What is the point?

[AKCJ]

Depressing that, of all clubs, a Leicester fan can think this way.

 

This has all been our own doing. Newcastle, Villa, Brighton, Brentford, Palace etc have all shown that you can disturb the elite with good decision making.

[The Year Of The Fox]

Been asking myself this since we won the PL and FA Cup tbh

[sdb]

To be fair, covid and PSR have probably ****ed us over more than 99% of clubs. But i do agree. Football is becoming an absolute farce. Soon it'll be about which club is the most entertaining for Netflix/Amazon documentary purposes. I'm very close to throwing my ST away, as are many others. But the club would literally prefer that I did. More money in it than keeping an established (cheap) fan around the place.

[Finnegan]

Just now, foxile5 said:

Kante left telling us "Chelsea is a champion club" whilst at the reigning champions. 

 

It goes so far beyond PSR and Sky. The global perception of the big six has been thoroughly drilled into footballing society. Virtually impossible to reverse in the current league context. 

 

Chelsea obviously had a higher ceiling than us, we all understood what he meant and having any resentment over it is daft. He won the Champions League there. Come on.

 

We also bought him for roughly 5m and sold him a year later for 32m.

 

He's also the only one we had no choice about selling, by the way. We all complain about the Big Six but without Chelsea we'd have been in this mess far, far, far earlier. We've absolutely taken them for a complete butt****ing for KDH, Fofana, Chilwell, Drinkwater and Enzo who - combined - are probably worth about 1/5th of what Chelsea gave us.

 

It's how we do business (when we do it well) and as for "what's the point?" my answer to that would probably be, erm, it won us the FA Cup (which Palace also just won?) and the Community Shield? What the **** else is the point if winning trophies isn't?

 

[Bergen fox]

I’m at the point where I’m not that bothered anymore. We completed football winning the premier and fa cup. 
 

[Jobyfox]

I can’t really add anymore to this discussion. 
 

I’ve never been more disillusioned because of the current status of our club, but it doesn’t help that I find the whole cycle a bit monotonous and pointless.

 

We may as well decide who is winning the trophies at the start of each season, by committee, and just hand them out 

[foxile5]

1 minute ago, Finnegan said:

 

Chelsea obviously had a higher ceiling than us, we all understood what he meant and having any resentment over it is daft. He won the Champions League there. Come on.

 

I'm not disputing this nor do I fail to understand the context. 

 

But that's what makes it easy for Chelsea isn't it? The lure of the "champion club" that is entrenched over three decades of The Premier League. 

 

The point I'm making is that beyond PSR and current regulation sides don't stand a chance because the target audience of the  marketing of the Premier League over three decades are now playing in it.

 

 

[Jordan]

May I just say that I when I saw this topic title, I was disappointed that the original post was about PSR and the “big six” and not about this

 

https://x.com/JoeHulbertNBA/status/1638727084041469954

Edited 21 August 2025 by Jordan

[AKCJ]

9 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

People act like this is a new thing.

 

Tell me about the great career Gary Lineker had at Leicester, the 500 games he played for us, the trophies he helped us win, the records he broke?

 

Joachim played more games elsewhere than for Leicester, Heskey played more games elsewhere than for Leicester.

 

The nature of football is that there's always a bigger fish. I'd actually argue it's gotten better for Premier League clubs over the last decade because their best players can't really be taken by many European clubs and if clubs on the continent can't offer Champions League football then ever mid-table teams over here can poach them. You talk about Palace but Palace are looking to raid Villareal to pay relative peanuts for Yeremy Pino who already has 15 Spain caps and is incredibly highly regarded.

 

PSR is a problem, the Premier League is a problem, the Big Six is a problem but they aren't really OUR problem. Our problem is the only business intelligence we had at this club went up in a literal cloud of helicopter smoke and ownership of the club is apparently hereditary? We got in an extremely strong position despite the Big Six and then we shot ourselves in the foot repeatedly and then made the surprised Pikachu face when we fell over. 

 

Or, in meme form:

 

 

 

For me, the greater issue was not letting the 2018-2022 squad leave for a good value and bumping their wages through the roof to keep them here.

[ourla]

1 hour ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

In any club outside the big six trying to be successful?

 

Any time a club like ourselves or Brighton or or Crystal Palace have a bit of success and produce some talent, even though you've put a good team together, the big six (plus big teams abroad) just come along and take the best players (Chelsea especially with their plethora of not even bench warming stars).

 

I'm almost at the point where I don't want us to have any star players, cos they won't be staying. Vardy was a rare exception in the modern game.

 

Some will no doubt argue that we need to be successful to keep our best players, but even when we won the EPL Kante was off and Mahrez made it clear he wanted to be.

 

Now a similar thing is happening with Palace and you look at a relatively large, wealthy club like Newcastle too with Isak.

 

They should just clear off to their European Super League, with a caveat. They can't sign players from any country's remaining domestic leagues, only players they produce themselves and sign off each other.

 

But that's a pipe dream

 

People slag off American sports but in a way that is how it should be - if you want meritocracy and a level playing field.

 

On the other hand the vast majority of football fans know their clubs can never win the Prem anytime soon, so if that really mattered to them they just wouldn't go. In some ways winning the Prem League killed it for Leicester fans because now we can't have that mindset.

 

Caveat: It didn't kill anything to me, quite the opposite. Winning the League and the FA Cup just once was enough. I never thought I'd see it (and my first game was 1973). I actually don't give a toss anymore. Whatever will be will be.

Edited 21 August 2025 by ourla

[Wymsey]

4 minutes ago, Bergen fox said:

I’m at the point where I’m not that bothered anymore. We completed football winning the premier and fa cup. 
 

Sorry, but this term of phase does grind some gears.

 

Do you think the Man Utd fans (the genuine ones) got fed up and 'didn't bother anymore' when - for example - Sir Alex Ferguson was quite regularly winning the FA Cup and Premier League?..

 

Sounds like spoilt supporters saying that, tbh.

Edited 21 August 2025 by Wymsey

[Analysethis]

There are plenty of examples "smaller clubs" having a system in place to recruit well and better themselves every season. In fact, before I start rolling out clubs names we might as well start with our own. We had some real donkey signings but selling one top player a season for silly money seemed to work for us. We were selling high and buying cheap. Brighton do something similar (we both love selling to Chelsea LOL) but there is no respite when it comes to the pressure on recruitment.

 

Also, if it wasn't for that horrible day when Vichai passed, I genuinely believe we would have been top 6-8 regulars and occasional Champions League entrants. We came close a couple of times after our Prem win but you feel the club as we knew it had a downturn from that moment. With all due respect to Top, he hasn't led us as his dad would have done.

 

I still feel you can mix it with the big boys, but you have to get 90-95% things right (and be a bit lucky) and hope that others around you fail.

Edited 21 August 2025 by Analysethis

[Finnegan]

4 minutes ago, foxile5 said:

I'm not disputing this nor do I fail to understand the context. 

 

But that's what makes it easy for Chelsea isn't it? The lure of the "champion club" that is entrenched over three decades of The Premier League. 

 

The point I'm making is that beyond PSR and current regulation sides don't stand a chance because the target audience of the  marketing of the Premier League over three decades are now playing in it.

 

 

 

So before the Premier League, no big club ever came along and took our best players?

 

The wealth disparity has gotten worse, I'm not denying that, but it's obviously always been there and the best players have always wanted to go and play for the biggest and most succesful clubs?

 

I'm not trying to claim that the current situation is brilliant and that we should all just stick our heads in the sand, ignore all problems and bend over and wait for the Big Six to lube up. But I do think that "what's the point" is grossly hyperbolic by any standards and is utterly bizarre coming from fans of a club that have managed to win every major piece of English silverware in my life time and the two biggest pieces of English silverware in the last deade. I mean... that's obviously The Point™ right there. Which we did... despite FFP/PSR?

 

Edit: And, to iterate, ESPECIALLY when what we're really doing is pouting, not about the current state of football in general (again, Crystal ****ing Palace just won the second biggest prize in our domestic sport), but about the current state of OUR club. And, again, we did that to ourselves, with very little help from the outside.

 

Edited 21 August 2025 by Finnegan

[Bergen fox]

1 minute ago, Wymsey said:

Sorry, but this term of phase does grind some gears.

 

Do you think the Man Utd fans (the genuine ones) got fed up and 'didn't bother anymore' when - for example - Sir Alex Ferguson was quite regularly winning the FA Cup and Premier League?..

 

Sounds like spoilt supporters saying that, tbh.

United have a possible chance of been great in the future. I don’t see Leicester doing that or ever winning a big cup.

[Wymsey]

2 minutes ago, Bergen fox said:

United have a possible chance of been great in the future. I don’t see Leicester doing that or ever winning a big cup.

If we, more likely than anything else, were to be in a FA Cup final again - would you possibly not go and support the team, because we 'completed it' before?

Edited 21 August 2025 by Wymsey

[HoChiMinhFOX]

1 hour ago, RoboFox said:

Wait, are you saying that elite football has locked in the status quo as a they want to protect the dominance of the wealthiest thus entrenching a cycle where the same elite clubs consistently qualify for lucrative competions - stifling progress and creating predictable, marketable tournaments featuring globally recognized brands thus driving up the value of media rights, commercial deals, and licensing and all in order to generate massive revenues for its governing bodies? 

 

 

[Kitchandro]

13 minutes ago, StanSP said:

I've long felt this and it's what has fuelled my disdain for the modern game. 

 

Money is driving these decisions for the big clubs. It's like the smaller clubs are their scouting networks and never has 'stepping stone' been more appropriate for how smaller clubs are treated, both by players and bigger clubs. 

 

I can't see it even getting any better. Salary caps? Gone past that stage as there's just too much money floating about in the game. 

 

PSR has broken football more so than it ever was, and what Chelsea do or how they act just makes a mockery of it all. Cash strapped? 'sell' the women's club to yourself and then go spend billions anyways! 

 

Man Utd? Billions pounds of debt, making cuts internally, but still spend hundreds of millions on players. 

 

It's a closed shop. Dare a small club succeed. They do it at their own peril. Their small period of success just ends up turning into a nightmare. 

It’s not too late, it’s just like anything. People need the will to change something. I don’t think there are enough people with the will to do what’s necessary to force something like this. Footballers and the associations will look after themselves, fans of bigger clubs won’t want it, and fans of smaller clubs might want it but think there are more important things to take a stand for. And the majority of people are just fairly apathetic.

 

I think if the 70-odd English league clubs felt they were majorly disadvantaged by the system and actually cared enough to do something, they could easily disrupt the league system enough to force through change or even just start a replacement Football League without the biggest clubs.

[ceebeefox]

2 hours ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

In any club outside the big six trying to be successful?

 

Any time a club like ourselves or Brighton or or Crystal Palace have a bit of success and produce some talent, even though you've put a good team together, the big six (plus big teams abroad) just come along and take the best players (Chelsea especially with their plethora of not even bench warming stars).

 

I'm almost at the point where I don't want us to have any star players, cos they won't be staying. Vardy was a rare exception in the modern game.

 

Some will no doubt argue that we need to be successful to keep our best players, but even when we won the EPL Kante was off and Mahrez made it clear he wanted to be.

 

Now a similar thing is happening with Palace and you look at a relatively large, wealthy club like Newcastle too with Isak.

 

They should just clear off to their European Super League, with a caveat. They can't sign players from any country's remaining domestic leagues, only players they produce themselves and sign off each other.

 

But that's a pipe dream

 

Relatively large, wealthy? They are the wealthiest so in this awful modern era they’re the biggest, though PSR has permitted them from being so.

[bovril]

1 minute ago, Finnegan said:

 

So before the Premier League, no big club ever came along and took our best players?

 

The wealth disparity has gotten worse, I'm not denying that, but it's obviously always been there and the best players have always wanted to go and play for the biggest and most succesful clubs?

 

I'm not trying to claim that the current situation is brilliant and that we should all just stick our heads in the sand, ignore all problems and bend over and wait for the Big Six to lube up. But I do think that "what's the point" is grossly hyperbolic by any standards and is utterly bizarre coming from fans of a club that have managed to win every major piece of English silverware in my life time and the two biggest pieces of English silverware in the last deade. I mean... that's obviously The Point™ right there. Which we did... despite FFP/PSR?

 

This is true. I wonder if it's the disparity in exposure between the big clubs and smaller clubs now that is more depressing than the difference in actual on field success. 5-6 massive global brands in the league now and a bunch of also rans that basically seem to exist as extras in the multi million dollar production that is the English premier league. From time to time one of those will get their own storylines (like us in 2015/16, or arguably Luton a couple of years ago) but they are still expected take their place in the background soon after. 

[urban.spaceman]

Are people understanding it yet?

[ceebeefox]

We will have to suffer many years in order to get excited about promotion to that god awful league. I’m happy in this one provided we get a youthful enthusiastic team together who wins more than it loses .

[whoareyaaa]

Newcastle and Villa have shown you can still

disrupt the big 6 and have a good champions league campaign even Forest managed to come 6th

[The Year Of The Fox]

15 minutes ago, Wymsey said:

Sorry, but this term of phase does grind some gears.

 

Do you think the Man Utd fans (the genuine ones) got fed up and 'didn't bother anymore' when - for example - Sir Alex Ferguson was quite regularly winning the FA Cup and Premier League?..

 

Sounds like spoilt supporters saying that, tbh.

We have been spoilt?

 

Uniteds expectations of winning again were far far more realistic than our chances of doing it again. We all realised how absurd it was doing it the once
 

We’ve also seen Albrighton knock out Sevilla to see us progress to the 1/4 Final of the CL. How the heck can you now get excited about a goal v Burnley? 

[ALC Fox]

Under the rules at the time, apparently the year we were fighting Chelsea for Champions League qualification, we would have only been guaranteed a fraction from Uefa for qualifying in comparison to Chelsea.

 

It's a closed shop.

 

Sporting merit means next to nothing, except for the fact that sporting achievement from 25-50 years ago protects you from someone who is achieving more than you today.

[Golden Fox]

It has not always been this way.

 

Yes, players have always gone to bigger clubs, and, yes it was frustrating to see money talking.

 

But you could get a club with an influx of cash upset the statua quo. You could get Leicester breaking the British transfer record (for Allan Clarke) - for £150k! or Blackburn winning the league for something like £22m!

 

Or clubs like Chelsea or Man City being bought and going from Everton/Villa size to global clubs.

 

But those avenues have stopped altogether. Even being rich isn't enough. You would need to consistently get into the Champions League year after year - and we've seen how difficult it is to build a squad big enough to compete in both Europe and Premier League. 

 

Our story felt new, but seeing both Newcastle and Villa defying the odds to qualify, and find a glass ceiling and being asset stripped, and seeing whats happened to Palace is all depressing. 

 

I'm not sure if I would get hooked on football or Leicester City if I was growing up today. But like it or not, its a huge part of my life, and its difficult to turn the tap off even with all the evidence that this is not the game I fell in love with.