Rudkin

[Mickyblueeyes]

No football club owner is a “football man/woman”. It isn’t their industry. In fact, in the history of football probably 99% haven’t been football people. They are reliant on advisors. 
 

Top’s issue and subsequently ours is that he isn’t a business person! Being “let down” by advisors is absolutely his fault.

Edited 19 January by Mickyblueeyes

[CUJimmy]

I would love to know what the process is behind our signings now.

 

The 15-16 team was out together on a shoestring largely by Walsh and Shakey based on a way of playing developed with Pearson.  The key premise was always round pegs in round holes.  If we are honest though we struggled to recruit well when we had money and the summer of ‘16 was a disaster.

 

The team Rogers inherited from Puel was probably the best in my lifetime.  A top keeper, quality defenders in Cags, Rickie P, JJ, even Fofana and Maguire contributed to to a very solid back line.  Add a bit of stardust with Maddison and Tielemans, a still lively Vardy and a promising crop of youngsters coming through in Barnes, Chillwell, KDH etc and we had the nucleus of a top 6 side.

 

That all fell apart of course due to Rudkin letting contracts run down and Rogers sidelining some of our best players.

 

Along comes Enzo with a clear idea of how he wanted to play and sent scouts out to find the players within the financial limitations we face.

 

Now I really don’t know.  Cooper seemed to say he wanted Premier League experience which we bought with no apparent idea what to do with it so we end up with Ayew, DCR, Skipp etc all of whom seemed to provide back up in positions of relative strength rather than the defenders and strikers we could all clearly see were needed.

How much of this is on Rudkin?  The contract situations 100% is and while he doesn’t select/coach the team, devise tactics or scout the players himself he Directs those who do.  The clue is in the Job Title.

 

[accessory]

1 hour ago, ShepshedFox1884 said:

So if we want top to make changes we as fans have to push him into the big decision, like we did with getting rid of cooper.

Except it was the players (and the captain in particular) who forced Cooper out.

 

Vardy does have a history of throwing managers under a bus - Ranieri and Puel being notable examples.

 

His close relationship with both Rudkin and Aiyawatt is not doing the club any favours.

[dannythefox]

Sack him he’s been making massive mistake for about 6 yrs. Anyone else in an other industry would of gone by now.

[Ric Flair]

RUSKIN

[Fazzer 7]

55 minutes ago, accessory said:

 

Vardy does have a history of throwing managers under a bus - Ranieri and Puel being notable examples.

 

His close relationship with both Rudkin and Aiyawatt is not doing the club any favours.

I agree when Vardy was at his best it was tolerated, maybe welcomed. But now he may be a negative influence on players. I'd imagine with his clout he could easily turn players again a manager. 

[Paninistickers]

1 hour ago, accessory said:

Except it was the players (and the captain in particular) who forced Cooper out.

 

Vardy does have a history of throwing managers under a bus - Ranieri and Puel being notable examples.

 

His close relationship with both Rudkin and Aiyawatt is not doing the club any favours.

I'd imagine schmeichel was the ring leader tbh but yes, certainly with Puel, Vardy didn't even hide his disdain 

 

 

[Horibbly Wrong]

46 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

RUSKIN

Teddy Ruxpin

[lcfcbluearmy]

5 hours ago, Iwebema said:

This is spot on, I've always maintained I don't think Top doesn't care (he could care more for sure) I think its more he isn't a football guy and has allowed a selection of charlatans to run the thing for him. 

Like you I don't know if it is just Rudkin, but as director of football, he certainly must bare the brunt of where things have gone wrong, he is a constant in a long list of silly decisions.

 

Extremely poor history on big money signings.

 

Not sacking rodgers quickly enough despite it being obvious to everyone he'd checked out.

 

Not adequately replacing kasper

 

Allowing drinkwater to leave and messing up the silva signing 

 

Still not having a competent alternative to vardy

 

Allowing talented assets like tielemans to run their contracts down

 

Overpaying average players so we can't move them on

 

Failing PSR and getting away with it on a technicality 

 

Building a squad to play enzo ball, renewing vestergaard primarily because of it to bring in steve cooper?

 

Having the same back 4 that got relegated 2 years ago playing week in week out this season, having made 0 improvements in 4 transfer windows

 

And now we are on the cusp of 2 relegations in 3 years, when the year before that we were a comfortable upper mid table team.

 

Those are just things off the top of my head, in isolation you can say no ones perfect, not every footballing decision is correct, but its a hell of a list.

 

I do give credit for Enzo, but as others have mentioned it was hard to see us not getting promoted give the squad we had.

 

As I said is that list just Rudkin? Absolutely no idea, but he has been a constant through it all.

 

My hope is Top wakes up, takes it all more seriously than he has, and take personal charge of a review into the last few years of the football operation because it absolutely stinks, we may bounce back again next season as we will still have a handful of players too good for the championship, but the quality is dwindling and we are not far off oblivion if it continues down this road.

I hate to pick you up on this but I keep seeing people say this and it's just not true.

 

This is not in anyway a defence of the club because in some ways this defence is worse than the one we got relegated with but it's definitely not the same.

 

In the season we got relegated our main defenders were Evans, armarty, castagne( all of which are not here any more) souter ( who is out on loan) and kristiansen, Thomas Justin and feas

 

It's very much a different back 4 now like I said not a defence because the one we have now is probably worse but it's not the same as the one that got us relegated 

 

 

[Iwebema]

27 minutes ago, lcfcbluearmy said:

I hate to pick you up on this but I keep seeing people say this and it's just not true.

 

This is not in anyway a defence of the club because in some ways this defence is worse than the one we got relegated with but it's definitely not the same.

 

In the season we got relegated our main defenders were Evans, armarty, castagne( all of which are not here any more) souter ( who is out on loan) and kristiansen, Thomas Justin and feas

 

It's very much a different back 4 now like I said not a defence because the one we have now is probably worse but it's not the same as the one that got us relegated 

 

 

It's a fair point, I think what I meant was the current starting back 4 (JJ, vesty, faes and kris) were here when we got relegated and weren't even first choice.

[SafewayFox]

33 minutes ago, lcfcbluearmy said:

I hate to pick you up on this but I keep seeing people say this and it's just not true.

 

This is not in anyway a defence of the club because in some ways this defence is worse than the one we got relegated with but it's definitely not the same.

 

In the season we got relegated our main defenders were Evans, armarty, castagne( all of which are not here any more) souter ( who is out on loan) and kristiansen, Thomas Justin and feas

 

It's very much a different back 4 now like I said not a defence because the one we have now is probably worse but it's not the same as the one that got us relegated 

 

 

Or look at it this way, the back 4 of Faes, Vestergaard, JJ and Kristiansen were all at the club in our relegation season.

 

Whether they started ahead of an injured Evans or crock of 5rap Amartey is neither here nor there.

 

They weren’t good enough to keep us up, as a defensive line two years ago, so not drastically improving it was beyond moronic.

Edited 19 January by SafewayFox

[sm1]

2 hours ago, Fazzer 7 said:

I agree when Vardy was at his best it was tolerated, maybe welcomed. But now he may be a negative influence on players. I'd imagine with his clout he could easily turn players again a manager. 

I would say Winks was the one player that really seemed to dislike Cooper, lambasting him several times on the touchline. If anyone kicked a stink it would be him. Vardy is actually more suited to Coopers game and it showed with his g+a under him.

[lcfcbluearmy]

1 hour ago, SafewayFox said:

Or look at it this way, the back 4 of Faes, Vestergaard, JJ and Kristiansen were all at the club in our relegation season.

 

Whether they started ahead of an injured Evans or crock of 5rap Amartey is neither here nor there.

 

They weren’t good enough to keep us up, as a defensive line two years ago, so not drastically improving it was beyond moronic.

Oh yes I agree but I think that's a stronger point than it's the same back 4 it's not it's a weaker back 4

[CosbehFox]

15 hours ago, Mickyblueeyes said:

No football club owner is a “football man/woman”. It isn’t their industry. In fact, in the history of football probably 99% haven’t been football people. They are reliant on advisors. 
 

Top’s issue and subsequently ours is that he isn’t a business person! Being “let down” by advisors is absolutely his fault.

You only have to look at someone like Wrexham whose immediate action upon buying the club was to install people with good CVs of running football clubs. 

[HankMarvin]

Nothing groundbreaking

but at least the microscope is being aimed at rudkin, a bit 

 

 

tanner article athletic 

 

 

It was almost spontaneous. As the roar from the travelling Fulham fans started to fade after Emile Smith Rowe’s goal three minutes after the restart, the familiar chants began.

“We want Rudkin out, say we want Rudkin out.”

It has become a sporadic part of the chanting repertoire for some Leicester City supporters over the past three years as their club has gone from one that has challenged the elite of the Premier League to one that is just sinking in the quicksand to the Championship for the second time in three seasons.

Jon Rudkin, the club’s director of football for the past 10 years, is seen as a key figure in that decline.

The glory years of the Premier League title win in 2016, the Champions League, two more European campaigns and winning the FA Cup will never be forgotten, but they feel like a distant memory for the supporters who headed for the exits after Adama Traore drilled home the second goal to dampen Leicester’s fading survival hopes.

Ruud van Nistelrooy’s side have lost seven consecutive league games for only the fourth time in their history. They have failed to score in four consecutive home league games for the first time since September 1983 (run of five) while they have drawn a blank in five of their nine Premier League games under Van Nistelrooy. They did so in just one of their first 13 matches of the season under Steve Cooper and caretaker Ben Dawson.

With those numbers, it was not just Rudkin who was targeted by the chanting.

There were chants for “Sack the board” and, when Van Nistelrooy took off the popular figure of Bilal El Khannoussjust four minutes before Traore’s strike, there was a chorus of boos and chants of: “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

Van Nistelrooy’s side have lost seven league games in a row (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)

Leicester have gone from being a model of how to compete with the top clubs to being characterised by poor decision-making and a lack of accountability.

The supporters have every right to demand answers and action as they watch their club become a fading shadow of what it once was.

Ten years ago, after a 1-0 home defeat to Stoke City, Leicester were bottom of the Premier League, three points from safety but three points better off than they are today.

The managerial structure was generally as it is now, but there was one huge difference — the inspirational, much-mourned figure of Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha was at the helm.

Back then, his son, Aiyawatt, worked closely at the club, reporting back to his father who looked over the King Power Empire from Thailand. He worked with Rudkin, who had just been promoted to director of football, while chief executive officer Susan Whelan managed the club’s general affairs.

It was a winning formula at the time. Now, the gulf left by Khun Vichai’s tragic death in the 2018 helicopter crash has never seemed bigger.

Khun Top has stepped into his father’s role to manage the entire King Power portfolio and has also started a family. Away from football, the family has also filed a £2.15billion fatal accident claimagainst the manufacturer of the helicopter in which his father died. An inquest into the deaths of the five people killed in the crash also began last week.

Khun Top has much more on his plate than just Leicester, but he remains the chief decision-maker of its affairs. He needs more help.

Rudkin is in charge of football affairs, although he delegates major decisions to Khun Top. But managing Leicester’s football matters has become a huge concern. Other clubs have appointed people to assist the director of football to manage the workload and speed up the decision-making, which has become too slow at Leicester.

Recruitment has been a huge issue. It has become scattergun, with no clear vision.

Rudkin, left, delegates the bigger decisions to Khun Top (Michael Regan/Getty Images)

With five managers in the past three years, the ultimate decision on which players are brought in has been left to each of the individual managers. But with managers as diverse as Brendan Rodgers, Enzo Maresca, Steve Cooper and now Van Nistelrooy (Dean Smith did not get a transfer window), all have had different opinions on players, leading to no clearly defined philosophy on who is the right fit for the club.

One check on signings has been profitability and sustainability rules (PSR). While no Premier League club has been charged with PSR breaches in the most recent assessment, Leicester remain in a legal battle with the Premier League over club losses incurred during the three-year accounting period ending in 2023-24.

Instead of the club challenging a manager’s decision on a signing, it appears as though they have been given carte blanche.

Jannik Vestergaard is a classic example. Wanted by Rodgers, and then unwanted, he was rewarded with a new three-year contract by Maresca, unused by Cooper, but is now back at the heart of Van Nistelrooy’s defence.

Funds are precious with Leicester’s profit and sustainability concerns, but they tried to back Cooper last summer with an £80million gross spend. Only two of those signings started against Fulham — El Khannouss and Jordan Ayew.

Caleb Okoli and Oliver Skipp were recruited for a combined total of £33million. They may prove to be sound investments, but right now they are squad players and for a challenge as great as remaining in the Premier League, Leicester needed players who can overwhelmingly improve the starting XI.

The decision to use up one of Leicester’s two Premier League loan spots on striker Odsonne Edouard has been a disaster. He cannot even get into the matchday squad and would be extremely expensive to send back to Crystal Palace.

They need reinforcements desperately in this January transfer window. With two weeks to go, only one has arrived: full-back Woyo Coulibaly, for £3million, from Parma.

With PSR still potentially an issue, Leicester are struggling to do any other deals without generating more funds.

Tom Cannon was recalled from his loan at Stoke City and Leicester are trying to sell him to generate funds to be reinvested. Several clubs have expressed an interest in taking Cannon on loan, and Van Nistelrooy has said Leicester are “looking in this window at his situation, what would be best for him and for the club”. But Leicester need to move much quicker. But to many, there appears to be a lethargy that is out of place with the club’s precarious predicament.

Unlike in 2014-15, when Leicester signed Robert Huth on loan and Andrej Kramaric for £9million, there are no funds to play with. Leicester need to conjure up something special or Van Nistelrooy, who said funds and the January window were part of his negotiations with the club when he agreed to join, will be left to play the hand he has been dealt. He stressed publicly after the Fulham game nothing had changed.

In 2015, Nigel Pearson decided to make changes in his approach and personnel. It paid off. Leicester survived and so began an incredible era in the club’s history.

Ten years on, it feels very different. But changes are needed at Leicester City just as much if they are to survive.

Edited 20 January by HankMarvin

[Tommy G]

4 minutes ago, HankMarvin said:

Nothing groundbreaking

but at least the microscope is being aimed at rudkin, a bit 

 

 

tanner article athletic 

 

 

It was almost spontaneous. As the roar from the travelling Fulham fans started to fade after Emile Smith Rowe’s goal three minutes after the restart, the familiar chants began.

“We want Rudkin out, say we want Rudkin out.”

It has become a sporadic part of the chanting repertoire for some Leicester City supporters over the past three years as their club has gone from one that has challenged the elite of the Premier League to one that is just sinking in the quicksand to the Championship for the second time in three seasons.

Jon Rudkin, the club’s director of football for the past 10 years, is seen as a key figure in that decline.

The glory years of the Premier League title win in 2016, the Champions League, two more European campaigns and winning the FA Cup will never be forgotten, but they feel like a distant memory for the supporters who headed for the exits after Adama Traore drilled home the second goal to dampen Leicester’s fading survival hopes.

Ruud van Nistelrooy’s side have lost seven consecutive league games for only the fourth time in their history. They have failed to score in four consecutive home league games for the first time since September 1983 (run of five) while they have drawn a blank in five of their nine Premier League games under Van Nistelrooy. They did so in just one of their first 13 matches of the season under Steve Cooper and caretaker Ben Dawson.

With those numbers, it was not just Rudkin who was targeted by the chanting.

There were chants for “Sack the board” and, when Van Nistelrooy took off the popular figure of Bilal El Khannoussjust four minutes before Traore’s strike, there was a chorus of boos and chants of: “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

Van Nistelrooy’s side have lost seven league games in a row (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)

Leicester have gone from being a model of how to compete with the top clubs to being characterised by poor decision-making and a lack of accountability.

The supporters have every right to demand answers and action as they watch their club become a fading shadow of what it once was.

Ten years ago, after a 1-0 home defeat to Stoke City, Leicester were bottom of the Premier League, three points from safety but three points better off than they are today.

The managerial structure was generally as it is now, but there was one huge difference — the inspirational, much-mourned figure of Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha was at the helm.

Back then, his son, Aiyawatt, worked closely at the club, reporting back to his father who looked over the King Power Empire from Thailand. He worked with Rudkin, who had just been promoted to director of football, while chief executive officer Susan Whelan managed the club’s general affairs.

It was a winning formula at the time. Now, the gulf left by Khun Vichai’s tragic death in the 2018 helicopter crash has never seemed bigger.

Khun Top has stepped into his father’s role to manage the entire King Power portfolio and has also started a family. Away from football, the family has also filed a £2.15billion fatal accident claimagainst the manufacturer of the helicopter in which his father died. An inquest into the deaths of the five people killed in the crash also began last week.

Khun Top has much more on his plate than just Leicester, but he remains the chief decision-maker of its affairs. He needs more help.

Rudkin is in charge of football affairs, although he delegates major decisions to Khun Top. But managing Leicester’s football matters has become a huge concern. Other clubs have appointed people to assist the director of football to manage the workload and speed up the decision-making, which has become too slow at Leicester.

Recruitment has been a huge issue. It has become scattergun, with no clear vision.

Rudkin, left, delegates the bigger decisions to Khun Top (Michael Regan/Getty Images)

With five managers in the past three years, the ultimate decision on which players are brought in has been left to each of the individual managers. But with managers as diverse as Brendan Rodgers, Enzo Maresca, Steve Cooper and now Van Nistelrooy (Dean Smith did not get a transfer window), all have had different opinions on players, leading to no clearly defined philosophy on who is the right fit for the club.

One check on signings has been profitability and sustainability rules (PSR). While no Premier League club has been charged with PSR breaches in the most recent assessment, Leicester remain in a legal battle with the Premier League over club losses incurred during the three-year accounting period ending in 2023-24.

Instead of the club challenging a manager’s decision on a signing, it appears as though they have been given carte blanche.

Jannik Vestergaard is a classic example. Wanted by Rodgers, and then unwanted, he was rewarded with a new three-year contract by Maresca, unused by Cooper, but is now back at the heart of Van Nistelrooy’s defence.

Funds are precious with Leicester’s profit and sustainability concerns, but they tried to back Cooper last summer with an £80million gross spend. Only two of those signings started against Fulham — El Khannouss and Jordan Ayew.

Caleb Okoli and Oliver Skipp were recruited for a combined total of £33million. They may prove to be sound investments, but right now they are squad players and for a challenge as great as remaining in the Premier League, Leicester needed players who can overwhelmingly improve the starting XI.

The decision to use up one of Leicester’s two Premier League loan spots on striker Odsonne Edouard has been a disaster. He cannot even get into the matchday squad and would be extremely expensive to send back to Crystal Palace.

They need reinforcements desperately in this January transfer window. With two weeks to go, only one has arrived: full-back Woyo Coulibaly, for £3million, from Parma.

With PSR still potentially an issue, Leicester are struggling to do any other deals without generating more funds.

Tom Cannon was recalled from his loan at Stoke City and Leicester are trying to sell him to generate funds to be reinvested. Several clubs have expressed an interest in taking Cannon on loan, and Van Nistelrooy has said Leicester are “looking in this window at his situation, what would be best for him and for the club”. But Leicester need to move much quicker. But to many, there appears to be a lethargy that is out of place with the club’s precarious predicament.

Unlike in 2014-15, when Leicester signed Robert Huth on loan and Andrej Kramaric for £9million, there are no funds to play with. Leicester need to conjure up something special or Van Nistelrooy, who said funds and the January window were part of his negotiations with the club when he agreed to join, will be left to play the hand he has been dealt. He stressed publicly after the Fulham game nothing had changed.

In 2015, Nigel Pearson decided to make changes in his approach and personnel. It paid off. Leicester survived and so began an incredible era in the club’s history.

Ten years on, it feels very different. But changes are needed at Leicester City just as much if they are to survive.

Tanner clearly wants to go in two footed and get sent off with this article but he's pulled out last minute and been awarded a yellow. 

 

Like the volume against Rudkin is up a notch

[Lambert09]

Rudkout

[FoxesBraun]

 

He's worked at the academy and other parts of the club for 20 years which is admirable but we have clearly massively fallen behind by keeping him as DoF. He was never fully qualified to do the job to begin with and it shows. 

 

10-15 years ago no one knew or was arsed about who the DoF was anywhere but football has changed massively and now people like Ashworth, Begiristain, Wilcox, Paratici etc. are now seen as celebrities and vital parts of a successful business. 

 

Rudkin could be the nicest bloke in Leicestershire and bleed blue but this is not the time for Top to be sentimental and keep his mate in a job.

 

We desperately need an overhaul of the board and get someone in who's an expert in the field so we can keep up with the modern ways. 
 

I’m not Top out but the longer this drags on and we don’t start making the cutthroat business decisions, we’ll only fall further and it’ll be on him.

Edited 23 January by FoxesBraun

[Jobyfox]

I’ve not exactly defended Rudkin previously, but just been unsure of whether it’s him, or somebody else, who is ultimately responsible for our demise. I’ve finally lost patience after the summer transfer window that will effectively see us relegated this season. 
 

We won the Premier League and FA Cup in recent history. We can still point to that, but every institution or business knows that you have to evolve, change, move with the times or die. 
 

LCFC have now clearly been left behind by other, better run, clubs. We’ve seen clubs like Brighton, Brentford, Forest and Fulham surpass us - who were all nowhere just a few years ago. 
 

We need evolution and change at executive level. If Top doesn’t know what to change then he should consider his own position as the figurehead of the club. We need a clear statement of a change of direction and a person or people need to go. If not Rudkin then who? 

Edited 23 January by Jobyfox

[FoxesBraun]

4 minutes ago, Jobyfox said:

I’ve not exactly defended Rudkin previously, but just been unsure of whether it’s him, or somebody else, who is ultimately responsible for our demise. I’ve finally lost patience after the summer transfer window that will effectively see us relegated this season. 
 

We won the Premier League and FA Cup in recent history. We can still point to that, but every institution or business knows that you have to evolve, change, move with the times or die. 
 

LCFC have now clearly been left behind by other, better run, clubs. We’ve seen clubs like Brighton, Brentford, Forest and Fulham surpass us - who were all nowhere just a few years ago. 
 

We need evolution and change and executive level. If Top doesn’t know what to change they he should consider his own position as the figurehead of the club. We need a clear statement of a change of direction and a person or people need to go. If not Rudkin then who? 

Think you read my mind. 
 

Whether we like it or not, football has become a business and businesses that stay stubborn and don’t keep up with the times go under. 

Vichai seemed a top bloke but he was a ruthless businessman. He didn’t take any shit and I doubt he would’ve put up with this.
 

Top just doesn’t seem to have it in him but he needs to sort that out sharpish. 

 

[Wink84]

I just simmed football manager three times for this season with a update for the current season.

 

3 times Ruud took us down.

 

3 times he didn't get sacked until the end of the season.

 

Once he even got a new contract after getting us relegated.

 

Rudkin out!!!

[Super Stevie Howard]

14 minutes ago, Wink84 said:

I just simmed football manager three times for this season with a update for the current season.

 

3 times Ruud took us down.

 

3 times he didn't get sacked until the end of the season.

 

Once he even got a new contract after getting us relegated.

 

Rudkin out!!!

First thing I always do in a city career is sack Rudkin, if only it was so easy...

[justfoxes]

12 hours ago, Lambert09 said:

Rudkout

Waiting now on the birthday messages and n the big screen ALA Cooper ,Happy Birthday Ghottabe Rudkout 

[Daggers]

2 hours ago, Wink84 said:

I just simmed football manager three times for this season with a update for the current season.

 

3 times Ruud took us down.

 

3 times he didn't get sacked until the end of the season.

 

Once he even got a new contract after getting us relegated.

 

[filbertway]

On 19/01/2025 at 18:23, Ric Flair said:

RUSKIN