Whistling Past the Graveyard?

[KingsX]

I’ve been thinking about our very recent history, and approaching the conclusion that we were in and out of the ICU with many folks none the wiser.

 

IN 2016-17, THE CLUB ADDED £619k A WEEK TO THE TITLE YEAR’S WAGE BILL *, mostly due to adding marginal contributors and improving title winners’ contracts.  THAT IS THE EQUIVALENT OF PAYING FOUR MORE MAJOR STARS -- BUT WITHOUT IMPROVEMENT TO THE SQUAD.  In fact with the loss of its most valuable player, Kante.

 

I don’t think many people appreciate how deep a hole we dug.  It could easily have become relegation-sized but for these factors (in my view of their importance):

 

1. We executed a strategy pivot in the nick of time, to world-class youth development coupled with good scouting.

2. We hired a manager who was able to implement that radical change -- adequately on the pitch, and superbly in terms of the roster teardown and rebuild.

3. An excellent CL run gave us a huge one-time financial windfall when we had to have it.

4. We had some excellent players in the academy.

 

If the club had not gotten all those things right, plus now building the training ground, and aggressively signing the manager for the next stage, and (please God, on a permanent) the “missing link” #21 in midfield  -- would we be having a new thread today to discuss displacing a top six club?

 

Go back to Shakespeare.  Go back to a Musa-Iborra-Silva “veterans” recruitment strategy.  Go back to Belvoir Drive as a permanent home.  In other words, extrapolate what we were doing all of two years ago -- and tell me we wouldn’t be closer to the “third club going down” conversation instead.

 

If you took our approach and playing staff of that time and projected out to today, you’d expect a struggling club.  Though many fans would disagree, I think it took two years of negotiating the precipice, to return our “real-world” position in line with their ongoing expectations. 

 

 

* source http://financialfootballnews.com/leicester-city-financial-review-2018/

[Guest bss9401]

What happened in 2016/17 was largely a shambles and I believe that pretty much all of Foxes fans recognised the massive missed opportunity.  The foundations of the turnaround were partly in place and it is with genuine hope that we can challenge for a top 6 place, provided that the past errors of delay, delay and delay again are not repeated.

[49er]

Good post. From winning the Premier League, we are happy to scrape a victory over the likes of Cardiff, Burnley and Huddersfield who were miles behind us three years ago. The likes of Newcastle and West Brom all over the place. Sadly, mismanagement on a high scale - what credentials did Shakey and Puel have to get the job? A transfer policy that ended up with so many flops - Musa, Slimani, Zieler, Hernandez, Mendy, Kaputska, Silva, Iborra, Iheanacho, Ghezzal and, possibly, Soyuncu and maybe Benkovic. Why on earth didn't we recruit players who were proven in the Premier League after we won it - we could have bought Arnautovic instead of Musa, Jo Allen instead of Mendy etc. Last season we could have had Tadic instead of Ghezzal.

 

On a more positive note, I think Brendan Rogers is the sort of Manager that we should have appointed when Claudio was sacked. I think that we finally have the scope to get to where we should have been a couple of seasons ago - serious challengers to get into the top six.

[UPinCarolina]

Great post, @KingsX - and as provocative and emotive a title as I'd expect from a fellow Kenyon Lord.

[Bourbon Fox]

The recruitment between winning the league and recently was an absolute mystery to me. 

I've always trusted the owners but they have made mistakes; fortunately they have shown the instincts/leadership/acumen to react quickly when they have erred

[filthyfox]

43 minutes ago, bss9401 said:

What happened in 2016/17 was largely a shambles and I believe that pretty much all of Foxes fans recognised the massive missed opportunity.  The foundations of the turnaround were partly in place and it is with genuine hope that we can challenge for a top 6 place, provided that the past errors of delay, delay and delay again are not repeated.

Yet, the architect of that shambles is still in post.  Ruskin must really have something over the family.

[49er]

5 minutes ago, filthyfox said:

Yet, the architect of that shambles is still in post.  Ruskin must really have something over the family.

He's getting on a bit this John Ruskin!

[filthyfox]

I'm actually going to leave that... that's funny

[Fox92]

Puel did okay just stabilising us a bit and introducing youth. Yeah we're all rightfully excited with Rodgers as manager but he wouldn't have took the job had we been 18th like we were when Puel come in. 

[Stadt]

We were probably a bad appointment away from a serious relegation battle. Southampton are in the position we could have been in but they scraped through two awful appointments on the basis the sides beneath them had much worse squads. 

 

If if we can shift Slimani and Silva this summer our wage bill will fairly healthy for once 

[Guest SO1]

Crazy stuff. A fine line. Ask Swansea, Stoke, West Brom and the list goes on and on. Just goes to show how important it is for EVERYONE at the club to be on the same page.

Actually that's why I think Rodgers is here. Because you guys have your whole club in order. The right structure and defined goals.

[Gamble92]

I agree with the posts above about the signings after winning the league but it was also unprecedented and whos to say it couldn't have actually been much worse and we ended up selling Mahrez and Vardy aswell? 

 

However it is very frustrating now to know we can't attract a certain calibre of player that the lure of Champions League football definetely would have enabled us to do.

 

Having said that i think the standard of the squad now and the age of the squad is one of the most exciting in the country and being the "best of the rest" is very achievable and where youd probably have expected/hoped for at this stage after the title win. The cups are where we have fallen well short.

[Nicolo Barella]

11 hours ago, 49er said:

Good post. From winning the Premier League, we are happy to scrape a victory over the likes of Cardiff, Burnley and Huddersfield who were miles behind us three years ago. The likes of Newcastle and West Brom all over the place. Sadly, mismanagement on a high scale - what credentials did Shakey and Puel have to get the job? A transfer policy that ended up with so many flops - Musa, Slimani, Zieler, Hernandez, Mendy, Kaputska, Silva, Iborra, Iheanacho, Ghezzal and, possibly, Soyuncu and maybe Benkovic. Why on earth didn't we recruit players who were proven in the Premier League after we won it - we could have bought Arnautovic instead of Musa, Jo Allen instead of Mendy etc. Last season we could have had Tadic instead of Ghezzal.

 

On a more positive note, I think Brendan Rogers is the sort of Manager that we should have appointed when Claudio was sacked. I think that we finally have the scope to get to where we should have been a couple of seasons ago - serious challengers to get into the top six.

I don't think we can write off Soyuncu or Benkovic off yet as poor signings to be honest... 

[st albans fox]

Some bits worth noting in this thread - missed opportunities certainly ......... but lots of bollox being spouted too. ITS REAL LIFE - NOT FIFA!!!!

[shailen]

Good post, holding onto our key players like Vardy and Mahrez in 16/17 was also crucial as we had enough quality to overcome and hide our issues. Puel did a fantastic job getting rid of a lot of the dead wood and I think bar a couple of players who will leave this summer we have a well balanced and complete squad, which is one forbl the future.

[Gwyn]

35 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

Some bits worth noting in this thread - missed opportunities certainly ......... but lots of bollox being spouted too. ITS REAL LIFE - NOT FIFA!!!!

Agreed. 

Recruitment is massive in the PL. However it is a very tough and unforgiving part of the the game. As a scout you could either play it easy and identify proven PL player's and spend a fortune on them hoping that they will fit in, although a lot don't, prime example would be Dennis Wise, who looked great in a great Chelsea side but did f.a for us. Or you could take a punt. Personally I think we have done a great job. You could hit back with Musa/Slimani etc.. But if they played to the standard of when we scouted them then people would be saying 'how good is our recruitment team'. Football is a strange beast. Some players have only 1 good season, and some can only play in 1 team. Take Liverpool for example, everyone was pissed off the got Naby Kieta but he's been absolute dog poo for them. Also look at $145,000,000 for Coutinho... Is that bad business from a poorly run club?  I think not, that's just football for you. 

On the upside, we got Ricardo in at a risk and its more than paid off. 

In essence, I'm trying to say that it's a whole lot tougher than us back seat drivers realise. 

 

[PhillippaT]

15 minutes ago, shailen said:

Good post, holding onto our key players like Vardy and Mahrez in 16/17 was also crucial as we had enough quality to overcome and hide our issues. Puel did a fantastic job getting rid of a lot of the dead wood and I think bar a couple of players who will leave this summer we have a well balanced and complete squad, which is one forbl the future.

Yep - after CR and CS, we needed a butcher, not a chef, and it looks like we found one, who did that job pretty well.  Now it was time for a chef, and hopefully we've found one of those too...

[weller54]

1 hour ago, Nicolo Barella said:

I don't think we can write off Soyuncu or Benkovic off yet as poor signings to be honest... 

Of course we can. 

This is FT.!

[mozartfox]

The best window since summer 2016/2017 was the last one.   Fantastic loan signing, some deadwood out and more importantly no duff additions.  I have great expectations for the next window.  

[Danizen]

I probably mentioned it a couple of times on here but when we were on our wretched run during the 16/17 season, I was bricking it that we'd go down for just that reason. 

 

If we'd done what every non-Leicester fan had demanded of us and stuck with Ranieri for sentimental reasons, we could have been ruined and would have spent a decade sorting out our finances. 

 

I'm so glad our owners had the decisiveness to make what was definitely a hard decision and sack Ranieri while we still had a chance.

[KingsX]

7 hours ago, shailen said:

holding onto our key players like Vardy and Mahrez in 16/17 was also crucial

A good point.  That £619k a week (while mostly wasted) at least retained two stars, without whom the CL run would never have happened.

 

Anyway, if "never the same mistake twice" characterizes this LCFC regime, 

          - They've proven good at surviving those mistakes (probably a piece of cake compared to, say, navigating regime change in Thailand)

          - You can't say the same about most big clubs, who merely spend to cover their mistakes, then make more.