Is it me - or did it all start going wrong when Wes Morgan retired?

[foxile5]

1 minute ago, foxile5 said:

This is accurate. 

 

Particularly when Rodgers denied him Xhundred appearances in a row.

 

A blow to the culture. 

And this might seem churlish but it was the point the actual leadership of the club was suddenly vested to Rodgers and not the playing staff. 

 

Horrible on reflection. 

[Soar Fox]

We wouldn’t have got relegated with Kasper here. 

[LCFCJohn]

5 minutes ago, Lloyd90 said:

It’s always negative whatever happens. When we finished 5th in the best league in the world 2 years in a row it was considered a failure by many fans. 

Sorry, but it was a failure at the time. Context is an important thing and if you can’t see that and see things so simplistically, I can’t explain it to you.

 

Of course we never expect to finish in the

Top 4 or even 5 in the top flight. However, when you have built up a 14 point lead in any situation, you have done the hard bit. We had an excellent squad and many of the usual suspects up there were struggling. In the couple of years after we fell short, sides like Newcastle and Villa managed to do it.

 

All of this is important context in that whilst 5th beforehand would have been fantastic, it was a complete failure of mental strength to fall apart like that, as much as anything else in the circumstances.

[Steve Earle]

4 minutes ago, LCFCJohn said:

Sorry, but it was a failure at the time. Context is an important thing and if you can’t see that and see things so simplistically, I can’t explain it to you.

 

Of course we never expect to finish in the

Top 4 or even 5 in the top flight. However, when you have built up a 14 point lead in any situation, you have done the hard bit. We had an excellent squad and many of the usual suspects up there were struggling. In the couple of years after we fell short, sides like Newcastle and Villa managed to do it.

 

All of this is important context in that whilst 5th beforehand would have been fantastic, it was a complete failure of mental strength to fall apart like that, as much as anything else in the circumstances.

In both seasons, the failure to add to the squad in the January window was crucial.

 

Once could be written off as bad luck. Twice? I don’t think so 

[Lloyd90]

3 minutes ago, Steve Earle said:

In both seasons, the failure to add to the squad in the January window was crucial.

 

Once could be written off as bad luck. Twice? I don’t think so 

Yeah true. In any case, we would have been out of the group stages early doors if we made it to the champions league.

[LCFCJohn]

3 minutes ago, Steve Earle said:

In both seasons, the failure to add to the squad in the January window was crucial.

 

Once could be written off as bad luck. Twice? I don’t think so 

Exactly. Ryan Bennett was it 

 

The strong mentality around the club peaked under Pearson and carried over to the title season but it was downhill from there, as soon as the following season. They should never have performed so poorly for Ranieri. We then looked in bother at the wrong end under Ranieri, Shakespeare and Puel before we established for a bit under Rodgers before he tanked us.

 

What we can see now is that all the time since the title win but accelerated after Vichai’s passing, the mentality and culture was being eroded after what Pearson built. People like Ken Way who were so pivotal let go and not replaced. Long serving staff like Stowell as well.

[cropstonfox]

1 hour ago, funkyrobot said:

Things went wrong when we stopped signing leaders to replace those leaving/retiring including big Wes yes.
 

Huth, Morgan. Kasper, Fuchsy. Those key roles have been replaced by players who don’t lead.
 

Look at our senior pros - Verstergaard, Faes, Winks, Ayew, Reid even Riccy. None of them are particularly strong willed and none are true inspiring leaders. Players like Vesty and Faes are so caught up with their own self that they don’t provide the inspiration that a leader needs. It’s a real failure in recruitment. 

Current senor pros, not fit to lace the boots of Huth Morgan Kasper Fuch.

These are inferior journeyman pros who have no right to be leaders. 

Whoever signed this dross should face instant dismissal for Gross negligence. 

[Stadt]

33 minutes ago, Soar Fox said:

We wouldn’t have got relegated with Kasper here. 

Eventually we would have 

[Soar Fox]

6 minutes ago, Stadt said:

Eventually we would have 

Not whilst he was at the club we wouldn’t have.
 

Once he had gone then yeah we would have but whilst he was playing for us I don’t think we go down.

[Stadt]

Just now, Soar Fox said:

Not whilst he was at the club we wouldn’t have.
 

Once he had gone then yeah we would have but whilst he was playing for us I don’t think we go down.

We were terrible in 21/22, should have finished just above the relegation zone - a quirk of the fixture list playing doomed and on the beach teams meant we were in a false position.

 

22/23 we’d have stayed up but not by much, season after we’d have gone anyway. 

[Soar Fox]

4 minutes ago, Stadt said:

We were terrible in 21/22, should have finished just above the relegation zone - a quirk of the fixture list playing doomed and on the beach teams meant we were in a false position.

 

22/23 we’d have stayed up but not by much, season after we’d have gone anyway. 

Over a 38 game season you finish where you deserve to finish. 
 

No way do we drop in the 23/24 Luton, Burnley and Sheffield United were absolutely horrendous that season. Everton had a 8 point deduction and still stayed up by 14 points. Forest had a 4 point deduction and finished 6 points clear of 18th

[sdb]

3 hours ago, whoareyaaa said:

Kasper was a bigger loss.

Came here to say the same thing. Kasper to Ward. The biggest of many awful decisions we took.

[bovril]

1 hour ago, Soar Fox said:

We wouldn’t have got relegated with Kasper here. 

Or literally any half decent goalkeeper 

[Stadt]

17 minutes ago, Soar Fox said:

Over a 38 game season you finish where you deserve to finish. 
 

No way do we drop in the 23/24 Luton, Burnley and Sheffield United were absolutely horrendous that season. Everton had a 8 point deduction and still stayed up by 14 points. Forest had a 4 point deduction and finished 6 points clear of 18th

On paper we’d have said there is no way we drop in 22/23. It was a matter of time - shit player recruitment and shit managerial recruitment will always catch up 

[Soar Fox]

8 minutes ago, Stadt said:

On paper we’d have said there is no way we drop in 22/23. It was a matter of time - shit player recruitment and shit managerial recruitment will always catch up 

Yep, even if we had stayed up in 22/23 we probably would have gone back in for Jesse Marsch

Edited 2 November 2025 by Soar Fox

[Chrysalis]

10 hours ago, Wasyls Pec Deck said:

A failure of recruitment, squad building and how to build successful organisations (let alone teams). We are gutless, spineless and we’ve been taken for a ride for years (we were just as culpable in wages dished out) with bad eggs coming here for a big pay day. I’m absolutely sick of it.

 

I took my 7 year old daughter to her first game this weekend. She did so well to hold interest for 60-70 mins, and my mum came along as well. My mum has never been to a game in her life and instantly recognised the lack of effort and work rate. Sometimes we feel we’re too close to it, but even 70 year old women with no interest in football notice how bad we are.

 

I’m past the point of attending games to enjoy the 90 mins. It’s a day out, but I am close to packing it in. 

I think the work rate issue is a combination of where we coaching our players (a lot of our fans struggle to accept this) and the emphasis on keep ball in training, likely at the cost of overall fitness, and off the ball training.

 

We have ex players who have trained at before and after the move, most notable Albrighton, who said the whole environment change was too much in the comfort direction.

Edited 3 November 2025 by Chrysalis