"If they dont believe in me..."

[Ashley]

People always ask questions when things go wrong, why does there have to be a mole? 

[Tielemans63]

34 minutes ago, SecretPro said:

Bench Vardy immediately. He's been dogshit anyway and we all knew he was a ****, just accepted him as one of our own. 

IF he's the mole and he's been pissing off his teammates then he shouldn't even be allowed to train with the team let alone travel. You have to remove the Poison before it becomes toxic. 

 

I feel for Claudio. If it is Vardy then he had to be the most ungrateful brainless **** on the planet. That said, if (and actually we dont know for definite) it's Vardy then why the hell does Claudio keep picking him?

[erlee]

19 hours ago, NotTheMarketLeader said:

Excuse the pun but that's mental. 

 

Im a big believer that the psychological side of things - whether it be life, or football are all important.

 

If this true I don't agree with it despite up to this point giving Ranieri the benefit of the doubt in what seems now to be him Vs two faced, lazy overpaid backstabbing brats.

 

Whatever the truth is it needs to be sorted pronto - understatement of the week given today's results! 

he got rid of the psychologist ... and now the ego of a few players took control.. and bad ills spread all over the team 

[FLAN]

4 hours ago, Moksky said:

Mickeyblueeyes, after our spat earlier in the season, I totally agree with you on the Vardy scenario. Hes got his deal woth £25m, his hunger and focus have gone.

 

Some insight, Vardy is acting billy big bollocks, and a lot of players arent having him. In fact most, including Mahrez, Drinkwater, Morgan and Kasper. Theres your poison. Vardy is lacking the professionalism and doesnt have the repsect for Ranieri.

The lad I mentioned earlier specifically quoted Vardy at the start of last season as having no respect for Ranieri.  He doesn't know how lucky he has been for everything to have fallen into place to set him up for life. Why isn't he being dropped though if everyone has had enough??

[Cadno'r Cymoedd]

Leicester are showing all the symptoms of Cityitis

Daniel Taylor

 

Published:20:00 GMT+00:00 Sat 4 February 2017

 Follow Daniel Taylor

 

Riyad Mahrez has struggled to recreate the form he showed in Leicester City’s title-winning season. Photograph: Plumb Images/Leicester City FC via Getty Imag

How did the team who eased to the league title return to the relegation quicksands so soon?

It can be strange for those of us who remember Manchester City in the pre-money years to think that their new generation of followers might never fully understand why Joe Royle used to talk about a debilitating condition, unique to the club, called “Cityitis”. Suffice to say, though, that it could be particularly virulent at times and Royle, in keeping with many managers, never did go through with his promise to find the antidote.

“Poor old Joe,” Colin Shindler reflected in his book Manchester City Ruined My Life. “He never understood that Cityitis is not a bacterial infection that can be cured by the antibiotics of running a club in a professional manner. Cityitis is a vitamin deficiency we are born with. We can take supplements to build our immune system but they are not strong enough to deal with diseases like Thakin Shinawatra or signing Jamie Pollock from Bolton Wanderers.”

It also goes back further than you might realise bearing in mind the story of City winning their first league championship in 1937 and following it up the next season, spectacularly, by finishing the highest scorers in the league. Wilf Wild’s team beat Derby County 6-1 at home, 7-1 away, scored another six against Leeds and West Bromwich Albion, knocked five past the title-chasing Charlton Athletic and finished with three more goals than Arsenal, the champions.

The problem was City also managed to lose 20 times that season and were relegated. They would have stayed up with a draw in their final game, or if any of their fellow strugglers – Grimsby, Portsmouth, Birmingham and Stoke – were beaten. All four won, City lost and found out in the dressing room they had become the only top-division team in history to go down with a positive goal difference.

Then a second bulletin came through that Manchester United had won promotion, on goal average, and would be taking their place. File it as the first recorded outbreak of Cityitis, not least because one of their shots that day came back off the stanchion inside the goal and the referee, 40 yards away, thought it hit the crossbar.

Seventy-nine years on, that is still the only occasion in this country when a team have been relegated after winning the league the previous year, though not perhaps for much longer judging by the latest evidence that Leicester City have taken over as the most eccentric team in English football.

How, after all, do you make sense of a team who stayed up after six months in the relegation zone two seasons ago, won the league by 10 points the following year and now find themselves back in the quicksands?

Who could have possibly imagined, even in the absurd world of football, that Claudio Ranieri could be named as Fifa’s world coach of the year, with all that talk of another statue being commissioned to go with the ones in Leicester’s city centre honouring Gandhi, Richard III and Thomas Cook, and that within a few weeks he would be the bookmakers’ favourite as the next manager to be sent to the guillotine?

And has there ever been a clearer example of what can happen in sport when the people who have encountered success fall into the trap of believing their own publicity and forget what made them so formidable in the first place?

Unfortunately for Leicester, this is always the risk for any group of players who have enjoyed the view from the top and must know, deep down, they will never experience the same kind of professional joys again. Players lose their edge, sometimes in the most subtle and insidious ways. Complacency, the football manager’s enemy, spreads. After that, it is virtually impossible to generate the same hunger. The rot sets in.

Riyad Mahrez, such an elegant destroyer of defences last season, has scored three league goals, all penalties.

Something similar happened at Manchester United, albeit to a lesser degree, when they won the European Cup in 1999. “For months afterwards, the treble haunted us wherever we went,”Roy Keane once said. “Well into the following season, we were being saluted as heroes, history-makers, better than the 1968 team, the team of the century – signing photographs with the three trophies, talking about that ‘great night’ that we’ll never forget.”

Sir Alex Ferguson’s team won the Premier League the following season but in Europe, their Achilles heel, they did not reach another final for nine years and maybe their captain was on to something when he linked it back to that sweet-scented night at Camp Nou. A couple of players, Keane recalled, said in post-match interviews it did not matter if they never won another trophy again. “‘Hello’, I thought. Overexcited, maybe, but what the **** are we going to do next year? Is that it? We’ve made history. Now we pack it in? It doesn’t matter what we do now, we’ll never be forgotten.”

Dwight Yorke scored 29 times in 52 appearances for United in the 1998-99 season, led the line superbly and set up countless chances for others. Beyond that point, however, he seemed more devoted to being a playboy and the sport is littered with other examples of players who have been softened by success. Just look at Blackburn Rovers after their title triumph. Or the deterioration in Samir Nasri after winning the league for the first time at Manchester City. And, yes, the players of unfashionable, unheralded Leicester City.

Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez are the most dramatic examples when they have followed their clean sweep of last season’s player-of-the-year awards by sleepwalking through what loosely passes as a title defence. Has the rot set in with them, too? Leicester were once such a grounded, unpretentious bunch it would have been unimaginable to think they could allow their competitive instincts to be dulled.

Not any longer, though. And a small thing, perhaps, but does their owner, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, understand now why some seasoned observers felt slightly uneasy about the entire squad, including substitutes and bit-part players, turning up at the start of the season to find a treat – a fleet of BMW 18s, costing £105,000 each – waiting for them outside the ground to recognise their new status as league champions?

This is not to ignore the ramifications of N’Golo Kanté’s departure that led to Ranieri pretending to throttle his former player when they crossed paths before Chelsea’s win at Leicester a few weeks ago. Kanté made 14 tackles in Chelsea’s midweek assignment at Liverpool, compared with Leicester’s total of eight against Burnley. He is not the type of player to dribble past three opponents, fire shots into the top corner or pass the ball with the outside of his boot. He has, however, put in more successful challenges than anybody in the Premier League over the past three seasons. Which is some feat when he has been here only 18 months.

All the same, it still feels like a cop‑out to attribute all of Leicester’s issues to the loss of one player. For all his talents, Kanté was never expected to head the ball away at corners. It was not his job to put in crosses for Vardy, or weigh in with 10 goals a season. He might have given the impression sometimes he was football’s equivalent of the Duracell bunny but don’t hold him responsible for the way Robert Huth, Wes Morgan, Danny Drinkwater, Kasper Schmeichel, Vardy, Mahrez and all the others have allowed their fires to dim.

For Ranieri, it must be dispiriting that stories are now emerging of dressing-room divisions, that opponents are hearing Leicester is a place of egos and bad attitudes, and stories are being leaked that undermine a manager who, in happier times, called his players his “babies”, rang a pretend bell and happily admitted that, yes, he was a bit teary.

These kind of leaks generally do not happen when a manager has full control and the players are united. Leonard Ulloa’s public mutiny offers its own insight into the fractures behind the scenes and, in Mahrez’s case, would it be unfair to point out that there are times in football when signing a contract does not necessarily equate to complete devotion?

Mahrez’s new deal was announced in mid-August but only after it became apparent he did not have any counter‑offers from a bigger club. What went unreported at the time was that his pay rise was accompanied by the kind of verbal agreement that is commonplace in these situations, meaning that if he played well enough to attract an offer from one of Europe’s superpowers his current club would not hold him back at the end of the season.

Perhaps it just isn’t so easy to replicate a high level of form when you are operating with those kind of blurred priorities. Mahrez, such an elegant destroyer of defences last season, has scored three league goals, all penalties, and perhaps it is not a coincidence that he has reserved his best performances for the Champions League, in keeping with the team as a whole.

All of which represents some turnaround when it was this weekend a year ago that Ranieri’s men went to Manchester City for one of their season-defining fixtures, won 3-1 and delivered a free-wheeling performance that left nobody in any doubt we were witnessing a beautiful, baffling story. “Ninety minutes in Manchester changed everything,” David Bevan, author of The Unbelievables, later wrote. Yet here we are, a year on, and a largely unchanged team are suffering their own version of Cityitis. It is a wild graph and it is not going to be easy to get the needle pointing upwards again.

[Ashley]

1 minute ago, FLAN said:

The lad I mentioned earlier specifically quoted Vardy at the start of last season as having no respect for Ranieri.  He doesn't know how lucky he has been for everything to have fallen into place to set him up for life. Why isn't he being dropped though if everyone has had enough??

Sure he praises Ranieri in his book and says he's thankful for what he's done for him?

[Bunyip]

1 minute ago, Paddy. said:

IF he's the mole and he's been pissing off his teammates then he shouldn't even be allowed to train with the team let alone travel. You have to remove the Poison before it becomes toxic. 

 

I feel for Claudio. If it is Vardy then he had to be the most ungrateful brainless **** on the planet. That said, if (and actually we dont know for definite) it's Vardy then why the hell do we Claudio keep picking him?

Vardy is what his is . He's always been a lower class persona and has only got lucky in life because of his talent for football. He and Ranieri are worlds apart . Ranieri knows Vardy has no brains ( you only have to look further than his wife ) but it seems Vardy has the players in his pocket. Vardy is a busted flush a one season wonder. If I were the owners he is the one I'd get rid of.

[Wymsey]

Give the captaincy band to Drinkwater, as he seemed lost and peed off in recent games. Deserves some boost as he's been more instrumental than some perceive.

Wes needs a rest for a bit.

[Tielemans63]

7 minutes ago, Bunyip said:

Vardy is what his is . He's always been a lower class persona and has only got lucky in life because of his talent for football. He and Ranieri are worlds apart . Ranieri knows Vardy has no brains ( you only have to look further than his wife ) but it seems Vardy has the players in his pocket. Vardy is a busted flush a one season wonder. If I were the owners he is the one I'd get rid of.

Sad thing is, he's just signed a contract extension worth north of £100k a week - who the hell is going to take him off our hands? Add in that he's actually a bit shit and a total knobhead to boot and he's not going anywhere unfortunately. Our only hope would be some Chinese side with more money than sense.*

 

*...and we all know how highly Vardy regards the Chinese.

[deep blue]

15 minutes ago, MPH said:

 

 

I wouldn't even bench him. Leave him at home for a couple of games...

It  beyond belief that Ranieri continues to pick Vardy when his performances are so lacklustre.  Even more so, if the above is true of Vardy's disruption to the team ethic.

 

It's hard to explain why Ranieri didn't use the Everton performance to build on - in terms of formation, style of play, and personnel. Amazing that Vardy continues to be picked ahead of Musa after that game. Maybe no coincidence that our performances have been woeful since.

 

It's bewildering.

[Apollo]

Don't buy this Vardy story at all. No one except the lads in the dressing room know what the cause of the problem (s) are, we're just seeing the results of it. People jumping to conclusions about this mole, that's if there even is one.

[Ashley]

Also is it true Fuchs and Vards had a bust up at Burnley 

[somebum]

This is all hearsay and media talk, nonsense

[LJS]

I completely believe that Jamie has the kind of snivelling personality required to be a media/opposition mole. Like **** do I believe he can operate a telephone or type an email to contact a journalist though.

[Wymsey]

Like someone mentioned, if true, not sure fully why Vardy would do it.

£100k weekly, a Bentley fully paid for, plus the car the owners gave all the players, and a recently purchases £2m+ house as well...

If Leicester didn't see the potential in him, gave him an opportunity to develop at a welcoming club, and also made him the greatest he ever could be last season (which he wouldn't have imagined in his late-teens) - something must've been said to him recently, either about his performances or personally, to makevhim to retaliate likerumours said he did.

 

The club doesn't owe him anything.

[Old Fox]

2 hours ago, MPH said:

I hate to say it... but one thing Pearson had over Ranieri is his ability to deal with the players. If anyone was acting the billy big balls, he'd nip it in the bud immediately and isolate them from the team.

 

no one was a bigger personality than him and that's what was needed to deflect attention away from the team during the tough times and the run-in.

 

could he of tactically done what ranieri did last season? I doubt it and I'm not saying we should of kept him, but that's the one area that he could deal with- getting the players pulling in the same direction.

 

when the team seems to be pulling in the same direction, ranieri is a masterful genius at making it work but it's very worrying that he seems to be absolutely clueless in how to deal with things at the moment....

Pearson ruled the players......I wish you would all get over him....we would never have won the bloody league with him in charge and he would never have had to deal with these issues....

 

if if you believe Claudio has no back bone your living on a different planet....he has managed some big clubs with big egos.....

 

however, it is clear that he needs a motivated Vardy as we are toothless without him but no player is bigger than our club....if he does not show the right attitude tomorrow i for one wouldn't hesitate to dump him in the youth team it I was the gaffer....

 

its all all really sad as some modern footballers are spoilt but hopefully the larger characters in the dressing room have the balls to back Claudio!!

[CosbehFox]

14 minutes ago, somebum said:

This is all hearsay and media talk, nonsense

It's too specific to be nonsense. 

[jmono84]

1 hour ago, Apollo said:

Don't buy this Vardy story at all. No one except the lads in the dressing room know what the cause of the problem (s) are, we're just seeing the results of it. People jumping to conclusions about this mole, that's if there even is one.

Can someone point me in the right direction to find this story... seen severa mentions but don't know where it's come from

[Bert]

2 hours ago, Ashley said:

People always ask questions when things go wrong, why does there have to be a mole? 

How do all these journalists from three different papers know pretty much similar stuff? There's no way all this shit is coming from someone who isn't a player. Who helped Vards with his book? 

[ousefox]

1 hour ago, Ashley said:

Also is it true Fuchs and Vards had a bust up at Burnley 

I read something on twitter about Fuchs pushing Vardy and Simpson having to stop him but haven't seen it anywhere else.

[KFS]

Vardy sucking up to Piers Morgan says it all for me.

 

Shame, he was a brilliant role model last season and I really took pride in his climb to the top. Now all we've got is an embarrassment of a glorified Jeremy Kyle guest trotting around up top for us. 

 

Here's some advice to the Vardy camp trying to capitalise on the spotlight: Brand Beckham works so well because his family are courteous, classy and low key despite their relative lack of intelligence with the circles that they involve themselves in. Jamie, you and your Mrs look like Butlins holiday goers who would pick on anyone with a bad word to say about them. 

 

What the lad has failed to realise is that for a lot of people, he was a running joke last year (blue wkd, chat shit get banged etc) - what a waste of time and energy even thinking that there's long term sustainability in a brand with that as its foundations. 

 

Get your fvcking head down and crack on- enough is enough, Jamie.

[Moksky]

2 hours ago, FLAN said:

The lad I mentioned earlier specifically quoted Vardy at the start of last season as having no respect for Ranieri.  He doesn't know how lucky he has been for everything to have fallen into place to set him up for life. Why isn't he being dropped though if everyone has had enough??

You pals spot on, it backs up what I know about Vardys respect lack of respect. Ranieri backs Vardy. 

[lgfualol]

Molla Wague needs to step up in training and injure Vardy for a few months.

 

Always loved him even though he was a ****, because he was our ****. But now he just seems like a ****.

[fuchsntf]

You all criticise journalists..then you all go on and do exactly  the same thing....

You  all concoct and create an idea and non confirmed beliefs..conspiracy of this and that.

Then carry on in the forum as if they are well known, events issues and  facts.

 

I despair...I really do......

The sad point is, how spitefull many of you become and start blaming family members of the players, or make up arguments between people that have never taken place..

Yes!!!  discuss until the death how/what your belief/opinions are on match performances.

but trying to grab onto every phsycoligical flotsam, and martyre yourselves to it...weird!!

[Ric Flair]

Read Vardy's book and if the words " complete bell end " aren't dancing around your mind then you're brain dead.

 

Sadly a man whose been an absolute hero for us is a complete fcukin helmet. He's a cretin. I just wish he'd raise his game one last time for the rest of this season and keep us up. Then put him in a cage or something.