'Our aim' – Leicester City boss Brendan Rodgers reveals summer transfer plan

[volpeazzurro]

1 hour ago, Xen said:

Based on what, exactly?

 

Neither Congerton nor Rodgers will be involved in any contractual negotiations, that's Rudkin's domain. He's not done too badly in recent years, so no need to be too concerned there.

 

 

Perez hasn't done too badly at all - he's been an involved player in arguably our second-best squad ever - and considering people value Gray at ~£20m then £30m for Perez isn't too outlandish. Not every signing is going to hit the heights of Vardy, Ndidi, Pereira etc., and whilst he's not been a star player I'd still find it hard to call him a flop.

 

Congerton wasn't around long enough in the summer to have an impact on transfers, and in the winter its hard to find value anyway. That said, we were supposedly looking at a very promising signing in Demiral before he got injured, so I'd say he's on the right track for what we're after. Remember that the environment and budget he's working with at Leicester is worlds apart from his previous roles at Sunderland, Celtic etc. where his hands were tied by restrictive budgets and clubs which aren't able to attract the same calibre of player as ourselves.

 

You've checked Congerton's previous history I take it and read the poster 'Henriks' comments on here about his time at Celtic?

 

I'm well aware of Rudkins role of financial negotiation etc which is entirely irrelevant if the player's that have been identified in the first place are complete duffers.

 

As for Perez being involved in a successful team doesn't mean that his contribution to that team has been good. I'd suggest that his continual selection has been based less on ability and more on his price tag and him being Rodgers signing. It was a breath of fresh air to see Albrighton's contribution and 2 assists against Villa. Just imagine what he could have done if he'd been given the opportunities Perez had been given this season and been fully match fit and sharp. 

[volpeazzurro]

1 hour ago, urban.spaceman said:

I can see why some people are a bit worried given Congerton's reputation at Celtic and Sunderland I'm more intrigued personally. This is the first time he'll actually have the resources to get the right type of player, with a club who already have an excellent recruitment track record and the team and means to bring in quality.

 

At least I ****ing hope.

 

Priorities this summer should be:

Starting CB

Squad CB

Starting RW

Squad GK

 

This might be the first summer we don't make a massive sale. Which for me would be an even bigger statement than demanding £85m for Maguire up front and then not spending it. 

 

Massive summer coming up. I am so ****ing excited.

Your observation may well be true regarding money made available to spend however, the previous scouting team at Celtic that had to make way for Congerton had managed very well with what was made available to them i.e. see Van Dyke, Wanyama and a number of others. If you repeatedly make mistakes buying cheap, could that not merely be seen as a precursor for making mistakes buying expensively? Rodgers record is hardly stunning in this area either. Time will tell.

[hackneyfox]

1 hour ago, urban.spaceman said:

I can see why some people are a bit worried given Congerton's reputation at Celtic and Sunderland I'm more intrigued personally. This is the first time he'll actually have the resources to get the right type of player, with a club who already have an excellent recruitment track record and the team and means to bring in quality.

 

At least I ****ing hope.

 

Priorities this summer should be:

Starting CB

Squad CB

Starting RW

Squad GK

 

This might be the first summer we don't make a massive sale. Which for me would be an even bigger statement than demanding £85m for Maguire up front and then not spending it. 

 

Massive summer coming up. I am so ****ing excited.

New goalie

New left back, assuming Chilwell goes.

New centre back, assuming benkovic isn;t as good as hoped.

New central midfielder 

Three wide players, Gray to leave and Albrighton/Perez not good enough for CL football.

New striker

 

Five of the above need to be better than squad players.

[dmayne7]

3 hours ago, Ric Flair said:

Congerton came in like a wrecking ball....

There's an image I can't get out of my head 

[Blanchflower78]

Good to hear they are looking to freshen up. We all agree some deadwood needs moving on and 1-2 perhaps holding on to their positions at times via lack of alternative. 

 

If we can move a few out and replace with hopefully better quality with maybe a marquee signing or even 2 to me that sounds pretty encouraging.  European football demands that at least.

[Guest SO1]

1 hour ago, SydenhamFox said:

Not sure the current squad need to be hearing this with 9 games to go. Might make a few heads drop. 

I thought just the opposite. They're not little kids are they? Think this club has big problems if they can't handle the truth of the real world.

 

[Guest SO1]

2 hours ago, somebum said:

Mmmm

You're on the fence? So unlike you

[Guest SO1]

I'm not worried. Think Rodgers and Congerton are going to do a fine job here with transfers and recruitment. 

[BrokenRecord]

1 minute ago, SO1 said:

I'm not worried. Think Rodgers and Congerton are going to do a fine job here with transfers and recruitment. 

You would say that, you've been rimming Rodgers for years and strangely following every club he goes to 

[Guest SO1]

Just now, BrokenRecord said:

You would say that, you've been rimming Rodgers for years and strangely following every club he goes to 

Can't complain. He does give maximum entertainment.

[somebum]

31 minutes ago, SO1 said:

You're on the fence? So unlike you

I'm still willing to give him benefit of doubt! Which means nothing to him I know

[Vestan Pance]

As well as looking to move on Gray, we could do with shifting these loaned players out permanently. Silva and Slimani, Ghezzal, Diabete etc. Mendy and King also have contracts coming to an end. With that lot I'm not surprised we didn't/couldn't buy in Jan.

[North Leeds Fox]

Glad that rodgers wants new players. To stay where we are in the league and continue to progress as a club, we need to keep investing in the squad, even though it is already blessed with some brilliant players.

 

We need a starting CB to rotate with cags and Evan's (maybe demiral), LB if chilly does go (hope he stays), and a starting winger to improve the first 11. Also could do with a squad winger (maybe fraser) squad attacking mid and squad cb and that will do us nicely for a big season. 

[baldeagle]

1 hour ago, Vestan Pance said:

As well as looking to move on Gray, we could do with shifting these loaned players out permanently. Silva and Slimani, Ghezzal, Diabete etc. Mendy and King also have contracts coming to an end. With that lot I'm not surprised we didn't/couldn't buy in Jan.

My exact thoughts, time to get rid of a load of dross and get some decent guys in add Kaputski into this as well and there’s  a load of squad places and wages freed up 

[Fox92]

It's good that he knows this but it obviously won't be done in one window. We've got a lot of dross he needs to rid of and we need a few quality players in (a winger, for starters). It's similar to when Poch went into Spurs and Klopp into Liverpool (albeit the latter squad was left by Rodgers). The fact we're overachieving this season is a bonus because we're still in all this process of rebuilding.

[Blue ROI]

3 hours ago, urban.spaceman said:

I can see why some people are a bit worried given Congerton's reputation at Celtic and Sunderland I'm more intrigued personally. This is the first time he'll actually have the resources to get the right type of player, with a club who already have an excellent recruitment track record and the team and means to bring in quality.

 

At least I ****ing hope.

 

Priorities this summer should be:

Starting CB

Squad CB

Starting RW

Squad GK

 

This might be the first summer we don't make a massive sale. Which for me would be an even bigger statement than demanding £85m for Maguire up front and then not spending it. 

 

Massive summer coming up. I am so ****ing excited.

Yes Sunderland had stalled before Conga was there and Celtic have drifted off from the elite level compared to a decade ago.

 

If we do get a taste of why his reputation is a bit suspect then we won't hang around looking for a replacement I'd say. We got through the 2016 summer of mediocrity in Musa, Hernandez,Zieler etc. I doubt we'll have a window that disastrous for a while yet. 

 

Our owners are bound to be more decisive than his previous 2 clubs.

[volpeazzurro]

1 hour ago, Vestan Pance said:

As well as looking to move on Gray, we could do with shifting these loaned players out permanently. Silva and Slimani, Ghezzal, Diabete etc. Mendy and King also have contracts coming to an end. With that lot I'm not surprised we didn't/couldn't buy in Jan.

Quite right, but why do some people keep going on aboutthe January window anyway? I'm sure they were looking but, if there's no one available or wanting to come that would significantly benefit the squad, why would you, I, or anyone else want to the club to just spunk up a few million pounds just for the satisfaction of saying we bought someone. I think the club deserve a bit of credit, I doubt the recruitment team just sat there without their fingers up their arse. We haven't got a clue who they were looking at and they're not about to tell us either which is exactly the way they should be conducting business. 

[coolhandfox]

Let hope we spend the CL money a little wiser this time.

 

2 hours ago, Vestan Pance said:

As well as looking to move on Gray, we could do with shifting these loaned players out permanently. Silva and Slimani, Ghezzal, Diabete etc. Mendy and King also have contracts coming to an end. With that lot I'm not surprised we didn't/couldn't buy in Jan.

All good and well but someone has to be willing to buy them and match the wages, we have been trying to sell them for the last 18 months with little success. 

[Simoken]

I cannot believe the negativity over a promising statement from Rodgers and the club, wanting to invest in new players over the summer, bare in mind Congerton had little money to invest in his previous spells so lets give him a chance with money/new recruitment team on his hands at LCFC. k thanks #idiots

[Master Fox]

2 hours ago, Vestan Pance said:

As well as looking to move on Gray, we could do with shifting these loaned players out permanently. Silva and Slimani, Ghezzal, Diabete etc. Mendy and King also have contracts coming to an end. With that lot I'm not surprised we didn't/couldn't buy in Jan.

I personally think Mendy should stay. He’s played well when he’s come in this season. More than adequate cover for Wilf. 

[jeffschlupp]

As I said in January, there's a few important things to consider about Congerton.

 

The first thing is that Rodgers will have the final say on transfers as all managers at the club do. If he doesn't want the player that Congerton and his team, and I stress the word team, have found, then they don't sign. Jon Rudkin is also one of the best in the business and he will also have a say before the club chuck £30-40m of their valuable cash at a dud.

 

But here's the thing about the recruitment team - it is largely the same as it was under Macia. He took Head of Technical Scouting Ollie Waldron with him to Bordeaux, but his deputy Callum Smithson has been promoted in his place, rather than the club going and getting one of Congerton's men from Celtic or whatever. The only guy we know that Congerton has brought in is a French scout who just like any of the senior scouts (which include Sean St. Ledger, our well respected long term chief scout Dave Mills, and another newly promoted technical scout in Jose Fontes), will be watching games, reporting back, and helping narrow down targets. Overall, you can say that the setup that has uncovered us the gems remains largely the same, and it's just a different guy at the head of that setup. He will narrow down the lists of targets and work with Rudkin and Rodgers to decide which the club should look to go after.

 

The club have also got a Head of Football Analytics who will work not just in terms of improving on-field performance but I'm sure is also assisting in player recruitment. Many major clubs have not even dipped their toes into that water in terms of level of analytical detail applied to recruitment.

 

As for Congerton himself, there were some decent enough signings at Celtic, among a few bad ones. That happens at virtually every club, look at some of the rubbish Man City have quietly offloaded under Guardiola (Angelino, Nolito are the two that immediately spring to mind). More importantly, Celtic are an extremely difficult market to do business for because players aren't that keen to go to a one-team league, never mind in the shithole that is Glasgow.

 

Ultimately this is a guy who's been trusted to work for some big clubs and he's a guy that both Brendan Rodgers and whoever led the LCFC recruitment process (Rudkin/Whelan) trust enough to handle one of the most important areas of the club. That is enough for me.

[Muzzy_Larsson]

5 hours ago, urban.spaceman said:

I can see why some people are a bit worried given Congerton's reputation at Celtic and Sunderland I'm more intrigued personally. This is the first time he'll actually have the resources to get the right type of player, with a club who already have an excellent recruitment track record and the team and means to bring in quality.

 

At least I ****ing hope.

 

Priorities this summer should be:

Starting CB

Squad CB

Starting RW

Squad GK

 

This might be the first summer we don't make a massive sale. Which for me would be an even bigger statement than demanding £85m for Maguire up front and then not spending it. 

 

Massive summer coming up. I am so ****ing excited.

Everything is relative though, the resources he had at Celtic dwarfed anyone else in the league and he only needed to find players that could win the Scottish league, that I keep seeing on here is league two level.  You could give me £10-15m a season and a wage bill of greater than £50m and I could win league two.  I just don't buy the argument that giving him more resources (money) will make him any more effective at his job, in fact I think it could be the opposite and he could be more destructive.  We've never been able to spend fortunes for obvious reasons but John Park who came before him managed alright, signing guys like Wanyama, Forster, Ki, Hooper, Van Dijk, etc for a couple of million and selling them on for big money.

 

Fact of the matter is almost all the players brought in under Congerton's watch barely even played in the first team, a couple being pound for pound possibly our worst signings ever in Comperr and Kouassi.  The former played 60 minutes for us in 2.5 years and we paid him 30k a week on Congerton's recommendation.  The latter, we paid close to £4m for, has played about a dozen games and is out on loan at Genk because we can't get shot of him.  That's just two, I could go on all night about some of the others, Hendry et al.

 

We had a very good track record in terms of transfers prior to Congerton and we're now seeing signs of it coming back now he's gone.  The guy is a charlatan.  I only hope his influence is marginalised at Leicester to the extent he can't do much damage.

[Muzzy_Larsson]

5 hours ago, urban.spaceman said:

I can see why some people are a bit worried given Congerton's reputation at Celtic and Sunderland I'm more intrigued personally. This is the first time he'll actually have the resources to get the right type of player, with a club who already have an excellent recruitment track record and the team and means to bring in quality.

 

At least I ****ing hope.

 

Priorities this summer should be:

Starting CB

Squad CB

Starting RW

Squad GK

 

This might be the first summer we don't make a massive sale. Which for me would be an even bigger statement than demanding £85m for Maguire up front and then not spending it. 

 

Massive summer coming up. I am so ****ing excited.

If your to get offered the money spoken of for Chilwell, circa £60m you should sell in a heartbeat imo based on his performances this season.  Wouldn't be the hardest task to replace him with even half of that money based on his form this season.

[Stevosevic]

24 minutes ago, henrik_62 said:

Everything is relative though, the resources he had at Celtic dwarfed anyone else in the league and he only needed to find players that could win the Scottish league, that I keep seeing on here is league two level.  You could give me £10-15m a season and a wage bill of greater than £50m and I could win league two.  I just don't buy the argument that giving him more resources (money) will make him any more effective at his job, in fact I think it could be the opposite and he could be more destructive.  We've never been able to spend fortunes for obvious reasons but John Park who came before him managed alright, signing guys like Wanyama, Forster, Ki, Hooper, Van Dijk, etc for a couple of million and selling them on for big money.

 

Fact of the matter is almost all the players brought in under Congerton's watch barely even played in the first team, a couple being pound for pound possibly our worst signings ever in Comperr and Kouassi.  The former played 60 minutes for us in 2.5 years and we paid him 30k a week on Congerton's recommendation.  The latter, we paid close to £4m for, has played about a dozen games and is out on loan at Genk because we can't get shot of him.  That's just two, I could go on all night about some of the others, Hendry et al.

 

We had a very good track record in terms of transfers prior to Congerton and we're now seeing signs of it coming back now he's gone.  The guy is a charlatan.  I only hope his influence is marginalised at Leicester to the extent he can't do much damage.

It's kind of bizarre that BR wanted to work with Congerton again here if Congerton was continually signing players that BR didn't seem good enough to be selected in his teams...

[Grebfromgrebland]

Looks like Mendy could be replaced by Diallo.

 

If Demiral proves his fitness we might still move for him.

 

Ben White seems to be on the radar.

 

There's that Turkish goal keeper Ugurcan Cakir and a Turkish striker too.