November 2018 onwards

[Blue ROI]

We knew things would never be the same.

 

However did you fear it would ever be the worst case scenario and this catastrophic?

 

I would have hoped for maybe Premier League Top 10 consolidation until the 30s.

 

The uselessness of the new king power and the magnitude of the decline has been quite something to observe.

Edited 25 April by Blue ROI

[jayfox26]

I dont think anyone could have seen the club be ran as badly as it has been. It has taken some doing to take a club that had established itself in the prem, hadn't been in a relegation battle since the great escape season and had a talented group of players and many that were worth alot of money, to where we are now. 

 

It was obvious towards the end of 2021 that we were on a slippery slope. Even though we won the fa Cup then, it was clear that Rodgers was a huge problem for us and us keeping him as long as did and allowing him to behave the way he did was the start of this toxic culture we have around the whole club that has lead to a lack of accountability at any level. 

 

Players and managers can be changed (as can directors even though they wont be) but to change a culture is a very difficult thing to do and we wont ever begin to be a serious club again until we do.

 

Unfortunately, culture at a club starts at the very top, so for this reason, we will not see any improvements until we have a change of ownership and a whole new board. 

 

We can get a new manager, we can get new players but unless the culture is set by the people at the top and the manager is allowed to make decisions and not just be a puppet, then we'll never improve.

[kingfox]

After a few successful years under Top’s leadership, as @jayfox26 stated, the real change started to happen in that 21/22 season.

 

Things started to go downhill because we didn’t remain consistent with recruitment. That was the summer where we signed Daka, Soumare, Vestergaard and Bertrand, all failures. While that summer also was the starting point of losing some real key figures, Morgan and Fuchs.

 

Even though we finished 8th that season, you could sense the tide was turning. You then go into the 22/23 season, you lose another key figure in Schmeichel, decide to persist with Danny Ward as a replacement. We sold one of our best talents in Fofana, and we replaced him with Wout Faes. It’s very easy to say a team consisting of Vardy, Barnes, Maddison and Tielemans should never be relegated, but with the way we assembled our goalkeepers & defence that season, we were asking for trouble. The January transfer window of that season was also another failure.

 

Things then picked up with Maresca. At that particular time, the signings of Winks, Mavididi and Fatawu were all successful. A couple of mistakes in signing Coady and Cannon, but all in all, Maresca did the job that was required and things started to look a bit brighter.

 

Maresca then unfortunately left, and we didn’t back it up. Appointing Cooper was a disastrous mistake, and the type of signings he wanted have unsurprisingly knocked us back years. For a team that needed strengthening for the Premier League, we just poured a big pile of shit over it, with a catalogue of poor signings. 
 

We then get relegated again, and do the exact same thing in 25/26 than we did in 24/25. For a team that needed strengthening, Jordan James aside, we piled yet more shit into a failing squad. To make matters worse, you fail to replace our best ever player in Jamie Vardy, persist with Ayew and Daka instead, while Wilfred Ndidi was also sold, and we also failed to replace his attributes.

 

Factor all those things in, alongside managerial appointment mistakes, plus ridiculous mismanagement in player wages, while building a shitty culture…

 

Another 05/08 period was well on truly on the cards, it’s just happened in quicker fashion than we probably all expected.

Edited 25 April by kingfox

[Langston]

I could almost understand (def the wrong word) being run terribly if the idiot in charge was trying x, y and z, chopping and changing and desperately trying to make something work.. I'd still be furious but I could get my head around wanting to start afresh if something didn't pan out well over a period.. a turnover of staff at board level wouldn't indicate that the club is being run well but would at least show that the stupid moron had identified things weren't going to plan .

 

Instead he's just repeated mistakes, doubled down on them, and rewarded proven failure.. it's unforgivable, it's self sabotage..

[Stadt]

Allowing Congerton into the building was proof enough they had absolutely no clue. His record at Celtic, Sunderland and Hamburg was abysmal.

[Langston]

Just now, Stadt said:

Allowing Congerton into the building was proof enough they had absolutely no clue. His record at Celtic, Sunderland and Hamburg was abysmal.

 

This was the first time I felt unease with everything tbh . I was relatively happy with Rodgers as our manager until that point but it was a massive signal that autonomy was going with him and his men..

[Stadt]

26 minutes ago, Langston said:

 

This was the first time I felt unease with everything tbh . I was relatively happy with Rodgers as our manager until that point but it was a massive signal that autonomy was going with him and his men..

Macia looks better and better with every passing year 

[JonnyZeroFox]

2 hours ago, jayfox26 said:

I dont think anyone could have seen the club be ran as badly as it has been. It has taken some doing to take a club that had established itself in the prem, hadn't been in a relegation battle since the great escape season and had a talented group of players and many that were worth alot of money, to where we are now. 

 

It was obvious towards the end of 2021 that we were on a slippery slope. Even though we won the fa Cup then, it was clear that Rodgers was a huge problem for us and us keeping him as long as did and allowing him to behave the way he did was the start of this toxic culture we have around the whole club that has lead to a lack of accountability at any level. 

 

Players and managers can be changed (as can directors even though they wont be) but to change a culture is a very difficult thing to do and we wont ever begin to be a serious club again until we do.

 

Unfortunately, culture at a club starts at the very top, so for this reason, we will not see any improvements until we have a change of ownership and a whole new board. 

 

We can get a new manager, we can get new players but unless the culture is set by the people at the top and the manager is allowed to make decisions and not just be a puppet, then we'll never improve.

Agreed, you could even say that Rodgers is up there with Taylor, taking a great side spending a lot and just making the whole team a lot worse. 

[jayfox26]

24 minutes ago, JonnyZeroFox said:

Agreed, you could even say that Rodgers is up there with Taylor, taking a great side spending a lot and just making the whole team a lot worse. 

Yep. The fa Cup win and the 2 top 5 finishes were great but the lasting damage hes done to the club will take years to recover from.

[LCFCJohn]

1 hour ago, jayfox26 said:

I dont think anyone could have seen the club be ran as badly as it has been. It has taken some doing to take a club that had established itself in the prem, hadn't been in a relegation battle since the great escape season and had a talented group of players and many that were worth alot of money, to where we are now. 

 

It was obvious towards the end of 2021 that we were on a slippery slope. Even though we won the fa Cup then, it was clear that Rodgers was a huge problem for us and us keeping him as long as did and allowing him to behave the way he did was the start of this toxic culture we have around the whole club that has lead to a lack of accountability at any level. 

 

Players and managers can be changed (as can directors even though they wont be) but to change a culture is a very difficult thing to do and we wont ever begin to be a serious club again until we do.

 

Unfortunately, culture at a club starts at the very top, so for this reason, we will not see any improvements until we have a change of ownership and a whole new board. 

 

We can get a new manager, we can get new players but unless the culture is set by the people at the top and the manager is allowed to make decisions and not just be a puppet, then we'll never improve.

I guess it depends what we class as relegation battle. I’d probably agree with your assessment as by relegation battle, we are probably talking about late in the season.

 

However, was it February when we dropped into the bottom 3 under Ranieri and sacked him after about 6 winless games after the new year.

 

Then we had a bad start the season after under Shakey and sacked him. Then Puel had us heading towards there. 
 

So although Vichai acted decisively when needed so it never ended up as a late in the season fight for survival, we never really seemed that secure. But I guess that can be said for a lot of clubs.

[JonnyZeroFox]

42 minutes ago, jayfox26 said:

Yep. The fa Cup win and the 2 top 5 finishes were great but the lasting damage hes done to the club will take years to recover from.

And those two top 5 finishes should have easily been top 4 

Edited 25 April by JonnyZeroFox

[Pliskin]

When you actually sit down, and analyse everything, it’s absolutely mind blowing that we’re in this situation. It’s like watching a horror tackle on repeat, it never gets any better….. well, it’s the same here, the more you look at our decline, the more staggering it is. 
 

There’s still people missing the point, Simon Jordan likened us to Blackburn, Leeds and Sheffield Wednesday the other day, but the whole argument falls down the the financial gain this club had due to the success, was unlike any other club outside of the “top six” had ever seen before, and from the position of ultimate power, we threw it all away. 

[Langston]

3 hours ago, Stadt said:

Macia looks better and better with every passing year 

Did we ever actually replace him?? I assume Glover is doing the same or a similar job?? Macia probably had twice as many hits in a fraction of the time..

[Sunbury Fox]

2 hours ago, Pliskin said:

When you actually sit down, and analyse everything, it’s absolutely mind blowing that we’re in this situation. It’s like watching a horror tackle on repeat, it never gets any better….. well, it’s the same here, the more you look at our decline, the more staggering it is. 
 

There’s still people missing the point, Simon Jordan likened us to Blackburn, Leeds and Sheffield Wednesday the other day, but the whole argument falls down the the financial gain this club had due to the success, was unlike any other club outside of the “top six” had ever seen before, and from the position of ultimate power, we threw it all away. 

Blackburn is in reality a much smaller club than us and Sheff Wed never had the success we had. Leeds under Ridsdale is probably the closest comparison to us as they gambled financially to challenge for the top 4 and did pretty well for a while in terms of qualifying for Europe and getting to the SF of the UCL. They also crashed quickly to League One, as we have. But they didn't win anything like us so their fall was still not as spectacularly bad as ours.

Edited 25 April by Sunbury Fox

[David Hankey]

No-one could have foreseen what lay ahead after that fateful night in 2018, not even 'Mystic Meg'.

[21st Century Fox]

Rudkin got cucked by Rodgers and Congerton big time. Handed them the keys to the kingdom as I imagine he has no clue what a Director of Football should be doing and just deferred to them. He should have been the line of consistency from 2015/16, he should’ve stood up for a winning formula.

Edited 25 April by 21st Century Fox

[Parker Pen]

Pair of ****ing charlatans, it all started with those two!

[dmayne7]

45 minutes ago, Sunbury Fox said:

Blackburn is in reality a much smaller club than us and Sheff Wed never had the success we had. Leeds under Ridsdale is probably the closest comparison to us as they gambled financially to challenge for the top 4 and did pretty well for a while in terms of qualifying for Europe and getting to the SF of the UCL. They also crashed quickly to League One, as we have. But they didn't win anything like us so their fall was still not as spectacularly bad as ours.

The Leeds one is the best comparison but as you say, not as bad. But I'd say that's because football only really became a closed shop a good few years after that and Leeds' failure was, as you point on, from gambling on success and spending the money to to back that up. We gambled but not in the same way. Our net transfer spend is pretty modest compared to most clubs and it's not like we were offering big wages to get players that otherwise would never have joined us. Ultimately we were just thick and pissed money away for no reason.

[tinpot_fox]

lol, please everyone stop saying the Maresca was stopping the rot or whatever. The rot started with the contracts handed out after the title winning season, morally it was right and good thing to do but from a business sense it committing to financially back those players from our own pot instead of letting them move on if the right offer had come in for the individual player to continue to flourish elsewhere whilst we could back our recruitment department to strengthen our squad with the funds they brought in. It’s been subsequently proven we don’t have the funds to of some other clubs to let players kick their heels in the reserves when they don’t work out. Winning the championship under Maresca was done whilst breaking the rules for which we were later punished. Previously when there was problems, it felt like changes could be made before the rot made us drop too low, now there appears to be no plan in place for more than the optimal planned outcome of this season.

[Dan]

I was willing to back Aiyawatt given I thought Vichai had done a decent job. I thought the Puel to Rodgers move was really encouraging and a sign that he was serious about it.

 

He's turned out so bad it's barely believable. We're the combination of the worst run club in the country with an astounding number of fans that aren't willing to do anything about it.

 

My confidence in him plummeted early in 2022/23 when Rodgers survived the first 7 games. It was a strange feeling - I was so, so sure he was going to be sacked after the 6-2 loss at Tottenham going into an international break and there were literally zero signs that it had even crossed their minds. I really do mean my confidence plummeted in quite a short space of time. It was that international break where I became convinced he was an idiot and we were in real trouble.

 

The final chance at redemption for me was the summer of 2023 where he had a chance to admit the wrongs. Make drastic changes at the club. Rudkin and Whelan out. Get serious about fixing one of the most unnecessary fumbles in my lifetime. He totally blew it - he let those two mark their own homework. From that point he was at the point of no repair for me. The probability of him all of a sudden realising his errors were tiny from that point.

 

I knew he'd eventually take us back to League One after that point but I have to say even I didn't realise the speed it would happen. He oversaw the most pathetic top flight season in our history and then followed it up with the literal worst season in our history.

 

You would've been considered a psycho for suggesting what has played out, would play out. Even I would've done, and I've definitely got a bit of doom in me.

 

The last two seasons have been worse than a disgrace. If it wasn't for the extraordinary goings on at Tottenham we'd be the laughing stock of the country and we probably are even despite that. He's done so badly that it makes me wonder if I could still make it in the game. I think you could've put more than 50% of this forum in his position from that point and we wouldn't have turned out this bad.

 

We have overpaid players relative to their ability and a culture at the club that does not incentivise high performance. Quite the opposite. Nearly everyone who gets out gets their career back on track. There are no consequences at Aiyawatt's Leicester for failure. It's actively rewarded from the very top.

 

So when there is an even weaker squad next season, given the ability to underperform, given they're able to finish below teams like Oxford United, Portsmouth who pay a very small % of what we do in wages, then why does it stop in League One? They have proven they are capable of falling below teams you would've laughed your head off for suggesting we could fall below in the last 12 months - so I don't see why that stops now.

 

He's an absolute utter disaster.

[SafewayFox]

11 hours ago, dmayne7 said:

The Leeds one is the best comparison but as you say, not as bad. But I'd say that's because football only really became a closed shop a good few years after that and Leeds' failure was, as you point on, from gambling on success and spending the money to to back that up. We gambled but not in the same way. Our net transfer spend is pretty modest compared to most clubs and it's not like we were offering big wages to get players that otherwise would never have joined us. Ultimately we were just thick and pissed money away for no reason.

This is what winds me up so much.

 

Our record transfer fee (Youri) is roughly £10m less than Palace’s FFS!

 

Yet, we went out and still offer obscene wages to dross. Whilst also appearing to do zero homework on their character.

 

Brentford have their “no dickhead” policy yet we seem to only want weak, spoilt mercenaries.

[CrazyKopCorner]

If you'd set out to destroy the club you couldn't have done a much better job. 

[Katy]

We were talking about this on Friday night, weirdly, and how concerned we were that Aiyawatt would sell up after the crash. Foolishly we thought that he would take on and follow the plan Vichai had set out and I guess he tried, until it was time to set out another 5/10 year plan and that’s where it all went to shit. Hindsight is a wonderful thing 🤦🏻‍♀️ 

[Finnegan]

20 hours ago, Stadt said:

Allowing Congerton into the building was proof enough they had absolutely no clue. His record at Celtic, Sunderland and Hamburg was abysmal.

 

It also made it very clear that Rudkin was delegating absolutely everything to Rodgers and not really doing much a modern DOF should be doing. 

 

[Stadt]

Just now, Finnegan said:

 

It also made it very clear that Rudkin was delegating absolutely everything to Rodgers and not really doing much a modern DOF should be doing. 

 

Pearson’s club building efforts - which were far beyond what almost any manager has ever done - completely masked Rudkin’s fecklessness. He was also bailed out by Walsh staying on a touch longer (he was apparently overlooked for the DoF role, unbelievably).

 

He’s been incorrigibly bad from day 1 it’s just he’s had others doing his job for him. Any body any good behind the scenes has left quickly, Idiakez, Halajko, McGuinness et al.

 

He’s shameless. Even if he retired though we’d ****ed because Top is somehow more clueless.