Brendan Rodgers

[Dames]

16 minutes ago, JimmyC74 said:

Even in survival mode we should have a plan for recruitment / player retention.

 

For as much as we received praise for maximising the return on Maguire we deserve criticism if we allow Youri and Madders to exit for next to nothing.

 

Personally I think we missed a trick not getting an upgrade on Rudders years ago. 

Rudkin has been dining out on a few good sales for years, everything else thats happened in the past 2-3 years in terms of recruitment and retention is on his head. 
 

6 minutes ago, coolhandfox said:

We can't afford to buy players because we have a bloated wage bill, from trying to have a squad big enough to coping with European football.

 

Next season see us trim that by about 400k a week, which is around 20m a year on top of the money we cut this year on 7m of Kasper wages and a pay cut for Vardy.

 

You have to start a rebuild somewhere.

Still screams lack of long term plan to me other than throw around money we cant afford and see what sticks and its backfired. A few seasons ago we had a clear recruitment strategy and now we have next to 0 direction or mission as a club. All we currently exist for at the minute is to give the manager a platform to remind everyone that he exists. 

[coolhandfox]

2 hours ago, Dames said:

Rudkin has been dining out on a few good sales for years, everything else thats happened in the past 2-3 years in terms of recruitment and retention is on his head. 
 

Still screams lack of long term plan to me other than throw around money we cant afford and see what sticks and its backfired. A few seasons ago we had a clear recruitment strategy and now we have next to 0 direction or mission as a club. All we currently exist for at the minute is to give the manager a platform to remind everyone that he exists. 

If it was as easy as some make out every club would be successful. 

 

20/21 was an excellent window Castange and Fofana.

 

We have had very one poor window, we spent 60m and not one player worked 21/22, Daka, Soumare, Betrand and Vestergaard. The first two fitted our recruitment profile young hungry players from winning teams.

 

Easy to see them in a different light in hindsight, both were seen as good signing at the time. The only ones you could real fault was Vestergaard, Bertrand.

 

That one poor window, not achieving European football and the after effects COVID on the clubs finance has created the current issue.

 

Big 6 clubs can afford to have poor window and carry on in the same spending vain, we can't.

 

We have to reset and go again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 28 December 2022 by coolhandfox

[Dames]

2 hours ago, coolhandfox said:

If it was as easy as some make out every club would be successful. 

 

20/21 was an excellent window Castange and Fofana.

 

We have had very one poor window, we spent 60m and not one player worked 21/22, Daka, Soumare, Betrand and Vestergaard. The first two fitted our recruitment profile young hungry players from winning teams.

 

Easy to see them in a different light in hindsight, both were seen as good signing at the time. The only ones you could real fault was Vestergaard, Bertrand.

 

That one poor window, not achieving European football and the after effects COVID on the clubs finance has created the current issue.

 

Big 6 clubs can afford to have poor window and carry on in the same spending vain, we can't.

 

We have to reset and go again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m not saying its easy but the club hasn’t managed to convince any of its star players to sign a new deal with us without the promise of an agreement to a transfer within a few seasons. To me that doesnt fill me with that much confidence the club has a long term plan or project to convince our best players to stick around. 
 

Signing Bertrand and Vestergaard on huge deals also screams lack of long term planning. Any fan could tell you that they weren’t worth it but the pros in charge seen fit to do it anyway.

 

Maybe there is a plan in the background but at the moment I imagine it involves cleaning up the messes from prior lack of planning and I doubt there is anything in the pipeline to have us challenging to be successful again any time within the next 5 years. Especially with this clown in charge. 

[Guest Col city fan]

40 minutes ago, Dames said:

I’m not saying its easy but the club hasn’t managed to convince any of its star players to sign a new deal with us without the promise of an agreement to a transfer within a few seasons. To me that doesnt fill me with that much confidence the club has a long term plan or project to convince our best players to stick around. 
 

Signing Bertrand and Vestergaard on huge deals also screams lack of long term planning. Any fan could tell you that they weren’t worth it but the pros in charge seen fit to do it anyway.

 

Maybe there is a plan in the background but at the moment I imagine it involves cleaning up the messes from prior lack of planning and I doubt there is anything in the pipeline to have us challenging to be successful again any time within the next 5 years. Especially with this clown in charge. 

Signing Bertrand and Vestergaard is a sackable offence in itself.

Im actually being serious. These scouts/recruitment analysts are very well paid people. They absolutely should know whether players they are looking at are going to cut the mustard at this level.

I’m not talking about the risky signings of younger players (like Soumare) who have played in other leagues, but Bertrand was clearly a crock and Vestergaard just not good enough.

That’s not an insubstantial amount of money there on two players who have added nothing (zero) to our chances of progressing as a football club.

It shows again, I think, that two many feet are firmly under the table of LCFC. Whether Top just doesn’t have the goolies to shuffle the non-playing pack a bit, I don’t know. But in business, errors on the scale of these would have led to serious questions being asked.

And rightly so.

[coolhandfox]

50 minutes ago, Dames said:

I’m not saying its easy but the club hasn’t managed to convince any of its star players to sign a new deal with us without the promise of an agreement to a transfer within a few seasons. To me that doesnt fill me with that much confidence the club has a long term plan or project to convince our best players to stick around. 
 

Signing Bertrand and Vestergaard on huge deals also screams lack of long term planning. Any fan could tell you that they weren’t worth it but the pros in charge seen fit to do it anyway.

 

Maybe there is a plan in the background but at the moment I imagine it involves cleaning up the messes from prior lack of planning and I doubt there is anything in the pipeline to have us challenging to be successful again any time within the next 5 years. Especially with this clown in charge. 

We will always be a feeder club for the top 6 teams, you are going to be waiting a long team for that to change, they can pay double we can pay in salaries.

 

If you look back at there treads for both Bertrand and Vestiguard around 80% consider the, to be solid signing at the time, a lot will deny it but use the search function and have a look, and they aren't on huge deals they are on good PL wages but not crazy money. the average PL wage is around 60k they are in a around that give or take 10k

 

Have they been value for money hell no, but to say they are on huge deals.

 

You can have all the plans in the world, doesn't mean they are going to work out.

 

We have punched above our weight for 3 or 4 years out of the 8 we have been back in the PL, its not normal for a club of our size, show me an example of a club of similar size challenging for more then a 2 or 3 seasons in a row in the PL era.

 

 

[coolhandfox]

21 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

Signing Bertrand and Vestergaard is a sackable offence in itself.

Im actually being serious. These scouts/recruitment analysts are very well paid people. They absolutely should know whether players they are looking at are going to cut the mustard at this level.

I’m not talking about the risky signings of younger players (like Soumare) who have played in other leagues, but Bertrand was clearly a crock and Vestergaard just not good enough.

That’s not an insubstantial amount of money there on two players who have added nothing (zero) to our chances of progressing as a football club.

It shows again, I think, that two many feet are firmly under the table of LCFC. Whether Top just doesn’t have the goolies to shuffle the non-playing pack a bit, I don’t know. But in business, errors on the scale of these would have led to serious questions being asked.

And rightly so.

Lot of hindsight, use the search function and go back and see how many City fans were happy back when they signed more then you would think.

 

Recruitment is the hardest thing in football, so me another club that does make mistakes.

 

Do we need to do better yes, but every club has bad windows once in a while.

 

 

[Ric Flair]

3 hours ago, coolhandfox said:

If it was as easy as some make out every club would be successful. 

 

20/21 was an excellent window Castange and Fofana.

 

We have had very one poor window, we spent 60m and not one player worked 21/22, Daka, Soumare, Betrand and Vestergaard. The first two fitted our recruitment profile young hungry players from winning teams.

 

Easy to see them in a different light in hindsight, both were seen as good signing at the time. The only ones you could real fault was Vestergaard, Bertrand.

 

That one poor window, not achieving European football and the after effects COVID on the clubs finance has created the current issue.

 

Big 6 clubs can afford to have poor window and carry on in the same spending vain, we can't.

 

We have to reset and go again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It doesn't take a lot for recruitment, succession planning and squad progression to get disrupted and you have to act quick to get it back on track and we haven't done yet. Couple this with running in to trouble on how much we've spent on wages during our successful years in our pursuit to remind the best of the rest and expose the big 6, not to mention the impact of covid and a squad declining and its the perfect storm.

 

The missed opportunities most of us regret and the frustrations at wasted money are difficult to ignore but for me I can accept that's part and parcel of pushing things to the max but my biggest concern is we don't seem to have any long term plan we've put in place regarding our state of the art training facility. To me, opening that would be part of a vision of having the best academy in the country, a recruitment model that was so fast paced at identifying players, improving them and they either become long term successes here or are sold because the elite want them or we ascertain it's right to cash in on them and the conveyor belt continues.

 

I've seen none of that, at the time it has opened we've not invested in our academy, we've not changed our recruitment direction in signing rough diamonds with the aim of the above and the whole thing just doesn't really align with what we are doing. Hopefully in time all of that can happen but it requires the financial flexibility to do so and we don't have that because we've retained players for far longer than we should have and they are running their contracts down and we'll not only get barely anything for them but be expected to replace them and it not impact on our short term future. I know the work permit rules that have changed have made it a lot harder to execute the vision I've described for overseas young players but we don't even attempt to utilise Leuven in getting around that to bridge the gap.

 

We are heading for relegation if we don't ace the next couple of transfer windows, Martyn Glover has a huge task ahead of him. 

[Guest Col city fan]

2 minutes ago, coolhandfox said:

Lot of hindsight, use the search function and go back and see how many City fans were happy back when they signed more then you would think.

 

Recruitment is the hardest thing in football, so me another club that does make mistakes.

 

Do we need to do better yes, but every club has bad windows once in a while.

 

 

Yes but we aren’t recruitment analysts at a Premier League football club.

Both Bertrand and Vestergaard have been around for years. Any ‘recruiter’ worth their salt should be able to discern whether or not players like these would improve us.

As is so often at the moment, this sounds like excuses mate. We aren’t Man Utd or Chelsea. We can’t afford to get this so wrong.

[PAULCFC]

I still go back to the summer of 2016 and the chance we missed being a side who had just won the premier league and in the Champions league.We could have kicked on from there......but we didn't.

[coolhandfox]

Just now, Col city fan said:

Yes but we aren’t recruitment analysts at a Premier League football club.

Both Bertrand and Vestergaard have been around for years. Any ‘recruiter’ worth their salt should be able to discern whether or not players like these would improve us.

As is so often at the moment, this sounds like excuses mate. We aren’t Man Utd or Chelsea. We can’t afford to get this so wrong.

But all club do, you just have to get more right than wrong.

 

There is a reason Glover is here and Congerton is gone, yes if left of his own accord but it was a jump before being pushed.

 

[ARM1968]

5 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

Yes but we aren’t recruitment analysts at a Premier League football club.

Both Bertrand and Vestergaard have been around for years. Any ‘recruiter’ worth their salt should be able to discern whether or not players like these would improve us.

As is so often at the moment, this sounds like excuses mate. We aren’t Man Utd or Chelsea. We can’t afford to get this so wrong.

I think most said on here that they were junk signings. We’re not paid what they are and yet most of us knew these were utter gash. Sometimes assuming the right people are in place is just plain wrong. 

[David Hankey]

4 minutes ago, PAULCFC said:

I still go back to the summer of 2016 and the chance we missed being a side who had just won the premier league and in the Champions league.We could have kicked on from there......but we didn't.

Was that because our owners achieved their ambition?

[SouthStandUpperTier]

1 minute ago, PAULCFC said:

I still go back to the summer of 2016 and the chance we missed being a side who had just won the premier league and in the Champions league.We could have kicked on from there......but we didn't.

I'm sure the club tried, but it takes more than one season to change a player's perception of a club and make it a desirable place to be. The fact that Kante left and Mahrez would have if given the chance was a prime indicator of that.

[Beachyboy]

17 minutes ago, coolhandfox said:

 

We have punched above our weight for 3 or 4 years out of the 8 we have been back in the PL, its not normal for a club of our size, show me an example of a club of similar size challenging for more then a 2 or 3 seasons in a row in the PL era.

I think Sunderland did for about that period but then the drop off happened quickly

17 minutes ago, coolhandfox said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

17 minutes ago, coolhandfox said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 28 December 2022 by Beachyboy

[Dahnsouff]

2 minutes ago, David Hankey said:

Was that because our owners achieved their ambition?

If that was the case then they would have sold the club at peak value

[PAULCFC]

1 minute ago, David Hankey said:

Was that because our owners achieved their ambition?

No idea,but if you look at the signings that summer it was underwhelming especially as we knew we had european football to contend with the next season.

 

2 minutes ago, David Hankey said:

Was that because our owners achieved their ambition?

 

[coolhandfox]

7 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

It doesn't take a lot for recruitment, succession planning and squad progression to get disrupted and you have to act quick to get it back on track and we haven't done yet. Couple this with running in to trouble on how much we've spent on wages during our successful years in our pursuit to remind the best of the rest and expose the big 6, not to mention the impact of covid and a squad declining and its the perfect storm.

I agree, I think we got fat lazy and a little greedy, thinking we had cracked it with a couple of 5th place finishes,

 

I see this summer as a reset combine with the arrive of Glover, it would have been easy to bungle on this summer rather then draw a line under it and stop the rot. It was pretty brave of the club to be willing to make no signings.

 

No surprise we have turn to a head of recruitment use to working on a budget, I expect a return to a more measure recruitment plan. 

7 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

The missed opportunities most of us regret and the frustrations at wasted money are difficult to ignore but for me I can accept that's part and parcel of pushing things to the max but my biggest concern is we don't seem to have any long term plan we've put in place regarding our state of the art training facility. To me, opening that would be part of a vision of having the best academy in the country, a recruitment model that was so fast paced at identifying players, improving them and they either become long term successes here or are sold because the elite want them or we ascertain it's right to cash in on them and the conveyor belt continues.

 

I've seen none of that, at the time it has opened we've not invested in our academy, we've not changed our recruitment direction in signing rough diamonds with the aim of the above and the whole thing just doesn't really align with what we are doing. Hopefully in time all of that can happen but it requires the financial flexibility to do so and we don't have that because we've retained players for far longer than we should have and they are running their contracts down and we'll not only get barely anything for them but be expected to replace them and it not impact on our short term future. I know the work permit rules that have changed have made it a lot harder to execute the vision I've described for overseas young players but we don't even attempt to utilise Leuven in getting around that to bridge the gap.

I think they new training ground with bare fruit but it long term rather then a short term fix, we need a new Academy in my view. 

7 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

We are heading for relegation if we don't ace the next couple of transfer windows, Martyn Glover has a huge task ahead of him. 

Yes he does, but I think it could be a opportunity to rebuild and go again. 

[coolhandfox]

11 minutes ago, ARM1968 said:

I think most said on here that they were junk signings. We’re not paid what they are and yet most of us knew these were utter gash. Sometimes assuming the right people are in place is just plain wrong. 

Go back and have a look you will be surprised. 

Edited 28 December 2022 by coolhandfox

[coolhandfox]

5 minutes ago, SouthStandUpperTier said:

I'm sure the club tried, but it takes more than one season to change a player's perception of a club and make it a desirable place to be. The fact that Kante left and Mahrez would have if given the chance was a prime indicator of that.

You have hit the nail on the head.

[urban.spaceman]

9 minutes ago, PAULCFC said:

I still go back to the summer of 2016 and the chance we missed being a side who had just won the premier league and in the Champions league.We could have kicked on from there......but we didn't.

 

4 minutes ago, David Hankey said:

Was that because our owners achieved their ambition?

 

4 minutes ago, SouthStandUpperTier said:

I'm sure the club tried, but it takes more than one season to change a player's perception of a club and make it a desirable place to be. The fact that Kante left and Mahrez would have if given the chance was a prime indicator of that.

There was an FFP law called ‘Short Term Cost Control’ that prevented clubs from increasing their wage spending by more than 7% on the previous year. Which meant that we couldn’t offer contracts to players that were of Champions League level because we only had a survival budget. We couldn’t compete with Chelsea’s wage offers when they came for Kante. 
 

This is what held us back IMO. Which is why it’s extra infuriating to see Newcastle smash their wage budgets and spend £235m on one year. So ****ing unfair. 

[Sunbury Fox]

18 minutes ago, PAULCFC said:

I still go back to the summer of 2016 and the chance we missed being a side who had just won the premier league and in the Champions league.We could have kicked on from there......but we didn't.

Apart from spend more time in the top 4 of the PL than any other club (including Man City!) over a 2 year period (obviously we missed our on CL both times), win the FA Cup for the first time ever, reach the CL quarter final, get to a Euro semi and in general be the most successful non big 6 club over the last 6 years, you mean? I get the summer 2016 transfer window was terrible but it's simply not true to say we've not kicked on since the PL win. Unless you think we should have won the PL again? 

[daddylonglegs]

Can’t believe he still won’t give kelechi a run in the team by the way 

[SouthStandUpperTier]

3 minutes ago, daddylonglegs said:

Can’t believe he still won’t give kelechi a run in the team by the way 

You should by now. It's been clear since the day BR walked through the door at the KP that Nacho just isn't his cup of tea. His presser today, saying that we need a striker with "power and speed" was another veiled little dig at Nacho imo.

[cruzFOX]

Some great analysis on here from everyone. Think we’ve covered every angle except what Top, Susan and team have been thinking. Of course we will never know but if only we did. I for one wish we the fans had a closer relationship to the executive team. Just once every season a sit down to discuss future planning & vision. The club still has so much to look forward to I refuse to believe there is no ambition or passion. Top is not the kind of guy who will want to milk past successes under his dad or his own. Failure or demise in business or running this club is not an option for him. It’s forever going to be his family’s legacy a jewel to behold and protect. Compared to other clubs our owners are unique and bound to us by spectacular & tragic events. In that sense it’s hard to compare with anyone else. So I will cut them some slack but we cannot afford to get relegated. A few seasons to reset in the premier league is fine. The mighty foxes will be back stronger and better let’s keep the faith. Remember this:

FOXES NEVER QUIT

[Dames]

57 minutes ago, coolhandfox said:

We will always be a feeder club for the top 6 teams, you are going to be waiting a long team for that to change, they can pay double we can pay in salaries.

 

If you look back at there treads for both Bertrand and Vestiguard around 80% consider the, to be solid signing at the time, a lot will deny it but use the search function and have a look, and they aren't on huge deals they are on good PL wages but not crazy money. the average PL wage is around 60k they are in a around that give or take 10k

 

Have they been value for money hell no, but to say they are on huge deals.

 

You can have all the plans in the world, doesn't mean they are going to work out.

 

We have punched above our weight for 3 or 4 years out of the 8 we have been back in the PL, its not normal for a club of our size, show me an example of a club of similar size challenging for more then a 2 or 3 seasons in a row in the PL era.

 

 

I’d accept the feeder club excuse if the club didn’t come out a few summers ago making a song and dance about not selling any key players and looking to kick on only to immediately reverse ferret a year later. Still doesnt scream long term plan. Personally I think we should be sitting somewhere where Ric has said in his post but you just can’t see anything coherent from the club at all. 
 

I think you’re confusing the Transfer forum threads with the confirmed signing threads. There was a lot of worry about Vestergaard until he actually signed and most people said alright we’ll give him a chance. Bertrand i’ll give you as a good chunk of people thought we couldnt do badly out of it on a free (turns out we actually could…). 
 

I still think 70k a week for two players regarded as back up is huge, especially for a club with a turnover such as ours.

 

I agree with punching above our weight but we were hoping to be the exception to the norm, yes we sold players but we reinvested wisely and kept building and pushing. For a time it really looked like we had everything nailed down and Rodgers and Congerton have messed everything up.