We don't have a plan, we just like accumulating wingers.

[ithuriel]

Just like the Cylons, we have a plan but no one knows what it is

[Babylon]

I would say at the start of the summer we wanted to keep the "british" core, and by that I mean anyone who has been in our league system a while. People who know the country, are settled here already. Obviously, the prices scared us off massively with what it would have taken to get Keane (with hind sight it was worth it) and Deeney.

 

Our recruitment obviously then switched to foreign shores. I would say there has been a noticeable switch to getting in young talent, to allow them to grow. I'm absolutely fine with that idea, and I think most people were quite excited with the young players we'd been singing over say the last year. The biggest issue though is that it the whole stragergy has fallen on its arse because of how much all the experienced players we had before and those signed in the summer haven't performed.

The biggest issues I have really are that we signed too many players from abroad too quickly. Ranieri I think it's safe to say went against Walsh again in wanting Mendy over Gueye (probably a good reason for going if he's being ignored) And we've overloaded certain areas and left other short. We're full of CDM's and Front men, when we needed a no.10. Plus we've signed people and had zero faith in them like Benny and Kapustka... who frankly I'd put money also being Ranieri picks.

 

 

[lgfualol]

7 hours ago, Lestoh said:

if we can't get them free we try to get them for £20m

And if they're clearly worth around 20m, we bid 7m. 

[Richard]

The strategy, when Walsh was still here at least, seemed to be signing 19-23 year old players with promise. A lot of the players we were linked with in the summer (I'm thinking Niang, Aboubakar, Hinteregger, Dragovic) all seemed to be players with potential - guess we can include Amartey and Ndidi in that. 

 

Now however we seem to have no strategy and don't seem to be particularly successful in securing anyone. Wague screams of panic buy

[foxy boxing]

they have a cunning plan LOL. the plan was obviously to buy young talented players but who had no experience of the Premier League (Mendy, Musa, Kapustka) etc. but clearly that plan has failed and we really needed proven Premier league quality instead.

[Babylon]

15 minutes ago, Richard said:

The strategy, when Walsh was still here at least, seemed to be signing 19-23 year old players with promise. A lot of the players we were linked with in the summer (I'm thinking Niang, Aboubakar, Hinteregger, Dragovic) all seemed to be players with potential - guess we can include Amartey and Ndidi in that. 

 

Now however we seem to have no strategy and don't seem to be particularly successful in securing anyone. Wague screams of panic buy

We scouted him under Walsh a few years back. We were linked with him a few times.

 

The Pearson / Walsh Strategy was always a healthy mix of young talent and older heads. Some from home and some from abroad... all with hunger. When they first came back they certainly went heavy on young talent, but I think they realised their mistake as the next season we went heavy on older heads.

[ozleicester]

[Guest Lako42]

Those saying there is no strategy are wide of the mark.

 

Just because you don't see what they are attempting to do doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

 

 

[filbertway]

7 minutes ago, Lako42 said:

Those saying there is no strategy are wide of the mark.

 

Just because you don't see what they are attempting to do doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Create the first ever professional team that's never been able to play in January due to lack of players?

[Guest Lako42]

1 minute ago, filbertway said:

Create the first ever professional team that's never been able to play in January due to lack of players?

Could be

[norwichfox]

31 minutes ago, foxy boxing said:

they have a cunning plan LOL. the plan was obviously to buy young talented players but who had no experience of the Premier League (Mendy, Musa, Kapustka) etc. but clearly that plan has failed and we really needed proven Premier league quality instead.

Not necessarily failed, how long did it take for Vardy, Drinkwater, Mahrez etc. to come good for us? Time will tell (if they are still here after our potential relegation)

[Guest Lako42]

Just now, norwichfox said:

Not necessarily failed, how long did it take for Vardy, Drinkwater, Mahrez etc. to come good for us? Time will tell (if they are still here after our potential relegation)

Everything is a failure these days unless it works immediately.

 

I'm more displeased with the attitude of our long term players than I am the performance of our new players.

[Guest Col city fan]

1 hour ago, Babylon said:

I would say at the start of the summer we wanted to keep the "british" core, and by that I mean anyone who has been in our league system a while. People who know the country, are settled here already. Obviously, the prices scared us off massively with what it would have taken to get Keane (with hind sight it was worth it) and Deeney.

 

Our recruitment obviously then switched to foreign shores. I would say there has been a noticeable switch to getting in young talent, to allow them to grow. I'm absolutely fine with that idea, and I think most people were quite excited with the young players we'd been singing over say the last year. The biggest issue though is that it the whole stragergy has fallen on its arse because of how much all the experienced players we had before and those signed in the summer haven't performed.

The biggest issues I have really are that we signed too many players from abroad too quickly. Ranieri I think it's safe to say went against Walsh again in wanting Mendy over Gueye (probably a good reason for going if he's being ignored) And we've overloaded certain areas and left other short. We're full of CDM's and Front men, when we needed a no.10. Plus we've signed people and had zero faith in them like Benny and Kapustka... who frankly I'd put money also being Ranieri picks.

 

 

All of this.

Spot on IMO.

[Babylon]

15 minutes ago, Lako42 said:

Those saying there is no strategy are wide of the mark.

 

Just because you don't see what they are attempting to do doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

It's a very confused and muddled strategy if they do have one. At the very least they've failed in implementing it correctly.

[weller54]

It's all part of Rudders plan to take over the world... 

He could tell you his secrets but then he'd have to kill you! 

[sm1]

There was a definite plan regarding the whole structure at LCFC including player recruitment & sport science devised by Pearson, Walsh and Shakey. Its outlined in the book Fearless. We used to track players for months, looking at how they're going to fit into our team, before deciding to sign. Now it just seems random. Apparently Ranieri watched Kaputska at the Euros and was smitten. He contacted him personally and convinced him to sign. That's the complete opposite to our earlier strategy of tracking players for months, watching them play against different opposition and then making a decision. Personally I think the final straw for Walsh was when we didn't sign Gueye and Keane, that was the catalyst for him to leave. Coincidentally Everton signed Gueye & now are after Keane.

[Miquel The Work Geordie]

I know he signed a new contract not shortly after we lifted the trophy, but did we ever even try to test Walsh's resolve once Everton came in for him? It seemed he was keen on the move but it'd have been absolutely criminal if we didn't offer the guy the world given he was just as instrumental to last season's success as Claudio.

[somebum]

Hi and welcome.

 

The strategy regarding recruitment seems to be the following:

 

African, Check.

Quick, Check.

No PL experience, Check.

 

I was going to add a forth but im not allowed.

[Number 6]

We've gone from having great recruitment to absolute terrible. We've seemingly signed 3 very similar players to try and replace Kante, still haven't a proper no. 10 and have pretty much no defensive cover. So top heavy and yet went after a pure target man in the summer for £30m, it's baffling.

 

I think the DoF structure works, but you need to have a great one. So have Everton now. We don't need to look to Germany for examples though, Southampton have got it absolutely bang on.