Marti Cifuentes appointed new manager

[CH1_Fox]

Doing a decent job with little support. We look organized and solid. He’s got this bunch running and fighting which is no mean feat. Needs some help from Rudkin et al now, he’s doing the right things but we need a midfielder or two and a striker

[Gazza M]

Striker needed, end of. 

[The Horse's Mouth]

I love how marti has the Nige Icey white trainers, this man is the messiah give him a 20 year deal

[coolhandfox]

Seems to have abandoned playing a crazy high line we had away at Preston.

 

Much deeper against Charlton and Birmingham.

[BenTheFox]

Get this man central midfieder, an attacking midfielder and a striker and see what he can do. 

 

Obviously, I want every Leicester manager to succeed, but I don't think I've wanted one to succeed so much on a personal level for some time.

Edited 29 August 2025 by BenTheFox

[cityfanlee23]

6 minutes ago, BenTheFox said:

Get this man central midfieder, an attacking midfielder and a striker and see what he can do. 

 

Obviously, I want every Leicester manager to succeed, but I don't think I've wanted one to succeed so much on a personal level for some time.

Yep I’ve been quite miffed by the Soumare/winks combo and I was ready to scream today but both had relatively good games despite not really being in the game in the first half defensively. 
 

He seems to be recognising his mistakes by dropping the high line, it just feels like this squad is massively unbalanced atm in terms of having the personnel to play the style well. 
 

We really need Rudkin to pull off a masterclass and bring in the players you’ve mentioned and we could come good. 
 

Marti showing huge faith in the youth too which is something we’ve needed for a long time. 

Marti seems to “get it” so far. 

[Dan]

Doing a very good job in pathetic circumstances. Get him some signings for god sake.

[Leeds Fox]

2 hours ago, cityfanlee23 said:

Yep I’ve been quite miffed by the Soumare/winks combo and I was ready to scream today but both had relatively good games despite not really being in the game in the first half defensively. 
 

He seems to be recognising his mistakes by dropping the high line, it just feels like this squad is massively unbalanced atm in terms of having the personnel to play the style well. 
 

We really need Rudkin to pull off a masterclass and bring in the players you’ve mentioned and we could come good. 
 

Marti showing huge faith in the youth too which is something we’ve needed for a long time. 

Marti seems to “get it” so far. 

How have so many people mistaken Skipp for Winks 

[LCFCJohn]

5 hours ago, BenTheFox said:

Get this man central midfieder, an attacking midfielder and a striker and see what he can do. 

 

Obviously, I want every Leicester manager to succeed, but I don't think I've wanted one to succeed so much on a personal level for some time.

Agreed. When was the last time we had a manager who you could really warm to, who was likeable and related to the fans. Probably have to go back to Shakey when he took over from Ranieri. Probably Dean Smith would be but that was very short lived in bad circumstances.

 

The last 4 (not including Smith) RVN, Cooper, Maresca, Rodgers all very unlikeable. Puel before that was just unrelatable more than anything, not offensive as such.

[Claudio Fannieri]

7 hours ago, moore_94 said:

I think we would've at least seen a cameo appearance by now if that was the case with how he is viewed by Martí, and yet has hasn't even made the bench

 

Unfortunately we desperately need a proper striker who we can rely on to be starting every game for us and that isn't going to be Evans this season and we cannot persist with our options being Ayew and Daka

 

If he is good enough he will get his chance, Martí has shown he is very willing to give youth a go so far

Exactly, also look at Monga, he was pretty anonymous last week at Charlton when he started, but off the bench has been electric. I want to see academy players bloodied but in reality this is a physically demanding league with lots of games playing 2/3 games per week and players like Monga, Page, Evans etc will benefit far more and be more effective as impact subs for the next few months whilst there bodies continue to develop and get to grips with the demands of professional football. 
 

We need a striker, attacking midfielder and deep lying midfielder. BEK and Winks attitudes are not going to change overnight and too be honest for me not sure I would want them reintroducing as they have thrown Marti, fellow players and the club under a bus. I want them gone in the next couple of days. 

[Hammo]

His management of meagre - in some cases disinterested - resources has been impressive so far. Needs and deserves a big helping hand from those upstairs in the next three days. 

[SK3Blue]

Likeable guy, doing a great job so far, poor sod has to wake up Monday mornings and deal with Rudkin, deserves applause for that alone. 

[Haywood_6]

Not the most free flowing football but disciplined and hard to beat. Decent start for Cifuentes. It will be an interesting last few days of the window

[AKCJ]

I think we'd have all taken 9 points from the first 4 if offered. Back to back clean sheets after the PNE shambles reflects well on Marti IMO. Even if they're both against newly promoted teams.

[VLC86]

Easy to like a manager when you are winning games but i like what i see/hear from him.

 

Hopefully the club support him with a new number 10 and striker in the next couple of days otherwise it probably won’t come off.

[Claudio Fannieri]

This reminds me so much of Pearson when he came back for his second spell as Manager, he walked into a club which had spent fortunes on bang average players put them on high wages and we had a squad full of disinterested players and a few bad eggs. 
 

It took him time, a good few transfer windows and at times a lot of the performances weren’t pretty but he quickly identified the bad ones, built the nucleus of a side that he could trust and ground out results until he could stamp his mark on the team with his own signings. 
 

I see so many similarities with Marti and if we stick with him I can see us being in a very good place in a year or two. It may mean sacrificing the odd ‘better’ player such as BEK and Winks to ensure we have a close knit group, it feels like we are back where we started all those years ago when Nigel walked back in. This has the same vibes and I really do think we have a bloody good one in Marti, he gets us and he gets the club. 

[foxfan92]

6 minutes ago, Claudio Fannieri said:

This reminds me so much of Pearson when he came back for his second spell as Manager, he walked into a club which had spent fortunes on bang average players put them on high wages and we had a squad full of disinterested players and a few bad eggs. 
 

It took him time, a good few transfer windows and at times a lot of the performances weren’t pretty but he quickly identified the bad ones, built the nucleus of a side that he could trust and ground out results until he could stamp his mark on the team with his own signings. 
 

I see so many similarities with Marti and if we stick with him I can see us being in a very good place in a year or two. It may mean sacrificing the odd ‘better’ player such as BEK and Winks to ensure we have a close knit group, it feels like we are back where we started all those years ago when Nigel walked back in. This has the same vibes and I really do think we have a bloody good one in Marti, he gets us and he gets the club. 

I think the signs are positive for sure. And as supporters we've got to realise there are going to be periods this season where things don't look right, where Marti looks to be making mistakes, but we have to back him and the team.

 

We talk about Pearson through blue tinted specs. We see the huge benefits of the work he put in, the foundations of our most successful period of history ever, and rightly so he's praised for it.

 

But at the time there were a lot of periods people ran out of patience with Nige while he was in charge. As someone close to the management back then (I've often said about how I was given Craig's tickets to watch games for free), I saw the abuse poor Pearson was getting when we struggled in the championship we thought we'd gain promotion from but couldn't buy a win for weeks (season before we smashed it) and the great escape season where he refused to play Albrighton for many games even though we all suspected this was a mistake.

 

Nige put us in such a good position. His sports science, the way he turned around a team that seemed rotten at its core and gave us a team that was able to fight tooth and nail, (and beat United 5-3 :)) and look like something special by the end of his tenure is something we should all be proud of. 

 

But we've got to afford Marti a few mistakes along the way if we're to reap similar benefits in the long term, because there are a lot of similarities between now and back then.

[HarryDee8]

I'm surprised Master 'Shifu' hasn't become a running joke yet

[RowlattsFox]

Solid groundworks in place, and that's a good start. Plus with handling the players situation and never knowing how's going to be here for the next game. 

 

Fans seem on side which is a good sign. Just need a couple of players to help him. 

[Tielemans63]

I've been impressed with his tactical nouse so far. Prepared to change it up when needed.

[Trav Le Bleu]

9 hours ago, cityfanlee23 said:

Yep I’ve been quite miffed by the Soumare/winks combo and I was ready to scream today but both had relatively good games despite one of them not being on the pitch. 

Fixed

Edited 30 August 2025 by Trav Le Bleu

[Uncle Monty]

Love the tactical flexibility. So many of the so called "tactical geniuses" are so rigid with their philosophy. Really glad to see Marti isn't on an ego trip and changes it as he sees fit. The high line as many others have pointed out has changed, he's quick to make subs when needed too. 

 

Best of all, he seems to have got the players working hard and for each other. That has to be the biggest miracle.

[Corky]

Has got the team working really hard with the limitations. Give him a confident striker with pace and we would be so much better on the counter attack.

 

Acceptable start given the circumstances.

[Tomo260]

I bumped into Marti and Xavi at Highcross shopping centre this morning. I only come up to Leicester a few times a year as I live down South so the whole experience was surreal. 

 

Had a very brief chat with them and he seems so genuine and passionate, without any sense of arrogance which is refreshing. He just reiterated that he'll keep building momentum and he's glad to finish for international break with a win last night. In hindsight I should have asked about transfers, and if Winks and Bilal are being babies, but honestly I was just in shock haha

[KFS]

Special manager imo