King Power Out

[LCFCJohn]

6 hours ago, Gamble92 said:

Best thing to come out of us having this period is the realisation this club will never be about what King Power did, including Vichai. It's about what Leicester did. Some really do need to remember that.

 

Put his statue in the garden. Start acknowledging everything about the history of this club. Their takeover was part of it. We aren't ****ing subjects to their reign over us. 

I have said the same about the statue. The memorial garden is the right place for it. It’s quite embarrassing that it is front and centre as you arrive at the ground. What other club does that for an owner? A legendary player or manager yeah. 
 

History looks less and less kind to Vichai in my opinion.

 

A lot of these issues started with him.

 

Who brought Rudkin into a position of power?

Who raised Aiyawatt to be what he is?

 

The KP era has always been built on wet sand foundations from day one. Success on the field and with squad building etc has only ever been driven by the manager/staff at the time and not by a club led strategy and policies. Pearson/Shakespeare/Walsh and what they built. Lesser scale Puel/Macia but whilst talented, the squad built then lacked grit and mental strength. Look how easily it started falling apart the season immediately after the title to the point we sacked Ranieri and Shakespeare early the following season for looking like getting relegated. Puel went as we slipped closer too. People forget even in that 10 year spell in the PL, how much we flirted with relegation. 

[Ian Nacho]

Whilst players need to take a level responsibility for themselves, the chaotic and uncertain environment these so called owners has created is the biggest root of all. For example, players looking disinterested or only out for themselves; is this really their fault? Whilst it's probably not fully comparable, in my work it can be chaos at times where poor or a lack of decision making by senior managers drives the quality of the work which leads to poor results. From a personal perspective, because you've got so much working against you, people are just forced to focus on themselves and make sure they come out smelling of roses rather than thinking about the collective success. 

Edited 8 February by Ian Nacho

[Nolucklcfc]

Attendance will be interesting tues … 

Edited 8 February by Nolucklcfc

[justfoxes]

5 minutes ago, Nolucklcfc said:

Burnley managed a protest yesterday in ground … 

Trouble is Protesting is all well and good but we need a protest that really causes a huge inconvenience to the club, like a Norwich protest or staying in our seats peacefully protesting following the game for an hour or so something that causes a huge inconvenience?

[Nolucklcfc]

3 minutes ago, justfoxes said:

Trouble is Protesting is all well and good but we need a protest that really causes a huge inconvenience to the club, like a Norwich protest or staying in our seats peacefully protesting following the game for an hour or so something that causes a huge inconvenience?

Tbf it was actually West Ham fans , thought it was Burnley because they’ve moved the fans around. 

[Leicester_Loyal]

Plenty of blue on blue yesterday, expect it to get worse.

 

Seems the anti KP lot are finally having the numbers to have a pop back at the pro KP lot now.

[Ron Judkin]

7 hours ago, LCFCJohn said:

I have said the same about the statue. The memorial garden is the right place for it. It’s quite embarrassing that it is front and centre as you arrive at the ground. What other club does that for an owner? A legendary player or manager yeah. 
 

History looks less and less kind to Vichai in my opinion.

 

A lot of these issues started with him.

 

Who brought Rudkin into a position of power?

Who raised Aiyawatt to be what he is?

 

The KP era has always been built on wet sand foundations from day one. Success on the field and with squad building etc has only ever been driven by the manager/staff at the time and not by a club led strategy and policies. Pearson/Shakespeare/Walsh and what they built. Lesser scale Puel/Macia but whilst talented, the squad built then lacked grit and mental strength. Look how easily it started falling apart the season immediately after the title to the point we sacked Ranieri and Shakespeare early the following season for looking like getting relegated. Puel went as we slipped closer too. People forget even in that 10 year spell in the PL, how much we flirted with relegation. 

As much as I agree with this sentiment, if you’re gonna blame Vichai and the likes for those now hindsight errors, you have to give him the credit for being the one to also appoint Pearson, Walsh, Ranieri etc. 

 

Ranieri’s tactics changed the second season, that’s why it went to shite. Potentially along with players getting a bit too big for their boots. But the biggest thing was simply losing Kante and not replacing him until January with Wilf. 

[Corky]

There is a difference between Vichai's time and Aiyawatt's. Vichai made mistakes but also kept Pearson twice when he could've been sacked after poor runs plus, when he was removed, we had the foresight to keep Shakespeare and Walsh at the club.

 

There are no perfect owners, luck really does come into it but I do feel we have significantly worsened since 2018.

[MattFox]

2 minutes ago, Corky said:

There is a difference between Vichai's time and Aiyawatt's. Vichai made mistakes but also kept Pearson twice when he could've been sacked after poor runs plus, when he was removed, we had the foresight to keep Shakespeare and Walsh at the club.

 

There are no perfect owners, luck really does come into it but I do feel we have significantly worsened since 2018.

I mean one look at the league table backs this up now

 

We were never anywhere near this position under Vichai

[Ron Judkin]

18 hours ago, Donwebbio said:

We need an organised and concerted effort to force a sale. Is that led by Project Reset or the Foxes Trust I don't know. There are enough fans who want them out now to exert serious pressure, it just feels like it needs to be a unified campaign that is consistent and measured. They simply have to be forced to sell up - they are washed as the kids say.

As is evident by pretty much every single club this has ever happened to though, it won’t ****ing do anything. The arrogance of football owners and desperate need to simply make profit on their investment does not allow them to capitulate when such pressures are applied. He said himself he won’t sell, when he is surely aware of the discontent. We have pretty much only just started the drop, there’s a hell of a long way further to fall yet. 

[Dan]

19 hours ago, HEGGSY said:

If you were in front of me today then I might no who you're on about.

 

One bloke started saying "it's kings fault because he's on the touchline, not top or rudkin"

 

then carried on with "you're not a proper fan, did you go Wrexham, are you going Southampton"

 

mental. Fanbase beyond saving 

These people are just pondlife to be honest. Every day be grateful you weren't born as one of them. The same way you'd be grateful for not being born as a pig etc

[Blue ROI]

We can reflect well on Vichais leadership. 

 

We can be angry at the lack of Aiyawatts.

[21st Century Fox]

Our problems basically boil down to Top's complete inability to learn, admit mistakes and carry out anything close to organisational introspection.

Vichai did at least some of those things.

[Mickyblueeyes]

Making mistakes as an owner isn’t an issue. It should be expected. It’s the inability to learn and/or correct those mistakes. In fact double down on the decision that got you there. 
 

Take for example summer 16 - disastrous window. One of our worst. If not the worst. We ****ed up big.

 

reaction under Vichai ? We changed our entire approach in Jan, one signing, Ndidi where the entire scouting team worked on finding the Kante replacement. Brilliant signing. 
 

We then hired Macia in the summer. Which led to a period of some really good signings - more good than bad. Including Maguire, Kelechi (who came good), Maddison, Soyuncu etc. 

 

Compare it to Top. Destroyed his family income and seen his top6/8 football club relegated filled with talented players (on paper). Tied up in PSR issues. Poor attitude. Large contracts. Overpaid players, 

 

Reaction ? Double down on the bad decisions - thrown this club into significant issues. Destroyed any faith his mother had in him. Put the family empire at risk. 
 

Vichai had faults but he led. 
 

Top is not fit for purpose and his attitude stinks. 

[LCFCJohn]

35 minutes ago, Ron Judkin said:

As much as I agree with this sentiment, if you’re gonna blame Vichai and the likes for those now hindsight errors, you have to give him the credit for being the one to also appoint Pearson, Walsh, Ranieri etc. 

 

Ranieri’s tactics changed the second season, that’s why it went to shite. Potentially along with players getting a bit too big for their boots. But the biggest thing was simply losing Kante and not replacing him until January with Wilf. 

Well the general consensus is that he was advised by the Birch to bring Pearson back (Walsh came with Pearson). Regardless though, it’s a similar story in terms of being known to the club so the lack of network we bemoan now was still the case then. But yeah, at least he admitted he was wrong to get rid of Pearson originally and listened to others so he is of course much better than Aiyawatt in that sense. Ranieri was a random one. Again, it was hardly a well thought out strategy even though it worked out how it did. This is the point.

 

The season after went to shite after we completely f***ed the summer transfers from our strongest position. We didn’t network widely and look for value. 
 

Hindsight is fine. We got swept up in how great things were going so it’s fair to look back now and think how many mistakes were made that were swept under the rug. Or how many of the issues now like the lack of network. We have never looked outside the box for managers and only for players under Pearson/Walsh and Puel/Macia.

 

My point was, there’s never been any sustainable strategy and the whole thing has been built in sand hence it crumbling now.

[inckley fox]

13 hours ago, Gamble92 said:

Best thing to come out of us having this period is the realisation this club will never be about what King Power did, including Vichai. It's about what Leicester did. Some really do need to remember that.

 

Put his statue in the garden. Start acknowledging everything about the history of this club. Their takeover was part of it. We aren't ****ing subjects to their reign over us. 

In the Sky interview he credited himself, in his first sentence, with creating our success. He went on to say that we were just a small Midlands club before they came along.

 

I understand that their arrival both coincided with, and contributed positively to, the club's rise, but it was always clear that Pearson, Walsh, Shakespeare, Ranieri were the true builders of our success, and the rise up from the third tier was already well underway before they arrived.

 

The entire point of our success was that it wasn't, relatively speaking, bought for us. Vichai spent amply in the second tier, but much of the funding was misused during the Sven experiment. Their first masterstroke was undoing the error of forcing Pearson out, which they may or may not have had something to do with, and the second was appointing Ranieri (the most high profile figure to say he wanted the job, publicly, after they'd been knocked back by O'Neill and co) to replace him as head of the pre-existing management structure. Beyond that, Top pumped a lot of his own money into the club, but mainly to deal with the consequences of KP's incompetence.

 

It's nothing earth-shattering as far as boardroom involvements go. No new stadium. No blank chequebooks. No sustainable football model - it all fell apart as the Pearson Project slowly fell away under his successors. Credit where due, for sure, but the ability to pick out some of the world's best talent for peanuts was obviously the key to our emergence, and you only have to look at what happened next to know that this had little or nothing to do with Top, or Rudkin, or Vichai for that matter.

 

Every passing week, and each new chapter of breathtaking incompetence confirms the narrative that they were never the architects of this. It's wrong, to me, to hear people saying that Top is destroying his father's legacy, firstly because it's a cruel thing to say, but secondly because our success wasn't really his father's legacy. Yet regardless of how I feel, each new disaster leads you to one of two conclusions: Top is indeed destroying his father's legacy, or the whole notion of a KP legacy was a myth in the first place, because they don't know how to run a football club. Whoever the legacy belongs to, it isn't them.

 

That feels like another cruel thing to say, and I'd love for them to be a little less negligent, or actively self-harming, because then people could get on with believing in the KP mythology, or whatever they want to think. I don't hate Top. It's not a precondition that he sods off before I ever part with my money for them again. And for me, it's fine that Vichai has his statue, even if it is misleading. On balance he was a good chairman during a great era, and died a tragic death. It's right that there's a memorial. Even so, our story was never about the Thai King, Buddhist monks, free pies, free beers, and it certainly wasn't about their own visionary appointments or big spending.

 

And there was quite a significant football club in existence before their arrival too. I don't recall them dismissing it as a two-bit Midlands club when they arrived. We'd won promotions, pushed for titles, won cups, been in a whole bunch of FA Cup finals before the KP era. Yes, absolutely, actually winning major honours betters that, but there was enough that went on in the 125 or so years before they turned up to deserve a little more respect. Instead, Top came across as naive and ignorant about all things football, and above all about the past - and present - of the club for which he is the current custodian.

 

There are only three ways he can fix this. One is for things to suddenly, magically start to go right again all by themselves. Okay, even Mandaric once stumbled across the right manager, and they did on a few occasions too. So maybe they haven't ruined the club to such an extent that there's no chance of that. The second is for them to take an almighty step back, relinquish control, give Rudkin the boot and let someone else make all the big calls. That'd be a lot more likely to work out well, but they'd still need to get the right person. And the third option is just to sell up before it gets really grim.

 

I have this awful feeling they're going for the 'magic' option.

[The Year Of The Fox]

It’s not making the mistakes that matters

 

 

It’s how you respond to the mistakes 

 

 

Under Aiyawatt his response is either to repeat the same mistakes, or to do and say nothing. 

[Ron Judkin]

30 minutes ago, LCFCJohn said:

Well the general consensus is that he was advised by the Birch to bring Pearson back (Walsh came with Pearson). Regardless though, it’s a similar story in terms of being known to the club so the lack of network we bemoan now was still the case then. But yeah, at least he admitted he was wrong to get rid of Pearson originally and listened to others so he is of course much better than Aiyawatt in that sense. Ranieri was a random one. Again, it was hardly a well thought out strategy even though it worked out how it did. This is the point.

 

The season after went to shite after we completely f***ed the summer transfers from our strongest position. We didn’t network widely and look for value. 
 

Hindsight is fine. We got swept up in how great things were going so it’s fair to look back now and think how many mistakes were made that were swept under the rug. Or how many of the issues now like the lack of network. We have never looked outside the box for managers and only for players under Pearson/Walsh and Puel/Macia.

 

My point was, there’s never been any sustainable strategy and the whole thing has been built in sand hence it crumbling now.

A good leader listens to advice around him and knows when to take it, so I don’t really get what your point is there. I mean you could literally say that about any strategy ever, it worked, so it was a good strategy. You always need some luck, no matter what, but to now say a strategy that literally won us the premier league was flawed is a bit of an overreach purely fuelled by rightful hatred of the nepo baby. 
 

You mean after we made signings on Walsh’s list and he left to be Everton’s DoF wanting to move back home? We literally used the exact same strategy we had always deployed, if we didn’t look for value we would have spunked far more money. We simply trusted Walsh, as we always did, but you don’t seem to be blaming him?
 

We never had a lack of network until post Puel. Then we started using Rodgers’ mates and hiring Southampton rejects that then signed more Southampton rejects for whatever baffling reason.
 

Fofana was quite out the box, Cags as well in fairness but that’s about the limit of that list, maybe Castange.
 

I have to disagree, personally I think if Vichai hadn’t died and Covid hadn’t happened we would still be a premier league team. Through simple facts of bigger budgets and more ruthless standards. (Rodgers being sacked and sulking players not getting a chance) 

[Gamble92]

45 minutes ago, inckley fox said:

In the Sky interview he credited himself, in his first sentence, with creating our success. He went on to say that we were just a small Midlands club before they came along.

 

I understand that their arrival both coincided with, and contributed positively to, the club's rise, but it was always clear that Pearson, Walsh, Shakespeare, Ranieri were the true builders of our success, and the rise up from the third tier was already well underway before they arrived.

 

The entire point of our success was that it wasn't, relatively speaking, bought for us. Vichai spent amply in the second tier, but much of the funding was misused during the Sven experiment. Their first masterstroke was undoing the error of forcing Pearson out, which they may or may not have had something to do with, and the second was appointing Ranieri (the most high profile figure to say he wanted the job, publicly, after they'd been knocked back by O'Neill and co) to replace him as head of the pre-existing management structure. Beyond that, Top pumped a lot of his own money into the club, but mainly to deal with the consequences of KP's incompetence.

 

It's nothing earth-shattering as far as boardroom involvements go. No new stadium. No blank chequebooks. No sustainable football model - it all fell apart as the Pearson Project slowly fell away under his successors. Credit where due, for sure, but the ability to pick out some of the world's best talent for peanuts was obviously the key to our emergence, and you only have to look at what happened next to know that this had little or nothing to do with Top, or Rudkin, or Vichai for that matter.

 

Every passing week, and each new chapter of breathtaking incompetence confirms the narrative that they were never the architects of this. It's wrong, to me, to hear people saying that Top is destroying his father's legacy, firstly because it's a cruel thing to say, but secondly because our success wasn't really his father's legacy. Yet regardless of how I feel, each new disaster leads you to one of two conclusions: Top is indeed destroying his father's legacy, or the whole notion of a KP legacy was a myth in the first place, because they don't know how to run a football club. Whoever the legacy belongs to, it isn't them.

 

That feels like another cruel thing to say, and I'd love for them to be a little less negligent, or actively self-harming, because then people could get on with believing in the KP mythology, or whatever they want to think. I don't hate Top. It's not a precondition that he sods off before I ever part with my money for them again. And for me, it's fine that Vichai has his statue, even if it is misleading. On balance he was a good chairman during a great era, and died a tragic death. It's right that there's a memorial. Even so, our story was never about the Thai King, Buddhist monks, free pies, free beers, and it certainly wasn't about their own visionary appointments or big spending.

 

And there was quite a significant football club in existence before their arrival too. I don't recall them dismissing it as a two-bit Midlands club when they arrived. We'd won promotions, pushed for titles, won cups, been in a whole bunch of FA Cup finals before the KP era. Yes, absolutely, actually winning major honours betters that, but there was enough that went on in the 125 or so years before they turned up to deserve a little more respect. Instead, Top came across as naive and ignorant about all things football, and above all about the past - and present - of the club for which he is the current custodian.

 

There are only three ways he can fix this. One is for things to suddenly, magically start to go right again all by themselves. Okay, even Mandaric once stumbled across the right manager, and they did on a few occasions too. So maybe they haven't ruined the club to such an extent that there's no chance of that. The second is for them to take an almighty step back, relinquish control, give Rudkin the boot and let someone else make all the big calls. That'd be a lot more likely to work out well, but they'd still need to get the right person. And the third option is just to sell up before it gets really grim.

 

I have this awful feeling they're going for the 'magic' option.

The problem is that part about it being obvious it was Pearson and his staff isn't obvious to some. You only have to openly criticise Top and King Power at a game to see the reaction you get off some brainwashed happy clapping morons. 

 

Until none of them are left and we just meet this with the backlash it deserves we are plummeting further than I even thought we could. 

[LCFCJohn]

1 hour ago, Ron Judkin said:

A good leader listens to advice around him and knows when to take it, so I don’t really get what your point is there. I mean you could literally say that about any strategy ever, it worked, so it was a good strategy. You always need some luck, no matter what, but to now say a strategy that literally won us the premier league was flawed is a bit of an overreach purely fuelled by rightful hatred of the nepo baby. 
 

You mean after we made signings on Walsh’s list and he left to be Everton’s DoF wanting to move back home? We literally used the exact same strategy we had always deployed, if we didn’t look for value we would have spunked far more money. We simply trusted Walsh, as we always did, but you don’t seem to be blaming him?
 

We never had a lack of network until post Puel. Then we started using Rodgers’ mates and hiring Southampton rejects that then signed more Southampton rejects for whatever baffling reason.
 

Fofana was quite out the box, Cags as well in fairness but that’s about the limit of that list, maybe Castange.
 

I have to disagree, personally I think if Vichai hadn’t died and Covid hadn’t happened we would still be a premier league team. Through simple facts of bigger budgets and more ruthless standards. (Rodgers being sacked and sulking players not getting a chance) 

I think respectfully, you are completely missing the point.

 

Let me just ask you this, how strong a foundation could the club have had for it all to crumble in record quick time? 
 

Clubs like Brighton and Brentford, it all comes from the owners, Bloom and Benham. Our success and direction of style, transfers etc has always been led by the manager. Under Pearson it worked. Under Puel to an extent. It set up for some further success. Under Rodgers it unravelled. 
 

Where was Vichai after 14 second gate?

 

Where was the effort to at least try and replace Mahrez with someone capable? 
 

How do you know who and who wasn’t in Walsh’s mind? You think £30 odd million on Slimani was a Pearson/Walsh type signing? 
 

I said he deserves credit for listening to advisors (the Birch being a much better advisor than Rudkin) and admitting mistakes by bringing Pearson back. But it doesn’t really change the weak foundations everything has been on since they arrived to all come apart so quickly.
 

Maybe we would still be a PL club if he was here. Maybe not. Every year after the title until after he passed actually, we flirted with relegation. 2017 under Ranieri and Shakespeare came in. Shakespeare went the next season after we were awful and in the drop zone. Puel steadied us but had us heading towards trouble again. I tend to think our luck would have run out either way, as it did, albeit after some more historic moments. 

[Dahnsouff]

4 minutes ago, LCFCJohn said:

.....

How do you know who and who wasn’t in Walsh’s mind? You think £30 odd million on Slimani was a Pearson/Walsh type signing? 
.... ..

Not trying to be devil's advocate, but whose idea do we think it was? Was certainly a strange one!

[LCFCJohn]

3 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

Not trying to be devil's advocate, but whose idea do we think it was? Was certainly a strange one!

I’m not the one who made a sweeping statement that the signings were on Walsh’s list. Maybe they were. Doesn’t seem a ‘Pearson signing’ (Slimani) but maybe post Pearson Walsh was different…

 

Whoever it was, it was sanctioned and it was a high fee given Vardy was first choice. Probably a younger striker who learn from Vardy was the better option. 

[Ron Judkin]

26 minutes ago, LCFCJohn said:

I think respectfully, you are completely missing the point.

 

Let me just ask you this, how strong a foundation could the club have had for it all to crumble in record quick time? 
 

Clubs like Brighton and Brentford, it all comes from the owners, Bloom and Benham. Our success and direction of style, transfers etc has always been led by the manager. Under Pearson it worked. Under Puel to an extent. It set up for some further success. Under Rodgers it unravelled. 
 

Where was Vichai after 14 second gate?

 

Where was the effort to at least try and replace Mahrez with someone capable? 
 

How do you know who and who wasn’t in Walsh’s mind? You think £30 odd million on Slimani was a Pearson/Walsh type signing? 
 

I said he deserves credit for listening to advisors (the Birch being a much better advisor than Rudkin) and admitting mistakes by bringing Pearson back. But it doesn’t really change the weak foundations everything has been on since they arrived to all come apart so quickly.
 

Maybe we would still be a PL club if he was here. Maybe not. Every year after the title until after he passed actually, we flirted with relegation. 2017 under Ranieri and Shakespeare came in. Shakespeare went the next season after we were awful and in the drop zone. Puel steadied us but had us heading towards trouble again. I tend to think our luck would have run out either way, as it did, albeit after some more historic moments. 

When the foundations themselves are completely ripped out, that tends to happen… It can literally happen to any club at any point, it could happen to Man City when/if they are finally charged. 
 

That is purely an opinion, you have absolutely no way of knowing that and no facts to back that up. Brighton and Brentford operate under the same structure as pretty much every football club does nowadays. Boards make decisions and the managers are just coaches. Even if you are correct in its entirety, Vichai for example was the one that gave said power and decisions to the likes of Pearson. Everyone ****ing hated Puel, but he had a very good scouting team that he brought in, they Vichai and the likes picked and hired. Rodgers was successful, just a bottle job that ultimately ruined it completely when he (claimed) didn’t get the power he wanted, so should we have given Rodgers more power or less? Was Rodgers a manager or a coach? It makes sense that he was a coach, and that’s why the downfall began, because we restructured and took power away from managers, hence the board’s incompetence. 
 

The 14 second thing would have literally been handled by Rudkin, we as fans have no clue about the inner workings of that whole fiasco but I’m sure Vichai would have put things in place to ensure it never happened again. It may not have even been directly Rudkin’s fault. (That being said it would have been better if we had just never signed Silva full stop he was shite ). 
 

If you’re giving credit to Puel etc for signings why aren’t you blaming him for not replacing Mahrez? You can’t just cherry pick. I for one am glad Vichai wasn’t the head of recruitment, that wouldn’t have gone well at all. Rodgers then decided Perez was his man, whom at first was actually alright, but frustrating (that’s coming from someone who always moaned about him moving like he was running in fruit cake). With all that being said, replacing the literal PFA player of the year is not something you do with much ease, especially a club of our stature. 
 

I mean I know the same way you seem to think you do. It was widely reported that the signings we made were recommendations left by Walsh. Slimani actually probably wouldn’t be far off a Walsh signing at all, he wasn’t perfect, he did make some bad signings as well. Slimani originally worked hard and was a physical presence, in fact every single one of you on here were all for the signing when we were making it as he was bagging in the World Cup. 
 

Potentially yes, which actually shows the reality of our club’s stature even with the Prem win. If we were always destined to crumble back down none of this makes any difference and we may as well just agree with the happy clappers. But we obviously don’t, so clearly there was a standard that was set and reached but never held onto. Plenty of clubs have done it, which is my point about weak foundations basically applying to everyone but the untouchable sky 6. 
 

Oh and btw, Brighton are currently regressing. 

Edited 8 February by Ron Judkin

[Dahnsouff]

10 minutes ago, LCFCJohn said:

I’m not the one who made a sweeping statement that the signings were on Walsh’s list. Maybe they were. Doesn’t seem a ‘Pearson signing’ (Slimani) but maybe post Pearson Walsh was different…

 

Whoever it was, it was sanctioned and it was a high fee given Vardy was first choice. Probably a younger striker who learn from Vardy was the better option. 

Dropped in at the end of this topic tbh, just got me thinking how strange a signing it was. Moving to Slimani sure was a massive pivot. 

 

Was not being a twat (for once) 

[LCFCJohn]

25 minutes ago, Ron Judkin said:

When the foundations themselves are completely ripped out, that tends to happen… It can literally happen to any club at any point, it could happen to Man City when/if they are finally charged. 
 

That is purely an opinion, you have absolutely no way of knowing that and no facts to back that up. Brighton and Brentford operate under the same structure as pretty much every football club does nowadays. Boards make decisions and the managers are just coaches. Even if you are correct in its entirety, Vichai for example was the one that gave said power and decisions to the likes of Pearson. Everyone ****ing hated Puel, but he had a very good scouting team that he brought in, they Vichai and the likes picked and hired. Rodgers was successful, just a bottle job that ultimately ruined it completely when he (claimed) didn’t get the power he wanted, so should we have given Rodgers more power or less? Was Rodgers a manager or a coach? It makes sense that he was a coach, and that’s why the downfall began, because we restructured and took power away from managers, hence the board’s incompetence. 
 

The 14 second thing would have literally been handled by Rudkin, we as fans have no clue about the inner workings of that whole fiasco but I’m sure Vichai would have put things in place to ensure it never happened again. It may not have even been directly Rudkin’s fault. (That being said it would have been better if we had just never signed Silva full stop he was shite ). 
 

If you’re giving credit to Puel etc for signings why aren’t you blaming him for not replacing Mahrez? You can’t just cherry pick. I for one am glad Vichai wasn’t the head of recruitment, that wouldn’t have gone well at all. Rodgers then decided Perez was his man, whom at first was actually alright, but frustrating (that’s coming from someone who always moaned about him moving like he was running in fruit cake). With all that being said, replacing the literal PFA player of the year is not something you do with much ease, especially a club of our stature. 
 

I mean I know the same way you seem to think you do. It was widely reported that the signings we made were recommendations left by Walsh. Slimani actually probably wouldn’t be far off a Walsh signing at all, he wasn’t perfect, he did make some bad signings as well. Slimani originally worked hard and was a physical presence, in fact every single one of you on here were all for the signing when we were making it as he was bagging in the World Cup. 
 

Potentially yes, which actually shows the reality of our club’s stature even with the Prem win. If we were always destined to crumble back down none of this makes any difference and we may as well just agree with the happy clappers. But we obviously don’t, so clearly there was a standard that was set and reached but never held onto. Plenty of clubs have done it, which is my point about weak foundations basically applying to everyone but the untouchable sky 6. 
 

Oh and btw, Brighton are currently regressing. 

I get you think I am just bashing Vichai for everything and defending him. That’s not the intention. A big part of the problem we have is that too many supporters put KP, so Vichai and Aiyawatt, on a pedestal and won’t hear a word said otherwise. I am just highlighting that not all was rosy in the past. It is not to absolve any blame or responsibility from others. 
 

I haven’t referenced Rodgers at all in the context of Vichai as he was afterwards. Who knows if he’d have brought him in. But clearly as a club, there has always been a reliance on the manager at the time and not a continuous club led approach. This seems clear enough (to me) from the managerial appointments and transfer strategy.

 

None of us know whose choices the summer of 2016 transfers were but it was a poor summer at our peak. I think Kapuska was from that summers Euros so that was a club signing. Mendy was Ranieri right as it was said he wanted him the year before but Walsh convinced him to go for Kante (thank god). So we went back to Mendy once Kante left. Yeah, the others we don’t know. I never said Walsh wasn’t immune to mistakes, I just said the approach is manager led. Perhaps Pearson and Walsh targets were different to Ranieri and Walsh targets? And we were hardly going to be signing £1mill players from non-league of £400k from the French second tier at that point. A shame but just reality. 

 

I get what you are saying in your last paragraph but few outside have reached the level we did. Probably Villa now to be fair as they are having a sustained run. What has happened isn’t the natural cycle and we have fallen much further and faster due to the foundations being weaker than other club in my opinion of course. The likes of Brighton haven’t reached the level we did but I would be amazed if other clubs would fall as much as we have done.