When did you first realise we don't have good owners?

[Gamble92]

I'm glad there's only one or two that hopelessly try and defend the owners now. I think a couple of years ago as we headed for relegation there was still enough goodwill to allow that to happen. We at least seem to be unanimous in wanting change. The club and the media are aware of that. Just up to us what we do next  

[HankMarvin]

2 hours ago, RedSoxUK said:

 

The answer is they just got lucky. It could have gone the other way if we didn't get some results when we were promoted. We're extremely fortunate it paid off when it did.

 

As others have said we have Birch to thank for suggesting rehiring Pearson. His team absolutely put in the groundwork for the future success. He's too removed from the day to day to have any impact, likewise the big picture strategically just wasn't there at all, it was the joint ideas of Pearson/Shakespeare/Walsh - ex Man U youth because of the ethic, operating with less players to improve overall team performance, scouting heavily linked to the first team coaches so much that a coach was heading the scouting. King Power didn't do any of that did they, but they paid for the teams wages - remember this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/26943611

 

We cannot underestimate the importance Pearson and team had at implementing the standards needed to go on and win the league a year later on the pitch but most definitely off it.

 

So you say the owners got lucky,

but he it could also be argued NP also go lucky meeting Steve Walsh through Big Sams appointment at Newcastle and when that wealth of talent ran out so did his midas touch.

 

As he wasn’t able to replicate success on the same level anywhere else.

 

As I have previously said, I don’t think you can give one Pearson and co all the credit, without the additional questionable sponsorships in 2013/14 we wouldn’t have had the strength in depth of squad to push on.

[HankMarvin]

3 minutes ago, Gamble92 said:

I'm glad there's only one or two that hopelessly try and defend the owners now. I think a couple of years ago as we headed for relegation there was still enough goodwill to allow that to happen. We at least seem to be unanimous in wanting change. The club and the media are aware of that. Just up to us what we do next  

I’m not trying to defend, the owners. I couldn’t give a shit if they go.

But let’s not rewrite history and pretend that everything is down to Managers. 

[Gamble92]

1 minute ago, HankMarvin said:

I’m not trying to defend, the owners. I couldn’t give a shit if they go.

But let’s not rewrite history and pretend that everything is down to Managers. 

I haven't seen anyone say it's just down to Pearson. It is down to the set up under Pearson and then a bit of a ripple effect after. 

 

There was no genuine plan for the reinvestment after the unexpected big sales of Kante and Mahrez. We had that one brilliant window. If you have any evidence that was down to Vichai learning his lessons and installing some masterplan then id love to see it. 

 

Then that scout ****ed off, we got Rodgers and Congleton who spent it all on the absolute turds we can't shift today. And out of his depth Rudkin went along with it because Brendan knew he could wrap him round his little finger. 

[Fox92]

10 minutes ago, HankMarvin said:

So you say the owners got lucky,

but he it could also be argued NP also go lucky meeting Steve Walsh through Big Sams appointment at Newcastle and when that wealth of talent ran out so did his midas touch.

 

As he wasn’t able to replicate success on the same level anywhere else.

 

As I have previously said, I don’t think you can give one Pearson and co all the credit, without the additional questionable sponsorships in 2013/14 we wouldn’t have had the strength in depth of squad to push on.

Tbf Pearson has never spent enough time at other clubs. I do believe if he didn't come back to us then he would have got promoted with Hull. He was building them nicely but left them for us either in the play offs or just outside (can't remember). Obviously Bruce was/is a better manager, and got them promoted soon after, but key players such as Chester, Brady and Koren were brought in under Pearson.

 

One of my mates supports Hull and he sometimes likes to joke it should have been them that signed Vardy. I'm sure this stemmed from an interview with Walsh where he said they were watching players such as Vardy when they were all at Hull.

 

I don't think any fan can deny we (and the owners) were lucky Pearson wanted to come back here. If he didn't come back I do believe we would be in this situation now of overspending on players but just be doing it in the Championship (you only have to look at what we were doing under Sven). However the owners were also good to support Pearson because a fair few people wanted him out in 14/15 (and now pretend they never did want him out) but before that, in 12/13, we completely bottled promotion after being top 2/top 3 all season. 

[HankMarvin]

33 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

Tbf Pearson has never spent enough time at other clubs. I do believe if he didn't come back to us then he would have got promoted with Hull. He was building them nicely but left them for us either in the play offs or just outside (can't remember). Obviously Bruce was/is a better manager, and got them promoted soon after, but key players such as Chester, Brady and Koren were brought in under Pearson.

 

One of my mates supports Hull and he sometimes likes to joke it should have been them that signed Vardy. I'm sure this stemmed from an interview with Walsh where he said they were watching players such as Vardy when they were all at Hull.

 

I don't think any fan can deny we (and the owners) were lucky Pearson wanted to come back here. If he didn't come back I do believe we would be in this situation now of overspending on players but just be doing it in the Championship (you only have to look at what we were doing under Sven). However the owners were also good to support Pearson because a fair few people wanted him out in 14/15 (and now pretend they never did want him out) but before that, in 12/13, we completely bottled promotion after being top 2/top 3 all season. 

He was at Bristol City 2 and a half years and then sacked for a poor run. 
He finished 11th with Hull and they had spent the previous 2 seasons in the PL so were one of the stronger sides.

Brady was a few seasons later, and after Pearson Barmby was manager before Bruce took them

up.

 

[HankMarvin]

1 hour ago, Gamble92 said:

I haven't seen anyone say it's just down to Pearson. It is down to the set up under Pearson and then a bit of a ripple effect after. 

 

There was no genuine plan for the reinvestment after the unexpected big sales of Kante and Mahrez. We had that one brilliant window. If you have any evidence that was down to Vichai learning his lessons and installing some masterplan then id love to see it. 

 

Then that scout ****ed off, we got Rodgers and Congleton who spent it all on the absolute turds we can't shift today. And out of his depth Rudkin went along with it because Brendan knew he could wrap him round his little finger. 

It’s on the first page and I have previously highlighted it. 

On one hand when it goes well, it’s down to the manager, but when it goes wrong it’s all down to the owners.

As I said it’s a case of both for the two instances and in recent years the failings have been racking up and not enough changes were made to avoid a repeat of these failures and if changes are not made at board level, expect more of the same.

 

[iancognito]

On 18/03/2025 at 12:03, Gamble92 said:

I only asked for examples of where there were examples at ownership level of good decisions or a genuine plan? The point is there never was one and only recently everyone realised that. Some of us realised it from the start. 

 

We're all grateful for the past 10 years. We could not have done that without their money. That's where it ends though. Could give many more examples of the massive luck that was involved. What choice was Ranieri? Like 11th? It's all been done without the kind of plans big clubs have that carry on sustained success. 

If I throw in some huge benefit of my huge doubts, Vichai had a plan, if not a dream. Get up, stay up, stabilise then build. Seagrave was part one of that and I think had the crash not interrupted everything we'd have had an extension too.

 

Managerially, they've been all over the shop. Sacking Pearson, Sousa, Sven, pissing cash up the wall for him. Even the Shakey/Puel switcheroo was badly handled. And the last two years have been aimless.

 

I credit their investment but they haven't put their own money into transfers, our net spend when you balance each the big sales is pretty low.

[OntarioFox]

1 hour ago, Fox92 said:

Tbf Pearson has never spent enough time at other clubs. I do believe if he didn't come back to us then he would have got promoted with Hull. He was building them nicely but left them for us either in the play offs or just outside (can't remember). Obviously Bruce was/is a better manager, and got them promoted soon after, but key players such as Chester, Brady and Koren were brought in under Pearson.

 

One of my mates supports Hull and he sometimes likes to joke it should have been them that signed Vardy. I'm sure this stemmed from an interview with Walsh where he said they were watching players such as Vardy when they were all at Hull.

 

I don't think any fan can deny we (and the owners) were lucky Pearson wanted to come back here. If he didn't come back I do believe we would be in this situation now of overspending on players but just be doing it in the Championship (you only have to look at what we were doing under Sven). However the owners were also good to support Pearson because a fair few people wanted him out in 14/15 (and now pretend they never did want him out) but before that, in 12/13, we completely bottled promotion after being top 2/top 3 all season. 

The one club he got something approaching enough time to refresh the squad for was Bristol City, who are now having their best season in 20 years.

 

He'd probably still be there now were it not for his ill health. The fans at Ashton Gate seemed to appreciate him on the whole.

[Leicesterpool]

Lack of investment in the summer of 2022. 

[The Year Of The Fox]

2 hours ago, Fox92 said:

Tbf Pearson has never spent enough time at other clubs. I do believe if he didn't come back to us then he would have got promoted with Hull. He was building them nicely but left them for us either in the play offs or just outside (can't remember). Obviously Bruce was/is a better manager, and got them promoted soon after, but key players such as Chester, Brady and Koren were brought in under Pearson.

 

One of my mates supports Hull and he sometimes likes to joke it should have been them that signed Vardy. I'm sure this stemmed from an interview with Walsh where he said they were watching players such as Vardy when they were all at Hull.

 

I don't think any fan can deny we (and the owners) were lucky Pearson wanted to come back here. If he didn't come back I do believe we would be in this situation now of overspending on players but just be doing it in the Championship (you only have to look at what we were doing under Sven). However the owners were also good to support Pearson because a fair few people wanted him out in 14/15 (and now pretend they never did want him out) but before that, in 12/13, we completely bottled promotion after being top 2/top 3 all season. 

Eh?

[Danizen]

28 minutes ago, Leicesterpool said:

Lack of investment in the summer of 2022. 

This massively annoys me. We hamstrung ourselves while Forest stuck two fingers up at PSR and then appealed their way down to a minor points deduction. Hindsight is 20/20 but making a couple of good signings, instead of penny pinching would have steered the ship right enough to avoid relegation. 

 

Especially as we sold Fofana and Schmeichel. 

[Gamble92]

9 minutes ago, Danizen said:

This massively annoys me. We hamstrung ourselves while Forest stuck two fingers up at PSR and then appealed their way down to a minor points deduction. Hindsight is 20/20 but making a couple of good signings, instead of penny pinching would have steered the ship right enough to avoid relegation. 

 

Especially as we sold Fofana and Schmeichel. 

This, and the Bennett window when we were in top 4 are going to become this era's "if we kept heskey after the Sunderland 5-2"

 

 

[Fox92]

31 minutes ago, The Year Of The Fox said:

Eh?

I don't want to derail the thread and I love Nigel but Bruce has had a better management career. A lot of his time as a manager has been in the top flight. I was talking about Hull at the time, don't forget Bruce got them promoted and then to an FA Cup final.

[FoxTrott]

57 minutes ago, Leicesterpool said:

Lack of investment in the summer of 2022. 

Why do you think that is? I’m pretty sure we’ve been at the threshold of FFP for many years. We tried to push for the top 4 consistently. It didn’t work out. We handed out huge, expensive contracts.
 

I think to say “lack of investment” is just a gross simplification. Owners can only put in what they’re allowed to.

[The Year Of The Fox]

16 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

I don't want to derail the thread and I love Nigel but Bruce has had a better management career. A lot of his time as a manager has been in the top flight. I was talking about Hull at the time, don't forget Bruce got them promoted and then to an FA Cup final.

Fair points. You might be right on balance.

 

Its not something that sits well with me though 😅

[SystonFox]

Coconuts at Bournemouth home sealed it for me

[iancognito]

18 hours ago, FoxTrott said:

Why do you think that is? I’m pretty sure we’ve been at the threshold of FFP for many years. We tried to push for the top 4 consistently. It didn’t work out. We handed out huge, expensive contracts.
 

I think to say “lack of investment” is just a gross simplification. Owners can only put in what they’re allowed to.

Then you re-invest like we used to do. Sell one big name, buy 3 more. The lack of investment came about because they decided on a shit or bust strategy. I'm pretty sure Top even mentioned this in either programme notes or wome sort of press release. Since the initial overspend under Sven KP have never bankrolled player transfers at this club. Our net spend since the Pearson promotion has been very low.

 

By not selling Tielemans or even Maddison in 2021/22 and extending the deals of squad players we buggered up our next two or three windows and made relegation come true. Recruitment, strategy and player retention all massively screwed up soon after Vichai's death and Top being handed the reins.

[FoxTrott]

1 hour ago, iancognito said:

Then you re-invest like we used to do. Sell one big name, buy 3 more. The lack of investment came about because they decided on a shit or bust strategy. I'm pretty sure Top even mentioned this in either programme notes or wome sort of press release. Since the initial overspend under Sven KP have never bankrolled player transfers at this club. Our net spend since the Pearson promotion has been very low.

 

By not selling Tielemans or even Maddison in 2021/22 and extending the deals of squad players we buggered up our next two or three windows and made relegation come true. Recruitment, strategy and player retention all massively screwed up soon after Vichai's death and Top being handed the reins.

Imagine if we had sold those two in 2021/2022 and then went down the next season (which, given our scattergun success rate of recruitment, who knows who we'd have bought in). 

 

Everyone would've been at arms saying that we sold our best players, cashing in, small club mentality, etc.  

Easy to say it now, but I really don't think the club saw the relegation, it came as a shock and has big consequences. 

[iancognito]

21 hours ago, FoxTrott said:

Imagine if we had sold those two in 2021/2022 and then went down the next season (which, given our scattergun success rate of recruitment, who knows who we'd have bought in). 

 

Everyone would've been at arms saying that we sold our best players, cashing in, small club mentality, etc.  

Easy to say it now, but I really don't think the club saw the relegation, it came as a shock and has big consequences. 

They would have been accepted the same as Mahrez, Kante, Drinkwater, Maguire and the rest. Everyone knew our policy, we were all comfortable with selling players who had done their best for us for massively inflated fees to idiot top 6 clubs with no scouting network.

 

We may not have made as much from those two in particular but it would have been better than giving Youri away for nothing. It was that shit or bust policy that led to us being unable to spend for three windows running and that led to relegation. 

 

We went down because of that change in recruitment policy made by the people at the top. Maybe Top got greedy, maybe Rudkin made a bad call, maybe Rodgers convinced them he could get Europe if we didn't sell, maybe collectively they all just decided it was worth the gamble. But whatever happened, the people running the club made poor decisions that led to relegation.

[Chrysalis]

I dont know about the question specifically but I was seeing the writing on the wall for the finances the year before the FA cup win.  Obviously when I posted about it, I was in a very small minority of people who recognised the problem at the time.

[Gamble92]

7 minutes ago, Chrysalis said:

I dont know about the question specifically but I was seeing the writing on the wall for the finances the year before the FA cup win.  Obviously when I posted about it, I was in a very small minority of people who recognised the problem at the time.

Remember it well. Lot of apparent experts telling us it's nothing to worry about. Everything is fine. 

[Danizen]

9 minutes ago, Gamble92 said:

Remember it well. Lot of apparent experts telling us it's nothing to worry about. Everything is fine. 

Taking loans against future income never sat well with me. Even more so now we're borrowing against TV money we most likely won't have.

Edited 22 March by Danizen

[Gamble92]

14 minutes ago, Danizen said:

Taking loans against future income never sat well with me. Even more so now we're borrowing against TV money we most likely won't have.

Least Top can ignore us for half a season and announce he's written off more debt.

 

Maybe he could start doing it in a Superman outfit? 

[Wolfox]

The question is assumptive….  And therefore a pretty poor question…
 

Maybe it hasn’t occurred to me that we have ‘bad owners’…. 
 

I can get behind the fact that  we have owners who could have made better decisions… but hindsight is always 20/20

 

It’s always helpful for fans to have someone to blame though…

 

I’m neither pro nor anti our owners…. I just want whomever is in charge to learn and, hopefully, make better calls

 

 

Edited 22 March by Wolfox