Relegation

[Metal Lover]

We are not staying up, that is becoming increasingly obvious.  No manager worth their salt will want to go down with this rusty ship.  Need to look for young progressive manager that can build a team for success in the Championship.  None come to mind.

[jim5000]

12 hours ago, FoxOfMelton said:

Even if we signed Giardiola with Zidane as his assistant, I don't think we'd stay up.

The players just aren’t up to it. For all the grief Tielemans got for lack of effort this season, our midfield without him is completely devoid of creativity and ability.

 

Mendy-Ndidi-Soumare against Bournemouth  

[JimmyC74]

2 minutes ago, jim5000 said:

The players just aren’t up to it. For all the grief Tielemans got for lack of effort this season, our midfield without him is completely devoid of creativity and ability.

 

Mendy-Ndidi-Soumare against Bournemouth  

The midfield is unbalanced with no creative alternative to Youri. Soumare was supposed to be that player but just hasn’t been anywhere near the levels needed.

 

Many of the players are underperforming this season and share responsibility.

 

we haven’t been able to move some out which reflects poorly on our DofF and the strategy of appointing a head of recruitment who couldn’t start until the end of the window.

 

but once you start the season with that squad if the mgr can’t get a tune out of them you have no other option but changing the mgr - right or wrong.

 

ultimately the strategy employed this season has been sh*te and heads need to roll because we most likely have ruined a decade of progress.

[filbertway]

3 hours ago, Babylon said:

And let us not underplay how difficult that actually is. How many owners can people point to that get everything right, as well as investing their own money and not just loading the club with debt.

 

Trying to grow the club on and off the pitch is a knife edge balancing act with plenty of risks. They’ve got some wrong, but we did under Vichai. People act like he was faultless.

Tony Bloom and Matt Benham seem to be the best. Consistently improving year on year for a long time. Especially Brentford who let's be fair are massive punching above their weight.

 

Two intelligent men who have a plan and process which will see them over the long term maintain growth and improvement. Will be interesting to see how bloom reacts to De Zerbi going to the press and saying he wants more control over signings though. If he's as good as I think he is he'll tell De Zerbi to get on board or get on his bike.

 

The Newcastle owners are operating very intelligently as well so far. Improving the backroom staff and a clear plan to develop over time. Like an actual plan with stuff happening and not just the empty words you see from so many owners.

 

Vichai made a tonne of mistakes, one his main strengths that I'm sure served him so well was that he tended to acknowledge, act on and learn from his mistakes fairly quickly. 

[jim5000]

9 hours ago, Pliskin said:

It is slightly irritating me how some people can’t see how detrimental relegation will be for us. Fans around me were saying “I prefer the championship, it’s more fun”….  
 

We’ve already know finances are tight, and that’s with the PL revenue…. So with financial issues, and no PL revenue how will things be any better? 
 

There won’t be a reset, there will be a mass clear out by necessity….. just to function.

 

So many aspects of the club will be impacted by relegation…. The stadium won’t be as full, in order to be full ticket prices would have to be dropped, meaning a loss of revenue….. 

 

Then you’ve got the issue of this new training facility? How on Earth will we be able to run this properly with a massively reduced income? Something will have to give, and you fear the ladies team will suffer as they will probably have to sell the old training ground to generate funds…..

 

On top of this you’ve then got the stadium expansion? What will happen there? As it will have to go ahead because that’s what we’ve taken the loan out for? So that’s another unnecessary expense the club will have to compete with. 
 

Then you’ve got the squad. Naturally a lot of players are leaving due to their contracts, however, some of those players are valuable assets, so we won’t be getting any money for half of them….. then we will have to sell the big earners to reduce the wage bill and we will have to generate funds….. so you’re thinking Faes, Ricardo, N’didi, Maddison, Barnes, Soumare, Daka, and Kalechi…. To name a few will have to go.

 

Which leaves us with having to find a squad, with a limited budget, and try to sort the rest of the club out in the meantime. 
 

The championship is a very unforgiving league….. I genuinely fear back to back relegations, just because of the sheer size of the task ahead….. we’ve ****ed up massively over the last two seasons, and have to undo all of that and rebuild in a summer following relegation? Wow. 

I think there has been a real naivety by the board. They underestimated the quality of the Premier League and assumed as we had  5th place finishes they could stand still for a while, not invest in the squad for two years, and things would be fine.

 

In Rodgers defence, our squad is bloated, lacks ability, and far to many players are running down their contracts and leaving in June.

[fox_favourite]

Looking at our fixtures left we’ll have to win 4 in a row, or at least an unbeaten run, to more or less save our skins. Just can’t see it. We’ve proven that all season that we can’t. 
 

Definitely not getting anything from Man City, Liverpool and Newcastle. 
 

Just got a level of inevitability about it. 

Edited 6 April 2023 by fox_favourite

[LCFCJohn]

I looks pretty certain now barring some freak turnaround.

 

I think a big reason for this is the lack of margin of error now.

 

Of course we have a number of game we are capable of winning

 

Bournemouth, Wolves, Everton, West Ham (H)

Leeds (A)

Fulham away minus Mitrovic? Maybe they’d be on the beach at that point.

 

The other 3 games are write offs.

 

But we are now in a position where we pretty much would have to win all those 4 homes games plus Leeds away. The margin of error has gone due to a failure to pick up draws such as the last two games that have been lost late on.

[wardyfox86]

3 wins, a draw, and avoid getting spanked in any other games, which I know is unlikely. Can't see 2 of Forest, Bournemouth, Everton and West Ham picking up 9 points before the end of the season.

[shailen]

All the other teams in the mix aren't any better than us. We're in the worst form, but still we're only two points from safety. Everyone is as hopeless as each other, and with us playing our relegation rivals directly and at home, it remains in our hands. 

[Daggers]

20 hours ago, Pliskin said:

It is slightly irritating me how some people can’t see how detrimental relegation will be for us. Fans around me were saying “I prefer the championship, it’s more fun”….  
 

We’ve already know finances are tight, and that’s with the PL revenue…. So with financial issues, and no PL revenue how will things be any better? 
 

There won’t be a reset, there will be a mass clear out by necessity….. just to function.

 

So many aspects of the club will be impacted by relegation…. The stadium won’t be as full, in order to be full ticket prices would have to be dropped, meaning a loss of revenue….. 

 

Then you’ve got the issue of this new training facility? How on Earth will we be able to run this properly with a massively reduced income? Something will have to give, and you fear the ladies team will suffer as they will probably have to sell the old training ground to generate funds…..

 

On top of this you’ve then got the stadium expansion? What will happen there? As it will have to go ahead because that’s what we’ve taken the loan out for? So that’s another unnecessary expense the club will have to compete with. 
 

Then you’ve got the squad. Naturally a lot of players are leaving due to their contracts, however, some of those players are valuable assets, so we won’t be getting any money for half of them….. then we will have to sell the big earners to reduce the wage bill and we will have to generate funds….. so you’re thinking Faes, Ricardo, N’didi, Maddison, Barnes, Soumare, Daka, and Kalechi…. To name a few will have to go.

 

Which leaves us with having to find a squad, with a limited budget, and try to sort the rest of the club out in the meantime. 
 

The championship is a very unforgiving league….. I genuinely fear back to back relegations, just because of the sheer size of the task ahead….. we’ve ****ed up massively over the last two seasons, and have to undo all of that and rebuild in a summer following relegation? Wow. 

The stadium won’t be full of trippers? Oh no. 
 

Ticket prices will have to be reduced? That sounds awful. 
 

We’ll have to sell one of our two training grounds? It’s almost too terrible to contemplate. 
 

Not expanding the ground? But we all agreed how necessary that was for us. 
 

We’d have to shift our top earners off the wage bill in return for £millions? How could the club survive? We’d never be able to use the income to recruit new players on lower salaries. 
 

Oh hang on, all of these are good things - all you’ve done is list off good things. Things the club should have been working on anyway but were too incompetent to organise. 

[Tommy Fresh]

As above, we're pretty bad but with how bad the teams around us are as well, it won't take much to stay up.

[Pliskin]

1 minute ago, Daggers said:

The stadium won’t be full of trippers? Oh no. 
 

Ticket prices will have to be reduced? That sounds awful. 
 

We’ll have to sell one of our two training grounds? It’s almost too terrible to contemplate. 
 

Not expanding the ground? But we all agreed how necessary that was for us. 
 

We’d have to shift our top earners off the wage bill in return for £millions? How could the club survive? We’d never be able to use the income to recruit new players on lower salaries. 
 

Oh hang on, all of these are good things - all you’ve done is list off good things. Things the club should have been working on anyway but were too incompetent to organise. 

Good things? This is exactly what I was referring too when I said people don’t seem to grasp the situation we’re in….

 

 

This club has been operating financially as if it is a top 6 club over the last few years…. Everything you’ve just listed will not replace the loss of revenue as a result of relegation….. any money we gain will have to be put back into the club again just to survive….

 

The only option they would have is King power dip into their own pockets and put millions into the club so it can run, and we can then work of any player sales to build a squad….. that won’t happen though….. and FFP in the football league is far more unforgiving than the premier league. 
 

 

Make no mistake about it. Relegation will ruin this club. Unless you’re of the opinion sequential relegations are a good thing because it gets rid of a few of the plastic fans. 

[Fox92]

8 minutes ago, Daggers said:

The stadium won’t be full of trippers? Oh no. 
 

Ticket prices will have to be reduced? That sounds awful. 
 

We’ll have to sell one of our two training grounds? It’s almost too terrible to contemplate. 
 

Not expanding the ground? But we all agreed how necessary that was for us. 
 

We’d have to shift our top earners off the wage bill in return for £millions? How could the club survive? We’d never be able to use the income to recruit new players on lower salaries. 
 

Oh hang on, all of these are good things - all you’ve done is list off good things. Things the club should have been working on anyway but were too incompetent to organise. 

I'll give you some bad ones then -

More games to cram in means more night games

Away ticket prices are not capped

The quality in general is just worse

[oadby.fox]

10 hours ago, jim5000 said:

I think there has been a real naivety by the board. They underestimated the quality of the Premier League and assumed as we had  5th place finishes they could stand still for a while, not invest in the squad for two years, and things would be fine.

 

In Rodgers defence, our squad is bloated, lacks ability, and far to many players are running down their contracts and leaving in June.

But to be fair, a lot of these issues are also attributable to Rodgers, though the board haven’t helped themselves. 
 

Bloated squad? Mainly because Rodgers has brought players in that he either has no intention of using or no idea how to use (Perez, Praet, Bertrand, Vestergaard, Soumare, and Daka to an extent). That’s six players which either barely play at all or who rarely make an impact. They were all signed by Rodgers and yet it’s hard to place any of them within our system and say a good deal about what they bring to the team. Of course, here is where the board are also culpable as a few of them like Vestergaard, Bertrand and Perez never seemed sensible to begin with. We also held off selling players in order to strengthen the squad for competition across the league and Europe.

 

Contracts? Isn’t wholly Rodgers’ fault but he was backed with the hope of securing a champions league place and being backed requires the club not to sell players as much as it means buying new ones (e.g., look at Arsenal under Wenger, his biggest complaint was that he’d develop these gems like Fabregas, Van Persie, Nasri, Clichy, Sagna only for them to be sold to rivals when they became good enough). The hope, then, if people remember, was that people like Youri and Maddison might sign extensions once we were in the champions league. We would be able to offer them the glamour of Europe, more money and we would likely be able to attract a better supporting cast. We should’ve had enough to get over the line in both seasons, Rodgers should’ve managed the situation better. Now these players will leave for free or at a reduced price, especially in the event that we are relegated as it diminishes our negotiating position. He’s certainly responsible for the relegation (the picking of Ward alone can be singled out as a major contributing factor) and he’s also responsible for pushing for players like Bert and Vesty. Players who have hamstrung the finances.

 

Ability? I agree that many of his signings have been below par but why did he push to sign some of them then? Additionally, how many players have regressed since he joined? A whole squad of players doesn’t just threaten to break the top four for 2/3 years and then become irrelevant over night. That’s some purple patch. Something has seriously gone wrong at the club and given that it concerns form, the manager has to be at the centre of that. I would appreciate these shortcomings more if the rest of the league was simply amazing but I can’t remember a season where the average quality was as poor as it is. Even Villa who are now chasing Europe were originally scrapping for points, they also looked bang average when we played them despite the form of the two teams.

[Daggers]

2 minutes ago, Pliskin said:

Good things? This is exactly what I was referring too when I said people don’t seem to grasp the situation we’re in….

 

 

This club has been operating financially as if it is a top 6 club over the last few years…. Everything you’ve just listed will not replace the loss of revenue as a result of relegation….. any money we gain will have to be put back into the club again just to survive….

 

The only option they would have is King power dip into their own pockets and put millions into the club so it can run, and we can then work of any player sales to build a squad….. that won’t happen though….. and FFP in the football league is far more unforgiving than the premier league. 
 

 

Make no mistake about it. Relegation will ruin this club. Unless you’re of the opinion sequential relegations are a good thing because it gets rid of a few of the plastic fans. 

Salaries - almost all on players who, stick with me closely here as it clearly got complicated for you, will (as you pointed out) no longer be here because we had to sell them. 
 

So, unless you know someone about Rudkin’s Netflix subscription that isn’t public knowledge, your claimed problem solved itself. 
 

The club has become bloated. Again, a result of poor decision making and management. Offloading some staff is sad but completely necessary too. 
 

You are yet to mention a single point of evidence as to how this ruins the club. It forces the board to reappraise how the club is currently run. This, again, is a good thing. 

[JimmyC74]

14 minutes ago, Daggers said:

The stadium won’t be full of trippers? Oh no. 
 

Ticket prices will have to be reduced? That sounds awful. 
 

We’ll have to sell one of our two training grounds? It’s almost too terrible to contemplate. 
 

Not expanding the ground? But we all agreed how necessary that was for us. 
 

We’d have to shift our top earners off the wage bill in return for £millions? How could the club survive? We’d never be able to use the income to recruit new players on lower salaries. 
 

Oh hang on, all of these are good things - all you’ve done is list off good things. Things the club should have been working on anyway but were too incompetent to organise. 

It’s not as easy as that though :-

 

1) typical broadcasting income in the Championship is c. 8m - so significantly lower than the EPL

2)matchday revenues will be lower

3)yes wage spend should reduce but I would expect it to be comparatively high as compared to the rest of the league

4)we lose 10-15 players and will need to recruit significant numbers with signing on fees etc.

 

5) we have already obtained financing based on EPL broadcast  revenues to fund transfer business.

 

I don’t see that we have lots of room for manoeuvre. 
 

if we go down hopefully we reset and bounce back quickly but, let’s hope it isn’t necessary and we can scramble over the line to safety.

[teblin]

Although relegation would be a disaster and it would mean starting again in terms of the squad. (Staying up is close to a total revamp anyway)

 

The advantage over when we have gone down before from a financial perspective is we have people out of contract who were on big contracts and also we have quite a few saleable assets. I’d say you could get £90 - £100 million from player sales. Madders, Barnes would make up 60 or 70 of that.

 

Then there are others that European and bottom half Orem teams would take. 
 

the biggest disaster would be from the stadium expansion point of view.

[phoneticerror]

5 minutes ago, teblin said:

Although relegation would be a disaster and it would mean starting again in terms of the squad. (Staying up is close to a total revamp anyway)

 

The advantage over when we have gone down before from a financial perspective is we have people out of contract who were on big contracts and also we have quite a few saleable assets. I’d say you could get £90 - £100 million from player sales. Madders, Barnes would make up 60 or 70 of that.

 

Then there are others that European and bottom half Orem teams would take. 
 

the biggest disaster would be from the stadium expansion point of view.

The stadium expansion is unwarranted anyway. I’d pull the brakes personally. We’ve not sold out many matches this year. 

[Dahnsouff]

21 minutes ago, oadby.fox said:

But to be fair, a lot of these issues are also attributable to Rodgers, though the board haven’t helped themselves. 
 

Bloated squad? Mainly because Rodgers has brought players in that he either has no intention of using or no idea how to use (Perez, Praet, Bertrand, Vestergaard, Soumare, and Daka to an extent). That’s six players which either barely play at all or who rarely make an impact. They were all signed by Rodgers and yet it’s hard to place any of them within our system and say a good deal about what they bring to the team. Of course, here is where the board are also culpable as a few of them like Vestergaard, Bertrand and Perez never seemed sensible to begin with. We also held off selling players in order to strengthen the squad for competition across the league and Europe.

 

Contracts? Isn’t wholly Rodgers’ fault but he was backed with the hope of securing a champions league place and being backed requires the club not to sell players as much as it means buying new ones (e.g., look at Arsenal under Wenger, his biggest complaint was that he’d develop these gems like Fabregas, Van Persie, Nasri, Clichy, Sagna only for them to be sold to rivals when they became good enough). The hope, then, if people remember, was that people like Youri and Maddison might sign extensions once we were in the champions league. We would be able to offer them the glamour of Europe, more money and we would likely be able to attract a better supporting cast. We should’ve had enough to get over the line in both seasons, Rodgers should’ve managed the situation better. Now these players will leave for free or at a reduced price, especially in the event that we are relegated as it diminishes our negotiating position. He’s certainly responsible for the relegation (the picking of Ward alone can be singled out as a major contributing factor) and he’s also responsible for pushing for players like Bert and Vesty. Players who have hamstrung the finances.

 

Ability? I agree that many of his signings have been below par but why did he push to sign some of them then? Additionally, how many players have regressed since he joined? A whole squad of players doesn’t just threaten to break the top four for 2/3 years and then become irrelevant over night. That’s some purple patch. Something has seriously gone wrong at the club and given that it concerns form, the manager has to be at the centre of that. I would appreciate these shortcomings more if the rest of the league was simply amazing but I can’t remember a season where the average quality was as poor as it is. Even Villa who are now chasing Europe were originally scrapping for points, they also looked bang average when we played them despite the form of the two teams.

Squad? Contracts? That’s on whoever controls the purse strings, or do you think that’s Rodgers too? We need to be careful not blame him for everything or we fail to acknowledge all those culpable.

 

Ability, yeah, that’s Rodgers especially if he requested certain signings and cannot improve them to the requisite level.

[FrankieADZ]

im on the fence with relegation now after Tuesday night, imo we didnt look bad and had more fight in us, another day we would have won that as we had some decent chance first half

Also feels like we've had no luck at times

 

[shailen]

 

Let's stay positive 

[MancFox24]

9 minutes ago, oadby.fox said:

But to be fair, a lot of these issues are also attributable to Rodgers, though the board haven’t helped themselves. 
 

Bloated squad? Mainly because Rodgers has brought players in that he either has no intention of using or no idea how to use (Perez, Praet, Bertrand, Vestergaard, Soumare, and Daka to an extent). That’s six players which either barely play at all or who rarely make an impact. They were all signed by Rodgers and yet it’s hard to place any of them within our system and say a good deal about what they bring to the team. Of course, here is where the board are also culpable as a few of them like Vestergaard, Bertrand and Perez never seemed sensible to begin with. We also held off selling players in order to strengthen the squad for competition across the league and Europe.

 

Contracts? Isn’t wholly Rodgers’ fault but he was backed with the hope of securing a champions league place and being backed requires the club not to sell players as much as it means buying new ones (e.g., look at Arsenal under Wenger, his biggest complaint was that he’d develop these gems like Fabregas, Van Persie, Nasri, Clichy, Sagna only for them to be sold to rivals when they became good enough). The hope, then, if people remember, was that people like Youri and Maddison might sign extensions once we were in the champions league. We would be able to offer them the glamour of Europe, more money and we would likely be able to attract a better supporting cast. We should’ve had enough to get over the line in both seasons, Rodgers should’ve managed the situation better. Now these players will leave for free or at a reduced price, especially in the event that we are relegated as it diminishes our negotiating position. He’s certainly responsible for the relegation (the picking of Ward alone can be singled out as a major contributing factor) and he’s also responsible for pushing for players like Bert and Vesty. Players who have hamstrung the finances.

 

Ability? I agree that many of his signings have been below par but why did he push to sign some of them then? Additionally, how many players have regressed since he joined? A whole squad of players doesn’t just threaten to break the top four for 2/3 years and then become irrelevant over night. That’s some purple patch. Something has seriously gone wrong at the club and given that it concerns form, the manager has to be at the centre of that. I would appreciate these shortcomings more if the rest of the league was simply amazing but I can’t remember a season where the average quality was as poor as it is. Even Villa who are now chasing Europe were originally scrapping for points, they also looked bang average when we played them despite the form of the two teams.

We can all look with hindsight at these signings but I remember listening to people who know alot more about European football than me and they were singing the praises of Daka and Soumare. Bertrand was signed as a squad player, we were forced into signing Vestergaard by Fofana's injury, Perez was overpriced but was playing well for Newcastle.

 

And none of these were bought for ridiculous transfer fees compared to what others have been spending. I think we're the 3rd lowest net spenders in the league since Rodgers came- alot of that is about how much money we were able to get in but we were only able to get that sort of money because we were doing well under Rodgers. Do you think we're getting £80m for Maguire, £70m for Fofana, £50m for Chilwell if we're a lower mid table club?

 

You say contracts wasn't wholly Rodgers fault. That wasn't Rodgers fault at all. He would have had nothing to do with the length or size of contract. The wages we've put some of these players on is ridiculous. Had it been more sensible, Praet, Vestegaard and Soumare wouldn't be at the club any more. 

 

So because of those contracts we've been left with an unbalanced and bloated squad and our finances are in a mess. The squad is stale and we've been forced to rely on certain players playing every game which inevitably leads to more injuries. Every club makes bad transfers, but if you are sensible with the contracts you put them on then it allows you to get them out of the club, take a bit of a hit financially but move on.

 

I also completely disagree with you about the quality of the league this year. I think it's as strong as I can remember it which is why you've got 9 clubs battling for survival rather than 4/5. The 3 promoted clubs all spent big and are much stronger than previous years. 

[Simoken]

14 minutes ago, FrankieADZ said:

im on the fence with relegation now after Tuesday night, imo we didnt look bad and had more fight in us, another day we would have won that as we had some decent chance first half

Also feels like we've had no luck at times

 

We were DREADFUL, what game were you  watching? i  swear i think people are desperate to make a point why Rodgers was let go. Nothing changed on Tuesday. open your eyes people, the manager wasnt the problem, its the squad full of dross and players that  dont wear the badge. the ownership has failed the club not refreshing the squad and getting rid, oh yeah giving albrighton a new contract was a really good idea. way too much sentiment to players. #joke

[Daggers]

29 minutes ago, JimmyC74 said:

It’s not as easy as that though :-

 

1) typical broadcasting income in the Championship is c. 8m - so significantly lower than the EPL

2)matchday revenues will be lower

3)yes wage spend should reduce but I would expect it to be comparatively high as compared to the rest of the league

4)we lose 10-15 players and will need to recruit significant numbers with signing on fees etc.

 

5) we have already obtained financing based on EPL broadcast  revenues to fund transfer business.

 

I don’t see that we have lots of room for manoeuvre. 
 

if we go down hopefully we reset and bounce back quickly but, let’s hope it isn’t necessary and we can scramble over the line to safety.

1. I know

2. I know

3. You cut your cloth accordingly…

4. And? This is literally the business model of all football clubs

5. King Power have a moral duty to make good on this

 

Our business model has been unsustainable, our player salaries to turnover was shockingly, unjustifiably high. We either suck it up over seasons or tear that plaster off this summer.
 

People are talking like we haven’t spent most of the club’s history in the second tier, as if it is the harbinger of annihilation. It isn’t, it’s just another division.

[Guest Col city fan]

Have to say I was surprised at just how bad West Ham were last night!

Same as with Rodgers, it’s amazing Moyes isn’t getting more out of that team.

Moyes looked absolutely lost last night.