A Call for Change: A Footballing Reset at Leicester City Football Club

[LCFCJohn]

2 minutes ago, fox in the sox said:

You’re not taking notice of the argument - the argument is that we are still a Premier League/top of the Championship side so there doesn’t need to be any blame at this stage as we have been much worse than this for many years of our history. Once we lost so much quality after the first relegation it was obvious that the best we could hope for in the short term is a yo-yo team with the hope that we can eventually build up a team that can compete higher up.

Wow. Given the post you have replied to, I’m amazed you think it’s @Foxin_Mad who isn’t getting it. That post pretty much nails it whilst yours respectfully misses the mark. 
 

One, incompetence is incompetence at whatever level. Things change and the fact you think it’s ok that the club has done what they have due to the past is seemingly an attitude shared with the club. Have you not heard the saying if you’re standing still you’re going backwards? You’re living in the past with those comments.

 

As for the latter part, we aren’t building to come back are we? There is no strategic approach and we continue to waste money on has beens that are neither improving us now, nor likely to make us revenue from sales. We are not getting ourselves out the PSR loop or building a squad for the future.

 

I honestly don’t care if we go down to league 1 or 2. As long as we have a hungry squad who I can get behind and take pride in.

[fox in the sox]

13 minutes ago, LCFCJohn said:

Wow. Given the post you have replied to, I’m amazed you think it’s @Foxin_Mad who isn’t getting it. That post pretty much nails it whilst yours respectfully misses the mark. 
 

One, incompetence is incompetence at whatever level. Things change and the fact you think it’s ok that the club has done what they have due to the past is seemingly an attitude shared with the club. Have you not heard the saying if you’re standing still you’re going backwards? You’re living in the past with those comments.

 

As for the latter part, we aren’t building to come back are we? There is no strategic approach and we continue to waste money on has beens that are neither improving us now, nor likely to make us revenue from sales. We are not getting ourselves out the PSR loop or building a squad for the future.

 

I honestly don’t care if we go down to league 1 or 2. As long as we have a hungry squad who I can get behind and take pride in.

Since relegation we have signed Fatawu and El Kannouss and brought in Buonanotte on loan (all 20) How can you say we are not signing/looking at young players and building for the future? Of course you have to bring in some more experienced pros to go with them.

Yes we are standing still at the moment but that doesn’t mean we can’t go forward again.

Edited 16 February by fox in the sox

[DerbyshireFox]

24 minutes ago, fox in the sox said:

Since relegation we have signed Fatawu and El Kannouss and brought in Buonanotte on loan (all 20) How can you say we are not signing/looking at young players and building for the future? Of course you have to bring in some more experienced pros to go with them.

Yes we are standing still at the moment but that doesn’t mean we can’t go forward again.

It is something we need to get back to doing more than we have done for quite a while. You make a valid point, a blend of youth and experience is needed, but in the right areas. Buonanotte is a very generous shout given he isn’t ours and won’t be in the future. Having Ayew and Reid wide of Vardy yesterday shows where we are going wrong and haven’t seemingly a structured plan going forwards for the future. Granted Ayew has been better than expected, it could be argued we had plenty of top flight experience in place already, with the likes of Coady, Justin, Vestergaard, Vardy, Winks, Ricardo, Ndidi - granted a lot of them not good enough anymore. 
 

With Fatawu out (even when fit to be fair), other than him, we have absolutely no pace in this squad. We have one creative midfielder suitable for this level in Bilal who has had to learn on the job, and is the only shining light in this sorry season. Instead of bringing in another creative player, we put down £20m+ on Skipp, a player who you could argue we didn’t need, and £5m on a loan for a striker in Edouard, who we didn’t really want. We’ve given Palace £10m of the little money that we could spend, and look what they have done with it. It goes towards bringing in a pacey, young, talented attacking midfielder in Esse, who they can develop, and likely sell for a big fee in future. 
 

Yes we knew this season would be a struggle, but with proper planning and strategy we could have used our resources so much better. A well run club nowadays will have a profile of manager in mind in the event the managerial incumbent leaves/is dismissed. This doesn’t even seem to be a thought, beyond using the same agency we seem to use for players/managers. Cooper shouldn’t have been appointed in the first place. Yes attracting a manager may have been trickier given the threat of a points deduction - a situation of our own making. 
 

Yes we can move forward in the future, but a hell if a lot has to change if we are to do so. Currently, we are heading in the direction of becoming the next Stoke or Blackburn. 

[fox in the sox]

36 minutes ago, DerbyshireFox said:

It is something we need to get back to doing more than we have done for quite a while. You make a valid point, a blend of youth and experience is needed, but in the right areas. Buonanotte is a very generous shout given he isn’t ours and won’t be in the future. Having Ayew and Reid wide of Vardy yesterday shows where we are going wrong and haven’t seemingly a structured plan going forwards for the future. Granted Ayew has been better than expected, it could be argued we had plenty of top flight experience in place already, with the likes of Coady, Justin, Vestergaard, Vardy, Winks, Ricardo, Ndidi - granted a lot of them not good enough anymore. 
 

With Fatawu out (even when fit to be fair), other than him, we have absolutely no pace in this squad. We have one creative midfielder suitable for this level in Bilal who has had to learn on the job, and is the only shining light in this sorry season. Instead of bringing in another creative player, we put down £20m+ on Skipp, a player who you could argue we didn’t need, and £5m on a loan for a striker in Edouard, who we didn’t really want. We’ve given Palace £10m of the little money that we could spend, and look what they have done with it. It goes towards bringing in a pacey, young, talented attacking midfielder in Esse, who they can develop, and likely sell for a big fee in future. 
 

Yes we knew this season would be a struggle, but with proper planning and strategy we could have used our resources so much better. A well run club nowadays will have a profile of manager in mind in the event the managerial incumbent leaves/is dismissed. This doesn’t even seem to be a thought, beyond using the same agency we seem to use for players/managers. Cooper shouldn’t have been appointed in the first place. Yes attracting a manager may have been trickier given the threat of a points deduction - a situation of our own making. 
 

Yes we can move forward in the future, but a hell if a lot has to change if we are to do so. Currently, we are heading in the direction of becoming the next Stoke or Blackburn. 

I agree with some of your points but I think it’s too early to say we are heading in that direction. Blackburn and Stoke didn’t get back up and the parachute payments ran out. Unless we get a big points deduction there is no reason to think we can’t get back up quickly as we did last year. 

[The_Rorab]

Just to get big picture for a second, but I can't help but feel like there's been a real rise in people just flat-out ignoring responses and cherry picking responses that fit a narrative nowadays - it's honestly very Donald Trump - it's the way of fighting against fact and logic if you just ignore it and scream your point even louder, stick your fingers in your ears and just drown anything you don't want out.

 

I say this here because for example, Saxondale has had numerous responses from people with genuine arguments to what they've said that they have largely just ignored in order to instead tackle things they want to continue to say and generally ignore salient arguments or characterise them with absurd or unlikely hypothetical or just straight up untrue statements like the noone else has signed players line.

 

Similar to my mind the FoxesTrust account that prefers to not engage in responding to actual arguments made or things said directed to it, and just deflects or hits back only on their terms on what they want to say.

 

Maybe that's simply my perception of things, but that's what I take from this. I think it's fine to have a contradictory opinion, even if I very much disagree with the line of disagreement, but it just feels like there's such a big move in general towards obfuscation and a refusal to engage with other points that seems to be growing more and more prevalent everywhere.

 

Anyway just my two cents. As others have mentioned I can definitely see aspects of yesterday that maybe weren't perfect, but it still was something and that's for a first attempt pretty decent going.

[blueharmie]

1 minute ago, fox in the sox said:

I agree with some of your points but I think it’s too early to say we are heading in that direction. Blackburn and Stoke didn’t get back up and the parachute payments ran out. Unless we get a big points deduction there is no reason to think we can’t get back up quickly as we did last year. 

The **** have you been drinking man.

[DerbyshireFox]

4 minutes ago, fox in the sox said:

I agree with some of your points but I think it’s too early to say we are heading in that direction. Blackburn and Stoke didn’t get back up and the parachute payments ran out. Unless we get a big points deduction there is no reason to think we can’t get back up quickly as we did last year. 

I respect your view, maybe it is too early for the comparison with Stoke and Blackburn, but all the warning signs are there. I do however think it’ll be much harder to do what we did last campaign. Going down with a much weaker squad, with fewer sellable assets - Mads and Bilal will undoubtedly have suitors, more likely to keep Fatawu given his injury this campaign.
 

Given the QPR fixture in the cup, it’s fair to assume we could have a reasonable season, albeit a weakened QPR side. We don’t know what the EFL has in store for us of course.
 

Regardless of division, I want to see sensible recruitment, a plan and a strategy for the future, and a young hungry side. I fear a lot of the big earners will be hard to shift. The way the hierarchy has acted over the last 3-4 years, I just don’t see that happening - and I’m usually an optimist 🤣

[fox in the sox]

12 minutes ago, blueharmie said:

The **** have you been drinking man.

Haven’t you seen the Championship? QPR  are 4 points off the play offs and we got 6 against them. West Brom haven’t spent a penny for 3 years and they are in the play offs. Sheff Utd have struggled to get any points in the Premier and they are likely to go up.

[jayfox26]

2 hours ago, davieG said:

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/sport/football/match-reports/ruud-van-nistelrooy-must-take-9949798

 

By

Jordan Blackwell

 

The protest against City’s hierarchy definitely made a dent. It was a pretty big talking point in the build-up to the game, while it received coverage during TNT Sports’ live broadcast and in the Match of the Day highlights.

But it may not be enough to prompt change. As a one-off, it might be easy to ignore. If the organisers and disgruntled fans want their voices to be listened to and their requests to be met, their protests may need to be consistent, and to grow in volume.

Right now, a clean sheet feels closer than the publication of the internal review.

Sadly true. Whilst it may not be a one off and other things may get planned, we sadly won't get enough people involved. You can see by comments on here and even more so on social media, that we have large sections of our fan base that are seemingly happy with where the club is at. We have one of the best training grounds in the country, have the 13th highest wage bill in the country but yet we should be happy to be a yoyo club because "we were in league 1 once". If our fans are happy with mediocrity then the club won't push for anything better unfortunately.

Edited 16 February by jayfox26

[fox in the sox]

3 minutes ago, DerbyshireFox said:

I respect your view, maybe it is too early for the comparison with Stoke and Blackburn, but all the warning signs are there. I do however think it’ll be much harder to do what we did last campaign. Going down with a much weaker squad, with fewer sellable assets - Mads and Bilal will undoubtedly have suitors, more likely to keep Fatawu given his injury this campaign.
 

Given the QPR fixture in the cup, it’s fair to assume we could have a reasonable season, albeit a weakened QPR side. We don’t know what the EFL has in store for us of course.
 

Regardless of division, I want to see sensible recruitment, a plan and a strategy for the future, and a young hungry side. I fear a lot of the big earners will be hard to shift. The way the hierarchy has acted over the last 3-4 years, I just don’t see that happening - and I’m usually an optimist 🤣

I am not seeing a team that is not hungry and I’m not seeing a squad without some young players in it. I’m seeing a team that doesn’t have the quality or organisation to compete at the top level currently.

[fox in the sox]

2 minutes ago, jayfox26 said:

Sadly true. Whilst it may not be a one off and other things may get planned, we sadly won't get enough people involved. You can see by comments on here and even more so on social media, that we have large sections of our fan base that are seemingly happy with where the club is at. We have one of the best training grounds in the country, have the 13th highest wage bill in the country but yet we should be happy to be a yoyo club because "we we're in league 1 once". If our fans are happy with mediocrity then the club won't push for anything better unfortunately.

There is a middle ground though. I doubt if those who don’t want to protest are happy to see the club regressing or enjoy watching the team lose every week.

[jayfox26]

3 minutes ago, fox in the sox said:

There is a middle ground though. I doubt if those who don’t want to protest are happy to see the club regressing or enjoy watching the team lose every week.

So if people aren't happy about the state of the club, how do we try to change things without protesting? I'm not trying to be argumentative, it's a genuine question. I understand why people protested but if people that didn't agree  with the protests aren't happy with where the club is at, what can be done to make a change?

[cropstonfox]

3 minutes ago, jayfox26 said:

So if people aren't happy about the state of the club, how do we try to change things without protesting? I'm not trying to be argumentative, it's a genuine question. I understand why people protested but if people that didn't agree  with the protests aren't happy with where the club is at, what can be done to make a change?

The club will recognise failure and make the correct decision.This may take several attempts just like previously.The league table and financial position focuses the board.All clubs have good and bad times 

Why should we be any different? 

[fox in the sox]

6 minutes ago, jayfox26 said:

So if people aren't happy about the state of the club, how do we try to change things without protesting? I'm not trying to be argumentative, it's a genuine question. I understand why people protested but if people that didn't agree  with the protests aren't happy with where the club is at, what can be done to make a change?

Clubs go through ups and downs all of the time. We have had many difficult spells over the years and have turned it around without protesting. 
My personal opinion is that getting rid of Rudkin may make us better, it may make us worse. I have no idea what he does day to day, he may be doing lots of wonderful things, he might not be. I certainly don’t think losing the owners would be a good thing if that is a result of the protests . There are so many disastrous owners about. I take into account what King Power have done for us although I do understand those who feel that they won’t turn round this decline.

[jayfox26]

3 minutes ago, cropstonfox said:

The club will recognise failure and make the correct decision.This may take several attempts just like previously.The league table and financial position focuses the board.All clubs have good and bad times 

Why should we be any different? 

But they haven't recognised failure that's the problem. After our last relegation (which was utterly absurd given the squad we had) Top said there would be an internal review to ensure this doesn't happen again. Nobody accepted responsibility or accountability and fast forward 20 months and here we are again in the same position with the same people running the club. It's not about having good or bad times, it's about the club having a vision and a plan for the future which we don't seem to have. Poor player recruitment, long contracts, high wages, poor managerial appointments (except Enzo), minimal resale value in our squad, the list of failings is endless. 

[jayfox26]

2 minutes ago, fox in the sox said:

Clubs go through ups and downs all of the time. We have had many difficult spells over the years and have turned it around without protesting. 
My personal opinion is that getting rid of Rudkin may make us better, it may make us worse. I have no idea what he does day to day, he may be doing lots of wonderful things, he might not be. I certainly don’t think losing the owners would be a good thing if that is a result of the protests . There are so many disastrous owners about. I take into account what King Power have done for us although I do understand those who feel that they won’t turn round this decline.

As I said previously, it's not about ups and downs, it's about continued failings at the club with no accountability or responsibility. The list of failings by the club over the past few years is endless and the cycle continues with very little light at the end of the tunnel. We don't have a God given right to be a premier league club but as fans, we do expect our club to be ran competently. Every club makes mistakes with transfers, managerial appointments etc but most learn from them and improve (except Man U) but we haven't learnt and keep making the same mistakes time and time again. 

[fox in the sox]

3 minutes ago, jayfox26 said:

As I said previously, it's not about ups and downs, it's about continued failings at the club with no accountability or responsibility. The list of failings by the club over the past few years is endless and the cycle continues with very little light at the end of the tunnel. We don't have a God given right to be a premier league club but as fans, we do expect our club to be ran competently. Every club makes mistakes with transfers, managerial appointments etc but most learn from them and improve (except Man U) but we haven't learnt and keep making the same mistakes time and time again. 

It is easy to focus on the negatives and forget the positives when you are losing every week. People say we are not getting young players who might improve but we have brought in three 20 years olds and a number of others such as Hermansen and Coulibaly who should have plenty of improvement in them. Last year many thought Winks was an amazing signing. Obviously there have been mistakes with signings - £20m for a Championship standard player like Skipp was ridiculous. There have been mistakes and gambles with contracts and wages but I’m actually glad we didn’t do a Crystal Palace and finish in mid table every year because we have been on an incredible journey thanks to the gamble.

[Daggers]

What price on a charm offensive at the next home match?

 

 

[DerbyshireFox]

38 minutes ago, fox in the sox said:

I am not seeing a team that is not hungry and I’m not seeing a squad without some young players in it. I’m seeing a team that doesn’t have the quality or organisation to compete at the top level currently.

Some, but nowhere near enough. The squad is overstocked with ageing ‘experienced’ pros on big money that are underperforming or past their prime. Our front three yesterday against Arsenal were 34, 33 & 38. Again, you could come back the reason we find ourselves in the position we do with a lack of quality in the first place - poor recruitment, and overpaying on wages. The major concern is that those at the top do not appear to have learned from their mistakes. 
 

Agreed there was hunger and desire yesterday, but where was it against Everton, Wolves, Palace, Fulham, Newcastle et al. Yes we lack quality, but to often this season, we’ve lacked the desire to keep the ball out of our net. Yes we were going to have a tough season, but 17 points is quite frankly awful. We’ve been fortunate with some of the ones we’ve got, and on current form, it’s hard to see us hitting anywhere close to 30pts at the moment. 

[jayfox26]

7 minutes ago, fox in the sox said:

It is easy to focus on the negatives and forget the positives when you are losing every week. People say we are not getting young players who might improve but we have brought in three 20 years olds and a number of others such as Hermansen and Coulibaly who should have plenty of improvement in them. Last year many thought Winks was an amazing signing. Obviously there have been mistakes with signings - £20m for a Championship standard player like Skipp was ridiculous. There have been mistakes and gambles with contracts and wages but I’m actually glad we didn’t do a Crystal Palace and finish in mid table every year because we have been on an incredible journey thanks to the gamble.

I didn't say we don't have young players, I'm saying we have little value in our squad. Right now, we only have Mads and Bilal that are actually worth anything. The likes of Fulham, Forest, Brighton, Brentford and even Palace have several players worth decent amounts of money, which is where we were a few years ago, but poor recruitment and spending has now lead to us having a squad full of players that nobody else wants and are on long contracts and high wages. The issues at the club run much deeper than just recruitment and managers, results, performances etc. Questionable shirt sponsors, flirting with points deductions because of prs issues, connection between club and fans at an all time low. The list is endless of things that quite frankly make this club a complete shit show!

[Steve Earle]

35 minutes ago, jayfox26 said:

But they haven't recognised failure that's the problem. After our last relegation (which was utterly absurd given the squad we had) Top said there would be an internal review to ensure this doesn't happen again. Nobody accepted responsibility or accountability and fast forward 20 months and here we are again in the same position with the same people running the club. It's not about having good or bad times, it's about the club having a vision and a plan for the future which we don't seem to have. Poor player recruitment, long contracts, high wages, poor managerial appointments (except Enzo), minimal resale value in our squad, the list of failings is endless. 

Let’s not forget appointing Enzo was more luck than judgement as we now know Scott Parker (FFS!) was the man they wanted.

[iancognito]

1 hour ago, fox in the sox said:

I agree with some of your points but I think it’s too early to say we are heading in that direction. Blackburn and Stoke didn’t get back up and the parachute payments ran out. Unless we get a big points deduction there is no reason to think we can’t get back up quickly as we did last year. 

There's no unless about it. We're getting one and probably an embargo if our accounts continue to be as bad as the last 3 years have been. It was going to happen even before we embarrassed them with our lawyers finding loopholes.

[Wortho]

5 minutes ago, jayfox26 said:

I didn't say we don't have young players, I'm saying we have little value in our squad. Right now, we only have Mads and Bilal that are actually worth anything. The likes of Fulham, Forest, Brighton, Brentford and even Palace have several players worth decent amounts of money, which is where we were a few years ago, but poor recruitment and spending has now lead to us having a squad full of players that nobody else wants and are on long contracts and high wages. The issues at the club run much deeper than just recruitment and managers, results, performances etc. Questionable shirt sponsors, flirting with points deductions because of prs issues, connection between club and fans at an all time low. The list is endless of things that quite frankly make this club a complete shit show!

Great post!!!

[iancognito]

2 minutes ago, Steve Earle said:

Let’s not forget appointing Enzo was more luck than judgement as we now know Scott Parker (FFS!) was the man they wanted.

Apart from shooting his mouth off with Bournemouth his promotion record's pretty decent. Would love to have a defence as organised as the Burnley one right now.

[Tommy G]

9 hours ago, Pliskin said:

Making a deal with an illegal betting company? What’s that? And it’s been reported by reputable sources that Whelan and Rudkin down speak to one another…. So the clubs functioning exceptionally well? 
 

The club hasn’t just been poorly ran on player recruitment alone, that is but a fraction of the problem….. the club is completely being mismanaged from top to bottom, and this is being backed up by PSR breaches…. Which happened, we got off that on a technicality thanks to the PL’s written rules. 
 

King power 100% have skeletons in their closet…. It would be extremely naive to think they haven’t…..

We didn’t breach by the way.