The definitive list of King Power / John Rudkin c**k ups.

[coolhandfox]

What a cheerful thread.....

 

Just going to run a hot bath and find my razor blades.......

[Supergray22]

2 hours ago, moore_94 said:

The list I did previously in the Rudkin thread

 

 

17/18

Adrien Silva - 14 seconds late

 

18/19

Danny Ward - £12m on a backup keeper

 

19/20

Ryan Bennett - only signing in January on deadline day whilst fighting for Champions League

 

20/21

Islam Slimani left for free (cost £28m)

Adrien Silva released by mutual consent (cost 22m)

 

21/22

Jannick Vestergaard

Ryan Bertrand

We genuinely signed half of the defence we stuck 9 past previously

Filip Benkovic released by mutual consent (cost £13m)

 

22/23

Sold Kasper

Fofana dragged on until the end of the window

Only signed Wout Faes

Unable to sign Lookman

1 permanent first team signing and 0 loans in

Finally decided to spend in January and spent it on shite and a fake Brazilian

Rodgers in charge for WAY too long

 

23/24

£107m worth of players left for free

Tielemans left for free (cost £40m)

Soyuncu left for free (cost £19m)

Amartey left for free (cost £5m)

Perez left for free (cost £30m)

Mendy left for free (cost £13m)

Had to sell Maddison and Barnes under their value

Conor Coady 3 year contract

 

24/25

Hired Steve Cooper

Had to sell KDH who didn't want to leave

Iheanacho left for free (cost £25m)

Praet left for free (cost £18m)

De-Cordova Reid - 3 year contract

Jordan Ayew - 2 year contract + £5m

Oliver Skipp - £20m - bench player

Caleb Okoli - £13m - bench player that might leave already

Odsonne Edouard - loan with no option to terminate and apparently expensive loan fee/wages covered

As of 2nd February whilst under serious threat of relegation again we have only signed 1 player - a back up right back for £2m

Good list. I would update with hiring RVN but more widely,

 

Failure to promote and embed a consistent philosophy in terms of playing style recruitment character or strategy. 
 

Failure to promote a transparent culture at the club capable of challenge and responsibility (above and below his position)

 

failure to deliver signs of visible benefit from expenditure at seagrave

 

 

 

[Aus Fox]

When Rodgers said at the start of the relegation season the squad he had available wasn’t good enough to compete at the level.

The board or Rudkin had two options in my opinion.

Invest and back him, and bring in the players we needed to compete.

or

Sack him right there and then. And bring in someone who could get the players we had available to compete at that level. At the time we had just had a European semi final, our profile was high and we could have got just about anyone to come in.

 

They chose neither! And we weee relegated! Appalling mismanagement and should have been the first thing to come from the review.

[The Year Of The Fox]

7 minutes ago, Aus Fox said:

When Rodgers said at the start of the relegation season the squad he had available wasn’t good enough to compete at the level.

The board or Rudkin had two options in my opinion.

Invest and back him, and bring in the players we needed to compete.

or

Sack him right there and then. And bring in someone who could get the players we had available to compete at that level. At the time we had just had a European semi final, our profile was high and we could have got just about anyone to come in.

 

They chose neither! And we weee relegated! Appalling mismanagement and should have been the first thing to come from the review.

Noah Fence but you were one of few who were still staunch Rodgers at this point. Believed everything he said

[honeybradger]

11 minutes ago, The Year Of The Fox said:

Noah Fence but you were one of few who were still staunch Rodgers at this point. Believed everything he said

No point looking at the past in my opinion. As long as we're all on the same side of the fence now on what the club's problems are.

[studentofthegame]

It's the predictably bad decisions that are the criminal ones.

People mentioning Kaputska and Benkovic, I have no issue with those kind of signings, taking a punt on a high potential youngster, yeah it didn't work out but the process is fine.

It's the Choudhury/James/Vestegaard/Insert whatever other dumb contract extensions we have given out, that are the biggest issues for me, at the time everyone knew they were bad decisions.

 

Everyone knew Ward wasn't good enough to be first choice, it was obvious that we needed to strengthen in January in both seasons when we finished 5th, it was obvious that Rodgers' race was run and he should have been sacked months before he finally was.

If any randomer on here could see these being bad decisions then it is absolutely scandalous that the DoF was unable to

[Pliskin]

Get Jack Harrison to the training ground, on deadline day, offer him £100k a week of the kings, and then he not sign. 

Edited 28 February by Pliskin

[dannythefox]

Just this season or just before.

 

- Letting Maresca go

 

- Signing Vester for x3 seasons 

 

- Bringing an X Forest gaffer in 

- Bringing Edward in 

 

Thats 4 before I’ve even started.

[murphy]

What about the PSR shambles.  Who's remit is that?

[cropstonfox]

5 hours ago, BillyFOX12 said:

• Allowed Schmeichel to leave in the summer of 2022 and did not replace him, basically relegating us that season.

Has anyone been following his season at Celtic? He’s still class!

Top team in the Sunday league. Not very busy.

[Aus Fox]

1 hour ago, The Year Of The Fox said:

Noah Fence but you were one of few who were still staunch Rodgers at this point. Believed everything he said

I was, and I stand by that. I hold the board and whoever is responsible for hiring and firing the manager way more responsible for what happened that season than I do Brendan.

Brendan told everyone who would listen the squad in its form that season wasn’t good enough and needed reinforcements. 
That didn’t happen and it resulted in pretty much what he told us would happen.

My biggest thing is the inaction, Brendan had proved he could be successful with the right parts in place.

He asked the board for reinvestment in the squad and they didn’t. So they either thought we didn’t need it, in which case they should have got rid of Rodgers and said if you can’t do it with these players that we’ll find someone who can.

 

 

[The Year Of The Fox]

11 minutes ago, Aus Fox said:

I was, and I stand by that. I hold the board and whoever is responsible for hiring and firing the manager way more responsible for what happened that season than I do Brendan.

Brendan told everyone who would listen the squad in its form that season wasn’t good enough and needed reinforcements. 
That didn’t happen and it resulted in pretty much what he told us would happen.

My biggest thing is the inaction, Brendan had proved he could be successful with the right parts in place.

He asked the board for reinvestment in the squad and they didn’t. So they either thought we didn’t need it, in which case they should have got rid of Rodgers and said if you can’t do it with these players that we’ll find someone who can.

 

 

Agreed with all of what you said until this point 👍🏻

[Manini]

1 hour ago, Pliskin said:

Get Jack Harrison to the training ground, on deadline day, offer him £100k a week of the kings, and then he not sign. 

Blessing in disguise he’s ****ing pony (I think it was actually Leeds that pulled the plug on that) 

[foxer]

Can we start moving the more outrageous ones further up the thread? Some kind of disasterous scoring system?

 

One of the main issues which may go under the radar somewhat due to its cumulative nature, but is probably the lost crippling, is the wages, and I mean that across the board. We don't know exact wages for any player, but we do know where we've been at certain points, and we've been paying 30/40% above market value on many players for 5+ years. 

[AjcW]

1 hour ago, cropstonfox said:

Top team in the Sunday league. Not very busy.

He’s pretty much the reason they made the knockouts this time rather than getting humiliated every week. 

[Bob666]

Enough said 

[BillyFOX12]

4 hours ago, cropstonfox said:

Top team in the Sunday league. Not very busy.

He's done very well for them in the Champions League and won the MotM in their games against Bayern.

[Chrysalis]

There is so many at this point.

 

One's that seem to stand out in my head.

 

Repeated failures on selling squad players when offers were made.  (this seems largely down to an obsession with trying to meet paper value of player).

Letting Kasper go when he was an important squad member.

Stuck in no mans land on PSR and squad spend.  Typically clubs either comfortably meet their spending limits and are managed well in this regard, so have head room for busy windows and so forth, or you break it with passion, and make sure the squad is good enough to outdo a points penalty.   Instead we self imposed a transfer embargo, and told our manager who wanted a mass rebuild at the last minute we wouldnt be spending in a window. 

We then kept that manager who clearly was managing a squad of players he wasnt happy with and results and play had gone down the drain. 

Insisting on a certain style of football, playing to fans wanting the same as well.

Failing to recognise we need a proper footballing director, someone who actually has contacts and has a proper football CV outside of the club.

Failing to expand the stadium.

Allowing for a regime where 2 people have control over most decisions, and both arent really qualified to do so.

Allowing for a regime where players can bypass the manager and ring up the owner.

Continuous issuing of over generous of contracts.

Failing to put world class staff at Seagrave, which I assume the intention was for it to be a world class training facility.

Failing to communicate their road map for the club to the fan base, which has contributed to the current discontent.

No signs of a proper squad build plan, and rather signings are kind of panic reaction type purchases. 

No proper integration of youth team setup with first team.

Not realising what we had going for us with the sports science and scouting setup we previously had.

 

Some of these show clear signs of confused long term planning (or lack of it), clear signs of indecisive leadership, a fair few of these are related to the DoF problem, football ideology becoming too ingrained in decision making, and trying to apply economical decision making where it is not appropriate.  There is also a clear identity problem, the contracts given out and building of seagrave is a sign we think we are elite, but then the refusal to break PSR, and the low calibre of players and coaches being signed shows we becoming more like stoke.

 

Rooney will be a future manager for us, which is when I think many supporters will start to realise Top is a problem.

Edited 1 March by Chrysalis

[LCFCJohn]

11 hours ago, Stadt said:

Roughly chronologically:

 

- Signing Inler for circa £6m, left on a free the following season.

 

- Signing a 28 year old Slimani for c. £30m when he’d play as the most advanced striker - that was Vardy’s position. Left on a free to Lyon after three loans.

 

- Signing Kapustka for c. £5m on the back of the Euros. Made 3 apps, left on a free.

 

- Signing Mendy as a Kante replacement. Totally different types of players, Mendy’s tackling stats were miles off. Then he was given a new 2 year deal in 2020 after starting 31 league games in 3 seasons.

 

- Giving Matty James a 4 year deal in 2017 after injuring his ACL. He started 17 league games over those 4 years, left on a free.

 

- Aforementioned Silva fiasco, 14 seconds etc. Signed for c. £20m - left on a free.

 

- Appointing Shakespeare permanently, he did a stellar job to keep us up but by the end of 16/17 it was apparent he wasn’t the Roy fit.

 

- Appointing Puel. Not a disastrous appointment in his own right but the process behind it is symptomatic of the lack of vision. He was cheap and known to us after being sacked by Southampton - we’d never have appointed him from Nice.

 

 

Will add more soon.

 

To be fair, there’s so many awful decisions that have led to the clubs decline and I want to see change as much as anyone.

 

I do think a couple of these are a slight stretch in that there’s plenty of things that have directly caused us to go backwards.

 

Kapustka was a punt for £5mill on a young player. It’s actually the kind of we demand the club takes. Players often get moves after tournaments but it could have worked. Kind of like Daka and Soumare on a bigger scale (financially). We need to bear in mind that there wasn’t any negatively when these guys were signed so although it hasn’t worked, it wasn’t like signing Skipp for example where everyone knew it was a crap signing straight away.

 

Shakey in charge, to be fair, I just looked and from memory the good results had carried on towards the end of the season but it was an initial run to safety. But he also navigated us past Sevilla and pushed Ath Madrid all the way. It didn’t set us back, he just didn’t have what it takes to push us forward. I think we all understood why he was given a chance at the time. The biggest shame was we lost him as an assistant.

 

Puel, knew knows what the motives were. I agree it was likely lazy recruitment than planned out. But he put together a good squad and set us on the forward path that was ultimately dismantled by Rodgers. 

[SemperEadem]

Someone do a Whelan thread too.

[frany104]

When favourites for champions league we strengthened with Ryan Bennett.

 

Aston Villa this season have signed Rashford and Asensio.

 

oh what could have been.

[mozartfox]

15 hours ago, AKCJ said:

I'm sure I'm not the only person who gets asked what has actually gone so badly wrong at the club and it's difficult to be able to provide a good answer so I propose we club together to put all of our reasons of our downfall into one succinct post.

 

I'll add a few off the top of my head to get the ball rolling but otherwise fire away and I'll add to the list.

 

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

• Sold our best player and thought we could replace him before the window shut. Missed the deadline to sign Adrien Silva by 14 seconds.
• Went from Rodgers to Smith to Maresca to Cooper to Van Nistelrooy with each manager being completely different to the last.
• Refused to pay the £14m fee for Ademola Lookman. One year later he's nominated for the Balon d'Or.
• Promised a review of the failings that resulted in our relegation in 2023 yet no outcome is shared with the fans.
• £25 million pounds for Oliver Skipp.
• No transfer funds made available despite being in 18th position.
• Invited the entire nation of Thailand to celebrate winning a division we shouldn't have been in with actual fans shafted.
• Over £130m worth of players in Tielemans, Soyuncu, Amartey, Evans and Perez being left to walk for free.
• Allowed Schmeichel to leave in the summer of 2022 and did not replace him, basically relegating us that season.
• Arranged for a pre-season friendly against Spurs in monsoon season in Thailand. The game was inevitably rained off, and Spurs couldn't reschedule so a behind-closed-doors friendly against a Thai team (Port FC) had to hastily be arranged.
• Iheanacho missed a vital Europa League game against Warsaw (that we ended up losing) because the club couldn't correctly organise his passport.
• Banning a large number of supporters for little to no reason.
• Putting multiple obstacles in UFS's path despite the fact their only objective is to support the team.
• £25 tax on supporters who want a physical season card as opposed to an e-ticket.
• The scandal with BC Game and the fact the board are doubling down on their decision to take their money.
• The out of control wage bills crippling the club. Examples like £100k a week for Connor Coady.
• We all watched as Jannik Vestergaard wasn't anywhere near good enough in the Premier League only to give him a deal that will keep him here until he's 35.
• Turning down a "substantial offer" for Kasey McAteer from Sunderland when he's out of favour and would represent 'pure profit' in terms of PSR.
• Rejecting an offer for Daniel Iversen in 2023 from Crystal Palace for £4m. He's played 0 times for us since then and will leave for nothing in the summer.
• Failed to agree a break cause in January for Odsonne Edouard's loan from Palace, despite the fact that we previously loaned out Luke Thomas to a Prem club (Sheff United) and let them have a clause to terminate in January, so were perfectly aware that it was a thing and might be a good idea.

Wow - That is some charge sheet.  How is he still here???   

[joachim1965]

1 minute ago, mozartfox said:

Wow - That is some charge sheet.  How is he still here???   

He is noshing off Top.

[dobbylcfc]

Apologies if I’ve missed anything but we could throw in the stadium expansion debacle into the list. All approved and nothing started looks dead in the water when more match day revenue would help with par surely. 

[dobbylcfc]

Rudkin is so far up tops arse if he spits it’ll come out of tops mouth only way this tosser goes is KP sell up.