Sooper Steve's shin

Our decision was a bit of an outlier and only turned on us changing our accounting date and getting relegated. Man City and Everton don’t have that to rely on, but this may cause a wobble with the PL realising they don’t have absolute power. I’d be expecting City and Everton’s lawyers to be making a massive push for an “out of court” settlement right now (with a financial penalty rather than points deduction). The PL could be rattled enough to accept.

The decision and the PL’s statement reveal some serious concerns about the PL. They talk about having these rules for fairness and sanctity of the competition, but hunt us down to try and pin a sanction on us even though we got ABSOLUTELY NOTHING out of apparently breaching the rules. We were relegated FFS. To have a regulatory body come out and say that they are “disappointed” that they can’t apply a penalty to us is scandalous - they don’t even know whether we breached because we didn’t give them final accounts. If that - and Chelsea’s ludicrous hoovering up of players and dodgy academy deals - doesn’t show that the PSR system is a farce, hopefully the fact that they’ve so obviously ballsed up writing their own rules will make them think again.

Clear plan so far has been to start solid and use game changers/finishers - and it has worked, to a degree. We have finished both home games stronger. I like how Mavididi has played when he’s come on, but I don’t know if he would be doing that from the off if he started. He works well against a tired full back, but he may get frustrated and found out if he started (and arguably that is happening to Fatuwu a bit at the moment). It’s fairly pragmatic management from Cooper that is not necessarily setting pulses racing but could work out better for us in the longer term than going too gung-ho and getting smashed. Spurs (especially) and Villa would have battered us on the counter if we started too aggressively and we could have had two heavy defeats. Southampton’s game this weekend showed the naivety of trying to play the same way as in the Championship. The international break has come at a good time to take stock and hopefully tweak things to come out stronger. We have much more attacking options than a few weeks ago and some of those will have to play a role as impact players. Hopefully, there can be an adjustment to bring a little more creativity from the outset - Buonanotte (or another attack minded midfielder) in for Ndidi from this weekend’s starting lineup seems to make sense, Wilf was a bit lost with Winks and Skipp controlling the centre and we know he doesn’t have the skills at this level to be a 10. I think one of Mav or Fats in the starting XI is fine with a more disciplined player on the other side. We can mix it up, but Mavididi probably deserves a run at starting. Edouard or Ayew could be reasonable starting options up front with Vardy coming on late for impact/nuisance value. I think Ayew has looked decent enough and could also fill in wide or behind - he has the experience and a bit of PL knowledge that we lack otherwise. I would be happy to give Okoli more time. He wasn’t standout today but largely fine and offers more pace and a natural left sided CB that we don’t otherwise have. In order of preference as partner, I would say Coady then Vestergaard and then Faes. The latter is too prone to mistakes, not disciplined enough for the PL. I though Vestergaard did well first two games and he would be fine but Coady gives a little extra comfort and leadership. At full-back, I’d probably go with Ricky and JJ - Kristiansen has been fine and could come in for either of them (with the other switching to the right). Couple of other positives to finish: first, how Cooper speaks after games. Very clear, no blame and no hiding. It’s quite refreshing, especially compared to BS Brendan. The other thing is mixing it up - the obvious comparison here is Maresca, who would only ever switch like for like with subs. Against Villa, Cooper brought on Buonanotte, El Khannous, Mavididi, McAteer and Decordova-Reid while taking off the likes of Skipp, Ndid and Okoli. Five attacking subs and Vardy played the whole game! It didn’t work out in the end but it wasn’t for want of trying.

Picked up the new third “Ice Kings” shirt. Much nicer in reality than the photographs - I think they’ve shot themselves in the foot a bit with the pics that have been published. It’s not white, it is an actually a very subtle ice blue (the collar has white bits for contrast). Navy on the sleeve stripes and badge sets it off nicely. Good to see the old logo although the multiple repeat of it is probably not the best use.

I would sell him in a heartbeat if anyone offered any sort of money. Not good enough defensively, too rash. Coady, Vesty, Nelson and even Ndidi and Justin would all play ahead of him in my team. Probably Okoli too, although I’ve not seen enough of him.

Hopefully around June next year.

Feels like we are after one or the other. I’d be expecting Cooper to be looking at a 4231 formation so either could play the 10 role behind the striker that we didn’t have last season. It would keep Mavididi and Fatawu on the wings where they excelled and allows Winks and Ndidi to play together (I don’t think Wilf can be dropped after signing a new contract and I can’t imagine we’d play him in an attacking role in the PL). The alternative would be a more defensive 4321 with two of Mav, Fats and new signing in front of Winks, Wilf and one from Choudhury, Soumare or a youngster.

We could be holding onto him for now as a makeweight in a deal - one of the “unrelated transactions” (like Golding with KDH) that a lot of teams seem to be doing this summer. It’s the fact he is homegrown and any money received is pure profit that CN immediately be banked. The PL have to fix this though - it makes no sense.

Surprised about Maswanhise, thought he was a good prospect coming through.

Still don’t think he gets enough credit for his management and tactics. Yes, we came out of the Great Escape season and from the outside you might assume that we carried momentum from there, but there were actually quite a lot of changes. Pearson finished up the season with three centre-halves (Morgan, Huth and Wasilewski), Ranieri took us back to four at the back. We lost our player of the season in Cambiasso and second top scorer David Nugent. He swapped the attacking focus from our 2014/15 top scorer Ulloa to Jamie Vardy and played Okazaki in behind. At the time, it was fairly bold to drop Ulloa to an impact sub role. In the early part of the season, he changed both full backs, introduced Kante (initially coming on as a sub on the wing!) and relied much more on Albrighton (who’d only played 20 games the previous season). James and King had the most appearances of our midfielders in 14/15 after Cambiasso, but Ranieri developed the Drinkwater-Kante combination. One thing I remember about the early weeks is that we suddenly seemed much better at seeing out games to the end. I recall Pearson’s time as quite chaotic and nervy at the end of games, but Ranieri instilled something that made us much less nervous. We had the run of (very Italian) 1-0 games at one point in the middle of the season that he managed to perfection. I don’t think the 40 point target started off as a particular tactic, it was a fairly legitimate target for a team that had just come mighty close to relegation. As our good start developed into a great one, it became a bit more of a focal point for relieving pressure - of course we weren’t thinking about the title or Europe after two or three months - but Claudio started to say it with a little glint in his eye as he began to think we might be well capable of surpassing it. We had everything go for us that season - the spirit, the amount of players peaking at the same time, nobody else really taking the fight to us etc. But there was a special touch from Claudio as he used his experience and tactical knowledge in exactly the right way.

If he shaves his head, he’s got the Pep/Enzo look that we need.

Outstanding work.

Vestergaard being good.

He can be next season’s Connor Coady. Coady can be Vardy’s second season. Souttar to be next season’s Vestergaard.

Personally, I think he is criminally overrated - often makes sloppy mistakes, gets caught out of position and a shaky defender at best. That run was typical too (where would he have been if it had bounced to a defender and they broke away?).