Rot started when

[An Away Move]

When Top and Rudkin allowed Brendan Rodgers to get too comfortable. 

[filthyfox]

The season we won the FA Cup...

That masked it.

Maresca would have been found out had the Champ carried on much longer that season- WE WERE LUCKY

[filthyfox]

18 hours ago, andy peake said:

23rd May 2021. Lost 4-2 to Spurs. Had just won the FA cup but again finished 5th in the Premier League and again just missed out on the Champions League. We’ve been going slowly downhill ever since.

But....  WE FINISHED FIFTH!!!!

 

We have been in League 1, you ungrateful little toad!

 

All this is shit i have had thrown at ME for the last 3 years- now you can have some!!!

[filthyfox]

Waiting for a @Phil Mitchell meme

[Rubbersoul]

Anyone mentioned Lee Congerton? 

[Ted Maul]

19 hours ago, Ian Nacho said:

Lee Congerton. 

Indeed.

 

Involved for Sunderland and Hamburg's slides to the lowest point in their histories, now we can add Leicester to the list.

 

Ripping up our successful model and giving him free reign is probably the point we signed our own death warrant. 

[CL Fox]

57 minutes ago, Rubbersoul said:

Anyone mentioned Lee Congerton? 

He definitely got out before it went to shit. Glover gets away with it too. When was the last good player we signed?

[Tom12345]

On 18/04/2026 at 16:29, Blarmy said:

For me, Rodgers bollocking the team at half time even though we were winning. Can’t remember who we were playing though. 

WBA. Agree it definitely started with Rodgers.

 

From a top 6 Premier League side, to relegation with a squad worthy of top 6, then to suffer relegation again after promotion at first attempt, to now this absolutely unbelievable demotion to League 1 with the most expensive squad ever in history of the Championship.

 

All started with weak mentality. When in doubt, pass back or hoof it up. Wait for opposition to settle back into shape instead of trying for a quick transition. Miles away from our EPL winning team when Schmeichel famously said why make five passes when you can just make the one (or something like that). We became a bunch of puxxies from that point. Amazing the team never recovered from that.

Edited 19 April by Tom12345

[Rubbersoul]

Completely forgot about Rodgers fuming despite being 3-0 up at HT and genuinely playing some great attacking stuff. 
 

There are SO many incidents since Rodgers took over to now where you just can’t believe they happened. 
 

We were 2-1 up against Spurs with 20 seconds left!!! We couldn’t even just hold on for a point after the first goal went in, we HAD to go and lose. 
 

Do we reckon we’ll ever get rid of the soft under belly we’ve had for years? 

[Tom12345]

4 minutes ago, Rubbersoul said:

Completely forgot about Rodgers fuming despite being 3-0 up at HT and genuinely playing some great attacking stuff. 
 

There are SO many incidents since Rodgers took over to now where you just can’t believe they happened. 
 

We were 2-1 up against Spurs with 20 seconds left!!! We couldn’t even just hold on for a point after the first goal went in, we HAD to go and lose. 
 

Do we reckon we’ll ever get rid of the soft under belly we’ve had for years? 

I would have thought that once the manager changes that would change, but time has proven that is not the case. I think we have to wait until all those soft players on high wages are gone: the likes of Hamza (who is absolutely stealing a living on 50k a week or something for never being a good League 1 player) and Thomas is out of the team. Thomas is good defensively, but he still has that hesitation Rodgers instilled in him.

Edited 19 April by Tom12345

[Tom12345]

I also think had Maresca stayed for one more season, things might have turned up more permanently, but unfortunately Chelsea ruined us.

Edited 19 April by Tom12345

[RichardGearman]

Nottingham Forest away in the fa cup. When Rodgers requested a refresh. 

[RoboFox]

Rodgers was a symptom. Just like everything else.

 

We all know the cause.

[LCFC 1997]

2 key moments

Forest away - FA cup

BR should have been sacked after the away cup loss to Forest (he bottled CL 2 seasons in a row which would’ve changed everything as well) - real first worrying signs of players commitment - KP committed to playing a game of chicken with him and he was happy to take the club down as he’d be paid (see Celtic)

Revival chance wasted
Sacking Cooper

Cooper - I’ll never understand what the stick against him is, we went back up and everyone knew that we had one agenda - TO STAY UP - we were never going to achieve anything else

We were picking up points, outside relegation zone, the players still wanted to play Maresca ball but weren’t good enough to at the PL level (as seen in the first half of the opening game against Spurs) - he brought realistic tactics in (as seen in the second half), we were picking up points, and we would have had a good chance of staying up if he had stayed

 

For anyone that bring up the Forest connection of Cooper - Martin O’Neill and Wes Morgan

 

I really struggle to see what other problems there were with him with the players he had and situation of the club - we were picking up points and an ok distance (not safe) from relegation 

[Guy]

People bemoan Enzo leaving when he did for our present mess, plus Brendan Rodgers' final season (albeit people cited his time here as an overall failure apart from the FA Cup 2021 triumph played out in mostly empty stadiums of course re Covid restrictions!) but for me the rot really set in when the same set of players (mostly), were trying to hound Cooper out at their Christmas party event last season of course with the infamous We Miss You Enzo banner.

Fast forward to more recently and the present time then Rowett and Marti should really be largely absolved from blame for this wretched season. The squad(s) they all inherited (and Ruud before them, as hapless as though he was as a manager here after some of Cooper's dud signings also), were/are woeful and although both were to blame for consistently picking the likes of Ayew and Daka over others (like Richards!) and Marti for his ponderous possession based tactics, then at the end of the day they only had a pretty useless squad with an equally bad attitude to choose from! Consistently starting Ayew probably explained why we've barely managed to score in the last few games, with only a win over Bristol City since the fortuitous one in early January over West Brom (who duly sacked their manager shortly after we beat them, as did Bristol City!). The rot truly started in December 2024 for me....

[Mickyblueeyes]

The day that 5’3 piece of shit handed himself the keys to the empire. Destroying everything his dad built. Risking the future of his family. Harming everything and everyone around him. Horrible human being. 

[Phil Mitchell]

4 hours ago, filthyfox said:

Waiting for a @Phil Mitchell meme

It’s all gone to shit since I’ve been here. Can’t be a coincidence surely. Phil

[sdb]

Loads but I guess the earliest would be Fofana's injury v Spurs in that final game. Ndidi replaced him, we lost, threw away 4th place at the last hurdle and it felt like we'd not get that close again. Standards were never the same.

 

Closely followed by replacing Kasper with...him

[The Year Of The Fox]

1 hour ago, RoboFox said:

Rodgers was a symptom. Just like everything else.

 

We all know the cause.

Rodgers was genuinely malicious 

Him and the owners neglect ran hand in hand 

[Philkeavo]

Rot set in when Rudkin was promoted to DoF. 

[cropstonfox]

Tielemans manipulating a free escape.

Should have cashed in.Johnny evans and Soyunch also leaving for nothing.

Great work by the agents,terrible work by Rudkin and Co.

Players actually downed tools, we were incapable of resolving this.

Wes Forfuna,also did similar after we managed his injury for a season. 

No credit in the bank either.

But at least we managed to get a fee for him.

Overall the rot was started by greedy players and agents and worse our inability

To manage the business side of this.

The worse still signing and overpaying 

Piss poor players.The buck stops with Rudkin and ultimately Top.

Effing useless pair have allowed us to be destroyed. 

But we will be back.!

[sm1]

It started when Vichai passed away. That's when Top became the boss and gave Rudkin unlimited power. It took a few years for that to manifest on the pitch, but it was over for us from that moment.

Edited 19 April by sm1

[The_77]

2 hours ago, RichardGearman said:

Nottingham Forest away in the fa cup. When Rodgers requested a refresh. 

I have a lot of issues with how Rodgers conducted himself but he was right about that. We clearly needed new blood in the squad and we’re still dealing with the same types of squad issues we had back then. 
 

But instead Rodgers became the first in a series of managers who were misled by the owner and DoF about transfers, and our players are still stale, soft, and lazy. 

[FosseSpark]

Fer Nino day: 4th August 2021. 2 brilliant but bottled seasons, finishing 5th had us on the back foot financially. We needed another Champions League campaign to paper over the financial cracks. But in the preseason Villareal game we looked magic. Kasper still dominant, Fofana creating a monster partnership with Caglar and Evans.

Justin and Ricardo fit to start the season.

Maddison purring, Harvey Barnes becoming an international winger and Vardy still at the top. 

Then, Fofana breaks his leg (or rather Fer Nino needlessly does it for him), and we end up playing Vestergaard and Bertrand over 30 times that season. We finish 8th and we are on the downard spiral from League and FA Cup winners and perennial Champs Lge challengers to a team mired in debt and ripe for the picking. The next season we are relegated in abject fashion and picked clean, with the Premier League all over us for daring to dream for too long.

If Fofana hadn't broken his leg i contend we'd have got top 6 that season and still be in the premier league now.

[FosseSpark]

He personally hasn't been the same player since either. Lost pace, physicality and a series of knock on injuries ever since.