Evening all. It’s good to be back and I hope you’re all well and coping with todays horrible cost of living news! Just to cheer you all up even further I thought I’d post my views on the current predicament at Leicester currently. It’s a pretty tough time being a Leicester fan at the minute and I’m afraid it looks like it will get worse before it gets better
Leicester and Brendan are breaking up. It’s a slow, painful break up and it won’t conclude anytime soon in my opinion, but the magic has gone. Just like a whirlwind romance, it was all great and exciting for the first two years but right now, both parties are getting sick of the sight of each other. Brendan leaves the toilet seat up and Rudkin doesn’t say ‘I love you’ anymore.
The reason I don’t think Brendan will be going any time soon however is for 2 reasons. Firstly, Brendan actually has quite a lot of power at the club, the first two seasons have got him a lot of backers in high places, many of which are still with him and are influential. Secondly and the reason I believe we’re in real trouble - we’re absolutely skint and we’ll struggle to pay him off. The only way I see him going is if we’re bottom by November and we’re headed down.
The second point brings me on to the next issue. Even if we bin Brendan off tomorrow, our problems aren’t going to suddenly disappear and neither are they all of Brendan’s making. While I’m no fan of him these days, the fact is that Tops own personal wealth has taken an absolute kicking over the pandemic. On top of that Leicester have been well over 80% as a ratio of wages to turnover, last season sailing perilously close to the FFP winds in a bit of a gamble to retain European football
To exacerbate the situation. Jon Rudkin has let the contractual side of player agreements get into a real mess. The club now have several assets who they could lose for nothing and have acquired some dross they can’t now get rid of - while clubs are coming in for players we don’t want to sell. A perfect storm for low player morale, a frustrated manager (who is partly to blame) and no money to do anything about it
We need to prepare ourselves that once Brendan goes - the damage, brought on by Covid hitting our finances and some questionable decision making from our DoF is going to still be inflicting the club. Do we really think another manager is going to relish jumping into the hot seat with nothing to spend? Ultimately to get out of this mess in the long run , the club needs investment and it needs it quickly.
I really worry that the morale in the camp is so low, that alongside Rodgers clearly not being committed anymore, that we will sink into the bottom 3 for the foreseeable. We’re not too good to go down. By the time the inevitable happens I think the club will be struggling for a decent replacement - remember when Taylor left?!
Let’s hope someone can take the reigns and get something out of these players to keep us up this season. In the meantime the club needs a refresh both on and off the pitch and maybe the time is coming for Top to finally think about selling his investment.
I think we’re in trouble….
posted on 26/8/22
comment by Ace (U22861)
posted 8 minutes ago
comment by 99 Problems (U12353)
posted 1 hour, 33 minutes ago
Hey Mersey, good to hear from you! When I say skint, I agree, it’s not Derby County levels - but fundamentally we’re skint from a footballing perspective because Top isn’t putting anymore of his money in right now. That’s no criticism of Top, his wealth has gone from something like £5.2bn down to something like £1.7bn - but without that it leaves us in flirting with financial danger in terms of FFP.
I can’t remember the last time I saw a PL club not making a single addition to the squad in summer without being in some sort of embargo. The hardline stance on Fofana means we’re not in financial dire straights as a club (yet), but if we go down, we certainly will be. Top has been hit harder by Covid than most PL owners and we have to accept, in football terms, we are not a wealthy club at all - there are championship clubs whose owners are richer than ours
I feel that to ultimately move forward, we need investment. Otherwise we’re stagnating and regardless of the manager, we’re going backwards as a club. I’m hearing that even if we get £85m for Fofana, Rodgers will have less than £40m to spend on a centre back, midfielder and a right winger. That’s not a good sign of where we’re headed with a stadium expansion and a new training facility to pay for. Let’s hope we can stay up and give ourselves a chance of moving some deadwood on next season and possibly getting more investment in
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Tottenham didn’t sign a player from Jan 2018 until summer 2019. 18 months and two full transfer windows. Still finished top 4 twice, and made a CL final in that period, but that was due to the juice left in the tank of the existing squad. Failing to evolve it was very costly and saw us drop down to Conference level and lose Poch, and almost Kane too but for some smart recovery business by Levy in fending City off and getting Conte in. Basically, the lesson was if you stand still, you go backwards.
My two close pals that support Leicester seem to think that the impact of covid on Thai tourism has had a huge effect on your owners ability to financially back the club, meaning you have to sell to buy but nobody trusts Rodgers to do that effectively. Furthermore, your sellable assets are your best players (Tielelmans, Fofana, Maddison) as opposed to deadwood. Which means the squad needs to be weakened in order to raise funds to strengthen it - perverse as that sounds. Surely you have to A) sell the assets now, asap, to give yourselves the best opportunity to use the money to rebuild the squad effectively before the window closes. And B), sack Rodgers. If he’s not trusted, if he’s hanging by a thread do it now rather than wait til 2 games after the window closes when you’ll inevitably, having scanned the fixtures, have been on the end of a couple of more defeats.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Great post that sums it up very well. I think sacking Rodgers now, while costly, will ultimately benefit us in the long run while regrettable having to sell off the prize assets. Better to rebuild with the right person at the helm
posted on 27/8/22
Sadly I agree with all that is said,our club appeared to be in trouble,there is an air of disattisfaction around the club both on and off the pitch.
It reminds me very much of the last few weeks of Ranieri s time here. All very worrying, but if Rodgers goes then who would we get???
Who would really want to come under the present circumstances??
Also it is widely known that the King Power group are significantly cutting back on the number of racehorses that they own,not a good sign..
Would never criticize our wonderful owners ,but we have to wonder what is going on with the rest of hierarchy at our club,are the all pulling together.?
Very difficult times ahead, really cant see where our first win is going to come from.
posted on 27/8/22
Good post Thorne. No criticism at all for the owners as you say, but it’s clear that financially things have taken a real turn for King Power holdings. Some owners have been affected far more than others depending on the industry they operate in and where their assets are based - I fear it will be some time before Top is able to put more money into the club.
In the meantime, we’re getting ourselves in a mess contractually with players. It seems ridiculous to me that we have so many players coming into the final year of their contract and we stand to lose the likes of Tielemans and Soyuncu for nothing. Letting players run their contracts down is just poor management from Rudkin - they aren’t going to be motivated, we can’t sell them because clubs know they can get them for nothing in Jan and it sends the wrong signals to the rest of the squad
posted on 27/8/22
We have a pretty good squad that'll attract so many good managers, the problem is Rodgers thinks he has taken the club as far as he can and he is afraid the only direction he is taking us now is down.
If you look at Barnes and Maddison stats from last season it is up there with the league's very best, between them they've had about 60 goals/assists last season, which is remarkable, and Vardy last season has the best goal per game ratio in the league, so our defence let us down much and heavily due to injuries and set piece poor organisation. I think if Rodgers believe we are not good enough to compete for Europe and have a decent performance then he should leave the earlier the better before it is late. The owners have been backing us really good, and Rodgers talking about £25m net spend durian his time, that's because we have overpriced and sold Maguire and Chilwell but not because reasonable amount is not been invested in bringing in players. Let's look at the performance today, if the players are not playing for him then it is time to say thank you and move forward.
posted on 27/8/22
Hi 99, firstly it's great to see you posting again.
I always prefer to try and look for the positives. Although we are clearly in a financial position where we have to sell before we can buy, I don't see that this is a change to where we have been recently - we have of course paid ever increasing record amounts for players (£40M for Tielemans for example) but this has been balanced by selling our 'best' players for large amounts of cash (Kante, Drinkwater, Mahrez, Maguire, Chilwell). The difference at present is that we haven't sold anybody, until yesterday with the Fofana deal apparently being made. I do acknowledge that Top & Co's business has likely been badly affected which may have an impact.
When assessing where we are, I like to think that our limited transfer activity is a sign of prudence on behalf of the management. We have of course made an addition to the squad to cover us losing Schmeichel - I'm not saying this is a straight replacement by any means! As an aside - it's interesting that Googling Schmeichel these days gives Kasper as the first hit rather than Peter!
Given that the Fofana transfer was always likely to happen, I'd be astonished if we didn't have some costed replacement targets in mind to acquire over the next few days; if nothing happens by the end of the window I may start getting more nervous!
If little Wes is on his way he goes with my best wishes. I think it is quite a risky move both for him and Chelsea, although I expect if all goes well he will develop into a world class defender. It's risky for him as he will arrive with a massive price tag but is not yet the finished article so could be under huge pressure quite quickly; another year or two with us would have put him in a much better position to make a big move. I wonder how he will be viewed there, he isn't (yet) dominant aerially (unlike Rudiger) which may prove an issue. It's risky for Chelsea as he isn't proven and doesn't have the best injury record (not wishing anything on him there by the way). Time will tell I suppose.
As for Brendan, the vibes he's giving off aren't good - it seems to be anybody's fault but his when we don't perform well; this has been going on since the end of last season. I'm not usually in the sack the manager camp this early, but if he can't take the team forward, it may be best for both parties to agree a parting of the ways sooner rather than later - before we get too much in trouble.
Someone would be likely to come to us. Ranieri did, and that was to a team who had looked relegation certainties for much of the previous season. Unfortunately I can't see Potter jumping ship at Brighton to join us - he doesn't appear to be insane although I suppose money may of course prove a factor!
posted on 27/8/22
comment by NijaFox (U21877)
posted 4 minutes ago
We have a pretty good squad that'll attract so many good managers, the problem is Rodgers thinks he has taken the club as far as he can and he is afraid the only direction he is taking us now is down.
If you look at Barnes and Maddison stats from last season it is up there with the league's very best, between them they've had about 60 goals/assists last season, which is remarkable, and Vardy last season has the best goal per game ratio in the league, so our defence let us down much and heavily due to injuries and set piece poor organisation. I think if Rodgers believe we are not good enough to compete for Europe and have a decent performance then he should leave the earlier the better before it is late. The owners have been backing us really good, and Rodgers talking about £25m net spend durian his time, that's because we have overpriced and sold Maguire and Chilwell but not because reasonable amount is not been invested in bringing in players. Let's look at the performance today, if the players are not playing for him then it is time to say thank you and move forward.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Interesting that a number of your points are more or less what I've said above - I didn't see yours until I'd posted mine!
posted on 27/8/22
Thanks Nuneaton and good to hear your thoughts. I would agree that our business model has always been prudent as opposed to other clubs in our position and that’s the sign of a well run club. I do think financially something has changed however. I don’t remember us being in a situation before of having to sell before buying. Last season we didn’t sell anyone and before that, it’s always happened concurrently with our incomings - this time it feels like we’re so tight on finances that no one comes in at all until there’s some wriggle room. That’s different for me
The club have been sailing very close to the wind on FFP - it’s surprising to see how high the wages to turnover ratio is and part of that of course is because Top isn’t putting any more money into the club when I actually feel we really need it. I don’t blame him at all, I don’t think he can.
I worry there’s a shock coming down the line for Leicester fans on the financial side. Like I say, we’re not Derby, but we’re struggling to even stand still right now and if you look at the amounts Forest, Wolves and others around us are spending, it’s a concern.
The first priority is staying up. I think we have a job on our hands with the morale, the disruption of outgoings, losing influential people like Kasper and also Brendan’s own obvious discontent. We’re more than good enough to stay up and that has to be the priority but in the long term it’s becoming clear to me that we need investment to move forward
posted on 27/8/22
comment by NijaFox (U21877)
posted 16 minutes ago
We have a pretty good squad that'll attract so many good managers, the problem is Rodgers thinks he has taken the club as far as he can and he is afraid the only direction he is taking us now is down.
If you look at Barnes and Maddison stats from last season it is up there with the league's very best, between them they've had about 60 goals/assists last season, which is remarkable, and Vardy last season has the best goal per game ratio in the league, so our defence let us down much and heavily due to injuries and set piece poor organisation. I think if Rodgers believe we are not good enough to compete for Europe and have a decent performance then he should leave the earlier the better before it is late. The owners have been backing us really good, and Rodgers talking about £25m net spend durian his time, that's because we have overpriced and sold Maguire and Chilwell but not because reasonable amount is not been invested in bringing in players. Let's look at the performance today, if the players are not playing for him then it is time to say thank you and move forward.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks Nija. The owners have definitely backed us in their time and last summer backed Rodgers as well, but in comparison to even our contemporaries, it’s small beer to be honest. Our business model relies on incredible recruitment and finding hidden gems because we don’t have the spending power of clubs around us let alone above us.
Now that’s a very delicate tightrope to walk. In the past we’ve done it very well by buying Fofana, Mahrez, Kante, Vardy etc. Last season was different however with money spent on utter rubbish to be honest with the exception of Daka. I think that’s knocked on to this season - we don’t have much to spend so when we do the club has to get it spot on.
Martin Glover should make a big difference hopefully as the Lee Congerton era has been extremely underwhelming! Once Fofana goes, we need a seriously good centre back to come in cos we’re left with an over the hill Evans, an unhinged Turkish warrior and Daniel Amartey!!!
posted on 27/8/22
Really good post and really good agreement pretty much between us all.
This perfectly sums it up for me..
“As for Brendan, the vibes he's giving off aren't good - it seems to be anybody's fault but his when we don't perform well; this has been going on since the end of last season. I'm not usually in the sack the manager camp this early, but if he can't take the team forward, it may be best for both parties to agree a parting of the ways sooner rather than later - before we get too much in trouble.“
My issue is he’s complaining too much about a squad that’s actually strong and more than capable for challenging Europe. The way he’s talking we’ll be lucky to stay up. The way he’s managing them at the minute I agree!
posted on 27/8/22
I don’t like the way Brendan’s talking either but it’s actually not that uncommon for managers to do when they’re not getting what they want. Can you imagine what Conte or Mourinho would be saying publicly if they had nothing to spend and had to work with Daniel Amertey and Soyuncu as their pick of first choice centre backs?!
I’m not excusing Brendan, he needs to shut up and it was very naive to be talking about a squad refresh before he knew the extent of the financial situation. I do think that any manager worth his salt is going to find the situation at Leicester frustrating.
I don’t believe we have a squad capable of challenging Europe. That was 2 seasons ago, not now and certainly not when we’ve lost Fofana. I don’t think we have the personnel defensively to challenge for Europe. Evans isn’t the player he was 2 seasons ago, Soyuncu isn’t good enough, Amartey is a championship player, Vestergard can’t play in our system and Bertrand is absolute rubbish.
I would have to disagree this is a squad capable of going for Europe with that defence.