Rodgers opens up on Leicester City transfer struggles but 'won't go to war' with club

[indierich06]

Maybe the owners are trying to force Brendan to quit? 

[volpeazzurro]

On 23/07/2022 at 12:24, HankMarvin said:

Leicester drifting towards mid-table mediocrity with cash-strapped Foxes unable to back Brendan Rodgers

 

TICK TOCK, tick tock. Can you hear that Brendan Rodgers?

It’s the sound of the clock counting down the days to Leicester’s first game of the new season.

 

Brendan Rodgers has been unable to make a single signing this summer 

 

Five months since Rodgers declared the need for six new players to overhaul his ageing squad, he has yet to make a single signing.

With their opening fixture at home to Brentford now just 16 days away, Leicester have been neither shaken nor stirred this summer.

Worse still, word has got out around the rest of football that the Foxes need to sell before they can buy.

Which might explain why they haven’t received a single bid for Youri Tielemans even though he is currently available for a bargain £30million.

Because Premier League rivals are happy to keep Leicester sweating until the final few days of the transfer window, confident that they will be forced to further slash their asking price rather than allow Belgian midfielder Tielemans to enter the final year of his contract.

For it seems that Leicester have been living beyond their means for the last few years, paying their players more than their annual turnover.

So now they are in danger of breaking Financial Fair Play rules and need to cut their costs before they can recruit the players Rodgers wants to make his team a force again.

Yet as the highly ambitious Northern Irishman spelled out in no uncertain terms last February: “I didn’t come to Leicester just to go through the motions.

 

 

“I came to challenge the clubs towards the top end of the league.”

For his first two full seasons at the King Power, that’s exactly what he did — winning the FA Cup, the Community Shield and twice finishing fifth in the league.

But after coming eighth last term it seems he will be relying on the creaking joints of Jamie Vardy, Jonny Evans and Kasper Schmeichel to keep Leicester competitive.

Even a £10m-a-year contract — which pays him more than Thomas Tuchel, Mikel Arteta and Erik ten Hag — may not be enough to keep him hanging around if he’s just going to be making up the numbers.

The frustration for Rodgers is that he knows he has the basis of a more-than-decent team when everyone is fit and available.

Wesley Fofana, James Maddison, Harvey Barnes, Timothy Castagne, James Justin and Tielemans are all excellent players.

But without further investment, they are in danger of drifting towards mid-table mediocrity just six years after winning the Premier League title.

There’s certainly no danger of them going down next season because there are plenty of teams poorer than Leicester who will be fighting to avoid relegation.

But as rallying cries go, “We’re hoping for a top-ten finish,” doesn’t exactly stir the blood

Three older players hardly make an ageing team! You wouldn't ideally want a whole team of inexperienced talent would you. I'd still back Vardy to outscore many Premiership strikers this season if he remains uninjured and spared a few games.

 

Some of the dialogue line is true, some of it to fit a story. Business sense surely dictates to a club our size that you can't just keep buying new shiny new things and leave older ill bought one's outside the squad whilst continuing to pay big wages to them. There's a time to take stock and consolidate.

 

I still maintain that compared to a lot of other Premiership teams, we've got a really decent amount of talent. Rodgers has now got to think and adapt rather than service his stale inappropriate philosophy and earn his corn by adopting tactics, team selections and substitutions commensurate with the squad he actually has.

 

A bit of a scrap as underdogs and a seige mentality won't do any harm under the right manager but drop the subliminal over-achieving mantra which may serve the personal reputation of the manager but doesn't help the players.

 

If not sold this time round, there'll be a few players who will naturally fall off the books next summer should we not want to offer new contracts or if they don't want to stay. Would you be confident of Rodgers choice of new players anyway? Probably Top isn't either? Might be a blessing in disguise. If Rodgers doesn't perform this season he'll cost that little bit less to get rid of or may be tempted to leave of his own volition.

 

All is not by all means lost. We still have a lot of decent talent. Though extremely hard and doubtful, a fight for top 6 is not impossible with the right attitude. 

[ClaphamFox]

25 minutes ago, volpeazzurro said:

Three older players hardly make an ageing team! You wouldn't ideally want a whole team of inexperienced talent would you. I'd still back Vardy to outscore many Premiership strikers this season if he remains uninjured and spared a few games.

 

Some of the dialogue line is true, some of it to fit a story. Business sense surely dictates to a club our size that you can't just keep buying new shiny new things and leave older ill bought one's outside the squad whilst continuing to pay big wages to them. There's a time to take stock and consolidate.

 

I still maintain that compared to a lot of other Premiership teams, we've got a really decent amount of talent. Rodgers has now got to think and adapt rather than service his stale inappropriate philosophy and earn his corn by adopting tactics, team selections and substitutions commensurate with the squad he actually has.

 

A bit of a scrap as underdogs and a seige mentality won't do any harm under the right manager but drop the subliminal over-achieving mantra which may serve the personal reputation of the manager but doesn't help the players.

 

If not sold this time round, there'll be a few players who will naturally fall off the books next summer should we not want to offer new contracts or if they don't want to stay. Would you be confident of Rodgers choice of new players anyway? Probably Top isn't either? Might be a blessing in disguise. If Rodgers doesn't perform this season he'll cost that little bit less to get rid of or may be tempted to leave of his own volition.

 

All is not by all means lost. We still have a lot of decent talent. Though extremely hard and doubtful, a fight for top 6 is not impossible with the right attitude. 

I've heard arguments like this a few times - ie, that without buying players we'll be weaker next season than we were last. It just doesn't make a great deal of sense to me when you consider that we came eighth and reached a European semi-final last season with a heavily-depleted squad. Some of our players may be reaching the end of their careers (although Vardy still looks as sharp as ever), but players like Barnes, Maddison, KDH, Fofana etc are just maturing. Plus the likes of Daka, and possibly even Soumare, have had a year to adjust and may be ready to step up. So I just don't agree with this "If Leicester don't buy players now they'll drift into mediocrity' line of reasoning...

[RonnieTodger]

It’s pretty bleak that football has come to this.

 

We were rightly lauded for our previous tactful spending and now we’re spending our entire turnover on wages.

 

I’m happy for the club to spend top dollar on the odd megastar or legend, but you can’t help feeling disenfranchised when dossers are on £70k a week to warm the bench and you’re being asked to pay an average of £42 to watch us against Southampton. 

Edited 25 July 2022 by RonnieTodger

[HankMarvin]

1 minute ago, RonnieTodger said:

It’s pretty bleak that football has gotten to this.

 

We were rightly lauded for our previous tactful spending and now we’re spending our entire turnover on wages.

 

I’m happy for the club to spend top dollar the odd megastar or legend, m but you can’t help feeling disenfranchised when dossers are on £70k a week to warm the bench and you’re being asked to pay an average of £42 to watch us against Southampton. 

Probably happened at the right time, 

Otherwise Youri might have been offered more and more, and then not sold in the future.

Kasper could've potentially been offered longer terms on similar wages, hopefully the club will be in a much better position in 12 months 

[Foxdiamond]

2 hours ago, volpeazzurro said:

Three older players hardly make an ageing team! You wouldn't ideally want a whole team of inexperienced talent would you. I'd still back Vardy to outscore many Premiership strikers this season if he remains uninjured and spared a few games.

 

Some of the dialogue line is true, some of it to fit a story. Business sense surely dictates to a club our size that you can't just keep buying new shiny new things and leave older ill bought one's outside the squad whilst continuing to pay big wages to them. There's a time to take stock and consolidate.

 

I still maintain that compared to a lot of other Premiership teams, we've got a really decent amount of talent. Rodgers has now got to think and adapt rather than service his stale inappropriate philosophy and earn his corn by adopting tactics, team selections and substitutions commensurate with the squad he actually has.

 

A bit of a scrap as underdogs and a seige mentality won't do any harm under the right manager but drop the subliminal over-achieving mantra which may serve the personal reputation of the manager but doesn't help the players.

 

If not sold this time round, there'll be a few players who will naturally fall off the books next summer should we not want to offer new contracts or if they don't want to stay. Would you be confident of Rodgers choice of new players anyway? Probably Top isn't either? Might be a blessing in disguise. If Rodgers doesn't perform this season he'll cost that little bit less to get rid of or may be tempted to leave of his own volition.

 

All is not by all means lost. We still have a lot of decent talent. Though extremely hard and doubtful, a fight for top 6 is not impossible with the right attitude. 

Time will tell. Thing is if we had sold Youri (of course we still might) and brought in 2 players nobody in the press would go on so much. This would be no guarantee that the team/squad would be better. Its not like buying a new pair of shoes cos your old pair is worn out. Mind you even then you have wear them in. 

[ian__marshall]

Of course we all want success in the short term and I'll openly admit that a few months back I was really worried for our future. 

 

However, I've had a chance to reflect a bit and there's a few ways out of this from what I can see. We either do everything possible to cut the wage bill by moving players on for a fee and have to accept that this may at least mean having to sacrifice a couple of our star performers just to get back on an even keel. Alternatively, we allow contracts next summer to run down thereby slashing the wage bill (albeit sacrificing transfer fees) and hope that between Glover's little black book and the academy we can discover some potential gems that'll allow us to remain competitive whilst not adding too much to the wage bill. Finally, we remain as we are and try and get the best out of the squad we have whilst building revenue streams elsewhere such as the proposed stadium expansion and leisure complex development which will in turn allow us to grow revenue thereby reducing wages as a proportion of turnover. 

 

Initially I was questioning the clubs leadership wondering how we had got to this point given how well we have operated over previous years but when I thought about the above points actually the club are doing everything right to address this issue. They are investing in the stadium infrastructure to grow revenue, they've developed one of the best training facilities/academy set-ups in Europe which will eventually bear fruit, they've brought in a highly respected leader to oversee the progress of the academy, and we have another very talented leader about to join and oversee recruitment. In addition we've managed to move on a person whose recruitment record was pretty abysmal thereby removing that influence and also brought in a well respected head of medicine who should help address some of the injury issues we've experienced over the past few seasons. 

 

Yes all of the above won't solve our problems in the here and now, but if we can get through the next season or two relatively unscathed we'll be in a very strong position. 

 

As frustrating as it is for us fans I guess we just need to show a little patience. So far I think we've had a really good pre-season in contrast to last season. The squad looks fit and a few peripheral players seem to have stepped up. I'm a big believer that pre-season sets the tone for the season ahead and if (and it is a big if) Rodgers shows a bit of trust in the squad this season and rotates frequently to keep everyone firing on all cylinders I actually think we'll do better than initially anticipated even without any additions. 

[Ric Flair]

1 hour ago, RonnieTodger said:

It’s pretty bleak that football has come to this.

 

We were rightly lauded for our previous tactful spending and now we’re spending our entire turnover on wages.

 

I’m happy for the club to spend top dollar on the odd megastar or legend, but you can’t help feeling disenfranchised when dossers are on £70k a week to warm the bench and you’re being asked to pay an average of £42 to watch us against Southampton. 

This is where I think we need a lower salary for new players that are squad players (not quite as easy as it sounds) but if we're bringing in a squad player like Bertrand or Vestergaard then it's absolutely astonishing that we are paying them over £70k a week. I know coming from the PL, they will already be earning big money compared to in other European leagues but there's squad players or players here to improve and kick on that wr double or treble their salary from the off.

 

Maybe they wouldn't be as interested to come to us if we offered them less bit there are other PL clubs that attract similar calibre signings to us and whom don't have our wage bill so we can definitely improve in that regard. The key messaging around negotiations would be though that we do pay big when players prove their worth. Fofana gets a huge pay increase after the start he had to his career here, likewise James Justin and so on. But then those that flop it's easier to move on as other European clubs haven't for to find 70k a week but more like 45-50k max and then negotiating in to their 30-40k a week structure is easier and less for us to have to plug.

[Fox92]

1 hour ago, RonnieTodger said:

It’s pretty bleak that football has come to this.

 

We were rightly lauded for our previous tactful spending and now we’re spending our entire turnover on wages.

 

I’m happy for the club to spend top dollar on the odd megastar or legend, but you can’t help feeling disenfranchised when dossers are on £70k a week to warm the bench and you’re being asked to pay an average of £42 to watch us against Southampton. 

Quite right, I don't know how we've lost being "well run".

 

I don't really like the big money. I know clubs do it to progress but average/poor/squad players being on so much is stupid.

[moseeds]

I'm quite optimistic about the coming season. Cracking squad, as the year progresses we'll shift some of them one way or another. The people with long term injuries were clearly impacted mentally and physically. This year's winter break will really help the team remain in better shape than last year. And the academy players are really exciting too. Great season ahead imo.

[foxinsocks]

1 hour ago, Ric Flair said:

This is where I think we need a lower salary for new players that are squad players (not quite as easy as it sounds) but if we're bringing in a squad player like Bertrand or Vestergaard then it's absolutely astonishing that we are paying them over £70k a week. I know coming from the PL, they will already be earning big money compared to in other European leagues but there's squad players or players here to improve and kick on that wr double or treble their salary from the off.

 

Maybe they wouldn't be as interested to come to us if we offered them less bit there are other PL clubs that attract similar calibre signings to us and whom don't have our wage bill so we can definitely improve in that regard. The key messaging around negotiations would be though that we do pay big when players prove their worth. Fofana gets a huge pay increase after the start he had to his career here, likewise James Justin and so on. But then those that flop it's easier to move on as other European clubs haven't for to find 70k a week but more like 45-50k max and then negotiating in to their 30-40k a week structure is easier and less for us to have to plug.

Buying end of contract older players just means excessive wages.

It worked with jonny... we got lucky .  We shouldn't try to repeat this trick.

I would like is to spend more on individual coaching and councilling for the players we have.

[davieG]

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/leicester-transfers-chairman-top-srivaddhanaprabha-7377252

 

Khun Top addresses lack of Leicester City transfers as deals set to go to the wire
Leicester City chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha has been speaking about the club's lack of activity in the window, and the changes to their medical department

 

Leicester City chairman Aiyawatt 'Top' Srivaddhanaprabha has emphasised that the club still have time to do business amid their summer transfer drought.

City are the only Premier League club yet to make a signing this window and manager Brendan Rodgers confirmed last week that incoming deals would be on hold until the club moved players on. Although the Premier League campaign begins in under a fortnight, City still have more than five weeks until the transfer market closes.

While Rodgers has admitted the lack of progress so far means he will not be able to shake up the squad to the extent he would have liked, having outlined plans for a revamp earlier in the year, Top has stressed that the club do still have time to recruit. The chairman said in May that City had “planned their finances for a degree of player trading”.

 

Speaking at the opening of an artificial pitch at a school in Thailand, King Power having pledged to build 100 pitches to improve youth football in the country, Top said last week: “Premier League football is one of the focal points for the King Power Group. You may see that the reinforcement is quite slow, this is because the market is changing quite quickly. You have to wait until the end of August. I think there is still time.”

Top also outlined his hopes for the club to improve on last season’s eighth-placed finish. City were decimated by injuries for much of the campaign, but the chairman is feeling confident following changes to the medical department. Mark Waller has been brought in from Rangers as head of medicine, with Bryan English departing at the end of his contract, returning to Middlesbrough.

“Last year we finished eighth, and last year we had players with injuries and were hit by coronavirus,” Top said. “We hope that this year we won't get hurt again. We have changed medical teams to develop the potential of the players to be fit and ready to compete. If we have 100 per cent of our players, I hope to finish higher than last year.”

[Corky]

6 hours ago, RonnieTodger said:

It’s pretty bleak that football has come to this.

 

We were rightly lauded for our previous tactful spending and now we’re spending our entire turnover on wages.

 

I’m happy for the club to spend top dollar on the odd megastar or legend, but you can’t help feeling disenfranchised when dossers are on £70k a week to warm the bench and you’re being asked to pay an average of £42 to watch us against Southampton. 

The club have either realised or been forced to realise that things have to change and alter the approach. Other clubs will get to this point in the future.

[Dames]

2 hours ago, davieG said:

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/leicester-transfers-chairman-top-srivaddhanaprabha-7377252

 

Khun Top addresses lack of Leicester City transfers as deals set to go to the wire
Leicester City chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha has been speaking about the club's lack of activity in the window, and the changes to their medical department

 

Leicester City chairman Aiyawatt 'Top' Srivaddhanaprabha has emphasised that the club still have time to do business amid their summer transfer drought.

City are the only Premier League club yet to make a signing this window and manager Brendan Rodgers confirmed last week that incoming deals would be on hold until the club moved players on. Although the Premier League campaign begins in under a fortnight, City still have more than five weeks until the transfer market closes.

While Rodgers has admitted the lack of progress so far means he will not be able to shake up the squad to the extent he would have liked, having outlined plans for a revamp earlier in the year, Top has stressed that the club do still have time to recruit. The chairman said in May that City had “planned their finances for a degree of player trading”.

 

Speaking at the opening of an artificial pitch at a school in Thailand, King Power having pledged to build 100 pitches to improve youth football in the country, Top said last week: “Premier League football is one of the focal points for the King Power Group. You may see that the reinforcement is quite slow, this is because the market is changing quite quickly. You have to wait until the end of August. I think there is still time.”

Top also outlined his hopes for the club to improve on last season’s eighth-placed finish. City were decimated by injuries for much of the campaign, but the chairman is feeling confident following changes to the medical department. Mark Waller has been brought in from Rangers as head of medicine, with Bryan English departing at the end of his contract, returning to Middlesbrough.

“Last year we finished eighth, and last year we had players with injuries and were hit by coronavirus,” Top said. “We hope that this year we won't get hurt again. We have changed medical teams to develop the potential of the players to be fit and ready to compete. If we have 100 per cent of our players, I hope to finish higher than last year.”

‘Planned finances for a degree of player trading’. Might as well push that into next summer now because we aren’t shifting any deadwood this summer.

 

[Tom12345]

4 hours ago, davieG said:

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/leicester-transfers-chairman-top-srivaddhanaprabha-7377252

 

Khun Top addresses lack of Leicester City transfers as deals set to go to the wire
Leicester City chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha has been speaking about the club's lack of activity in the window, and the changes to their medical department

 

Leicester City chairman Aiyawatt 'Top' Srivaddhanaprabha has emphasised that the club still have time to do business amid their summer transfer drought.

City are the only Premier League club yet to make a signing this window and manager Brendan Rodgers confirmed last week that incoming deals would be on hold until the club moved players on. Although the Premier League campaign begins in under a fortnight, City still have more than five weeks until the transfer market closes.

While Rodgers has admitted the lack of progress so far means he will not be able to shake up the squad to the extent he would have liked, having outlined plans for a revamp earlier in the year, Top has stressed that the club do still have time to recruit. The chairman said in May that City had “planned their finances for a degree of player trading”.

 

Speaking at the opening of an artificial pitch at a school in Thailand, King Power having pledged to build 100 pitches to improve youth football in the country, Top said last week: “Premier League football is one of the focal points for the King Power Group. You may see that the reinforcement is quite slow, this is because the market is changing quite quickly. You have to wait until the end of August. I think there is still time.”

Top also outlined his hopes for the club to improve on last season’s eighth-placed finish. City were decimated by injuries for much of the campaign, but the chairman is feeling confident following changes to the medical department. Mark Waller has been brought in from Rangers as head of medicine, with Bryan English departing at the end of his contract, returning to Middlesbrough.

“Last year we finished eighth, and last year we had players with injuries and were hit by coronavirus,” Top said. “We hope that this year we won't get hurt again. We have changed medical teams to develop the potential of the players to be fit and ready to compete. If we have 100 per cent of our players, I hope to finish higher than last year.”

Rodgers successfully blaming the medical team (that he changed previously btw) for the injury crisis we had. I hope he is not running players to the ground with his training schedule etc.

 

Also, Rodgers has the same number of players (enough to field two teams of senior players with spares on the bench), but with no European competition this year. Rodgers cannot blame anyone but himself for this and he has to stop giving himself an excuse and be accountable. Maybe then the players will follow.

[Always Next Year]

10 hours ago, indierich06 said:

Maybe the owners are trying to force Brendan to quit? 

Let’s hope so

[Always Next Year]

1 hour ago, Dames said:

‘Planned finances for a degree of player trading’. Might as well push that into next summer now because we aren’t shifting any deadwood this summer.

 

When was the last time we shifted any deadwood, we need to stop buying shit and giving them long contracts,

[leicesterseddon]

When you are pushing the envelope on wages as much as we have been, you can’t afford a bad summer.

 

We had a bad summer last year and now we’re paying the price.

 

Going out and buying players without selling first is just going to make the situation worse unfortunately.

[NaijaFox]

6 hours ago, leicesterseddon said:

When you are pushing the envelope on wages as much as we have been, you can’t afford a bad summer.

 

We had a bad summer last year and now we’re paying the price.

 

Going out and buying players without selling first is just going to make the situation worse unfortunately.

We brought 3 new players into the first-team squad that could well be valuable for years to come in KDH, Daka and Soumare (if he's staying), as well as Lookman, who turned out a good piece of loan business. Conversely, some of us raised the alarm on Bertrand and Vestergaard before each was brought in, so no real surprise there really. What we really had starting last summer with Little Wes' injury was a truly bad INJURY-filled season.

[NaijaFox]

FFP epitomizes the saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions...

It effectively allows bigger clubs in bigger markets to spend more on players, get even bigger and make more money. Rinse and Repeat!

[Staffs Fox]

I am 100% behind the clubs strategy of sell first before buying.

 

Last Saturday just proved that when pretty much everyone is free our squad is currently massive, with us being able to put out two completely different decent XI on the same day! We have too much deadwood to clear. The Brentford squad is likely to look similar to the below

 

Schmeichel

Ricardo

Fofana

Evans

Justin

Ndidi

Tielemans

KDH

Maddison

Barnes

Vardy

 

Bench

Ward, Soyuncu, Castagne, Praet, Mendy, Thomas, Daka, Ihenacho, Albrighton

 

That means senior players not even making the match day squad hypothetically would be,

Iversen, Vestergaard, Amartey, Perez, Soumare, Bertrand, Choudhury and that’s excluding any youth prospects we may wish to promote.

 

We have no European football this season so the chances of rotating are very limited. Get rid of most the on the non match day list and it frees up some space but that is much easier said than done 

 

Edited 26 July 2022 by Staffs Fox

[Terraloon]

Rumblings are getting louder that Chelsea are in for Fofana.

 

Not clearing players from the payroll isn’t unique to just Leicester it’s just about every club. The thing is that one teams deadwood is another’s potential star player. The sad thing is if cash is needed and “ deadwood “ isn’t getting shifted then if you are serious about generating funds to  bring in players  then if the owners aren’t able to inject cash, for whatever reason, then you have to sell prized assets 

 

 

[Big_Nige]

Our squad it just too big and not sustainable for a club of our size.  We shouldn’t be having any more than 22 senior pro’s on the books in my view. Any more blocks any chance of youth development and it’s just throwing dead money away in wages. 
 

As frustrating as it is, I’m glad we aren’t signing anyone until we shift players out. It’s the sensible thing to do and with the players we have at our disposal, if kept fit, we should be able to push the entitled six again

 

Next summer the real work starts

[coolhandfox]

56 minutes ago, Terraloon said:

Rumblings are getting louder that Chelsea are in for Fofana.

 

Not clearing players from the payroll isn’t unique to just Leicester it’s just about every club. The thing is that one teams deadwood is another’s potential star player. The sad thing is if cash is needed and “ deadwood “ isn’t getting shifted then if you are serious about generating funds to  bring in players  then if the owners aren’t able to inject cash, for whatever reason, then you have to sell prized assets 

 

 

[RowlattsFox]

It's difficult for Rodgers to complain when all the players we want to get rid of are his signings. Vestergaard, Perez, Bertrand, Soumare, Praet etc.

 

Fans probably won't but I wonder if the owners will be happy enough with a 'mediocre' season and then prepare for bigger changes next summer.