Championship 🏆 2025/26

[Les-TA-Jon]

20 hours ago, StanSP said:

Pretty sure many said autos will be very difficult before 23/24 season too and we pretty much steam-rolled the division. 

 

Granted there are many more cons than pros right now, but I don't think it'll be as bad as some make out. 

 

Just need to get recruitment right this summer (lol) both in terms of manager and players. 

Oh for sure. But last time we made an excellent appointment in Maresca, had a ton of deadwood leave on frees and got £90m+ from sales of Barnes, Maddison and Castagne. 

 

This time, the squad is quite a bit worse than the one that went down. Manager situation is either unknown or terrible. We have a ton of players hard to shift and only 1-2 sellable assets. 

Edited Tuesday at 12:51 by Les-TA-Jon

[teblin]

23 minutes ago, Les-TA-Jon said:

Oh for sure. But last time we made an excellent appointment in Maresca, had a ton of deadwood leave on frees and got £90m+ from sales of Barnes, Maddison and Castagne. 

 

This time, the squad is quite a bit worse than the one that went down. Manager situation is either unknown or terrible. We have a ton of players had to shift and only 1-2 sellable assets. 

Yep agree with the lack of assets to sell and we still had KDH.

 

But the manager situation was just as uncertain. Dean Smith was still in the running for the permanent job, We wanted Parker, Stumbled on Enzo. Then for 6/8 months it seemed we were back on track.

[JimJams]

Also presumably the higher value of those saleable assets isn't as big a gulf as you'd think given it was used to balance books rather than add to the transfer kitty.

[OntarioFox]

13 hours ago, ClaphamFox said:

Well we do, but…

League One again olé olé!

[Pliskin]

On 27/04/2025 at 17:11, sishades said:

In what way? 

They purchased the club when it was in a good state, financially we were recovering and under Pearson he set the club up in such a way it functioned pretty much by itself as there were competent people in the right places. That is ultimately what enabled us to win the league, it was a remarkable situation hugely facilitated by the structure within the club. 
 

Over the last ten years that has eroded, key components of that structure have gone and haven’t been replaced, we are running at massive losses, and have managed to piss away the opportunity of a lifetime, needlessly, whilst lesser clubs have taken inspiration from our initial structure, whilst we’ve dismantled it. 
 

 

Im a firm believer that this may not have happened to this extent whilst Vichai was still alive, but unfortunately, Top isn't his father, and he is destroying any legacy he had here, thus their reputation, this the state of the club. This is the lowest point this club has ever been…… not because of what he don’t have, because of what we did have, and have subsequently lost. 

Edited Tuesday at 11:24 by Pliskin

[Foxin_Mad]

1 hour ago, Pliskin said:

They purchased the club when it was in a good state, financially we were recovering and under Pearson he set the club up in such a way it functioned pretty much by itself as there were competent people in the right places. That is ultimately what enabled us to win the league, it was a remarkable situation hugely facilitated by the structure within the club. 
 

Over the last ten years that has eroded, key components of that structure have gone and haven’t been replaced, we are running at massive losses, and have managed to piss away the opportunity of a lifetime, needlessly, whilst lesser clubs have taken inspiration from our initial structure, whilst we’ve dismantled it. 
 

 

Im a firm believer that this may not have happened to this extent whilst Vichai was still alive, but unfortunately, Top isn't his father, and he is destroying any legacy he had here, thus their reputation, this the state of the club. This is the lowest point this club has ever been…… not because of what he don’t have, because of what we did have, and have subsequently lost. 

I think it would have happened under Vichai I dont buy this things would have been better stuff.

 

The destruction started under Ranieri, who got a free pass after the league win as would be expected. Sadly he dismantled to fitness, sports science, sports psychology , performance analytics departments. Since 2008 Pearson had built up an elite structure and team. Puel and Macia briefly averted the decline, then Rodgers finished the job believing his team knew best, also increasing training intensity hence increased injuries. The whole structure within the club needs a complete clear out, there is too many complacent people, sadly this is not easy to fix and it stems from the owner and leadership, the longer they remain in position its unlikely to change a lot. The football side needs serious change but there is a general malaise and complacency throughout the club where complete ineptitude and mediocrity is normalised, this is not an elite sport club. As a business its even worse, the biggest customers are treated with utter contempt, even basic commercial activities like ticketing, retail etc, expanding revenue streams are absolutely third rate for a multimillion pound business. If this were the real business world, these lot would have gone bust years ago. 

Edited Tuesday at 12:19 by Foxin_Mad

[Pliskin]

6 minutes ago, Foxin_Mad said:

I think it would have happened under Vichai I dont buy this things would have been better stuff.

 

The destruction started under Ranieri, who got a free pass after the league win as would be expected. Sadly he dismantled to fitness, sports science, sports psychology , performance analytics departments. Since 2008 Pearson had built up an elite structure and team. Puel and Macia briefly averted the decline, then Rodgers finished the job believing his team knew best, also increasing training intensity hence increased injuries. The whole structure within the club needs a complete clear out, there is too many complacent people, sadly this is not easy to fix and it stems from the owner and leadership, the longer they remain in position its unlikely to change a lot. The football side needs serious change but there is a general malaise and complacency throughout the club where complete ineptitude and mediocrity is normalised, this is not an elite sport club. As a business its even worse, the biggest customers are treated with utter contempt, even basic commercial activities like ticketing, retail etc, expanding revenue streams are absolutely third rate for a multimillion pound business. If this were the real business world, these lot would have gone bust years ago. 

I whole heartedly agree with you. my sentiments exactly. 

[kenny]

22 minutes ago, Foxin_Mad said:

I think it would have happened under Vichai I dont buy this things would have been better stuff.

 

The destruction started under Ranieri, who got a free pass after the league win as would be expected. Sadly he dismantled to fitness, sports science, sports psychology , performance analytics departments. Since 2008 Pearson had built up an elite structure and team. Puel and Macia briefly averted the decline, then Rodgers finished the job believing his team knew best, also increasing training intensity hence increased injuries. The whole structure within the club needs a complete clear out, there is too many complacent people, sadly this is not easy to fix and it stems from the owner and leadership, the longer they remain in position its unlikely to change a lot. The football side needs serious change but there is a general malaise and complacency throughout the club where complete ineptitude and mediocrity is normalised, this is not an elite sport club. As a business its even worse, the biggest customers are treated with utter contempt, even basic commercial activities like ticketing, retail etc, expanding revenue streams are absolutely third rate for a multimillion pound business. If this were the real business world, these lot would have gone bust years ago. 

Often forgotten that Ranieri is a dinosaur and Pearson diametric to his appearance/tactics was a visionary.

 

The club really should get him back for a couple of days a week on £2m a year simply to rebuild the backroom teams and instill a decent winning culture. 

[Pliskin]

5 minutes ago, kenny said:

Often forgotten that Ranieri is a dinosaur and Pearson diametric to his appearance/tactics was a visionary.

 

The club really should get him back for a couple of days a week on £2m a year simply to rebuild the backroom teams and instill a decent winning culture. 

Rumour is he can’t stand Rudkin. So there’s no chance it would happen. 

[Foxin_Mad]

42 minutes ago, Pliskin said:

Rumour is he can’t stand Rudkin. So there’s no chance it would happen. 

He hates Rudkin, they would have fallen out a long time ago. Although Nige has transformed himself and learnt, that's one of his biggest skills, he's willing to develop and change his approach and always learning, he reads a lot, I think he is seems quite happy living life with family so not sure if he'd ever get back into football. I think he could potentially be an excellent DOF. It would also be worth talking to some of the older managers who have tremendous experience and contacts in the game. Rudkin is just a failed PE Teacher, he doesn't have the contacts or quality to be operating where he is. 

[kenny]

1 hour ago, Pliskin said:

Rumour is he can’t stand Rudkin. So there’s no chance it would happen. 

If it happened which I doubt, then id expect rudkin to be promoted to KP and moved away from the club. Promotion through failure is how many businesses seem to operate, why not us.

 

 

[Tommy G]

Thought I might regret not renewing but not an ounce of regret yet.

[Pliskin]

1 hour ago, Tommy G said:

Thought I might regret not renewing but not an ounce of regret yet.

I regret renewing…… 😂

[Steve Earle]

8 minutes ago, Pliskin said:

I regret renewing…… 😂

😅

My seat is virtually opposite the directors box. My current plan is to leave it empty all next season in protest.

 

Unless of course there’s major change…

[Clever Fox]

4 hours ago, Pliskin said:

Rumour is he can’t stand Rudkin. So there’s no chance it would happen. 

It's not just a rumour. He thought he had little to offer and mostly ignored him. 

Time has shown us Pearson was right. 

[Pliskin]

7 minutes ago, Clever Fox said:

It's not just a rumour. He thought he had little to offer and mostly ignored him. 

Time has shown us Pearson was right. 

He often was. The guy danced with wolves and killed the foxtrot. 

[AjcW]

We'll be coming up against Alan Sheehan next season, who has rightly been given the Swansea gig permenantly after an incredible interim spell in charge.

[Dan]

On 29/04/2025 at 13:48, Pliskin said:

Rumour is he can’t stand Rudkin. So there’s no chance it would happen. 

This club puts Rudkin above literally everybody. That's what's so galling about it. The top dog at the club is a fraud director of football. It's no wonder we're spiralling.

[Dan]

On 29/04/2025 at 18:34, Clever Fox said:

It's not just a rumour. He thought he had little to offer and mostly ignored him. 

Time has shown us Pearson was right. 

As usual.