Top

[Ian S]

On 09/05/2023 at 22:35, Vestan Pance said:

We don't hear from Whelan because she spends most of her time abroad. Crazy but true.

Really?

[sacreblueits442]

20 hours ago, l444ry said:

He, understandably, cut a well cheesed off figure at Fulham. Sad to see. But not sure he's learnt much if he was prepared to give Marsch the job and now rumoured to be linked to Russell Martin. 

...poorly advised!!!

Paulo Zousa was pretty prominent in the problem with Pearson. Perhaps he needs to have him as an alternative advisor to Rudkin. We do need someone steeped in football knowledge who is aware of up and coming managers and look to bring them in. Until  the right man is at the helm, we are going to continue to repeat this situation. 

  Top's trust and loyalty is holding him and us back, just watch what an inspired appointment will do to this club, it only takes that one piece of the jigsaw to be in position for all the other pieces to fall into place.

Edited 11 May 2023 by sacreblueits442
Spelling error.

[HeskeyForever]

I think Top has placed his trust in people who stood by him at the worst moments of his life - I'd imagine those at board level were hugely supportive when Vichai passed and the throughout the following grieving period. Unfortunately, I think that kind of loyalty can blind you from the truth of their incompetence. Top is a relatively hands-off chairman - signs cheques where he needs to and in fairness, he's committed huge amounts to creating a model that in theory, should see us being a secure Premier League club. 

 

The absolute ****wits that he's entrusted, however, have dined on complacency and behave as though there are zero consequences of shit performance. They have been at the club for far too long, festering away and overseeing the departure of people who actually had a positive impact on the club. I feel most for people like Dave Rennie, who probably challenged the wishes of Rodgers and Co to overuse players when they weren't ready - our injury record since has been appalling. Even Eduardo Macia did a pretty decent job, and we're still about to cash in on players that he oversaw the signings of. 

 

The test of Top's mettle will come this summer, where the results of said incompetence will all pile up at his doorstep, more or less at once. I won't suggest that he's not up to the job any more if he fails to ring about wholesale changes there. 

[moore_94]

37 minutes ago, Ian S said:

Really?

She has worked for King Power for 20 years, senior executive vice president or something like that, so not too surprising really

[fazzyfox]

I'm still angry at the lack of transparency during last summer. In his programme notes on the final day of the season he had said something along the lines of the forthcoming transfer market in general being an interesting one and I took that two ways, firstly it was the first post-covid summer window, how had fees and valuations been affected and secondly that a chain reaction situation was expected from the likes of Lewandowski moving impacting on perhaps Kane then his replacement and so on. He didn't say "We must be sensible and accept that unless a considerable sum is brought in by departures we will not be spending anything". We were invited to renew our season tickets, not that I wouldn't if I didn't think there would be signings but still a silence, then Rodgers appeared to only find out the true situation some way into the summer. Eventually the explanation came in program notes and the argument goes that if it had come earlier it would be inviting clubs to make lowball insulting bids knowing we need the money. I can't say he was untruthful but the transparency and communication was not there, and as we sat and watched week after week of Ward and Amartey when the club has a Premier League budget and an expectation from us to field at least an organised, balanced line up who are up to the task of Premier League Football. We've been served up absolute tripe, they weren't ready at the start of the season (partly due to Fofanas strike), never settled into a style or system that worked, replaced the faulty keeper far too late and manager too late. 

 

I take sincerity from his explanations about our longer term sustainability and his comments after wiping off the debt to KP but to prepare the club for a season in the Premier League like we did last summer was just signing off on a guarantee to fail, everyone could see it's not enough to replace Kasper with his inferior reserve, Rolls Royce Fofana with often Clown Car Faes and trying to play with wingers when there are only 3 at the club (now 2). What more could he have done? I don't know, looked for investors, decided Kaspers presence would be more useful than Rodgers, communicated the situation to us earlier, looked long and hard at how we'd arrived in the situation re contract lengths and salaries and Rudkins role in this?

 

If he didn't see relegation coming he is surrounded by the wrong people, he needs at least one advisor who understands the bigger picture and can take a temperature and read a room at any required moment not just head in the sand "We'll have enough to stay up" ignorance.

Edited 11 May 2023 by fazzyfox

[An Sionnach]

32 minutes ago, fazzyfox said:

Rolls Royce Fofana

Excuse me, ask the Chelsea fans what they think. He was vastly overrated on here and we took them to the cleaners. £75 million! only Mudryk has been more ridiculous. Chelsea have no clue about valuation.

[iancognito]

23 hours ago, st albans fox said:

Rodgers was never here under vichai ?.

I’m convinced that timing of the sacking of rodgers was purely on a financial basis and whoever was responsible for the delay simply didn’t believe that we could be relegated 

The whole club smacks of an organisation that only just discovered that relegation exists in the Premier League, bit like the Venkys when they took over Blackburn. Lose to Bournemouth...."we'll work hard to get it right" Draw with Leeds...."another point on the road" Draw with Everton...."we go again" Defeat at Fulham...."a tough one to take". Sleepwalking.

 

Some of the social media output just doesn't read the room at all. Wasn't it the week we lost to Spurs 6-2 they decided to advertise a new £150 jacket in the shop? We'll sack 200 staff in the summer and the SM admin will be telling us all about a Fox & Crop range coming in August.

[SafewayFox]

11 hours ago, An Sionnach said:

Excuse me, ask the Chelsea fans what they think. He was vastly overrated on here and we took them to the cleaners. £75 million! only Mudryk has been more ridiculous. Chelsea have no clue about valuation.

That’s not the consensus that my ST holder Chelsea mates say.

 

He’s been ravaged with injuries (as we all know) but pretty sure he has been good to very good in most appearances for them.

 

Silva can’t play on for ever and would probably make most Chelsea fans preferred 11 IMO.

 

We paid over £30m so not sure that they were ever going to get him for less than a silly amount?

[dylanlegend]

On 09/05/2023 at 22:46, Pliskin said:

If you make a decision not to invest in the club, and think you can recycle on the cheap and stay in the premier league, you don’t deserve to run it. Taking all personal tragedies to one side and speaking strictly business, KP have lost control on this club.

 

Top either needs to understand you can’t run a club like this, and change, or he needs to realise that KP can’t juggle a football club and a business at the same time. 
 

There’s no room for excuses in this game, it’s ruthless and wrong decisions can have catastrophic consequences. 
 

Theres a lot of folk suggesting relegation could act as a reset, but this is when clubs either operate within their means, or have vastly more resources than we do (Villa and Newcastle as examples). I don’t think the clubs got it in itself to do it. They will see this as an opportunity to be even more tight, probably try and approach the summer in the same way again, and we will end up with all of the same problems again. 
 

It’s hard to be positive admittedly when the season has been so poor… but it would be nice to have some reassurance that there’s a plan regardless of what happens. 

Let’s be honest we got lucky with the title win. King Power had excellent management team which managed to pull together a great feeling of togetherness it was never cos we were big spenders.

 

[Phenom]

17 minutes ago, SafewayFox said:

That’s not the consensus that my ST holder Chelsea mates say.

 

He’s been ravaged with injuries (as we all know) but pretty sure he has been good to very good in most appearances for them.

 

Silva can’t play on for ever and would probably make most Chelsea fans preferred 11 IMO.

 

We paid over £30m so not sure that they were ever going to get him for less than a silly amount?

He’s been okay but he’s not great in a back 3. Top level wingers (Vinicius and Martinelli) embarrass him pretty easily. He’s good at playing out from the back and is a solid defender but Badashile is their more impressive young CB. I might take Colwill over him, too.

Edited 11 May 2023 by Phenom

[HybridFox]

On 10/05/2023 at 22:12, Beachyboy said:

Was it easier to sack Puel as more fans were onside with it? I remember thinking he did a good job. Recruitment in football or any business is so so important , we were mid table in January, whereas this season we've been in the bottom half of the table all season.

It's an interesting one. Puel would never have delivered a cup win or European football imo. But equally would never have been relegated

Edited 11 May 2023 by HybridFox

[iancognito]

28 minutes ago, HybridFox said:

It's an interesting one. Puel would never have delivered a cup win or European football imo. But equally would never have been relegated

Not sure about that, more accurate to say he would never have been allowed to lose so many games that it became a possibility. There were rumours for weeks before the chopper crash that Vichai was going to fire Puel so the tragedy probably just extended his tenure by a month or so. Top's inability to do the same with the guy he appointed rather than his Dad is what's actually brought us here. However bad it got with Rodgers, he just needed firing earlier, just as Puel, Shakey and Ranieri and Sven had been.

[SafewayFox]

5 hours ago, Phenom said:

He’s been okay but he’s not great in a back 3. Top level wingers (Vinicius and Martinelli) embarrass him pretty easily. He’s good at playing out from the back and is a solid defender but Badashile is their more impressive young CB. I might take Colwill over him, too.

I think time will tell who is their best CB but saying Colwill over Fofana when he can’t always start for Brighton over Webster though is hyperbole surely mate?

 

I still get annoyed at how Fofana acted to leave but changing his narrative on his ability/potential isn’t going to change that we replaced him with a BTEC Soyuncu.

[JimmyC74]

24 minutes ago, SafewayFox said:

I think time will tell who is their best CB but saying Colwill over Fofana when he can’t always start for Brighton over Webster though is hyperbole surely mate?

 

I still get annoyed at how Fofana acted to leave but changing his narrative on his ability/potential isn’t going to change that we replaced him with a BTEC Soyuncu.

Faes needs an Evans type player to organise him / cover his mistakes. Clearly Amartey wasn’t that player, Cags is a better quality defender but very similar to Faes in approach.

 

And let’s recognise when we bought the lad it was a bit of a rush job and funds were tight.
 

it won’t have helped to come in to a defence which doesn’t get protected by its midfield and where the keeper and remaining defenders have been out of form or out classed for much of the season.

 

I expect wholesale changes in the summer and hopefully a move away from playing out from the back cos we don’t have the skill set for it….at least with the current set of players.

[SafewayFox]

1 minute ago, JimmyC74 said:

Faes needs an Evans type player to organise him / cover his mistakes. Clearly Amartey wasn’t that player, Cags is a better quality defender but very similar to Faes in approach.

 

And let’s recognise when we bought the lad it was a bit of a rush job and funds were tight.
 

it won’t have helped to come in to a defence which doesn’t get protected by its midfield and where the keeper and remaining defenders have been out of form or out classed for much of the season.

 

I expect wholesale changes in the summer and hopefully a move away from playing out from the back cos we don’t have the skill set for it….at least with the current set of players.

Totally agree with the bottom bit but Faes is a bomb scare.

 

His positional sense is non existent, he is extremely slow yet makes so many rash decisions.

 

He regularly loses out on first and second balls launched into the box.

 

I hoped from his first few interviews that he would be a leader on the pitch but he also doesn’t appear to communicate/organise the back line.

 

Our midfield hasn’t helped him but he is a CB for a club that is in our position if you ask me.

 

Squad filler at best if had previous aspirations.

[JimmyC74]

16 minutes ago, SafewayFox said:

Totally agree with the bottom bit but Faes is a bomb scare.

 

His positional sense is non existent, he is extremely slow yet makes so many rash decisions.

 

He regularly loses out on first and second balls launched into the box.

 

I hoped from his first few interviews that he would be a leader on the pitch but he also doesn’t appear to communicate/organise the back line.

 

Our midfield hasn’t helped him but he is a CB for a club that is in our position if you ask me.

 

Squad filler at best if had previous aspirations.

I don’t disagree that he isn’t the same level of player as we might have hoped but, the Club hasn’t helped him.

 

Its another example of how our recruitment has let us down more than not in recent times

[Pliskin]

6 hours ago, dylanlegend said:

Let’s be honest we got lucky with the title win. King Power had excellent management team which managed to pull together a great feeling of togetherness it was never cos we were big spenders.

 

I’m sorry, you don’t “get lucky” winning a premier league title. Don’t diminish that success now that we’re on the verge of sinking.

[foxinsocks]

Tops reputation all over asia is of a guy who has messed up his father's legacy.  He will have to put this right.    (Has Rudkin's advice been sound? - did he tell him to sack Rodgers yet Top ignored it? or is Rodgers asleep at the wheel too?)  So he need expert footballing advice... coz we don't need a journeyman manager like Smith - we need someone able to pull to gther a cohesive squad to take ont he task of promotion.

[gerblod]

18 hours ago, fazzyfox said:

I'm still angry at the lack of transparency during last summer. In his programme notes on the final day of the season he had said something along the lines of the forthcoming transfer market in general being an interesting one and I took that two ways, firstly it was the first post-covid summer window, how had fees and valuations been affected and secondly that a chain reaction situation was expected from the likes of Lewandowski moving impacting on perhaps Kane then his replacement and so on. He didn't say "We must be sensible and accept that unless a considerable sum is brought in by departures we will not be spending anything". We were invited to renew our season tickets, not that I wouldn't if I didn't think there would be signings but still a silence, then Rodgers appeared to only find out the true situation some way into the summer. Eventually the explanation came in program notes and the argument goes that if it had come earlier it would be inviting clubs to make lowball insulting bids knowing we need the money. I can't say he was untruthful but the transparency and communication was not there, and as we sat and watched week after week of Ward and Amartey when the club has a Premier League budget and an expectation from us to field at least an organised, balanced line up who are up to the task of Premier League Football. We've been served up absolute tripe, they weren't ready at the start of the season (partly due to Fofanas strike), never settled into a style or system that worked, replaced the faulty keeper far too late and manager too late. 

 

I take sincerity from his explanations about our longer term sustainability and his comments after wiping off the debt to KP but to prepare the club for a season in the Premier League like we did last summer was just signing off on a guarantee to fail, everyone could see it's not enough to replace Kasper with his inferior reserve, Rolls Royce Fofana with often Clown Car Faes and trying to play with wingers when there are only 3 at the club (now 2). What more could he have done? I don't know, looked for investors, decided Kaspers presence would be more useful than Rodgers, communicated the situation to us earlier, looked long and hard at how we'd arrived in the situation re contract lengths and salaries and Rudkins role in this?

 

If he didn't see relegation coming he is surrounded by the wrong people, he needs at least one advisor who understands the bigger picture and can take a temperature and read a room at any required moment not just head in the sand "We'll have enough to stay up" ignorance.

I've not read a more complete  assessment of the likely progression of the gradual disassembling of what was a once well-functioning football club.

This has been a calamity fed by ego, inexperience and self-interest - a kind of reverse of the 5000/1 situation.

Once Vichai died then his command as an experienced business builder was not replaced. A young monarch will have a regent in place to guide them - but I suspect there was no-one there with an implicit understanding of how a team is run to counter Rodgers' increasing inept management with the words 'get rid of him'.

The players ability to run riot over other teams on occasion probably papered over the significant cracks in the playing side of the club.

So, the perfect storm settled over City. How the club disperse it is a huge conundrum. To retain the level of player capable of sustaining a return to the Premier (assuming relegation) while selling off the 'family jewels' is the first and most difficult task. This is going to be a full time job for several people and will take canny negotiating, the next manager will have enough to cope with creating a functioning promotion side. 

The only criticism I have is of your 'dissing' of individual players. Faes is better than you paint him to be and Fofana was using City as a stepping stone. Amartey and Ward were placed in invidious positions but they don't decide to get selected. I think your justifiable ire got the better of you there 🤔.

[Beachyboy]

43 minutes ago, foxinsocks said:

Tops reputation all over asia is of a guy who has messed up his father's legacy.  He will have to put this right.    (Has Rudkin's advice been sound? - did he tell him to sack Rodgers yet Top ignored it? or is Rodgers asleep at the wheel too?)  So he need expert footballing advice... coz we don't need a journeyman manager like Smith - we need someone able to pull to gther a cohesive squad to take ont he task of promotion.

"Messed up" from just a footballing side or the whole King Power brand. Is this multiple countries In Asia?? Just curious how you know this? Do you live or work in Asian countries?

[An Sionnach]

8 hours ago, SafewayFox said:

That’s not the consensus that my ST holder Chelsea mates say.

 

He’s been ravaged with injuries (as we all know) but pretty sure he has been good to very good in most appearances for them.

 

Silva can’t play on for ever and would probably make most Chelsea fans preferred 11 IMO.

 

We paid over £30m so not sure that they were ever going to get him for less than a silly amount?

Given his lack of experience, injury record and probable temperament failings, £50 million was a fair valuation which I said at the time. Our defensive frailties were still obvious when he played for us and although he is indeed a good player, his absence has made little difference.

[foxinsocks]

11 hours ago, Beachyboy said:

"Messed up" from just a footballing side or the whole King Power brand. Is this multiple countries In Asia?? Just curious how you know this? Do you live or work in Asian countries?

My experience suggests he will want to redeem himself.   This failure of lcfc will follow him if he doesnt.  Of course his decision making will be questioned undermining king power too .

The problem is that his decision making has been poor... yet now he has to make good decisions 

[dylanlegend]

On 12/05/2023 at 06:47, Pliskin said:

I’m sorry, you don’t “get lucky” winning a premier league title. Don’t diminish that success now that we’re on the verge of sinking.

I didn’t mean it like that. You’ve misinterpreted.maybe I should have said ‘king power’ got lucky. 

 

We didn’t ’get lucky’ on the field it was well deserved. I mean the team that won us the league was worth 23million with wages in the bottom half of the table. It was a combination of excellent scouting, team bond and management. But spending what we spent and winning the league is ‘lucky’ in a financial aspect. We could only ever replicate that success by spending big money on wages like Man City, Chelsea and now Newcastle are doing. They are a level above financially.

 

Unless king power (or new owners) are happy to spend £200k+ a week on players we could have never establish ourself as a top 6 side. As we’d always be selling our best players who can get more money elsewhere. In the PL finances are always the defining factor with long term success, you will always get ‘one offs’ like us in 15/16, Porto with Jose, Lille in Ligue 1, Deportivo 99/00 etc but unless we pay the wages top players want (Kante, Mahrez) we could never realistically compete long term.

 

In the PL there are 6 teams (7 now with Newc) who spend so much financially (wages are more important than transfer fees in this context) they are extremely unlikely to be relegated . Any one of the other 13 teams (including us) can realistically go down any season. 

Edited 14 May 2023 by dylanlegend

[LCFC1984]

#TOPOUT

[Bozman]

Your old man will be turning in his grave, sell up and get gone..