Foxes To Step Up to Next Level

[Tom12345]

Since the title winning season, the club had sold one key first team player almost every season: Kante, Drinkwater, Mahrez, Maguire and (now looking likely) Chilwell.

 

Nonetheless, if not for the slip-up of the decade (on par if not worst than the Liverpool/Gerrard slip), we should be in the champions league this coming season.  

 

Leaving aside why we slipped up (well discussed on other threads: some saw this coming despite criticism since January), and what a major opportunity loss that is, the club needs to consolidate and decide what sort of club it wishes to be.

 

We have a new training facility completing very soon. Despite Chilwell likely leaving - which to some may not be a major loss (including me though personally I would like to keep him but as a squad player and to provide options) - we still have a decent young squad. We need to stop selling a key first team player every season especially if he is an academy product or a Leicester legend like Kasper.

 

It is not just about ambition, but it is also about not being a feeding club to the top 4/6. Top 4/6 clubs need to stop picking apart up and coming challengers. More importantly, it is about maintaining the culture that has been built here - some fans assume we can for example sell Kasper and get a “like for like” but the “like for like” will need time to absorb and getting into the culture here. Too many changes of the old guard means the culture disappears before it is too late.

 

Culture is also built by reputation. So we cannot be branded a selling club. This will rub off on the players and start off a “cultural” crack. There was a reason, rightly so in my view, we stopped Mahrez leaving for a few season despite him wanting to leave. In hindsight, luckily we did that because that helped set the tone not just for what we are as a club (football and business wise) but for the players that we are trying build something special here.

 

Look at Man Utd, they changed their squad so much that they destroyed their winning culture since Ferguson left. Luckily, they still had a massive reputation that was built, and Ole is able to slowly now in my view rebuild that because of that pull - how often do you hear ex Man Utd players like Keane talking on TV about “this is Man United” and equating that to a culture of: it is not good enough if any player does not try 200% to win every game because Man Utd is bigger than all of them and means something significant.

 

That is the culture we need to maintain no matter who is here. This is the “Fearless Foxes” - rather than explaining what this should be, I would just say think “Vardy”, and think “Kasper”. Never give up, always running, thinking always we can win until the last minute. (In this regard, I am not fussed that Chilwell is leaving.)

 

Let’s not build a reputation as a selling club.

 

 

Edited 22 August 2020 by Tom12345

[Muzzy_Larsson]

Don't mean to be confrontational but I disagree with a lot of this. Selling 1 key asset every summer doesn't make you a selling club imo, nor does it inhibit your ambition to break into the top 6. In fact I'd argue the exact opposite in that selling a player for a lot of money every summer and being clever in how you replace them (Maguire and Soyuncu being the most recent and obvious example) is the only long term strategy that will see a club like Leicester establish themselves as a top 6 side. The main reason for this being the traditional big 6 clubs are typically always going to be able to outspend you so you need to be creative to be able to trade blow for blow with them and compete with them season in season out. Done well this model is pretty effective, look at a club like Sevilla for example.

 

I think the whole notion of a "selling club" is in itself a bit of a fallacy. Going by the definition in the OP it basically means there are only a handful of clubs in world football that aren't selling clubs according to this logic, probably Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus and Bayern Munich, I guess you could argue exactly who but you get my drift. Even clubs like Man Utd, Liverpool, etc are at the mercy of these clubs for their best players if they come calling, see Ronaldo in previous years, Hazard last season with Chelsea, etc, etc.

 

Knocking back the £80m you got for Maguire last season or an amount in the same region for Chilwell this summer would be madness and short sighted and would inhibit the ability to improve the squad overall going forward.

[Collymore]

Not being labeled "a selling club" doesn't mean you don't ever sell players if that makes sense. 

 

We've done nothing to suggest that we are  turning into a selling club and the messages coming from the club via Rodgers is that key players are not for sale. However, everyone has a price. 

 

Maguire and Drinkwater were daylight robbery on our part (as will Chilwell be if we sell him for rumoured amount)

 

Mahrez was just an exceptional talent and a one off really and Kante had the infamous min release fee.

 

 

Edited 23 August 2020 by Collymore

[Leicester_Loyal]

I agree with you that we need a to build a culture of winning at the club, this is where I think we need a couple of better first 11 players to push us a bit further on.

 

You say you would have liked to keep Chilwell as a squad player? He was a 50-80 (depending on what we eventually get) million pound asset, we couldn't just have him sitting around on the bench playing 20 games a season. Selling one of our least important players for 50-100% more than their worth is a good business model and in the long term will see us improve.

 

As someone has said in another thread, selling Chilwell has potentially allowed us to get a class LB and a good winger (obviously they both may turn out to be crap but we'll see) and still have a few million left over to put towards a new 3rd CB.

[Raw Dykes]

@Tom12345

 

I'm just repeating what others have said, really, but for one thing, I don't believe selling one important player a year means you're a 'selling club.' You're not the only one, but you make it sound like we're Southampton of a few years ago.

 

For another, do we really have a choice? Let's say we just stop selling players who are good enough for the first team, no matter how much we get offered. I think that would mean we'd have about £20m-£30m to spend each season. Is that enough? That's probably one player each season. What happens when you need more than one? Have you considered what happens if a player wants to leave? Are you going to force him to stay? What message are you sending to players you want to sign by holding your own players prisoner?

 

I thought your comment about keeping Chilwell as a squad player was odd. Are you saying we should turn down £50m for a squad player? Does that seem sensible?

 

Do you think we should have refused £80m for Maguire? Or £35m for Drinkwater?

 

I actually think it's more ambitious for a club in our position to raise the funds it needs to strengthen, rather than having a policy of never selling a player. I'm not bothered about losing players like Drinkwater, Maguire or Chilwell to the top clubs - those clubs are not significantly strengthened, if at all, but we get £165m in return. Just think what we can do with that amount of cash.

 

We're only where we are because we occasionally sell a player for a big fee. Until we're raking in the sort of commercial revenue that Man Utd or Liverpool are, then refusing to sell players means going backwards.

[KingsX]

Really late every Saturday night in my younger days, the radio station always put “Maggot Brain” on.  Something for the folks heading home after the bars closed.

 

It was a long old senseless ramble of a song, but you could count on it about 2:30 am or so.  Almost seemed like a coherent piece of music if you were wasted.  Well not really.

 

I don’t know what made me think of that.

[Tom12345]

Understand what you guys are saying. In fact, I agree selling Chilwell for £50+m is good business, especially if we agree he is a less important key member of the squad (ie. he is overhyped) and we can use the money to get someone better plus spare change. I also absolutely agree that selling Maguire was not only good business but made great football sense - he is pretty average. So perhaps my post did not give enough acknowledgement to these points (which I agree), though I was thinking more about the direction we need to be heading and I am really hoping that we can step up from here. Don’t buy average players but use the money wisely to get really good players while we still have some good leftover of a reputation from the title winning season and a worldclass player in Vardy (time is ticking). I just thought that, with the tremendous opportunity lost with the champions league slip, this season is critical - including in terms of cultural building and how we position ourselves. In relation to transfers, we need to buy strategically to get really really good players in - when we can still convince some that we are a club with ambition with an upward trajectory, otherwise we will start to build a reputation as a selling or mid table club that no such player will want to come.

Edited 23 August 2020 by Tom12345

[Chrysalis]

In my opinion we are a selling club, but its a plan that has us doing better than other clubs our size, so its ok.  I would rather we sell players, than become completely financially unstable.  Also player transfers are often necessary to facilitate a manager to shape the team he wants.

[HighPeakFox]

I think that players are more likely to come if they know the club is essentially a happy one, that players improve by and large, and that they will become and enriched and potentially move on in 2+ years time. And whatever one thinks of the contract that Matty James is on, it is also a club that looks after players who are loyal, even if they really aren't close to playing.

[Richard]

Over the past 18-24 months we’ve been one of the best run clubs in the world and I would imagine there’s 20 clubs in this country who will look at how we’ve developed and look to emulate it. 
 

We have a reputation of playing hard ball in selling our players and will only do so when it’s in our best interest. We regularly give key players new deals that recognise their development and quality and we play a relatively attractive style of football. We threw away CL football which is a blotch on the record but that would’ve been overachieving compared to where we would expect to be anyway
 

Yes it’s a shame we can’t keep Chilwell but we seem to be holding off until we’ve got the money reinvested - another good move by the hierarchy to avoid being overcharged for having too much cash in the bank 

[wardyfox86]

Every season, there is 1 big transfer saga on the sales side. Other than that, you only get tedious links to the sale of other players, there's never any concrete offers.

 

Clubs know that beyond that 1 sale, which is always well covered by the papers, there won't be any other big business done by us. We either set a ludicrous fee that isn't negotiable, or flat out refuse.

 

Players are lost on our terms, at a time that suits us. For that reason, we aren't a selling club and the only time we've been over a barrel is the Kante sale. 

Edited 23 August 2020 by wardyfox86

[mod hero]

There’s only a handful at most of teams who can keep hold of their players, Real, Barca etc...

When the big teams come knocking it can be difficult to hold on to them.

 

Liverpool lost Courinho to Barca, that rumour was going on for Months.

The key is How you reinvest. You could argue that Coutinho leaving was the best thing to happen to the scousers. They bought Allisson and Van Dijk and they’ve become arguably the best team in Europe.

 

I personally love our model and we’ve got amazing money for players who were decent but not world class (Maguire)

we’ve made the squad stronger that is a fact.

 

Only player we’ve not replaced properly is Mahrez. 
 

That will be rectified this summer 🤞🏻

[Cruss5]

Look it the other way.  We buy good up and coming players, they learn and improve with us and we sell on with massive profits.

 

From a players point of view that would be a fantastic opportunity and reason to sign for us.  

 

Chilwell apart, the other big names that we have sold have been massive financially for us.  Kante/mahrez/drinky/maguire - close to if not more than 200 million profit.  And without making us struggle with results.  I'm sure maddison/tielemans/gray (profit wise)/Soyuncu will all be part of that in the future.

 

Regardless of what happened at the end of last season, we did make improvements from the previous season and our next aim should be champions league qualification.  If we can do that with selling a player a season then great, time to worry is that nobody wants to buy our players.

 

We still need to be better on buying though, Slimani/musa/ghezzal etc.  But even that could be worse Heller/Joelinton

[peach0000]

I've said it before and always get ripped into but I'll say it again. Selling Chilwell for 50 million we are seriously undervaluing him. He's worth way more and selling him for such a price in my opinion is the actions of a selling club. If we are selling our stars I as a fan like to feel like we. are ripping of the buying club (Maguire etc) but with this deal I think Chelsea are getting a good price which as a fan I don't like. 

 

Sorry to say but some of the points made like keeping him as a squad player are ludicrous.

[HighPeakFox]

26 minutes ago, peach0000 said:

I've said it before and always get ripped into but I'll say it again. Selling Chilwell for 50 million we are seriously undervaluing him. He's worth way more and selling him for such a price in my opinion is the actions of a selling club. If we are selling our stars I as a fan like to feel like we. are ripping of the buying club (Maguire etc) but with this deal I think Chelsea are getting a good price which as a fan I don't like. 

 

Sorry to say but some of the points made like keeping him as a squad player are ludicrous.

Point 1 - I disagree, especially since it's probably £50m now with instalments anyway, and it might mean we get a better squad as a result.

Point 2 - Agree.

[peach0000]

8 minutes ago, HighPeakFox said:

Point 1 - I disagree, especially since it's probably £50m now with instalments anyway, and it might mean we get a better squad as a result.

Point 2 - Agree.

We’ll have to wait and see what the fee is. If it’s 50 million I won’t be happy personally. If it’s 70 odd million then that would seem good to me. 70+ would be a deterrent for clubs trying to buy our players in the future. 50 to me encourages clubs to think they can buy our players at a reasonable price. 
 

I have no problem with Chilwell being sold it’s just the reported fee that I don’t understand 

[HighPeakFox]

7 minutes ago, peach0000 said:

We’ll have to wait and see what the fee is. If it’s 50 million I won’t be happy personally. If it’s 70 odd million then that would seem good to me. 70+ would be a deterrent for clubs trying to buy our players in the future. 50 to me encourages clubs to think they can buy our players at a reasonable price. 
 

I have no problem with Chilwell being sold it’s just the reported fee that I don’t understand 

My feeling is the club want it done early so targets can be bought - I suspect there was dissatisfaction over the Maguire deal dragging on too long last summer, and a change of policy was agreed.

[Raw Dykes]

6 hours ago, Tom12345 said:

Understand what you guys are saying. In fact, I agree selling Chilwell for £50+m is good business, especially if we agree he is a less important key member of the squad (ie. he is overhyped) and we can use the money to get someone better plus spare change. I also absolutely agree that selling Maguire was not only good business but made great football sense - he is pretty average. So perhaps my post did not give enough acknowledgement to these points (which I agree), though I was thinking more about the direction we need to be heading and I am really hoping that we can step up from here. Don’t buy average players but use the money wisely to get really good players while we still have some good leftover of a reputation from the title winning season and a worldclass player in Vardy (time is ticking). I just thought that, with the tremendous opportunity lost with the champions league slip, this season is critical - including in terms of cultural building and how we position ourselves. In relation to transfers, we need to buy strategically to get really really good players in - when we can still convince some that we are a club with ambition with an upward trajectory, otherwise we will start to build a reputation as a selling or mid table club that no such player will want to come.

So, we are in agreement about the good business we've done through recent sales. If that makes us a selling club, and we're as successful as we are, then I don't mind us being a selling club.

 

I'm very happy about the direction in which we are heading. We're in Europe again without spending too far above our means. Our wage bill could be lower, but we have a lot of surplus players on big money who we are finally starting to shift. There's a clear upward trend, and this is while we're sensible in the transfer market, and also investing heavily in infrastructure.

 

It seems like you're concerned that we're running out of time to take advantage of the title win before it's so far in the past that people forget it happened. I don't see it like that at all. We've built pretty much a completely new squad since then, that only narrowly missed out on Champions League football. That's 2 of the greatest ever Leicester City sides built in the last few years. That's no accident. The club is set up right. About as right as the club could possibly be set up. We have the best owners any club could hope for, a great board and a fantastic backroom staff. As someone else said above, we're a club that so many others will be trying to emulate. This is the most relaxed I think I've ever been following this club. I know the club is in the right hands, and I know that I can trust them to make the right decisions.

 

Missing out on CL was gutting, I know. However, I really don't think it makes much difference to us long term. What we're doing is working. There will be more opportunities if we keep getting it right.

 

To progress further, we just have to carry on doing what we're doing. If we do that, we'll carry on making profit from selling players, carry on reinvesting and adding value to the squad and carry on raising the profile of the club. If we can continue to do that, we'll slowly close the gap on the elite clubs.

 

Even if we do struggle and get a reputation as a selling club (not going to happen unless we sell a lot more often than we do) or a mid-table club, I trust we'll still find the players we need to get us moving forward again. Our recruitment is way above average. I don't think it's a concern.

[Freeman's Wharfer]

Although not in terms of demonstrable success, I think the model for us to follow is Spurs.

 

15 years ago, Spurs were not expected to finish any higher than we did last season. But what they did really well was to aggressively snap up the best young talent in the second tier (Huddlestone, Bale, Lennon) and then recruited smartly when they were buying for the first team (Modric, Berbatov, Keane).

 

At one point in time, their best talent was getting picked off (Carrick to Man United, Berbatov to Man United, Modric to Real Madrid) but they built a squad that was capable of challenging top four consistently and appointed a top class manager in Pochettino. To the point where they only sold in exceptional circumstances (astronomical money for Bale to Real Madrid).

 

When you think about how they are perceived now, no one talks about their players going to Man United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Man City after one or two good seasons. They’ve elevated themselves to the point that it’s not even spoken about and the only concern they have about losing someone not on their own terms is if someone pays £200m for Kane.

 

I see us building an infrastructure for long term success with the training ground and the potential stadium expansion, but I don’t see us aggressively snapping up the best young talent from lower levels like Spurs did back then. It feels currently like we are one or two bad summers away from falling back to mid table/bottom half Prem survival.

[Foxin_Mad]

30 minutes ago, peach0000 said:

We’ll have to wait and see what the fee is. If it’s 50 million I won’t be happy personally. If it’s 70 odd million then that would seem good to me. 70+ would be a deterrent for clubs trying to buy our players in the future. 50 to me encourages clubs to think they can buy our players at a reasonable price. 
 

I have no problem with Chilwell being sold it’s just the reported fee that I don’t understand 

I agree Ake went for 41 million, not an England International, not to a top 6 competitor.

 

Chelsea are getting a bargain.

 

I dont think there any incoming signings this year to be honest. There is  nothing coming from the club to suggest they are remotely interested in signing any new players. If this is the case we will be in a relegation battle next season as we will actually have a weaker squad and too many games. 

[HighPeakFox]

14 minutes ago, Foxin_Mad said:

I agree Ake went for 41 million, not an England International, not to a top 6 competitor.

 

Chelsea are getting a bargain.

 

I dont think there any incoming signings this year to be honest. There is  nothing coming from the club to suggest they are remotely interested in signing any new players. If this is the case we will be in a relegation battle next season as we will actually have a weaker squad and too many games. 

I don't wish to bait you, FM, but why on earth would they tell you or me who they are interested in signing?

[peach0000]

19 minutes ago, Foxin_Mad said:

I agree Ake went for 41 million, not an England International, not to a top 6 competitor.

 

Chelsea are getting a bargain.

 

I dont think there any incoming signings this year to be honest. There is  nothing coming from the club to suggest they are remotely interested in signing any new players. If this is the case we will be in a relegation battle next season as we will actually have a weaker squad and too many games. 

I can't see any scenario where the club don't sign players. I've not seen anything to suggest they won't either.

[ALC Fox]

Considering the title of the thread and the OP addressing the slide towards the end of the season, if we're to move to the next level, we need to create more chances.

 

Our chance conversion rate early in the season was sensational, but not sustainable over the season. We need more creativity and guile in the final third. More chances and more players who can take them, please.

 

We're decent defensively but obviously we'll need to make additions there as Evans and Kasper age over the next few seasons, but for now I think the main focus has to be going forward.

[Foxin_Mad]

11 minutes ago, HighPeakFox said:

I don't wish to bait you, FM, but why on earth would they tell you or me who they are interested in signing?

They wouldn't,  but generally the press get hold of something. There is little but very tenuous links. 

5 minutes ago, peach0000 said:

I can't see any scenario where the club don't sign players. I've not seen anything to suggest they won't either.

Quite honestly I dont think we have any money.

[UHDrive]

11 hours ago, Muzzy_Larsson said:

Don't mean to be confrontational but I disagree with a lot of this. Selling 1 key asset every summer doesn't make you a selling club imo, nor does it inhibit your ambition to break into the top 6. In fact I'd argue the exact opposite in that selling a player for a lot of money every summer and being clever in how you replace them (Maguire and Soyuncu being the most recent and obvious example) is the only long term strategy that will see a club like Leicester establish themselves as a top 6 side. The main reason for this being the traditional big 6 clubs are typically always going to be able to outspend you so you need to be creative to be able to trade blow for blow with them and compete with them season in season out. Done well this model is pretty effective, look at a club like Sevilla for example.

 

I think the whole notion of a "selling club" is in itself a bit of a fallacy. Going by the definition in the OP it basically means there are only a handful of clubs in world football that aren't selling clubs according to this logic, probably Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus and Bayern Munich, I guess you could argue exactly who but you get my drift. Even clubs like Man Utd, Liverpool, etc are at the mercy of these clubs for their best players if they come calling, see Ronaldo in previous years, Hazard last season with Chelsea, etc, etc.

 

Knocking back the £80m you got for Maguire last season or an amount in the same region for Chilwell this summer would be madness and short sighted and would inhibit the ability to improve the squad overall going forward.

The problem is selling your *key* players. Players will come here with the *stepping stone* psyche that isnt healthy for our club.