A little bit disenchanted

[foxfanazer]

2 minutes ago, HighPeakFox said:

Did you learn nothing during the last 3,808 posts?

Eh?

[HighPeakFox]

21 minutes ago, foxfanazer said:

Eh?

You seem surprised by berks hijacking the thread. 

 

Sorry, I was saying it with a smile. 

[foxfanazer]

Just now, HighPeakFox said:

You seem surprised by berks hijacking the thread. 

 

Sorry, I was saying it with a smile. 

Nah the surprise element of FoxesTalk has completely gone for me

[Nalis]

Back to the OP, I know exactly what you are saying. 

 

Think as football fans we cant win either way. We want success without losing our soul but it almost appears that you cant have both.  Wonder what the thoughts of the bigger clubs are in this, Arsenal away was the quietest ground I've ever been to until they scored late on and others arent much better.

 

I dont think its happened to us (yet) but I get the impression that a lot of people attending matches at stadiums as neutrals/day trippers expect others to create an atmosphere and yet are the first to complain when no atmosphere exists (particularly the corporates), as if other fans are responsible for putting on a show just for them.

 

[Dan]

On 8/1/2017 at 19:23, murphy said:

Maybe for you.

 

But I am reading people reminiscing about League one, Yeovil and Orient.  It is there in black and white read it.  People almost envious that West Brom haven't won the league because they can still dream of winning it.  Ridiculous.

 

So for you, if it is the 'soulless' nature of corporate football, well wlecome to the modern world, it's been here a while and it's the same for everyone.

Envious of West Brom?  

 

You have entirely missed the point the whole way through the thread.

[Dan]

On 8/1/2017 at 16:37, Voll Blau said:

Absolutely spot on. The great irony here is that the kind of folks who ARE brats are the kind who more and more seem to be the ones found in our away ends.

 

People made every kind of excuse under the sun for how poor our Euro ends were (too pissed, too hot, too cold, too tired, "singers" too spread out, shit football). If you weren't up for getting behind our team at those moments, no matter what state you were in, I question why the hell you were there in the first place.

 

I genuinely don't think any other English club in that position would have offered support as poor as ours abroad.

Me neither. I remember watching Atletico Madrid play at home in the CL quarter the year before, strangely, thinking to myself... just imagine being up against a crowd like that.

 

Sure enough, we were. What did we show? An away end probably quieter that a trip to Cardiff in the League Cup 3rd round with 500 fans there. How ridiculous is that?

 

Speaking from a personal point of view, I do care about our support, I don't care if I'm sad, it totally changes the spectacle for me, I've had some fantastic aways when we've lost because of the away end (Bristol City 2-0 springs to mind for some reason) yet some shockers when we've won (West Ham last season) and it's largely based on atmosphere. I have never known it to be this consistently awful. My enthusiasm for the season would be far higher if I knew we'd take a good end to Arsenal.

 

For what it's worth I'm still looking forward to it, but it's probably this false hope that it'll be great when in reality it'll probably be that night in April all over again.

 

It was weird last year. First year in a while I've missed some aways and not felt the slightest bit of bother that I wasn't there.

Edited 3 August 2017 by Dan LCFC

[SheppyFox]

It's like the first time you have sex, a tug of the pork sword doesn't matchup the night after does it

[Livid]

I don't think the club lacks ambition but our work in the transfer market is either very poor or just plain baffling.

 

In general we''ve bought very badly recently. We now have a number of expensive high wage earners who have underperformed. There's not a lot of interest in them and with them earning the best wages in Europe there's no financial incentive for them to move on.

 

Time will tell if this summer has been any better. Bidding £40 million for Siggurdson and then apparently not being linked with another creative midfielder leaves me lost for words really.

[m4DD0gg]

14 hours ago, pmcla26 said:

I don't think the club is losing its appeal much, I just am really disappointed at what seems to be a lack of ambition. 

 

If you look at the title winning season, recruitment before that was really lucky in how it all played out, at the same time it was excellent of course but I think we only spent something like £25 million? 

 

The summer afterwards, we had champions league football and were champions of England and if you look at what other teams in England in that position spend, we didn't really do anything. Spending £13 million on mendy when we could have spent £30 million on Silva? Spending £16 million on Musa when Sigurddson was there for £25 million? Missing out on Keane over £3 million? It's things like this that wind me up. 

 

Then this summer, I would say on incomes, we've done fairly well. Maguire and Iheanacho I think are great signings, Jakupovic certainly can do the back up job for Schmeichel and offer competent cover. Iborra has top level experience and his physical presence on the pitch will help when he's called upon. HOWEVER, again this summer we've seen our lack of capability at spending a bit extra to secure our targets. We can bid £45 million, with add ons, for Sigurddson, but give up when they say they want an extra £5 million? Johnny Evans and Ben Gibson - substantial bids for both made, but because they wanted another £5 million for each (£20m bid for Evans, £25m asking price, £25m verbal offer for Gibson, £30 million asking price) 

 

Its not just our recruitment, but our outgoings also. The Kante clause and contract situation was ridiculous, you're telling me he wouldn't have stayed like Mahrez and Vardy if we didn't offer a bit extra? Maybe another £20k a week... Letting go of Liam Moore, when his only chance in the premier league came in a defence which contained a well past it Paul Konchesky and Ritchie De Laet flanking him? Then he went on to be one of the Championships unsung top performers last season, and is still only 24/25. Not saying he could start, but back up, surely? Any worse than Hernandez was? I don't think so. Then this summer there were plenty who needed offloading or replacing. It looks like we just haven't bothered in some areas. Will a promising player like Amartey ever reach his potential when he's highly unlikely to get a good run with us in his best role? No. So why not loan him to the likes of Huddersfield or Brighton? Musa should've been sold whilst he's still got a decent amount of time left on his contract to be worth anything substantial, and clearly we've got a player in Papy Mendy who doesn't want to be here, and one we can cope without with our other options in central midfield. 

 

I'm frustrated at whoever makes these decisions at the club right now.

100% spot on.

 

Its criminal the way transfers have been done since we won the league.

[Babylon]

15 hours ago, pmcla26 said:

I don't think the club is losing its appeal much, I just am really disappointed at what seems to be a lack of ambition. 

 

If you look at the title winning season, recruitment before that was really lucky in how it all played out, at the same time it was excellent of course but I think we only spent something like £25 million? 

 

The summer afterwards, we had champions league football and were champions of England and if you look at what other teams in England in that position spend, we didn't really do anything. Spending £13 million on mendy when we could have spent £30 million on Silva? Spending £16 million on Musa when Sigurddson was there for £25 million? Missing out on Keane over £3 million? It's things like this that wind me up. 

 

Then this summer, I would say on incomes, we've done fairly well. Maguire and Iheanacho I think are great signings, Jakupovic certainly can do the back up job for Schmeichel and offer competent cover. Iborra has top level experience and his physical presence on the pitch will help when he's called upon. HOWEVER, again this summer we've seen our lack of capability at spending a bit extra to secure our targets. We can bid £45 million, with add ons, for Sigurddson, but give up when they say they want an extra £5 million? Johnny Evans and Ben Gibson - substantial bids for both made, but because they wanted another £5 million for each (£20m bid for Evans, £25m asking price, £25m verbal offer for Gibson, £30 million asking price) 

 

Its not just our recruitment, but our outgoings also. The Kante clause and contract situation was ridiculous, you're telling me he wouldn't have stayed like Mahrez and Vardy if we didn't offer a bit extra? Maybe another £20k a week... Letting go of Liam Moore, when his only chance in the premier league came in a defence which contained a well past it Paul Konchesky and Ritchie De Laet flanking him? Then he went on to be one of the Championships unsung top performers last season, and is still only 24/25. Not saying he could start, but back up, surely? Any worse than Hernandez was? I don't think so. Then this summer there were plenty who needed offloading or replacing. It looks like we just haven't bothered in some areas. Will a promising player like Amartey ever reach his potential when he's highly unlikely to get a good run with us in his best role? No. So why not loan him to the likes of Huddersfield or Brighton? Musa should've been sold whilst he's still got a decent amount of time left on his contract to be worth anything substantial, and clearly we've got a player in Papy Mendy who doesn't want to be here, and one we can cope without with our other options in central midfield. 

 

I'm frustrated at whoever makes these decisions at the club right now.

I'm going to repeat myself again....

 

The second Iheanacho is announced we've got the fourth biggest net outlay since 14/15 season. Our wages are likely to be pushing almost double what they were the first season we got promoted. We've beaten off suitors for our best players by offering them huge amounts of money almost every other club our size can't do.  Yet we lack ambition?

 

It's very easy to say, just another £5m on this player, just another £10m on that player, then the extra wages that comes with buying a more expensive player from this league. We need to follow FFP rules and we need to budget properly, anyone being realistic knew champions league money wasn't going to be there every year. So that money needs to see us through all the large contracts we've handed out. It might pay for the stadium expansion, it might buy us a £25m player now and then that others can't afford.

 

We might not have used the money wisely, but there is no way we've lacked ambition.

[HighPeakFox]

1 hour ago, Babylon said:

The second Iheanacho is announced we've got the fourth biggest net outlay since 14/15 season. Our wages are likely to be pushing almost double what they were the first season we got promoted. We've beaten off suitors for our best players by offering them huge amounts of money almost every other club our size can't do.  Yet we lack ambition?

 

We might not have used the money wisely, but there is no way we've lacked ambition.

I agree - hanging on to all our assets bar Kante was a hugely ambitious move. The game being played by the owners is hugely precarious.

[Babylon]

2 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

So you're happy with what we've done then? If over spending on average players is ambitious then okay.

Perhaps read my post. We might not have used it wisely but we're spending much more than other clubs our size.

 

2 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

I think ambition is more getting what you know will work and not just trying whatever.

Do you actually think we bought those players thinking they wouldn't work? We signed players we thought would be good and people on here were creaming themselves last summer. They haven't worked out, but that's the scouts fault and not the owners who stumped up the money for them.

 

2 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

The reason our wages have doubled is because we won the league, otherwise we wouldn't have been forced to offer big contracts to our players to keep them here.

But we didn't have to give people extra money to keep them, we could have just sold them all off. But we keep most of our best players because the owners were willing to pay for it. Which is ambition. Taking the money and running like a Burnley do is a lack of ambition. Not spending to keep your players.

 

2 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

Also I don't understand your point about FFP. Look at Everton and Man City, Chelsea, we'd never spend as much as them or increase our wages as much as them but they aren't getting massively screwed by it.

 

Since 14/15 we've got a larger net spent than both Chelsea and Everton for starters. When Iheanacho goes through out net outlay is £100m more than Chelsea in that time frame. And you scream ambition?

 

2 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

You don't need to bring Champions League money in to the equation either. With Premier League money and the owners fortune, then champions league money on top, we should be spending way more than what we are now.

You are completely deluded. The owners don't want to spend their own money and if they don't that's their choice. What they are doing is investing almost everything into the club, unlike some others. Champions league money is very relevant, it's that money that enables you to bump wages substantially, same as the huger commercial revenue the big teams bring in. Without it you are tied to the premier league FFP wage rise rules.  Every team has premier league money FFS, how many of them are outspending us? We aren't Manchester City with unlimited oil money.

 

2 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

One of the reasons we have the fourth biggest outlay is because we haven't sold some players we should have. We haven't spent as much money as it seems, and certainly not on the right players or in the right way. 

We have spent the 8th/9th largest amount since 14/15, only the biggest clubs in the country have spent more. I have no idea what you're talking about player wise, total rubbish.

 

Not spending money in the right way doesn't indicate a lack of ambition, it's just poor management.

 

[Ricey]

This summer certainly feels odd. One one hand we are recent Premier League champions and reached the last 8 of the Champions League last season, but on the other hand we were mostly very poor last season and the summer signings so far have yet to really whet the appetite.

 

It's felt odd the minute we were knocked out by Aletico. For the first time in years there wasn't something going on that was creating a real buzz of excitement. You could argue right back until the start of the 13/14 season.

 

I've got no issues with looking forward to the season or being optimistic, I am both, but I'm more concerned about the long term direction of the club. I don't trust the Director of Football and I've yet to see evidence of a sensible, sustainable plan to ensure we become a consistent top 10 Premier League approach. All I see is a scattergun approach.

[Dan]

I don't think we lack ambition. I think we lack know-how.

 

But that wasn't always the case.

Edited 3 August 2017 by Dan LCFC

[Babylon]

3 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

I'm deluded?

Yes you are.

 

3 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

Because when we're the 16th richest club in Europe and about the 5th richest in the league I should be happy despite the fact we can't sign the players we go after and instead choose to offer sums that are just below the asking price and end up missing out?

You do realise that even if those positions were correct, that it's only based on one seasons income. I'm going to say it again, we are not going to get champions league money every year. Without that money, we'd be about 12th richest because like all premier league clubs at our level most of our income is from the tv deal. Finish 17th, you're about the 17th richest. Finish 8th, you're about the 8th richest.

 

The year we won the league we made about £10m more than Everton made from the league. A pittance. We made good money from the champions league, but we'd already spent heavily last summer and we could easily be using that money to fund transfers and wages over several seasons and not just one.

 

3 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

I should be happy despite the fact we can't sign the players we go after and instead choose to offer sums that are just below the asking price and end up missing out?

You have absolutely no idea if that even happens. If we have a budget, then you stick the the budget. You don't seem to understand that we don't have a bottomless pit of money.

 

3 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

Every City fan I know thinks the same and it's hard to argue against when they publish the amount we made over the last two seasons. It's not just millions we have now but billions, and we can't sign West Brom's, Middlesbrough's or Swansea's star player?

We do not have billions to spend for goodness sake, are you 12 years old? I'm sorry but you clearly don't have a clue about our finances or FFP. Our owners company might mean he's valued at a few billion, but here is the key point.... THAT'S HIS MONEY and he's not interested in spending any of it on the club.

 

3 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

The reason we have a higher net spend than Chelsea is like I say, we haven't sold either what we should have (Musa, Mendy) or got the money we should have for Kante. They managed to sell Oscar for £60 million, Matic for £40 million etc. thats £100 million right there. 

Sigh... what they've sold has bugger all to do with the point. I'll play your game, even if we sold Musa and Mendy, do you not think we've sign equally as expensive or more expensive players to take their places? So we'd still have a high net spend.

 

3 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

We shouldn't compare ourselves to Chelsea but come on, really?

You're the one expecting us to be spending Chelsea like money not me. We're spending more money than a club like Leicester normally would. If you expect us to be spending billions you are in cloud cuckoo land.

 

3 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

 If you can sit there and be like oh yeah it's been great signing these crap players that I know are crap and will say are awful but don't worry because we got the 4th highest net spend in the premier league then you're much more deluded than myself. 

Nobody has said that FFS. Signing players that don't work is is sod all to do with ambition, do you even know what that means? Spending more money than all the other teams of similar size is ambition, and that's what we've been doing.

 

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about, so we'll just leave it there.

 

 

[BenTheFox]

This thread has been both depressing and really interesting at the same time. I always want Leicester City to succeed but on the other hand I really don't like this corporate, sanitised image the club is promoting. I understand that shameless advertising and even the odd completely meaningless hashtag has become part of the game in this country, but can we at least not celebrate our history and traditions at the same time? Go past the ground and there's no statue, no murals or any acknowledgement of significant moments in the club's history. Arsenal are a club that I associate with aspects of the modern game that I can't stand: high ticket prices, no atmosphere, twitter warriors, meltdowns after drawing with Stoke etc. but you go to their ground and you see statues, murals and reminders of significant in their history.
 

[Babylon]

5 minutes ago, Dan LCFC said:

I don't think we lack ambition. I think we lack know-how.

 

But that wasn't always the case.

Some people don't seem to understand they are two vastly different things!

[foxinsocks]

5 minutes ago, Babylon said:

Some people don't seem to understand they are two vastly different things!

Right.

We need ti taje the ambition abd realise that the implecation is that we need to improve yhe squad and desk with age turnover to take us is there.  This will drive pur recruitment policy. .... and u think we need specialist dealmakers

Edited 3 August 2017 by foxinsocks

[SouthStandUpperTier]

Right.
We need ti taje the ambition abd realise that the implecation is that we need to improve yhe squad and desk with age turnover to take us is there.  This will drive pur recruitment policy. .... and u think we need specialist dealmakers

Are you typing with boxing gloves on?

[Babylon]

55 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

You seem like you're stuck in the past and can't get over the whole 'oh we're Leicester we should be mid table it's amazing what we're doing' shit. No it's where we are at now that matters, you continue to call me deluded because I'm looking at it as a point of a view as recent premier league champions and champions league quarter finalists. You say we made about £10 million more than Everton when we won the league which is complete bullshit really considering all the other factors coming into it. You're just going off of league prize money. 

 

'We're spending more money than a club like Leicester should be' 

 

Okay, give me another club like us then? A club who won the league and were in the champions league quarter finals recently? 

 

You're contradicting yourself also in saying 'nobody has said that ffs' 

 

You said a couple of posts ago that we spent big money on the wrong players, but you won't criticise the club for it...  

 

You're saying I'm in cuckoo land and deluded yet you clearly haven't watched us over the last two years then, because that's pretty much where our club has been and the level we should aspire to get back to. From what you say it looks like you'd be better off supporting a team like Burnley or Stoke.

 

 

 

 

Jesus H Christ.

[The Doctor]

5 hours ago, pmcla26 said:

You seem like you're stuck in the past and can't get over the whole 'oh we're Leicester we should be mid table it's amazing what we're doing' shit. No it's where we are at now that matters, you continue to call me deluded because I'm looking at it as a point of a view as recent premier league champions and champions league quarter finalists. You say we made about £10 million more than Everton when we won the league which is complete bullshit really considering all the other factors coming into it. You're just going off of league prize money. 

 

'We're spending more money than a club like Leicester should be' 

 

Okay, give me another club like us then? A club who won the league and were in the champions league quarter finals recently? 

 

You're contradicting yourself also in saying 'nobody has said that ffs' 

 

You said a couple of posts ago that we spent big money on the wrong players, but you won't criticise the club for it...  

 

You're saying I'm in cuckoo land and deluded yet you clearly haven't watched us over the last two years then, because that's pretty much where our club has been and the level we should aspire to get back to. From what you say it looks like you'd be better off supporting a team like Burnley or Stoke.

 

 

 

 

You are completely deluded if you think (to quote) spending 30m on sigurdsson rather than 13 on mendy, is a drop in the ocean - we've had an unprecedented couple of years, but we've still got means to live within. Means to break our transfer record 3 times, to shell out 25m for a top striker twice (slimani and 'nacho), but that doesn't mean we can afford to throw an extra 5-10m on every transfer. 

 

More than that you talk as if paying any price for your target is ambitious. It's not. Trying to pry away a second/third choice striker from one of the best sides in the world, and the captain of a CL side is ambitious. Throwing an extra 10m on our budget for every reasonable bottom half player is being a mug. 

Edited 3 August 2017 by The Doctor

[Spudulike]

Anyone still disenchanted

[foxfanazer]

1 hour ago, Spudulike said:

Anyone still disenchanted

The thread wasn't all about our transfer dealings. I'm very happy with the Iheanacho signing and think we've got a potential gem. Just hope we can give him the service

[fuchsntf]

1 hour ago, Spudulike said:

Anyone still disenchanted

Yup...so far.   I expected more dealing on the transfer side, plus some confidence boosting interviews,

From Shakespeare, on the younger members Come fringe players .  Speak to the fans, dont just wait for questions

from the media, be more positive in being more informative...!!!

 

Or are the management, also thinking we are shit....??  !! That they are scared  of opening up.

At least Pullis, Hughes have put out what they want, have and would like...

Edited 3 August 2017 by fuchsntf

[mozartfox]

On 31. Juli 2017 at 14:01, foxfanazer said:

This is going to sound ridiculous but I'm sure there will be some people that agree with me.

 

The title winning season was out of this world and I'll take memories from it they will stay with me for life, but.......... since then a bit of the romanticism of supporting Leicester has gone for me and I'm feeling a little bit disillusioned with what our club is becoming.

 

We don't see to be following the same blueprint and strong infrastructure that lead us to our unlikely successes. Now I don't want to make this another Pearson debate but it's hard to argue that we had solid foundations and some sort of vision when it came to recruitment under him. At the moment everything seems a bit wishy washy and hoping that if we throw enough shit some will stick.

 

Dont get me wrong I still love the club and come the first game of the season I'll be in attendance but I feel like we've probably peaked and the people at the club don't really know where to go from here.

 

Fully expect to be slated for this but, thoughts?

Mate I have been supporting this Club since 1966 and trust me I have been, like many others through absolute dire times. If you support Leicester you have to be a special person as this Club is the best thing ever, but it breaks your heart, sometimes.