The "do they mean us?" thread pt 4

[FrankieADZ]

2 hours ago, urban.spaceman said:

 

 

jesus he must be having a very bad week,

funny asf tho

picture it

[Collibosher70]

3 hours ago, urban.spaceman said:

 

 

 

[mod hero]

3 hours ago, urban.spaceman said:

 

 

Warwickshire Jesus is obsessed

[The Doctor]

4 minutes ago, mod hero said:

Warwickshire Jesus is obsessed

What miracles does he perform, turning water into white lightning?

[orangecity23]

1 minute ago, The Doctor said:

What miracles does he perform, turning water into white lightning?

Flipped a table at cash converters.

[davieG]

BBC

 

Leicester promotion fuelled by 'pure belief'
 

 

Andrew Aloia
BBC Sport

Few sides have been better than Leicester City in getting promoted to the top flight and, arguably, none have done so in such chaotic circumstances.

The Foxes' Premier League return was confirmed with two games left, after Leeds United were beaten at QPR on Friday. Wins in their remaining matches would see Leicester equal the record for most league wins in a second division season.

Victories would also see them amass 100 points - something that has only been done on six previous occasions at this level, including by Leicester themselves the last time they went up a decade ago.

For six of the nine months of this season, Leicester looked destined to smash just about all records on their way straight back to the Premier League.

But a mixture of near-disastrous form, legal fights that have followed a Premier League charge for alleged breaches of profit and sustainability rules, the threat of a points penalty on their top-flight return and a transfer embargo imposed on them has somewhat cloaked their successes.

Wes Morgan captained Leicester to promotion 10 years ago, then went on to lift the Premier League title as skipper two years later.

He says the 12-point lead at the top - and 14-point cushion to third - that Leicester had whittled away so dramatically with six defeats in 10 games between February and April is just an example of why "the Championship is one of the hardest leagues in the world".

"They definitely made it much more difficult than you would have expected," Morgan told BBC East Midlands Today.

"Up to Christmas, and really for a majority of the season, their form was incredible.

"But for one reason or another the wheels fell off, there was a dip in form, the other teams chasing caught up and it was touch and go there for a good few weeks."

With 25 wins from their first 32 games, Leicester had been on course to break the record for most second division points, set by Reading with 106 in 2006.

"The first 25 were amazing and the the six losses in 10 after that weren't," said Leicester defender Hamza Choudhury, when speaking hours before Leicester's promotion was confirmed on Friday.

"But we have so many experienced lads here, people that have come out of this division, which has kept us together.

"If I'm honest, it's the pure belief in what we are doing here and the direction we are moving in."

And the direction they have been heading has been dictated by manager Enzo Maresca, who was assistant to Pep Guardiola as Manchester City won the Treble last season.

A possession-focused approach, based on patient build-up play and geared towards a suffocating domination of the ball, has been a departure from the familiar at the King Power Stadium.

According to Opta statistics, only Southampton - a side that Leicester have convincingly beaten twice this season - have controlled more possession, completed more successful passes and strung together more sequences of 10 or more passes.

Off the ball, the Foxes have been more relentless than anyone else when pressing high, topping the charts for winning possession back in the final third - doing so 222 times.

Leicester have the league's second most prolific attack, with 86 goals in 44 games, and meanest defence in the league, having conceded just 39.

Enzo Maresca was appointed Leicester City boss following their relegation last season

For all that 'Maresca-ball' has delivered, it has not been universally liked by Foxes supporters.

In January there were shouts of criticism from the stands, as fans demanded a more forceful approach in a game against Swansea that Leicester won 3-1, which prompted the Italian to come out to defend his philosophy.

"Enzo has come in, had clear ideas on how he wants the team to play and they have been fantastic for a majority of the season," former Foxes captain Morgan said.

"The football they have played, the composure they have showed, the Enzo way has worked.

"Sometimes the fans want to see more expansive, exciting football and direct play, but at the same time the manager is in charge and has found a way to make the team work and win."

Leicester have become the 28th side to make an immediate return to the Premier League following relegation and could become just the 13th to do so as champions in the 32 years since the competition's inception in 1992.

Choudhury said the adjustment to the demands of Maresca, a former West Brom and Juventus player whose only previous stint in charge of a first-team lasted 180 days with Parma, has been the biggest and most rewarding challenge of the season.

"We have come in and completely changed our style of football and still managed to be a success," the defender said.

"The manager has honestly been amazing from day one. The biggest adversity, I think, for the players, the club and the fans has been the style of football.

"It's something completely new to Leicester City and it's definitely the direction football is going in now, with the likes of Brighton, obviously Manchester City, Arsenal and Bayer Leverkusen.

"It is a style that is successful, so to have someone with his experience - and not just being at City, but with his playing experience - and staff he has brought in has been amazing."

Jamie Vardy has scored 188 goals goals for Leicester City in his 12 years at the King Power Stadium

Maresca's work in the transfer window last summer has also proved masterful.

Sporting Lisbon loanee Abdul Fatawu has been an electric fans' favourite, ex-Arsenal and Juventus winger Stephy Mavididi a near-constant threat, and Harry Winks a composed director in midfield, while Mads Hermansen has earned plaudits as Championship goalkeeper of the season.

But a number of high-profile players also remained after relegation - with Jamie Vardy and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall having the greatest influences.

Midfielder Dewsbury-Hall has attracted the attention of a number of clubs, including Arsenal, Tottenham and Brighton, with his 26 goal involvements - having hit the back of the net 12 times and provided 14 assists.

Ex-England striker Vardy is the symbol of Leicester City's unprecedented success of the past decade, having been there for promotion in 2013-14, the Premier League title win of 2016, FA Cup win in 2021 and Champions League and other European campaigns in between.

At the age of 37, he is Leicester's leading scorer with 18 goals in all competitions. Before last season's relegation, he was the Foxes' leading scoring in seven successive Premier League campaigns.

"The best compliment I can probably give him is that that he is disappointed in that number," Choudhury said of Vardy's tally this term.

"'Vards' is amazing for us. He is 37 and you can see he still performs at the very highest level.

"He epitomises Leicester City and what we are as a club and who we want to be."

 

 

[Tuna]

Taken from the Marching On Together Leeds forum

 

The headline on the BBC is incomplete

Leicester promotion fuelled by 'pure belief

should read

Leicester promotion fuelled by 'pure belief and cheating

Pure b*llshit more like. They have benefitted from us and Ipswich self imploding. Leicester's bottle and self belief had gone. It is ridiculous that they have cheated and then blatantly told the EFL to **** off and nothing has happened. If it had been Leeds the EFL would have made up a punishment for us.

[UniFox21]

1 minute ago, Tuna said:

Taken from the Marching On Together Leeds forum

 

The headline on the BBC is incomplete

Leicester promotion fuelled by 'pure belief

should read

Leicester promotion fuelled by 'pure belief and cheating

Pure b*llshit more like. They have benefitted from us and Ipswich self imploding. Leicester's bottle and self belief had gone. It is ridiculous that they have cheated and then blatantly told the EFL to **** off and nothing has happened. If it had been Leeds the EFL would have made up a punishment for us.

Almost as if they've ignored the fact the EFL have been taken to court and lost twice on punishments then we're trying to give us 

[CosbehFox]

Thing with Leeds is that it’s coming for them - certainly on the next window if they can’t sell players big time 

[Foxdiamond]

19 minutes ago, Tuna said:

Taken from the Marching On Together Leeds forum

 

The headline on the BBC is incomplete

Leicester promotion fuelled by 'pure belief

should read

Leicester promotion fuelled by 'pure belief and cheating

Pure b*llshit more like. They have benefitted from us and Ipswich self imploding. Leicester's bottle and self belief had gone. It is ridiculous that they have cheated and then blatantly told the EFL to **** off and nothing has happened. If it had been Leeds the EFL would have made up a punishment for us.

Cheating. What was that Brian Clough said about Leeds golden era

[wardyfox86]

4 minutes ago, CosbehFox said:

Thing with Leeds is that it’s coming for them - certainly on the next window if they can’t sell players big time 

They'll sell. They've got a front 3/4 that could fetch upwards of £60m total.

 

Gray will go for a good amount despite being massively overrated, that's pure profit. Meslier might fetch a bit.

 

The difference between us trying to sell last season, and Leeds this, is that it'll be coming off the back of a (semi) successful season, in which certain players have flourished. We didn't have that.

 

This is all if they fail to go up.

[SouthStandUpperTier]

Got a feeling Leeds or Ipswich will probably try to sue us if they don't go up.

[coolhandfox]

30 minutes ago, SouthStandUpperTier said:

Got a feeling Leeds or Ipswich will probably try to sue us if they don't go up.

Like Leeds sued Everton and Forest when they went down? 

 

No going to happen.

[splinterdream]

1 hour ago, Tuna said:

Taken from the Marching On Together Leeds forum

 

The headline on the BBC is incomplete

Leicester promotion fuelled by 'pure belief

should read

Leicester promotion fuelled by 'pure belief and cheating

Pure b*llshit more like. They have benefitted from us and Ipswich self imploding. Leicester's bottle and self belief had gone. It is ridiculous that they have cheated and then blatantly told the EFL to **** off and nothing has happened. If it had been Leeds the EFL would have made up a punishment for us.

they owe £190m on player transfers, the delusion is off the charts

[Finn Claw II]

If cheating means signing Soumane for £17m,  Preat for £15m,  Daka for £23m etc etc then guilty as charged.

 

Overspending on bad players is just bad financial management rather than cheating.

 

 

[KFS]

Can we have a group response to this stupid little ‘cheating’ claim? If we cheated we’d have stayed up. Period. We stopped spending and took the fall for an Everton side that should have been charged the year we went down. We would have been outside of the spending bracket the year after, but not nearly as many. We did not gain a sporting advantage from our position in the slightest. 
 

We sold multiple expensive ‘assets’, but what these dopes are failing to understand is that this became a European regular now all of a sudden in the league below… because of Everton.

 

Leeds and others will lap this up because it’ll give them an excuse for being shit yet again, but we did not cheat

[urban.spaceman]

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/apr/26/a-premier-league-return-is-the-only-certainty-in-leicesters-cloudy-future
 

Sinister bollocks like this:

 

Now, finally, we know which division Leicester will play in next season but look past that and there is a jarring current of unknowns. Most of which stem from Leicester’s ultimate failure to keep up with the Premier League’s elite in the years since Claudio Ranieri did the unthinkable. 
 

Absolutely no mention whatsoever of the financial restrictions put on the club after winning the league. 
 

This country’s sports journalists are as incompetent as the referees and the officials running the sport. 

 

 

[splinterdream]

1 minute ago, KFS said:

Can we have a group response to this stupid little ‘cheating’ claim? If we cheated we’d have stayed up. Period. We stopped spending and took the fall for an Everton side that should have been charged the year we went down. We would have been outside of the spending bracket the year after, but not nearly as many. We did not gain a sporting advantage from our position in the slightest. 
 

We sold multiple expensive ‘assets’, but what these dopes are failing to understand is that this became a European regular now all of a sudden in the league below… because of Everton.

 

Leeds and others will lap this up because it’ll give them an excuse for being shit yet again, but we did not cheat

they're claiming we're cheating because of this season really, they think we should have sold more of our assets and have been hindered to sign less. Leeds signed about £33m of players and sold £30m of players. We signed around £43m of players and made £116m on players, we added £40m of the transfer fee to 22/23 accounts. Leeds also owe £190m of transfers, these people are idiots. 

[urban.spaceman]

42 minutes ago, KFS said:

Can we have a group response to this stupid little ‘cheating’ claim? If we cheated we’d have stayed up. Period. We stopped spending and took the fall for an Everton side that should have been charged the year we went down. We would have been outside of the spending bracket the year after, but not nearly as many. We did not gain a sporting advantage from our position in the slightest. 
 

We sold multiple expensive ‘assets’, but what these dopes are failing to understand is that this became a European regular now all of a sudden in the league below… because of Everton.

 

Leeds and others will lap this up because it’ll give them an excuse for being shit yet again, but we did not cheat

The Premier League keep changing the rules of “financial fair play” which have already demonstrably harmed Leicester’s progress after they won the league. 
 

They’re now claiming that Leicester City gained a sporting advantage in a season in which they were relegated. 
 

The same league who failed to deal with Manchester City’s industrial financial cheating from 2008 to present day, which demonstrably led to Leicester missing out on Champions League football 2 seasons in a row and millions in income, which led directly to our difficulty in adhering to their new restrictive rules.

 

The Premier League then sought to hand out punishment down to the EFL, which is against their own rules. 
 

The Premier League then tried to fast track our punishment, which is in their new rules but not the ones that applied to us last season so therefore cannot be fast tracked.

 

The EFL also tried to gain access to our business plan earlier than the deadline, which is again, against their own rules.

 

The EFL applied a transfer embargo, which the club is challenging via an independent panel - we’re currently winning 2-0.

 

The Premier League and the EFL have also been accused of sharing confidential and sensitive LCFC data between each other, which is against the law. 
 

…

 

Basically, Leicester City are being accused of overspending by a league that has directly controlled our income and restricted our spending, failed to deal with industrial level cheating by other clubs which directly affected our income and progress, and with the EFL, has already proved itself in trying to punish us, to be utterly corrupt by trying to act outside of their own rules

and jurisdiction AND breaking the law in the progress.

[KFS]

21 minutes ago, urban.spaceman said:

The Premier League keep changing the rules of “financial fair play” which have already demonstrably harmed Leicester’s progress after they won the league. 
 

They’re now claiming that Leicester City gained a sporting advantage in a season in which they were relegated. 
 

The same league who failed to deal with Manchester City’s industrial financial cheating from 2008 to present day, which demonstrably led to Leicester missing out on Champions League football 2 seasons in a row and millions in income, which led directly to our difficulty in adhering to their new restrictive rules.

 

The Premier League then sought to hand out punishment down to the EFL, which is against their own rules. 
 

The Premier League then tried to fast track our punishment, which is in their new rules but not the ones that applied to us last season so therefore cannot be fast tracked.

 

The EFL also tried to gain access to our business plan earlier than the deadline, which is again, against their own rules.

 

The EFL applied a transfer embargo, which the club is challenging via an independent panel - we’re currently winning 2-0.

 

The Premier League and the EFL have also been accused of sharing confidential and sensitive LCFC data between each other, which is against the law. 
 

…

 

Basically, Leicester City are being accused of overspending by a league that has directly controlled our income and restricted our spending, failed to deal with industrial level cheating by other clubs which directly affected our income and progress, and with the EFL, has already proved itself in trying to punish us, to be utterly corrupt by trying to act outside of their own rules

and jurisdiction AND breaking the law in the progress.

As much as I want Rudkin et al out, this is very much the Premier League’s doing. I hope our mega lawyer has a ****ing field day

[Footballwipe]

10 hours ago, KFS said:

As much as I want Rudkin et al out, this is very much the Premier League’s doing. I hope our mega lawyer has a ****ing field day

Can we please not forget that this isn't "The Premier League" it's the Premier League members.

 

The rules are what the members vote for. If 2/3 go with it then it happens. Richard Masters doesn't dictate down, he gets dictated to.

 

I'm not saying it's right, I'm not saying the top clubs aren't strong arming other clubs stuff through, but the tin foil bullshit on here and elsewhere that a few men in a room are telling the 20 member clubs what to do is sheer nonsense.

[AKCJ]

12 hours ago, urban.spaceman said:

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/apr/26/a-premier-league-return-is-the-only-certainty-in-leicesters-cloudy-future
 

Sinister bollocks like this:

 

 

Now, finally, we know which division Leicester will play in next season but look past that and there is a jarring current of unknowns. Most of which stem from Leicester’s ultimate failure to keep up with the Premier League’s elite in the years since Claudio Ranieri did the unthinkable. 
 

Absolutely no mention whatsoever of the financial restrictions put on the club after winning the league. 
 

This country’s sports journalists are as incompetent as the referees and the officials running the sport. 

 

 

We didn't have any financial restrictions put on us. It's why we're in this dog mess of a situation in the board room.

[ClaphamFox]

7 minutes ago, Footballwipe said:

Can we please not forget that this isn't "The Premier League" it's the Premier League members.

 

The rules are what the members vote for. If 2/3 go with it then it happens. Richard Masters doesn't dictate down, he gets dictated to.

 

I'm not saying it's right, I'm not saying the top clubs aren't strong arming other clubs stuff through, but the tin foil bullshit on here and elsewhere that a few men in a room are telling the 20 member clubs what to do is sheer nonsense.

Did the Premier League members hold a vote on whether to punish us while we're in the Championship, and to fast-track that punishment - both of which are against the rules? Or was it the senior PL management that did that?

Edited 29 April by ClaphamFox

[Ric Flair]

13 hours ago, SouthStandUpperTier said:

Got a feeling Leeds or Ipswich will probably try to sue us if they don't go up.

We'd need to have breached PSR for 23/24 for that to even be a possibility. We've 2 months to raise whatever amount we need to comply. Who knows.

[Saxondale]

48 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

We'd need to have breached PSR for 23/24 for that to even be a possibility. We've 2 months to raise whatever amount we need to comply. Who knows.

Sell the naming rights for the car park to King Power. 
 

💪