Time for a wildcard?

I would not give him a chance Donnington. If he was good enough he would already be in the squad. I think Vardy from the bench is about our best bet.

"Yes, he could. He could be totally outclassed in every department."

You mean, like pretty much every player we have put on the pitch this season?

Personally I think we should use the remaining dozen or so matches as preparation for the Championship, almost like an early pre-season, and I think that should include giving one or two youngsters a chance.

Although, I'm not sure I would be looking at playing Panayiotou specifically as I'm not entirely sure where he is as a player - I can't recall him being loaned out, he seems to have disappeared off the fact of the Earth since scoring at Leeds.

However, I'd certainly be looking at playing Lawrence and Barmby, maybe even Hopper. The argument about "what if they are outclassed, it could damage their career" is irrelevant IMO - they would be playing with the aim of gaining experience, not being PL class players from the start. If anything, entering them into a dead rubber of a season now and gaining worthwhile experience against PL quality players would be beneficial compared to putting them straight into the rough, unforgiving Championship when I would hope we would be looking to push for promotion.

And as I said above, frankly most of the squad have proven to be absolutely useless at this level so I don't see what more harm picking one or two lads can do. We're a dead duck club lead by a lame duck manager - at least let's try and get some use out of the remaining games we have left.

Although knowing Pearson, he'll still be hauling Nugent and Vardy off the bench when they're OAPs

There's less issue with someone like Hopper or Lawrence being given a go as it may be considered their next step of development. But I still wouldn't do it, at least not until relegation is a mathematical certainty.

And I know you're probably joking, but while many of the squad have come up short few of them have been totally outclassed and embarrassed this year. Maybe Knockaert at times, but the rest have at least competed.

Dunge, your loyalty does you credit, but surely all of our players have been outclassed this season, yes we have put in the odd good performance especialy Man u, and should have more points.However this cant hide the fact that the whole club from the owners downwards have been severely found wanting this season,the players have shown themselves to be out of their comfort zone, and the manager out of his depth.The season cant end soon enough, and the whole club needs to great changes after what has been a disastrous few months

I'm in agreement with Thorney. With 10 players out of contract, and the likes of King, De Laet, Vardy etc clearly out of their depth at this level, we should be looking at wholesale changes in the summer. If these players aren't good enough now, they won't be in 18 months time when they're a year or two older. I would rather commit wholesale changes and it take 2 years to get promoted than keep things as they are, go up next year and then face the same fate in two years time.

Number of points on which to quickly comment as the subject of our academy and its performance would need detailed article and explanation and I am travelling.

First of all the point on Harry Panayiatou and his readiness to be brought into the squad and future potential.

One point to remember is that he was blooded into the squad at the end of 2011/12 season when he came on as sub at Elland Road and scored winner. His reward was a public slap down from Pearson for the nature of his celebrations –which involved rushing over to the supporters and joining in their jubilation.

What Pearson did not know – nor ever will because of his non involvement in local Leicester football was that besides his dad –the crowd contained all his mates from Aylestone Park FC –a few from New Parks Fc ,myself and my sons and a crowd from Saffron Lane Estate where he grew up. Ac local boy celebrating scoring for his home town club –

I have seen just about every game he has played throughout his time at Leicester as I had two players involved in the same age group as Harry since 2005. He has met every challenge presented and whilst he should not be introduced whilst there is still a remote chance of staying in Premiership –but I believe our future lies with developing young talent and we are logistically placed to select from a wide demographic..

But before end of season – we should play Harry and in my opinion Joe Dodoo because for sure –next season when many of our current first tem squad have moved on and hopefully our manager – I hope we will have a modern progressive first team coach who understands the necessity of encouraging and coaching of young professionals.
It will not happen under Rudkin – a first class administrator but not in my opinion a conveyor of coaching skill – but we need to amalgamate Academy strategy with a long term team club target.

We had an excellent second in command in the Academy – Tony Laughlin- who moved on to firstly join Roy Keane at Sunderland and then became first team coach with Sean Dyche –where he still is at Burnley. When Pearson is finally sacked I would love to see Tony come back to run the Academy – let Rudkin stay in the Director of Football role – suits him- and bring in a top coaching Manager who will also embrace Academy in his planning.

One final point on this – I always admired the coaching strategy at Nottingham Forest Academy under Nick Marshall – who put a premium on skilled players and their development – over academy results – our emphasis was too much on results and often we developed the all purpose artesan player over skill.

Nick was one of the casualties when Billy Davies had his ethnic cleansing – now a key man working for Brendan Rodgers at Liverpool Academy – whose template for harnessing Academy and first team opportunity I would love to see at Leicester

One last point Dunge –in my opinion winning 4 games out of 27 played means you are playing out of your class – margin of defeats are reduced by Pearson following a defence orientated selection policy of damage limitation –seemingly to protect his diminished reputation- and to hell with trying to actually win games

I know that you can talk about ifs, buts and maybes until the cows come home, but imagine if we hadn’t conceded late goals against Burnley and Everton we’d be third from bottom with a game in hand on Villa. We didn’t and those opportunities are gone, but my point is that I believe it’s been fine margins rather than being totally outclassed. That all makes it doubly frustrating and (yes Foxello, JG, Thorney and co.) it does make you question whether a different manager would have found that extra 10% required.

I can’t help feeling that subtly changing the approach and personnel might still improve our chances in the remaining games. I don’t think that we will survive, but so much success in football is built on momentum. We’ve seen it with promoted League 1 teams hitting top six in the Championship the following season. I think we should try and build our own momentum between now and the end of the season so at least we can restore a bit of optimism within the club and hit the ground running in August.

Given this I don’t see any necessity to throw any of the development players into the first team. I confess to not being close enough to them to really know how good they could be, but I can’t help thinking that if any of them were close we’d have heard a lot about them by now. If we had a player or two that could perform at this level then they’d be ripping up trees at the clubs some of them are loaned to. I’d rather keep them under wraps as surprise packages next season rather than putting them in the shop window now, which is exactly what we would be doing if they were young players with genuine premier league potential.

Dunge
Agree with your sentiments in this debate.
As for those wanting WHOLESALE changes IF we are relegated, I couldn't disagree more.
Yes the club will more than likely dispense with NP and his team, Yes maybe three players will generate interest from Premiership clubs (but all three have ready made replacements at the club for the Championship), but IMO if we undertake wholesale changes it has the potential to destabilise the firm foundation that the club has developed over the last couple of years.
I understand a certain level of change will be warranted but please NO wholesale changes that could leave us in the wilderness again.
JG - have to disagree ( quelle surprise ) about your final paragraph.
NP team selection this season has been based purely on him trying to protect his reputation!! I have heard lots of guff from you ( some I actually take on board and agree with) , but this is just astounding......
So NP has not tried to win any games this season, therefore the games we have won are down to the players alone? Correct?
Therefore ALL of the games we have lost must be down to the players as well and not NP 😂.
Really JG, if I had a biscuit you would have just taken it...........

No wonder the horses don't have blinkers down here at Cheltenham -you are wearing them Tommy... might have escaped your notice that we have only won 4 games all season and the last 20 games we have scored 15 goals - indeed a feast of attacking winning football from the Fuehrer

I think he's got you there Tommy.......the 5-4-1 formation in must win games says damage limitation at worst or getting a draw at best....

How else would you explain this approach against Villa in the cup? Burnley came away from the Etihad wi a draw because they attacked City, we were never going to stop them scoring at home....