Who is responsible for the "mess" on and off the pitch?

[blue army 1988]

14 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

I dislike hyperbole and hysteria and there's far too much of it in football social media, this place is rife with it. 

 

But mess is definitely the word I'd use for our current situation. Our identification of young talent is definitely a strength of the club and something we can be proud of but our squad management off the pitch is very poor. 

 

Complaining because we've not signed a Brazilian right wing wonder kid in every transfer window would be over the top. Using the word "mess" and being upset because it's just over a week before the season starts and we're the only club in Europe's top seven leagues that hasn't managed to improve their squad and we aren't really able to because we've far too many overpaid, redundant assets on our books is just accurate. 

 

I don't like to use the term "happy clapper" but if you're still digging in your heels and denying that there's a fairly significant problem unfolding here then either the phrase applies to you or you just enjoy arguing on the Internet for the sakes of doing so. 

 

And regards the original post, the answer is ultimately Jon Rudkin. This is literally the bread and butter of his job, the definition of his role is to manage the squad at Leicester City, to oversee signings, to have the final say on who comes in, who we release, what contracts are offered, etc. That's what a Director of Football does. 

 

The whole point of separating the roles of DOF and head coach is that these days, with head coaches never really lasting very long, if left to their own devices in the transfer market they would tend towards short termism and quick fixes to try and improve their own immediate situation. I mean, would we have wanted Claude Puel to have dictated the future of Jamie Vardy at the club? 

 

By handing the reigns to a specialist director in charge of taking care of the squad in the best interests of the club, you're supposed to be letting a guy sit back with a more long term scope and plan out the development of a well rounded and balanced squad that protects the future of the team. 

 

To that end, there's always been questions asked of Rudkin and currently they're not being answered. Now with any luck, he'll work to navigate through it and we'll get back on track. I'm absolutely not advocating we call for his head. If you accept he's responsible for causing the current situation then you also have to accept he gets responsibility for building a squad that won the Premier League and FA Cup on a shoestring budget. 

 

But regardless, this is definitely "a mess." In fact, I'd say that word is fairly mild. 

 

One point i pulled from this as a quick skim read.

A fair few of these contracts were done before Rudkin was director of football.

 

Also if you look at who has high contracts, there not bad players tbf eg Soyuncu.

Other players, like Choudhury, were being watched by a lot bigger teams and I think we expected that they would come better than they are now.

[ozleicester]

only you are responsible for your attitude

[st albans fox]

perhaps wait until the end of the window before creating threads like this 

[filbertway]

I only saw Finners post first, the rest is like stumbling on a twitter thread full of climate change deniers

 

[Finnegan]

19 minutes ago, Fear Of The Fox said:

Let's have some kind of perspective here. This club is enjoying the best era in its history. We still have 1st team players since 2015-16. The board all these years is trying to keep a fine balance in every department of the club. We had the absolute shock of the tragic death of the beloved owner and we came up strong and united. Talking about united, this is a proper mess of a club, the Manchester one. Not us. 

 

Sure but everything is relative, isn't it? 

 

Just as Brendan Rodgers needs to be evaluated for his performance as Leicester's manager in the context of him also having the best resources any Leicester manager has ever had, so to do you need to measure the performance of our recruitment team by similar standards. 

 

There's no escaping the fact that since winning the league we have wasted a considerable amount of money. In fact, with the exception of maybe Youri and Fofana, we might actually have wasted more than we've spent well? 

 

Almost all of our higher fee signings have been objectively poor. 

 

Slimani, Silva, Perez, Ghezzal, Vestergaard, Praet, Mendy, Musa, Iborra, Soumaré, etc. Almost every time we dip our hands in our pocket and take a punt on a player for more than 10m we seem to roll the dice and have a greater than 50% chance they'll be a flop with the first three of those guys between them representing some of our highest ever individual outlays for players. 

 

That represents an absolutely massive amount of missed opportunity. I think a lot of us as fans are still getting stuck in the trap of comparing the club now to our historic league position and the Leicester City we grew up with, where O'Neill rummaging under the sofa cushions for spare change for Robbie Savage from Crewe was the norm. 

 

I get that we've been to some very dark places following this side and we absolutely should be grateful that we're in the best era really in our history right now. But it isn't Rudkin and Co's job to stare around slack jawed and marvel at the wonders of Premier League life, its their job to stay focused in the now, be present in our current context and work with the opportunities it's providing. Because this is the wealthiest this club has ever been, we're getting opportunities presented to us that the clubs we're competing with can only dream of. And we're really doing a fairly slack job of taking advantage. 

 

Put more simplistically, yes it's good, but it really should be better. That's not greedy or entitled its just ambitious and, quite frankly, realistic. It's time for people to wake up and embrace the fact we aren't just plucky under dogs anymore, we're a club whose owners just built one of the most advanced sports training facilities on the globe. That's who we are. 

 

Edited 27 July 2022 by Finnegan

[coolhandfox]

1 minute ago, Finnegan said:

 

Sure but everything is relative, isn't it? 

 

Just as Brendan Rodgers needs to be evaluated for his performance as Leicester's manager in the context of him also having the best resources any Leicester manager has ever had, so to do you need to measure the performance of our recruitment team by similar standards. 

 

There's no escaping the fact that since winning the league we have wasted a considerable amount of money. In fact, with the exception of maybe Youri and Fofana, we might actually have wasted more than we've spent well? 

 

Almost all of our higher fee signings have been objectively poor. 

 

Slimani, Silva, Perez, Ghezzal, Vestergaard, Praet, Mendy, Musa, Iborra, Soumaré, etc. Almost every time we dip our hands in our pocket and take a punt on a player for more than 10m we seem to roll the dice and have a greater than 50% chance they'll be a flop with the first three of those guys between them representing some of our highest every individual outlays for players. 

 

That represents an absolutely massive amount of missed opportunity. I think a lot of us as fans are still getting stuck in the trap of comparing the club now to our historic league position and the Leicester City we grew up with, where O'Neill rummaging under the sofa cushions for spare change for Robbie Savage from Crewe was the norm. 

 

I get that we've been to some very dark places following this side and we absolutely should be grateful that we're in the best era really in our history right now. But it isn't Rudkin and Co's job to stare around slack jawed and marvel at the wonders of Premier League life, its their job to stay focused in the now, be present in our current context and work with the opportunity's it's providing. Because this is the wealthiest this club has ever been, we're getting opportunities presented to us that the clubs we're competing with can only dream of. And we're really doing a fairly slack job of taking advantage. 

 

Put more simplistically, yes it's good, but it really should be better. That's not greedy or entitled its just ambitious and, quite frankly, realistic. 

So you don't think Castange, Maddison, Ricardo, Maguire, or Soyuncu come under the well-spent category?

 

 

 

[filbertway]

2 minutes ago, coolhandfox said:

So you don't think Castange, Maddison, Ricardo, Maguire, or Soyuncu come under the well-spent category?

 

 

 

I got an A in maths GCSE so i'm pretty comfortable with percentages. 

 

Finn named 10 flops. You've named 5 success. I think that equates to a 33.33% hit rate and thus under 50%  

 

Slimani, Silva, Perez, Ghezzal, Vestergaard, Praet, Mendy, Musa, Iborra, Soumaré, etc. Almost every time we dip our hands in our pocket and take a punt on a player for more than 10m we seem to roll the dice and have a greater than 50% chance they'll be a flop 

[Fear Of The Fox]

9 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

Sure but everything is relative, isn't it? 

 

Just as Brendan Rodgers needs to be evaluated for his performance as Leicester's manager in the context of him also having the best resources any Leicester manager has ever had, so to do you need to measure the performance of our recruitment team by similar standards. 

 

There's no escaping the fact that since winning the league we have wasted a considerable amount of money. In fact, with the exception of maybe Youri and Fofana, we might actually have wasted more than we've spent well? 

 

Almost all of our higher fee signings have been objectively poor. 

 

Slimani, Silva, Perez, Ghezzal, Vestergaard, Praet, Mendy, Musa, Iborra, Soumaré, etc. Almost every time we dip our hands in our pocket and take a punt on a player for more than 10m we seem to roll the dice and have a greater than 50% chance they'll be a flop with the first three of those guys between them representing some of our highest every individual outlays for players. 

 

That represents an absolutely massive amount of missed opportunity. I think a lot of us as fans are still getting stuck in the trap of comparing the club now to our historic league position and the Leicester City we grew up with, where O'Neill rummaging under the sofa cushions for spare change for Robbie Savage from Crewe was the norm. 

 

I get that we've been to some very dark places following this side and we absolutely should be grateful that we're in the best era really in our history right now. But it isn't Rudkin and Co's job to stare around slack jawed and marvel at the wonders of Premier League life, its their job to stay focused in the now, be present in our current context and work with the opportunity's it's providing. Because this is the wealthiest this club has ever been, we're getting opportunities presented to us that the clubs we're competing with can only dream of. And we're really doing a fairly slack job of taking advantage. 

 

Put more simplistically, yes it's good, but it really should be better. That's not greedy or entitled its just ambitious and, quite frankly, realistic. It's time for people to wake up and embrace the fact we aren't just plucky under dogs anymore, we're a club whose owners just built one of the most advanced sports training facilities on the globe. That's who we are. 

 

Do you know though why the board invested and built these advanced facilities? Because they have a long term plan and they know it's extremely difficult to attract well known established footballers to sign for us. This plan until today has gone beyond the expectations. There will always be mistakes, misjudges as the risk factor plays a huge role in football. 

[adejo92]

It's just a number of things that have happened over a number of years which inevitably would cause an issue eventually.

 

Now is the eventually. 

 

Just a series of smaller errors and bad decisions have led to where we are. It's nothing that can't and won't be put right though.

 

Just patience and ride the storm.

[Finnegan]

12 minutes ago, coolhandfox said:

So you don't think Castange, Maddison, Ricardo, Maguire, or Soyuncu come under the well-spent category?

 

 

 

 

I'm not trying to sound confrontational but I don't think that's what I just implied, no. It's bordering on a strawman in fact. 

 

I isolated Youri and Wes because between them they represent about 60m spend. But I reckon if you made a couple of columns for players over 10m that we've signed since we won the league, players that have gone on to have a significant positive impact vs players who were either objectively poor or at best squad filler, the latter column may very well have cost us more without those two. 

 

I appreciate that's a very arbitrary way of looking at it but another then is to include the two and work out by way of % what our success rate is on transfers when we pay "big" money. I'm suggesting it'd be a pretty fvcking disappointing figure. 

 

Or if you want to be more simplistic about it, let's just add up the cost in transfer fees and lost wages of all of those "flops" and ask whether or not we think it's tolerable for a club with our ambitions to have wasted that volume of cash. 

 

Either way, you can nitpick however you want, I think you'd have a hard time convincing any neutral that we've not been extremely haphazard with our spend. 

 

I'm a long, long way from some generic foxestalk permanent moaner. I don't think I need to convince you that I don't spend all my time here constantly complaining about every little thing the club or manager do. I give frequent credit where its due but, I'm sorry, our squad management over the last six or seven years has included some considerable missteps and a lot of wasted opportunity. We should have capitalised far better on our rise than we have. 

 

Edited 27 July 2022 by Finnegan

[Scanchez]

I partly hold myself to blame.

I guess I took my eye off the ball and for that.. I apologise.

[Finnegan]

SCANCHEZ OUT 

[foxy boxing]

To keep progressing  we need to constantly evolve and not stagnate. There is no doubt that there have been mistakes in recruitment.yes we've had bad luck with injuries but we're the players properly managed and maintained. Why are we so bad at defending set pieces, is the management training doing enough to tackle this, are they correctly identifying the strengths and weaknesses in the team and doing enough to sort the problem out. We've seen other successful teams where they constantly changing to keep pace with the speed of the league. Like other managers change their coaching staff every so often to freshen things up or bring in a new set of eyes to see things from a different perspective. To keep progressing  we need to have constant progression. 

[coolhandfox]

1 minute ago, filbertway said:

I got an A in maths GCSE so i'm pretty comfortable with percentages. 

 

Finn named 10 flops. You've named 5 success. I think that equates to a 33.33% hit rate and thus under 50%  

 

Slimani, Silva, Perez, Ghezzal, Vestergaard, Praet, Mendy, Musa, Iborra, Soumaré, etc. Almost every time we dip our hands in our pocket and take a punt on a player for more than 10m we seem to roll the dice and have a greater than 50% chance they'll be a flop 

I don't disagree with his point, we could and need to do better.

 

But it needs to be a balanced debate, to just list Youri and Fofana as the only successes compared to a long list of failures is not balanced.

 

Also what classes as a failure or success, take Iborra, he was a squad player for two years and we got back what we paid, is that a failure?

 

I would suggest, that it is not a problem unique to Leicester, I see the same issue across the league, what is classed as a good hit rate? 

 

What hit rate counts as good 30% or 50% or 70%, if you compare all PL teams  

[Golden Fox]

40 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

I dislike hyperbole and hysteria

33 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

we're the only club in Europe's top seven leagues that hasn't managed to improve their squad

I just had to laugh at this.

 

We haven't signed anyone, but nobody has left either. Yes -some of our players will be older and on the downward side of their career, but others (KDH) will have a year under their belts and be better players than a year ago.

 

Even if every other club in Europe's top seven leagues have now signed at least 1 player, pretty much all of them will also have lost players - and some of the signings may not turn out to be improvements.

 

I think you can make a good case that a lot of other teams have strengthened and we're unchanged, but to present as fact that we're the only club in Europe's top seven leagues that hasn't managed to improve their squad and not think this is hyperbole was a laugh out loud moment.

 

As for the main point of your post: I'm quietly confident about this year for a lot of reasons (good starting XI, has to be less injuries, no Europe, less affected by the World Cup) - it doesn't make me a "happy clapper:" just someone who doesn't buy into the hyperbole and hysteria that you do actually seem to like after all!

[turtmcfly]

47 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

I dislike hyperbole and hysteria and there's far too much of it in football social media, this place is rife with it. 

 

But mess is definitely the word I'd use for our current situation. Our identification of young talent is definitely a strength of the club and something we can be proud of but our squad management off the pitch is very poor. 

 

Complaining because we've not signed a Brazilian right wing wonder kid in every transfer window would be over the top. Using the word "mess" and being upset because it's just over a week before the season starts and we're the only club in Europe's top seven leagues that hasn't managed to improve their squad and we aren't really able to because we've far too many overpaid, redundant assets on our books is just accurate. 

 

I don't like to use the term "happy clapper" but if you're still digging in your heels and denying that there's a fairly significant problem unfolding here then either the phrase applies to you or you just enjoy arguing on the Internet for the sakes of doing so. 

 

And regards the original post, the answer is ultimately Jon Rudkin. This is literally the bread and butter of his job, the definition of his role is to manage the squad at Leicester City, to oversee signings, to have the final say on who comes in, who we release, what contracts are offered, etc. That's what a Director of Football does. 

 

The whole point of separating the roles of DOF and head coach is that these days, with head coaches never really lasting very long, if left to their own devices in the transfer market they would tend towards short termism and quick fixes to try and improve their own immediate situation. I mean, would we have wanted Claude Puel to have dictated the future of Jamie Vardy at the club? 

 

By handing the reigns to a specialist director in charge of taking care of the squad in the best interests of the club, you're supposed to be letting a guy sit back with a more long term scope and plan out the development of a well rounded and balanced squad that protects the future of the team. 

 

To that end, there's always been questions asked of Rudkin and currently they're not being answered. Now with any luck, he'll work to navigate through it and we'll get back on track. I'm absolutely not advocating we call for his head. If you accept he's responsible for causing the current situation then you also have to accept he gets responsibility for building a squad that won the Premier League and FA Cup on a shoestring budget. 

 

But regardless, this is definitely "a mess." In fact, I'd say that word is fairly mild. 

 

 

This somewhat disregards the scope of the original post, unless you think Rudkin's bread and butter includes sorting out our defending at set pieces, 'reaching Europe or CL' and overseeing the stadium expansion.

 

 

 

[sdb]

I honestly think a large part of the 'mess' boils down to the Bertrand and Vestergaard deals. Expensive panic buys and ridiculous wages on players we didn't need, don't suit our (on or off the field) model and we are now lumbered with for at least another 12 months, at the expensive of bringing in exciting players, or tying down our best. Short termism came into play for probably the first time since our (equally wasteful) 2016 transfer window and we're now stuck in quicksand whilst our rivals make impressive looking acquisitions on a weekly basis.

[Fear Of The Fox]

6 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

I'm not trying to sound confrontational but I don't think that's what I just implied, no. It's bordering on a strawman in fact. 

 

I isolated Youri and Wes because between them they represent about 60m spend. But I reckon if you made a couple of columns for players over 10m that we've signed since we won the league, players that have gone on to have a significant positive impact vs players who were either objectively poor or at best squad filler, the latter column may very well have cost us more without those two. 

 

I appreciate that's a very arbitrary way of looking at it but another then is to include the two and work out by way of % what our success rate is on transfers when we pay "big" money. I'm suggesting it'd be a pretty fvcking disappointing figure. 

 

Or if you want to be more simplistic about it, let's just add up the cost in transfer fees and lost wages of all of those "flops" and ask whether or not we think it's tolerable for a club with our ambitions to have wasted that volume of cash. 

 

Either way, you can nitpick however you want, I think you'd have a hard time convincing any neutral that we've not been extremely haphazard with our spend. 

 

I'm a long, long way from some generic foxestalk permanent moaner. I don't think I need to convince you that I don't spend all my time here constantly complaining about every little thing the club or manager do. I give frequent credit where its due but, I'm sorry, our squad management over the last six or seven years has included some considerable missteps and a lot of wasted opportunity. We should have capitalised far better on our rise than we have. 

 

I genuinely want to know how would you replace world class players like Mahrez and Kante without a brand name and resources like Real Madrid, Chelsea, ManCity etc. How we should have capitalised far better even when players like Eriksen prefer to play in London for Brentford? 

[Finnegan]

9 minutes ago, coolhandfox said:

to just list Youri and Fofana as the only successes compared to a long list of failures is not balanced.

 

Which is exactly why that's not what I did. Again, I'm trying to remain patient here and not be rude or argumentative but that's not what my post said the first time you read it and it's not what the reply I posted to you clarified the second time either. 

[coolhandfox]

6 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

I'm not trying to sound confrontational but I don't think that's what I just implied, no. It's bordering on a strawman in fact. 

 

I isolated Youri and Wes because between them they represent about 60m spend. But I reckon if you made a couple of columns for players over 10m that we've signed since we won the league, players that have gone on to have a significant positive impact vs players who were either objectively poor or at best squad filler, the latter column may very well have cost us more without those two. 

 

I appreciate that's a very arbitrary way of looking at it but another then is to include the two and work out by way of % what our success rate is on transfers when we pay "big" money. I'm suggesting it'd be a pretty fvcking disappointing figure. 

 

Or if you want to be more simplistic about it, let's just add up the cost in transfer fees and lost wages of all of those "flops" and ask whether or not we think it's tolerable for a club with our ambitions to have wasted that volume of cash. 

 

Either way, you can nitpick however you want, I think you'd have a hard time convincing any neutral that we've not been extremely haphazard with our spend. 

 

I'm a long, long way from some generic foxestalk permanent moaner. I don't think I need to convince you that I don't spend all my time here constantly complaining about every little thing the club or manager do. I give frequent credit where its due but, I'm sorry, our squad management over the last six or seven years has included some considerable missteps and a lot of wasted opportunity. We should have capitalised far better on our rise than we have. 

 

Not nit-picking, I just find it an interesting debate and wouldn't class you as a moaner at all, actually I enjoy your posts 

 

I just don't think it's a problem unique to Leicester, it's a general issue across the PL league, how do we compare to our peers?

 

Squad management and recruitment seem to be very difficult for most teams at this level.

 

 

 

 

[Finnegan]

7 minutes ago, Golden Fox said:

just had to laugh at this.

 

I'm not sure why exactly. I said I didn't like hyperbole and then cited a well documented fact. There's not really irony there. 

 

If I'd followed up by saying we're going to be relegated and go bankrupt it would be hyperbolic. 

 

I don't expect people to follow my every word on here, the forum is a big place and everyone's opinions get jumbled up in to one big soup. I frequently lose track of who said what. 

 

But for clarity, I've stated a number of times over the last couple of weeks that it's worth noting we can still currently field 10 of the 11 players that were 2nd in the league at Christmas 2020 and I think we're well placed for another comfortable top half finish as long as we don't see an injury crisis again. 

[Tommy G]

Such an over exaggeration, seriously. 

[coolhandfox]

1 minute ago, Finnegan said:

 

Which is exactly why that's not what I did. Again, I'm trying to remain patient here and not be rude or argumentative but that's not what my post said the first time you read it and it's not what the reply I posted to you clarified the second time either. 

I hadn't seen your reply when I posted that.

 

Not sure why that would test your patient or make you want to be rude or argumentative.

 

It's not really that deep, apologies for any offence caused.  

[Collymore]

I feel the game is shifting a bit possibly with players perhaps running down their contracts and big transfer fees a thing of the past, with exception to the odd huge top 4 transfer here and there. 

 

I think we hit jackpot with players like Drinkwater, Mahrez and Maguire, but I just can't see that happening now, I think it was a mad patch that football went through that we fully exploited at the time. 

 

If Youri and co run their contracts down, yes we have missed out on a bit of cash we may have expected in the past but we'll all of a sudden have hundreds of thousands off the wage bill and in a market where we'll be looking at replacements for low or free transfer fees. 

[RowlattsFox]

We are not a big enough club or have a big enough turnover to make as many mistakes as we have in the transfer market. Being stuck with wages and players we no longer want is our biggest problem. And I'd also add we shouldn't have one of the highest paid managers around on our budget. 

 

Whether we should have maximized our profits commercially more, I don't know as I don't really understand football business in that sense. Or whether we have become victims of our own success and have overacheived to a level which is unsustainable for a club likes our currently. 

 

When you are trying to keep up with the biggest clubs, we have to gamble on players and we've got it wrong more often than not. Obviously signing shit like Vestergaard and Bertrand is not a gamble, they were always going to be shit. We've probably been too loyal to players as well, keeping them around longer and offering big wages, Choudhury and dare I say it, Albrighton (Love him by the way)

 

So for me, recruitment under Rodgers is the reason for the issues currently. We have simply got too many wrong.