Summer 2022 priorities (and realistic options)

[TMELcfc]

Being cynical … are the board and Brendan at loggerheads over transfers? The noise was vestergaard and Bertrand were his signings (although that was maybe just fan opinion), he’s come out and run on about a supposed overhaul in the summer when I thought the club was struggling unless we sold…

No matter what fans may think of the job Rodgers has done, I believe Top sees this season as a bit of a failure and not forgetting dropping out of top 4 last season… if anyone saw his face / lap after the game when he was handing out T-Shirts, he looked a bit pi**** off.

 

Something just doesn’t feel right, I don’t think they are backing him like they have previously, but it may just be the lack of activity is driving me mad 🤪 (And bored)

[Dahnsouff]

We will be doing nothing until after the internationals I imagine, only then will we have a clearer picture on how much outgoings may bring in

[Shane]

14 hours ago, Sankey93 said:

Isaak Toure going to Man City by the looks of it. Le Havre player only costing 5 million! We would of been all over tbis few years ago.

Definitely one we would have scouted a few years ago. Would have been a great signing! We should try hijack the bid.

 

[Supergray22]

18 hours ago, Ric Flair said:

I think we've got a huge storm brewing that makes or breaks us. Right now we are still a hugely promising PL club but we're on a bit of a knife edge due to a number of reasons and most of them are the price of success that we've achieved.

 

1) the training ground and stadium expansion rely on us being in the PL and prospering, it would be a disaster to see us flirt with relegation when these are to be repaid over a number of years where the impact is less of a burden whilst we're pulling in good money

 

2) we've a changing of the guard of 2 of our most legendary and important players we've ever had in Kasper and Vardy, that alone is a scary prospect and enough to see a regression but couple it with some other squad uncertainties and it's a real headache

 

3) we've a number of players running their contracts down which becomes a nightmare to deal with. Tielemans and Soyuncu are this years concern and we'll be lucky to fetch half of what we'd perceive their value to us if a club had come sniffing a year ago but more worryingly is Maddison and Ndidi who with only 2 years left become a massive problem if they don't sign new deals in the coming months. Both have been hugely successful here and been here a long time that in their mid twenties they might think its time for a new challenge. Reduced fees for those 2 next year, plus reduced fees for Tielemans and Soyuncu + Vardy and Schmeichel can quickly rip us apart and there's no guarantee we won't be significantly weaker as a result when we replace them. 

 

There's been very little flexibility in our finances to change our approach like we might have been able to do before, we continue to push it to the maximum and I do wonder if Top needs to make some brave calls in his investment, because although my post might seem dramatical, we could run in to a lot of trouble in the next 12-18 months and it's a long road back to where we've been these last 6-7 years.

 

Our recruitment and decision making has to be nigh on faultless in these next few transfer windows, I'm not seeing enough succession planning yet to be confident we've got plenty of angles covered for the future.

 

A very good summary and I agree with your assessment. I think we are all feeling in an uncomfortable place due to this uncertainty. 
 

The main difference to previous seasons is the contract situation which affects our paper value and needs to be better addressed in the future if our model is to work. We have seen more of this behaviour recently in other clubs too but it is more dangerous for clubs like us particularly when it involves key players. 
 

The off season uncertainty is even more concerning this season due to the issue you raise in your penultimate paragraph. The effect of the pandemic on club resources. In previous recent seasons we have relied on liquidity and capital provided by the owners. If a couple of promising acquisitions had been made already on the back of reasonable sales we probably would all feel far less nervous right now. 
 

The pandemic probably did hit our clubs owners disproportionately to other owners due to the nature of their business and less diversification. The investment in off the field infrastructure is a wise investment longer term if we are to be able to compete with those big clubs. It does bring some short term financing risk to our model especially in the short term.  
 

I think we have to just trust in the club to navigate these choppy waters as in previous seasons. Either way we will have much more certainty in a few weeks time and that alone will make many of us sleep better. 

[Shane]

Some great talents in this twitter thread @Ric Flair. A lot of them haven’t signed a new contract. Reyes Cleary is a great talent. Harrison Burrows at Peterborough could be a good signing, 10 g/a from LWB/LB last season. 

 

 

 

 

Edited 14 June 2022 by Shane

[Ric Flair]

39 minutes ago, Shane said:

Some great talents in this twitter thread @Ric Flair. A lot of them haven’t signed a new contract. Reyes Cleary is a great talent. Harrison Burrows at Peterborough could be a good signing, 10 g/a from LWB/LB last season. 

 

 

 

 

👍👍👍

[Pliskin]

Has maxence lacroix been mentioned? He’s a beast.

[NasPb]

Come on leicester ffs, be a bit daring. Bring in some young exciting talent, do some thinking outside of the box. We've become predictable on and off the field lately. Sad stuff, and we're the one causing our own pain! 

[NasPb]

17 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

What pain? We've got a decent squad that needs some minor surgery in certain areas - relax and keep the faith. 

I agree but i don't think we're acting soon enough. I know we need tielemans ane cags out to generate funds but I'd like to see more ambitious moves and more of a focus on young talent along with SOME shrewd older heads as signings 

[Foxxed]

13 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

What pain? We've got a decent squad that needs some minor surgery in certain areas - relax and keep the faith. 

I think more than minor if Youri goes. I wouldn’t be surprised if another first teamer goes.

[Dahnsouff]

Just now, Foxxed said:

I think more than minor if Youri goes. I wouldn’t be surprised if another first teamer goes.

I think you are right and we could easily see 3 significant players leave, perhaps even 4

Youri, Cags, Kel and perhaps 1 more

Don`t count Praet or Hamza as significant outgoings

[Dahnsouff]

Just now, pmcla26 said:

Who could this be though? Kasper or Castagne possibly? Really hoping neither of those two go this summer, to be honest. Heard a few fans say WIlf, but that would be ludicrous, in my opinion. We need to get him and Maddison on new deals and make them the spine of our team, alongside Fofana and Daka (if he carries on his progress in this upcoming season - which I'm confident he will). 

Wilf is an obvious one tbh, he is one of my favourite players, but I could see him being moved out in favour of a ball winning plus ball playing deep midfielder.

But there are other significant players who could go, and it may depend on who turns up with a sizable sack of cash. Man Utd turn up and say 70m for Maddison, what do we say?

 

This thought makes me think WHO cannot be sold? Is anyone off the bargaining table? Is our change in behaviour down to some feeling that we no longer need to be a selling club? Are we muddying our own way of operating with thinking we make more revenue than we do?

 

[LFox99]

12 minutes ago, NasPb said:

I agree but i don't think we're acting soon enough

We announced Daka on the last day of June last year, we announced Soumaré on the 2nd of July last year, Lookman was a deadline day signing. For Daka we didn't have any news until a few days/ one week before the move was announced, Soumaré was impossible to keep quiet, given its the French league and Lookman was done within a matter of hours.

The major windows don't open for another 2 weeks. Calm yer tits

[Dahnsouff]

1 minute ago, pmcla26 said:

Well I'm anticipating the starting 11 (and included their back ups) to look a bit like this next season: 
 

Kasper 

 

Castagne/Ricardo

Fofana 
Evans/New centre back

JJ

 

Ndidi 
KDH 

 

New RW/Albrighton

Maddison

Barnes 

 

Vardy/Daka

 

I think anyone not included in that 11/as a definite back up, we will listen to offers for. I'd be disappointed to see any of those included above leave this summer. 

That gives you

• Youri (30m)
• Soyuncu (18m)
• Praet (10m)
• Hamza (5m)
• Kelechi (25m)
• Others representing "change" (8m)

Vague worst case (??) figures, that makes the entirety of our transfer budget to 96m (Maybe Euro's)

Sounds a fair bit, but if we were to buy CDK for 30m, we are already to 66m to get 5 more players alledgely....

 

 

 

 

 

[LFox99]

5 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

That gives you

• Youri (30m)
• Soyuncu (18m)
• Praet (10m)
• Hamza (5m)
• Kelechi (25m)
• Others representing "change" (8m)

Vague worst case (??) figures, that makes the entirety of our transfer budget to 96m (Maybe Euro's)

Sounds a fair bit, but if we were to buy CDK for 30m, we are already to 66m to get 5 more players alledgely....

 

 

 

 

 

Thats some very worst case figures. Youri should fetch us that fee in pounds, Soyuncu shouldnt go for anything below 25m and in a market where clubs are paying silly money to get strikers, we shouldn't have trouble pushing Kele's fee a bit as well

[An Sionnach]

6 minutes ago, LFox99 said:

Thats some very worst case figures. Youri should fetch us that fee in pounds, Soyuncu shouldnt go for anything below 25m and in a market where clubs are paying silly money to get strikers, we shouldn't have trouble pushing Kele's fee a bit as well

Its not the fee its the pay that is the major barrier to us selling. The saga with Ghezzal illustrated that. Professional footballers rarely take a dock in pay when in contract.

[Dahnsouff]

21 minutes ago, An Sionnach said:

Its not the fee its the pay that is the major barrier to us selling. The saga with Ghezzal illustrated that. Professional footballers rarely take a dock in pay when in contract.

Agree and finding the buyers is the challenge this year. Again.

[Sankey93]

Dunno if this is premature but I’m getting worried. We haven’t been linked with anyone who’s reliable other then CDK! What’s the crack with Madeuke and Aouar? Unless we are going under the radar which I hope.

[moore_94]

Just now, Sankey93 said:

Dunno if this is premature but I’m getting worried. We haven’t been linked with anyone who’s reliable other then CDK! What’s the crack with Madeuke and Aouar? Unless we are going under the radar which I hope.

In recent seasons unless the player is coming from France there tends to be very little around us signing a player until the deal is pretty close or progressing well already

[JimJams]

The Aouar links were on the premise of being a Youri replacement (in the press at least) and he's still here, so that's a no go presumably 'til we shift a Belgian of the non-Praet variety.

[Ric Flair]

Bayern willing to let Sabitzer go after a season, pay a big loan fee with option to buy please. I know he's 28 which is not usually the profile of player we do well with but he is borderline word class on his day.

 

Can play 8, 10 or even as an inverted RW.

[Aleksz]

Just remembered this Szalai bloke whilst watching the Hungary game.

 

The talk on that one went very quiet considering we supposedly want this left footed CB.

 

Probably a matter of time until we’re linked again. 

[Grebfromgrebland]

Something isn't right in the background. If you want 5 or 6 players and have thought this since January then you should have at least 1 or 2 lined up by now. They've had 6 months to work on this.

 

There's no point waiting till the window opens then thinking of bidding. 

 

Either that or they're doing a great job of keeping things quiet and we're going to be pleasantly surprised in a couple of weeks.

Edited 14 June 2022 by Grebfromgrebland

[Sankey93]

43 minutes ago, moore_94 said:

In recent seasons unless the player is coming from France there tends to be very little around us signing a player until the deal is pretty close or progressing well already

Hope so mate it’s been very quiet hasn’t it. I’m just in patient and want it now  

[Sankey93]

38 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

Bayern willing to let Sabitzer go after a season, pay a big loan fee with option to buy please. I know he's 28 which is not usually the profile of player we do well with but he is borderline word class on his day.

 

Can play 8, 10 or even as an inverted RW.

This would be amazing but can’t see it!