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

[Finnegan]

17 minutes ago, turtmcfly said:

 

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.

 

 

 

 

Fair, I should clarify then perhaps that I would agree that the term "mess" definitely would be a little bit dramatic to describe the stalling over the stadium expansion or the on-field situation, the latter of which in particular I think we can attribute to unfortunate injuries and be optimistic about the future. 

 

But I do think "mess" is a fair word to describe the current state of our wage and contract situation and I think people acting like the word is melodramatic are being a little bit overly defensive. The man said "mess", not "catastrophic fvcking calamity."

 

Edit: just as an aside, I'm being quoted left right and centre and an trying to both reply and also do my day job. Apologies to anyone that feels I'm ignoring you or dodging any debate. 

Edited 27 July 2022 by Finnegan

[Guest Kopfkino]

I have no idea how people could possibly disagree that the state of our wage to turnover ratio with seemingly little ability to change it in the short-run can be described as anything but a mess.

 

Ignoring the rest that does constitute a mess. And Rudkin, Capper, Whelan, Top are all responsible for it but ultimately responsibility has to lie with Top for it

[TheStig]

1 hour ago, Golden Fox said:

Can I personally thank you for taking up this challenge of finding individuals to blame.

 

When you have the list, what's the next step - are you going to go to Top with a plan of what consequences you think are appropriate for each failure and ask him carry them out for i tyou?

I think it is fair to evaluate the capacity of those responsible. It is not for me to judge or bring the changes - that is the responsibilty of the board of directors or Top. But it certainly is possible to question a number of actions (and lack of actions) that seem to affect the club negatively and hampering progress. Or is everything just "OK"?

[Babylon]

22 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

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. 

You said they had all improved their squads, and as I've said a dozen times so far. No, they've just signed players. They could be shit, they could have lost four players and signed one, they could have lost their best players and replaced them with frees. So it's a fact we are the only team to not sign a player, not the only team to have not strengthened. We might be getting into semantics here. 

 

Back to the original point about Rudkin, do we really blame him for signing players the head of recruitment said we should sign? I don't expect Rudkin to scout players personally, it's questionable he should even have a great deal of opinion on it. And if we're saying well the person at the top is ultimately responsible, then we might as well say it's Top as he's left Rudkin in his position. 

 

He also can't force players to sign new contracts, or force other clubs to buy players like Youri and Soyuncu with a year left. You could argue their has been a shift in recent years to players looking to run down contracts to get moves, as clubs are asking ridiculous sums for players, it's likely we're going to get stung from that. Just like others probably will to some extent (See Kane, see Rice).

 

Oh and Rudkin isn't in charge of FFP. If UEFA put in a new set of rules, all he can do is now try and shape the squad to fit within them. 

 

We've also had Covid and several off field projects that can be a large drain on finances, which ultimately goes further up the chain the Susan and Top.  The situation we're in isn't ideal, but it's not really a mess if we've still got a squad capable of a top 10 finish. 

 

 

Edited 27 July 2022 by Babylon

[turtmcfly]

3 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

Fair, I should clarify then perhaps that I would agree that the term "mess" definitely would be a little bit dramatic to describe the stalling over the stadium expansion or the on-field situation, the latter of which in particular I think we can attribute to unfortunate injuries and be optimistic about the future. 

 

But I do think "mess" is a fair word to describe the current state of our wage and contract situation and I think people acting like the word is melodramatic are being a little bit overly defensive. The man said "mess", not "catastrophic fvcking calamity."

 

Edit: just as an aside, I'm being quoted left right and centre and an trying to both reply and also do my day job. Apologies to anyone that feels I'm ignoring you or dodging any debate. 

 

My point is the comments between the OP and your post are reacting to him calling 'everything' a mess, and in that context the word is melodramatic. 

 

[jayfox26]

1 hour ago, Webbo said:

It's that easy, we can sign whoever we want on any terms we want and then when we don't need them anymore we can sell them with a snap of our fingers.

You can on football manager and that's just like real life football management isn't it? I've said for a while now the club should hire me, I've assembled an amazing squad on fm and won 5 league titles and 6 cups in my time managing Leicester. Not sure why Brendan makes it so hard work to be honest. 

[Foxy-Lady]

31 minutes ago, Fear Of The Fox said:

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? 

same way as we managed to get those world class players to sign for us in the first place would be an obvious answer wouldn't it...?!?

I know its not always easy to find diamonds, but if our process is proven to work, why not keep trying to repeat it...?

[mazarron fox]

Here me out here before giving me a hard time.

every premier win is proven to be worth 2.5 m so let’s say Tielemans stays all season and we win 15 games. Without him we maybe win 10 then he has contributed 7.5 mil on his own. Should we be keeping or selling ? 

[Fear Of The Fox]

2 minutes ago, turtmcfly said:

 

My point is the comments between the OP and your post are reacting to him calling 'everything' a mess, and in that context the word is melodramatic. 

 

To be fair to the OP, he used the word in brackets to avoid being overly melodramatic. I think there's a middle ground: We're in an expected transitional "mess" but I have faith in the board. They've already proven to me all these years that they're capable to make crucial difficult decisions for this club and bring success. 

[Spudulike]

1 hour ago, pmcla26 said:

This really shouldn't be the barometer of success (or an expectation) for a club that is the size of ours. 

I'm not entirely sure anymore what size our club is. 

[Babylon]

3 minutes ago, Foxy-Lady said:

same way as we managed to get those world class players to sign for us in the first place would be an obvious answer wouldn't it...?!?

I know its not always easy to find diamonds, but if our process is proven to work, why not keep trying to repeat it...?

We have done. It might have escaped peoples attention, but when we were buying Kante, Mahrez, Vardy. We were also buying older players and squad filler players at the same time. We had one period buying a lot of young players under Puel, but that was because the squad needed it at the time. It doesn't always need young players.

 

The hit rate has been better with them, but they carry their own risks and attempting to blood and use virtually an entirely youth led side can have it's down sides. 

 

We've signed some right duffers and it's frustrating, but we aren't alone in that. Transfers are inherently risky and prem clubs, almost to a man waste huge amounts. 

[Finnegan]

23 minutes ago, Babylon said:

You said they had all improved their squads, and as I've said a dozen times so far. No, they've just signed players.

 

😑😮‍💨 I mean you're literally just being pedantic over semantics now. Fine, we're the only club in Europe's top seven leagues to have not been able to "conclude any first team staffing business." Its a pretty remarkable situation however you word it and the language used by Rodgers and Top recently as spokespeople for the club clearly implies it's not a situation they are happy with. If they aren't, I'm not sure why you are. 

 

23 minutes ago, Babylon said:

do we really blame [Rudkin] for signing players the head of recruitment said we should sign? I don't expect Rudkin to scout players personally, it's questionable he should even have a great deal of opinion on it.

 

Again, it's literally his job to manage the playing personnel at the club. This isn't really a big mystery, it's 2022, the role of a Director of Football is fairly well understood now in the modern game and the buck stops with them when it comes to building and maintaining a squad. 

 

And I don't think I've used the word "blame" anywhere in this thread and I've certainly not meant to imply it. I have repeatedly, over and over again, on Foxestalk championed the fact that individuals do not make signings in modern football and that transfer activity is not as simple as Football Manager has every armchair executive believing. 

 

But the word the OP used, and the question I answered, was "responsibility." And that I do think is more than semantics, responsibility and blame are different things. The responsibility does lie with Jon Rudkin. He is where the buck stops when it comes to the off-field management of playing personnel at the club. 

 

Just as the buck stops with Rodgers when it comes to questioning our on field performances. It doesn't matter if, say, its actually Kolo Toure that's been coaching set piece defending or if it's Mike Stowell that tells Kasper to stay on his line - Brendan Rodgers is the Head Coach and the buck stops there when performance is consistently poor. 

 

To iterate what I said earlier, this equally means that Rudkin gets the plaudits for overseeing a squad that has made us (I think I'm right in saying?) the fourth most successful club in England since we've been back in the Premier League. It's a remarkable achievement for our outlay and we've put some heavy hitters of the Premier League to shame. I'm not advocating for his removal. 

 

But ultimately he's responsible for the contract situation at the club and, right now, that situation can accurately be described as "a mess." It's complete denial to be arguing against that. 

 

Edited 27 July 2022 by Finnegan

[Golden Fox]

29 minutes ago, TheStig said:

I think it is fair to evaluate the capacity of those responsible. It is not for me to judge or bring the changes - that is the responsibilty of the board of directors or Top. But it certainly is possible to question a number of actions (and lack of actions) that seem to affect the club negatively and hampering progress. Or is everything just "OK"?

Don't get me wrong, I do think it is fair to evaluate the capacity of all the employees at the club.

 

But I'm pretty certain there will be processes within the club to do this. Just because the club hasn't fired Brendan or Rudkin, or thrown them under the bus in public does not mean they have not privately had serious conversations about aspects of their performance.

 

Just because this is a football club, people seem to think they should know the full story behind each decision and who is to blame and then can jump to conclusions (such as stating there have been no consequences for bad decisions), and that someone must be called out publicly.

 

I get there is a level of frustration of not signing anyone, but to want to drag someone's name through the mud in public to make yourself feel better, is not actually going to help make things better.

[Fear Of The Fox]

4 minutes ago, Foxy-Lady said:

same way as we managed to get those world class players to sign for us in the first place would be an obvious answer wouldn't it...?!?

I know its not always easy to find diamonds, but if our process is proven to work, why not keep trying to repeat it...?

Aren't they trying though? They brought Soumare in. If he turns out to be a flop or the next Kante time will tell. As I've mentioned earlier there's always a risk factor. Do you think it's so easy to maintain a 70% of successful signings every single season? We sold a Sunday league field tractor for 80m and we managed to sign a possible new Van Dijk. We brought Belgium's first team players in. We have academy players stepping into the first team and making a big impact. We signed a potential goal machine in Daka, let's see how this unfolds. Everyone wanted Iheanacho out, he proved himself useful after a while. 

Were they mistakes? Yes. But we're still very far from pointing our finger to the board. 

[Foxy-Lady]

1 minute ago, Fear Of The Fox said:

Aren't they trying though? They brought Soumare in. If he turns out to be a flop or the next Kante time will tell. As I've mentioned earlier there's always a risk factor. Do you think it's so easy to maintain a 70% of successful signings every single season? We sold a Sunday league field tractor for 80m and we managed to sign a possible new Van Dijk. We brought Belgium's first team players in. We have academy players stepping into the first team and making a big impact. We signed a potential goal machine in Daka, let's see how this unfolds. Everyone wanted Iheanacho out, he proved himself useful after a while. 

Were they mistakes? Yes. But we're still very far from pointing our finger to the board. 

But im not pointing my finger at anyone.....Im just highlighting how we previously managed to sign those world class players without paying top dollar for them so we don't need to try and compete with Real Madrid for players if we can carry on doing what we've previously managed to successfully do.

 

And do i think its easy to maintain a 70% successful signing rate?   

Personally, i think 70% successful signing rate would be a great achievement in the PL but i guess it all depends on what is defined as a successful signing and whether you quantify successful signing by performance level, longevity or resale profit?

(eg McGuire = Yes  ;  Bertrand = No ;  Soumare  =  ?  :  Daka = remains to be seen?  : Syuncu  = depends on what resale value we achieve?) 

[STEVIE B]

To say we're in a mess is exaggerating, surely. 

It's common knowledge we had a dreadful injury list last season. Keep most of squad out of the treatment room & it'll be like having new signings !

I have no idea of the current contracts situation, so can't comment. 

The ground expansion will go ahead eventually, these things take time. 

We probably have the best owners in the country, it's their money after all. They have generally spent wisely. 

 

[l444ry]

Victims of our own success to some extent. The club needed al those fringe players last season with that injury list and Europe to contend with. There would be plenty whingeing about lack of players otherwise. Missing out on Europe is the straw that broke the camel's back in my opinion. 

[Fear Of The Fox]

4 minutes ago, Foxy-Lady said:

But im not pointing my finger at anyone.....Im just highlighting how we previously managed to sign those world class players without paying top dollar for them so we don't need to try and compete with Real Madrid for players if we can carry on doing what we've previously managed to successfully do.

 

And do i think its easy to maintain a 70% successful signing rate?   

Personally, i think 70% successful signing rate would be a great achievement in the PL but i guess it all depends on what is defined as a successful signing and whether you quantify successful signing by performance level, longevity or resale profit?

(eg McGuire = Yes  ;  Bertrand = No ;  Soumare  =  ?  :  Daka = remains to be seen?  : Syuncu  = depends on what resale value we achieve?) 

I'm not saying you're personally pointing the finger. I'm also just highlighting the fact that the board didn't change its approach regarding new signings and sales all these years. We've all been spoiled by the sudden success of the team. Is it easy to maintain this? I don't think so. Yes we have the right as fans to point out mistakes that happen, even moan and be judgmental but we need to be sensible at the same time. 

[Stadt]

The level of cope in this thread is astonishing  

[Always Next Year]

21 minutes ago, Fear Of The Fox said:

I'm not saying you're personally pointing the finger. I'm also just highlighting the fact that the board didn't change its approach regarding new signings and sales all these years. We've all been spoiled by the sudden success of the team. Is it easy to maintain this? I don't think so. Yes we have the right as fans to point out mistakes that happen, even moan and be judgmental but we need to be sensible at the same time. 

I blame  Rodgers, since he has been here a lot of backroom staff have left the club for one reason or another, only to be replaced be people that have worked with Rodgers in the past, my concern is if he gets sacked or leaves then they follow and we are in more mess than we are now.

[ALC Fox]

In response to the OP, and without scrolling through all the posts above, Rodgers made a huge deal about keeping all of our stars last summer and then supplementing the squad to increase the overall quality.

 

The only signing that showed positive signs was Daka. Soumare could still come good but it looks like he might be off.

 

Then there was the sheer number of injuries that made us less competitive in the PL and Europe. We're now not in Europe and our big players are running down their contracts and several are worth less money than they were 12 months ago. The injuries were not helped by the schedule that has been impacted by Covid postponements and, before them, the suspension of the league, as well as the upcoming World Cup.

 

So, to different degrees, I think those responsible for all that are Rodgers, Rudkin, Whelan, Top, anyone involved in recruitment, the Premier League and FIFA. That's not to say that I don't think Rodgers is a good manager - he is. And it's not to say that I don't think Top, Rudkin and Whelan are excellent administrators - they are. I don't think our recruitment department is bad either. It's just that we've been in an unprecedented situation and we didn't negotiate it perfectly. Two things we should be praised for is that we didn't ask for Bank of England loans and didn't try to furlough staff.

 

To correct it, possibly, Rodgers needs slightly less influence on the running of the club than he currently enjoys. We need to return to our previous recruitment model. And we need to find ways of increasing our revenue so we can afford to pay new players even with several really high earners (easier said than done, I guess).

 

But, after everything that has happened, 8th place and an ECL semi-final were very good results last season. We still have a good squad and can compete in the league. The rebuild will start this season and begins with Schmeichel's departure. Next summer is where the bulk of the replacements will happen in my opinion.

 

We'll be OK.

[phoneticerror]

Covid 

[norwichfox]

1 minute ago, phoneticerror said:

Covid 

I wish you a speedy recovery...

[urban.spaceman]

3 hours 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. 

 

k.

[sylofox]

I still blame Davit Pleat.