Rudkin

[foxinsocks]

2 minutes ago, sacreblueits442 said:

.. if the issue of FFP is not hanging over your head, you have the freedom to acquire players and think about releasing others at a later date!!!

but FFP is not measured weekly - so there is a bit of flexibility.  IMO it would be better to have a separate team working on sales to the team on recruitment

[foxinsocks]

I don't believe FFP is slowing things down - Occam's razor says it is incompetence.  

Edited 25 August 2023 by foxinsocks

[sacreblueits442]

21 hours ago, gurru991 said:

You can only sell when you have someone who wants to buy.

It's a two part transaction.

...not if your wares do not match the current market value!!!

  You either reduce your prices or go bust and end up selling at even lower prices to payback your creditors something like £0.10p in the pound.

  Maresca probably is always like this and is forthright in his life, but still it does seem a wake up call to khun Top.

[BenTheFox]

10 minutes ago, Basildon Fox said:

Do you think that Guardiola would be able to play the same way from the off if he was Crystal Palace manager?  Being manager of Barcelona, Bayern and Man City is a hell of a lot easier to implement your system from the off when money is/was no object and every player in the world is happy to join.  How do you think that would go?

 

Guardiola has transformed tactics in the footballing world but is a cheque book manager.  He needs unlimited funds to get nearly everyone he wants.  What he produces is amazing sure but it simply would not work at Crewe or Rotherham.

I do agree but he is still a great manager. 

 

It is funny only in football does this hypothetical come up. No one asked how effective Bill Gates would be in a PC repair shop. 

[Basildon Fox]

2 minutes ago, BenTheFox said:

I do agree but he is still a great manager. 

 

It is funny only in football does this hypothetical come up. No one asked how effective Bill Gates would be in a PC repair shop. 

Now that is a good question.  How would he do? 

[Finnegan]

21 minutes ago, Basildon Fox said:

He needs unlimited funds to get nearly everyone he wants.  What he produces is amazing sure but it simply would not work at Crewe or Rotherham.

 

Don't agree with this at all in the slightest. 

 

Would he win the Premier League with Crewe or Rotherham? No. But he'd vastly improve them. Just look at how quickly Maresca has gotten our players to improve their patterns of play, their movement and their decision making on the ball. 

 

We spent the last eighteen months listening to people blab on about how Rodgers ball wasn't working because our players weren't technical enough and Maresca just strolled straight in and made that look stupid inside the first week of training. 

 

And Pep built his first Barcelona team with a core of academy graduates that he'd been working with at youth level before he got the senior job. 

 

Nobody got their cheque book out for the likes of Xavi, Iniesta or Busquets but he turned them in to the best midfield in the world anyway. The whole point of recruiting Guardiola was that Barcelona needed a factory reset because they'd been trying to out-Galactico Real Madrid and their squad of prima donnas had gone stale. They forgot mes que un club (which is funny because it's exactly where they've gotten back to now.)

 

From then on he's just been a victim of his own success really in terms of reputation hasn't he? He's the best manager in the world so he goes to the biggest clubs in the world so armchair fans around the world can say he can only do it on big budgets. 

 

But Man City don't just spend their money, they spend it intelligently. Loads of clubs splash the cash and do fvck all with it and loads of managers have very expensively assembled squads and still struggle to win. For Pep and his teams to be as consistently succesful as they are is a massive testament to him and for Man City to consistently get recruitment right is testament to a far more under rated genius and that's Txiki Begiristain. If Maresca is the Poundshop Pep, I'd absolutely love it if we brought in a Bargain Basement Begiristain to go with him. 

[sacreblueits442]

20 minutes ago, foxinsocks said:

I don't believe FFP is slowing things down - Occam's razor says it is incompetence.  

...it can be both!!!

In order for us to bring players in, players will have to go out, once the window is closed we are stuck with a wages bill for the season, and if we run with a bloated squad, then the resulting FFP calculations could mean points deduction, transfer embargo or anything that the powers that be choose to throw at us.

[SafewayFox]

All hail Rudders - he’s got Lewis Brunt out of the door on loan.

 

#ignorethedoubters 😎

 

[foxinsocks]

9 minutes ago, sacreblueits442 said:

...it can be both!!!

In order for us to bring players in, players will have to go out, once the window is closed we are stuck with a wages bill for the season, and if we run with a bloated squad, then the resulting FFP calculations could mean points deduction, transfer embargo or anything that the powers that be choose to throw at us.

agree - we have to be on the right side of FPP over a year ( and prob at the end of a window).  The bloated thing is also a big issue also.  Yet the window has been open for some time and we don't seem to be shifting the players

 

 

[Basildon Fox]

15 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

Don't agree with this at all in the slightest. 

 

Would he win the Premier League with Crewe or Rotherham? No. But he'd vastly improve them. Just look at how quickly Maresca has gotten our players to improve their patterns of play, their movement and their decision making on the ball. 

 

We spent the last eighteen months listening to people blab on about how Rodgers ball wasn't working because our players weren't technical enough and Maresca just strolled straight in and made that look stupid inside the first week of training. 

 

And Pep built his first Barcelona team with a core of academy graduates that he'd been working with at youth level before he got the senior job. 

 

Nobody got their cheque book out for the likes of Xavi, Iniesta or Busquets but he turned them in to the best midfield in the world anyway. The whole point of recruiting Guardiola was that Barcelona needed a factory reset because they'd been trying to out-Galactico Real Madrid and their squad of prima donnas had gone stale. They forgot mes que un club (which is funny because it's exactly where they've gotten back to now.)

 

From then on he's just been a victim of his own success really in terms of reputation hasn't he? He's the best manager in the world so he goes to the biggest clubs in the world so armchair fans around the world can say he can only do it on big budgets. 

 

But Man City don't just spend their money, they spend it intelligently. Loads of clubs splash the cash and do fvck all with it and loads of managers have very expensively assembled squads and still struggle to win. For Pep and his teams to be as consistently succesful as they are is a massive testament to him and for Man City to consistently get recruitment right is testament to a far more under rated genius and that's Txiki Begiristain. If Maresca is the Poundshop Pep, I'd absolutely love it if we brought in a Bargain Basement Begiristain to go with him. 

I am not sure that is right at Man City hence why they have FFP problems.  I would expect that he would have to adapt at Crewe or Rotherham as he simply would not be able to get the players to do what he wants them to do.  I would definitely question whether he would make them better if they do not have the capabilities to improve.  I would expect he would pick up on this and adapt to what he could do until he could bring more of the players that would be capable in. 

[The Doctor]

People talking as if Enzo would walk over this . Remember he flopped at Parma, this is his chance to reestablish himself as a manager and not just a perpetual number 2, him walking would be a fantastic way for him to ruin his chances of being the main man at clubs going forward.

[Claudio Fannieri]

It is entirely possible that Enzo could be frustrated that certain players are taking longer than anticipated to get out of the club and that this is directly impacting our recruitment plans, this could have led to some uncomfortable internal discussions or even the odd heated exchange, however that is perfectly normal especially in a high pressure environment such as big business or football club and doesn’t necessarily mean that anyone is on the verge of walking out etc. 

 

However if the current reports of potential outgoings and incomings come to fruition then it could well have refocused some key individuals to get their act together. 

[STUHILL]

Welcome to Management Enzo! 

 

Some posters think that not shifting deadwood and struggling to get targets in early or at all, is unique to Leicester. 

It's really not, and you will see fans up and down the country moaning about the exact same thing and attacking their DOF. 

 

Enzo needs to get used to it, as he will find it at every club he goes. 

Not that I think there is much truth in what some of these OTT posts are suggesting. 

Frustrated? Sure! About to leave the club over it? Hell no!

[mozartfox]

I am hoping some Arabian Super League come in poach Rudkin.

[Dan LCFC]

6 hours ago, kingkisnorbo said:

I don’t think you quite understand what I’m talking about. I’ll give the example to explain. Manchester United, who I think arguably have equal or very similar pull to Manchester City have a lot of grief trying to facilitate outgoings and incomings (see Pogba, Sanchez, Sancho and many others). Chelsea also have a knack of it, taking ages to make things happen. Manchester City are well known for not fannying around in the market. They get business done very quickly and efficiently. 
 

I don’t really think my point has anything to do with the clubs pull factor. They are well known for being efficient, which I think it’s fair to say is probably factoring into Maresca’s frustration with us. It’s like your ex-girlfriend and your new one. There’s no way you don’t compare them at some point. It’s also probably amplified by the fact that we try to give off the aura of being a very well run club with Seagrave etc but once Enzo has spent a bit of time at the club he’s realised that it isn’t. 

I think this is sort of reflected within the fanbase too but it's a very common theme in football in general in that once you get a reputation for something, good or bad, it sticks and there's no real shaking it no matter what happens. Leicester have a reputation as being a well oiled machine but in truth we aren't and haven't been for a while. I think people saying Brighton will go to pot in the next few years are acting purely on cope myself, the only thing that will stuff them is Bloom leaving, which is highly unlikely to happen anyway.

 

You see it on here, on Twitter, people you speak to. How can we possibly retain our reputation of being a well-run club after what's happened in the last few years? It again feeds into another thing I read once in that fans will always favour these falsehoods about their own club as it gives them a bragging right over rivals, and it's ultimately why plenty of charlatans within the game get away with it, and it's true.

 

If you objectively analysed our trajectory over the last three years it would paint a bleak picture. Has there ever been a more rapid decline in squad value?

[Gamble92]

1 hour ago, mozartfox said:

I am hoping some Arabian Super League come in poach Rudkin.

In the same way one would poach a fish?

[Babylon]

7 hours ago, kingkisnorbo said:

I don’t think you quite understand what I’m talking about. I’ll give the example to explain. Manchester United, who I think arguably have equal or very similar pull to Manchester City have a lot of grief trying to facilitate outgoings and incomings (see Pogba, Sanchez, Sancho and many others). Chelsea also have a knack of it, taking ages to make things happen. Manchester City are well known for not fannying around in the market. They get business done very quickly and efficiently. 
 

I don’t really think my point has anything to do with the clubs pull factor. They are well known for being efficient, which I think it’s fair to say is probably factoring into Maresca’s frustration with us. It’s like your ex-girlfriend and your new one. There’s no way you don’t compare them at some point. It’s also probably amplified by the fact that we try to give off the aura of being a very well run club with Seagrave etc but once Enzo has spent a bit of time at the club he’s realised that it isn’t. 

Manchester United have overpaid for players and overpaid on wages…. Manchester City have been very good at getting value for money thanks to excellent recruitment 
 

If you have an overpaid player who cost far more than they are worth and isn’t performing, it’s a lot harder to shift them. How many clubs who can afford them WANT Man U players compared to Man City players?

Man United are arguably the biggest club in the world still. They are linked with hundreds and hundreds of players just for clicks. It’s frankly impossible to know how they go about their incoming transfer business. I think it’s fair to say they aren’t as competent as Manchester City…. But then they are prepared to pay to get the very best person in every single position within the club and don’t give two hoots about rules, or ffp, or shareholders, or getting money in legally.

[kingkisnorbo]

1 hour ago, Dan LCFC said:

I think this is sort of reflected within the fanbase too but it's a very common theme in football in general in that once you get a reputation for something, good or bad, it sticks and there's no real shaking it no matter what happens. Leicester have a reputation as being a well oiled machine but in truth we aren't and haven't been for a while. I think people saying Brighton will go to pot in the next few years are acting purely on cope myself, the only thing that will stuff them is Bloom leaving, which is highly unlikely to happen anyway.

 

You see it on here, on Twitter, people you speak to. How can we possibly retain our reputation of being a well-run club after what's happened in the last few years? It again feeds into another thing I read once in that fans will always favour these falsehoods about their own club as it gives them a bragging right over rivals, and it's ultimately why plenty of charlatans within the game get away with it, and it's true.

 

If you objectively analysed our trajectory over the last three years it would paint a bleak picture. Has there ever been a more rapid decline in squad value?

This also isn't helped by the fact outside of Leicester focused journo's (and even they're not very probing) no one has ever bothered to break through the public facade of us being well oiled. Anyone with a spare half hour and google can deconstruct that myth. 

[Babylon]

1 hour ago, Dan LCFC said:

I think this is sort of reflected within the fanbase too but it's a very common theme in football in general in that once you get a reputation for something, good or bad, it sticks and there's no real shaking it no matter what happens. Leicester have a reputation as being a well oiled machine but in truth we aren't and haven't been for a while. I think people saying Brighton will go to pot in the next few years are acting purely on cope myself, the only thing that will stuff them is Bloom leaving, which is highly unlikely to happen anyway.

 

You see it on here, on Twitter, people you speak to. How can we possibly retain our reputation of being a well-run club after what's happened in the last few years? It again feeds into another thing I read once in that fans will always favour these falsehoods about their own club as it gives them a bragging right over rivals, and it's ultimately why plenty of charlatans within the game get away with it, and it's true.

 

If you objectively analysed our trajectory over the last three years it would paint a bleak picture. Has there ever been a more rapid decline in squad value?

Bloom doesn’t pick the players. The people who set it all up are already drifting away, just as it happened to us. Everyone good will get poached and eventually they will get decisions wrong… there is a good reason why no clubs outside the elite or ludicrously bankrolled have ever kept it up for a sustained period and even most of them manage to mess things up.

[Finnegan]

1 hour ago, Dan LCFC said:

How can we possibly retain our reputation of being a well-run club after what's happened in the last few years?

 

I've just had a bit of a rant in the Patson Daka thread and I think it was probably a bit more appropriate to post it here, ultimately. I'm not going to just copy and paste it or repeat myself entirely. 

 

But I don't think we're a terrible run club, even now, I just think we're a club with a very specific vulnerability because we allow our overall philosophy and direction to be driven from too low within the business. The whole point of a Technical Director / Director of Football is supposed to be that this individual is responsible for driving the vision of the club and protecting it's long term interests by taking ownership of squad building and maintenance away from staff with shorter life spans. Managers come and go very quickly with average tenures around 18 months, Heads of Recruitment also tend to have quite short lifespans. Your DoF should be a fixture of your football club charged with keeping up continuity between regimes.

 

It was established after the title success that the Srivaddhanaprabha/Raksriaksorn family wanted us to play more 'dominant' football, whether this was Vichai's or Top's preference, they wanted us to have more of the ball. The thing is, that's a very, very loose tactical direction - Claude Puel, Brendan Rodgers and Enzo Maresca have all been charged with getting Leicester to play "possession football" and all three of them have extremely different styles and very different interpretations of what exactly that means.

 

This lack of continuity between the three managers is a symptom of the problem, that Leicester City doesn't fully really have a footballing identity - it's just got a vague, obscure guiding principal and that can probably be roughly summed up as "we want to be recognised as one of those clubs that play football the 'right way'." So that's Rudkin's remit, have us play "good" football. I don't really think that Rudkin himself knows what that means and I don't think Rudkin has overly strong footballing convictions, I don't feel like he's passionate about any one style of play and I don't think he's got a particularly iron grip on the direction the squad takes.

 

Brentford and Brighton have surpassed us because they have a VERY clear vision. Matthew Benham and Tony Bloom respectively know exactly how they want their teams to play, exactly how they want them to recruit and most importantly EXACTLY what the culture of the club should be. I was watching a really good video earlier with Thomas Frank where he talks exactly about this, about Brentford's vision and about their commitment to a culture of (and he literally says this  )  "No Dickheads" at Brentford. 

 

I think as a club we have the potential still to be really good, we're demonstrating even now (and I think even under Rodgers) that our recruitment can still be excellent, I think the things we're valued for within the game we still have the potential to get right. I think we CAN still recognise talent and the targets the manager wants its just that the last three managers have all wanted VERY different things.

 

And that's it, we're stuck a little bit in the past in that the people that are steering our ship are still very much the Head Coach and the Head of Recruitment and that every time we throw out the bathwater the baby goes too (metaphors all over the shop here.) We're not alone in this regard, I'd say well over half of the clubs in the Premier League and nearly all of the clubs in the Championship are still operating in a fairly similar way. That culture, identity and philosophy are still driven by "The Manager" and that it's prone to change from regime to regime. Look at Burnley, you couldn't get much more different from Dyche to Kompany and clearly that lack of continuity hasn't held them back, they've transformed themselves very well over the last year. 

 

So we're not a basket case, we're not a disaster, we're not doomed. But we are comparing ourselves to clubs that have an ultra-specific vision and we aren't one of those. Because Top and Rudkin don't have an extremely focused idea of what our sporting direction should be, it's always going to be on the shoulders of shorter term staff and in cases like Rodgers and Congerton it's going to make us very, very vulnerable to EXTREME swings in our fortunes when things go wrong, as they very much have over the last eighteen months.

 

I do think if we aspire to get back to where we were we should be looking to replace Rudkin with someone that's got a more focused vision and someone who can really take the reigns of the club forcefully and drive it forward but then there's also a part of me that stops for a moment and thinks, you know what, I actually don't hate that the Srivaddhanaprabha family and Top value family, value loyalty, value commitment. Jon Rudkin is one of us, he was a youth team player here at 16, he was a coach here, worked at the academy here, helped develop a lot of the academy kids we've been proud of here and as a DoF he's helped us win us the League and the FA Cup.

 

In a world where staff are thrown away like commodities by greedy billionaires, I dunno, maybe we should be more proud of the fact that our owners have stuck with him and rewarded his loyalty? Or, yknow, maybe he's a useless **** and he's holding us back. It's FoxesTalk so one thing I'm sure of is there's no room for middle ground.

 

I thought I was going to write like 2 paragraphs here and it's turned in to a TED Talk and I still don't know how I feel. So thanks for coming and I'm sorry to anyone that's read all of this.

 

[Sambiasso]

3 hours ago, Finnegan said:

 

I've just had a bit of a rant in the Patson Daka thread and I think it was probably a bit more appropriate to post it here, ultimately. I'm not going to just copy and paste it or repeat myself entirely. 

 

But I don't think we're a terrible run club, even now, I just think we're a club with a very specific vulnerability because we allow our overall philosophy and direction to be driven from too low within the business. The whole point of a Technical Director / Director of Football is supposed to be that this individual is responsible for driving the vision of the club and protecting it's long term interests by taking ownership of squad building and maintenance away from staff with shorter life spans. Managers come and go very quickly with average tenures around 18 months, Heads of Recruitment also tend to have quite short lifespans. Your DoF should be a fixture of your football club charged with keeping up continuity between regimes.

 

It was established after the title success that the Srivaddhanaprabha/Raksriaksorn family wanted us to play more 'dominant' football, whether this was Vichai's or Top's preference, they wanted us to have more of the ball. The thing is, that's a very, very loose tactical direction - Claude Puel, Brendan Rodgers and Enzo Maresca have all been charged with getting Leicester to play "possession football" and all three of them have extremely different styles and very different interpretations of what exactly that means.

 

This lack of continuity between the three managers is a symptom of the problem, that Leicester City doesn't fully really have a footballing identity - it's just got a vague, obscure guiding principal and that can probably be roughly summed up as "we want to be recognised as one of those clubs that play football the 'right way'." So that's Rudkin's remit, have us play "good" football. I don't really think that Rudkin himself knows what that means and I don't think Rudkin has overly strong footballing convictions, I don't feel like he's passionate about any one style of play and I don't think he's got a particularly iron grip on the direction the squad takes.

 

Brentford and Brighton have surpassed us because they have a VERY clear vision. Matthew Benham and Tony Bloom respectively know exactly how they want their teams to play, exactly how they want them to recruit and most importantly EXACTLY what the culture of the club should be. I was watching a really good video earlier with Thomas Frank where he talks exactly about this, about Brentford's vision and about their commitment to a culture of (and he literally says this  )  "No Dickheads" at Brentford. 

 

I think as a club we have the potential still to be really good, we're demonstrating even now (and I think even under Rodgers) that our recruitment can still be excellent, I think the things we're valued for within the game we still have the potential to get right. I think we CAN still recognise talent and the targets the manager wants its just that the last three managers have all wanted VERY different things.

 

And that's it, we're stuck a little bit in the past in that the people that are steering our ship are still very much the Head Coach and the Head of Recruitment and that every time we throw out the bathwater the baby goes too (metaphors all over the shop here.) We're not alone in this regard, I'd say well over half of the clubs in the Premier League and nearly all of the clubs in the Championship are still operating in a fairly similar way. That culture, identity and philosophy are still driven by "The Manager" and that it's prone to change from regime to regime. Look at Burnley, you couldn't get much more different from Dyche to Kompany and clearly that lack of continuity hasn't held them back, they've transformed themselves very well over the last year. 

 

So we're not a basket case, we're not a disaster, we're not doomed. But we are comparing ourselves to clubs that have an ultra-specific vision and we aren't one of those. Because Top and Rudkin don't have an extremely focused idea of what our sporting direction should be, it's always going to be on the shoulders of shorter term staff and in cases like Rodgers and Congerton it's going to make us very, very vulnerable to EXTREME swings in our fortunes when things go wrong, as they very much have over the last eighteen months.

 

I do think if we aspire to get back to where we were we should be looking to replace Rudkin with someone that's got a more focused vision and someone who can really take the reigns of the club forcefully and drive it forward but then there's also a part of me that stops for a moment and thinks, you know what, I actually don't hate that the Srivaddhanaprabha family and Top value family, value loyalty, value commitment. Jon Rudkin is one of us, he was a youth team player here at 16, he was a coach here, worked at the academy here, helped develop a lot of the academy kids we've been proud of here and as a DoF he's helped us win us the League and the FA Cup.

 

In a world where staff are thrown away like commodities by greedy billionaires, I dunno, maybe we should be more proud of the fact that our owners have stuck with him and rewarded his loyalty? Or, yknow, maybe he's a useless **** and he's holding us back. It's FoxesTalk so one thing I'm sure of is there's no room for middle ground.

 

I thought I was going to write like 2 paragraphs here and it's turned in to a TED Talk and I still don't know how I feel. So thanks for coming and I'm sorry to anyone that's read all of this.

 

[Drink Water]

11 hours ago, Finnegan said:

For Pep and his teams to be as consistently succesful as they are is a massive testament to him and for Man City to consistently get recruitment right is testament to a far more under rated genius and that's Txiki Begiristain. If Maresca is the Poundshop Pep, I'd absolutely love it if we brought in a Bargain Basement Begiristain to go with him. 

I agree. Its amazing how fans of other clubs minimise Man City's achievements due to their ownership, yet they deliberately ignore their solid hierarchial structure, clear vision, brilliant player development, work ethic, and Guardiola's ability. 

[Dan LCFC]

4 hours ago, Finnegan said:

 

I've just had a bit of a rant in the Patson Daka thread and I think it was probably a bit more appropriate to post it here, ultimately. I'm not going to just copy and paste it or repeat myself entirely. 

 

But I don't think we're a terrible run club, even now, I just think we're a club with a very specific vulnerability because we allow our overall philosophy and direction to be driven from too low within the business. The whole point of a Technical Director / Director of Football is supposed to be that this individual is responsible for driving the vision of the club and protecting it's long term interests by taking ownership of squad building and maintenance away from staff with shorter life spans. Managers come and go very quickly with average tenures around 18 months, Heads of Recruitment also tend to have quite short lifespans. Your DoF should be a fixture of your football club charged with keeping up continuity between regimes.

 

It was established after the title success that the Srivaddhanaprabha/Raksriaksorn family wanted us to play more 'dominant' football, whether this was Vichai's or Top's preference, they wanted us to have more of the ball. The thing is, that's a very, very loose tactical direction - Claude Puel, Brendan Rodgers and Enzo Maresca have all been charged with getting Leicester to play "possession football" and all three of them have extremely different styles and very different interpretations of what exactly that means.

 

This lack of continuity between the three managers is a symptom of the problem, that Leicester City doesn't fully really have a footballing identity - it's just got a vague, obscure guiding principal and that can probably be roughly summed up as "we want to be recognised as one of those clubs that play football the 'right way'." So that's Rudkin's remit, have us play "good" football. I don't really think that Rudkin himself knows what that means and I don't think Rudkin has overly strong footballing convictions, I don't feel like he's passionate about any one style of play and I don't think he's got a particularly iron grip on the direction the squad takes.

 

Brentford and Brighton have surpassed us because they have a VERY clear vision. Matthew Benham and Tony Bloom respectively know exactly how they want their teams to play, exactly how they want them to recruit and most importantly EXACTLY what the culture of the club should be. I was watching a really good video earlier with Thomas Frank where he talks exactly about this, about Brentford's vision and about their commitment to a culture of (and he literally says this  )  "No Dickheads" at Brentford. 

 

I think as a club we have the potential still to be really good, we're demonstrating even now (and I think even under Rodgers) that our recruitment can still be excellent, I think the things we're valued for within the game we still have the potential to get right. I think we CAN still recognise talent and the targets the manager wants its just that the last three managers have all wanted VERY different things.

 

And that's it, we're stuck a little bit in the past in that the people that are steering our ship are still very much the Head Coach and the Head of Recruitment and that every time we throw out the bathwater the baby goes too (metaphors all over the shop here.) We're not alone in this regard, I'd say well over half of the clubs in the Premier League and nearly all of the clubs in the Championship are still operating in a fairly similar way. That culture, identity and philosophy are still driven by "The Manager" and that it's prone to change from regime to regime. Look at Burnley, you couldn't get much more different from Dyche to Kompany and clearly that lack of continuity hasn't held them back, they've transformed themselves very well over the last year. 

 

So we're not a basket case, we're not a disaster, we're not doomed. But we are comparing ourselves to clubs that have an ultra-specific vision and we aren't one of those. Because Top and Rudkin don't have an extremely focused idea of what our sporting direction should be, it's always going to be on the shoulders of shorter term staff and in cases like Rodgers and Congerton it's going to make us very, very vulnerable to EXTREME swings in our fortunes when things go wrong, as they very much have over the last eighteen months.

 

I do think if we aspire to get back to where we were we should be looking to replace Rudkin with someone that's got a more focused vision and someone who can really take the reigns of the club forcefully and drive it forward but then there's also a part of me that stops for a moment and thinks, you know what, I actually don't hate that the Srivaddhanaprabha family and Top value family, value loyalty, value commitment. Jon Rudkin is one of us, he was a youth team player here at 16, he was a coach here, worked at the academy here, helped develop a lot of the academy kids we've been proud of here and as a DoF he's helped us win us the League and the FA Cup.

 

In a world where staff are thrown away like commodities by greedy billionaires, I dunno, maybe we should be more proud of the fact that our owners have stuck with him and rewarded his loyalty? Or, yknow, maybe he's a useless **** and he's holding us back. It's FoxesTalk so one thing I'm sure of is there's no room for middle ground.

 

I thought I was going to write like 2 paragraphs here and it's turned in to a TED Talk and I still don't know how I feel. So thanks for coming and I'm sorry to anyone that's read all of this.

Ha I responded to the one in the Daka thread before I'd read this. I think there's a whole lot of truth in that and it's a good summary of where we're really at, but what is also true is that there's too big an element of randomness in how we do things. I mean you've been fair and there's still only one way you can perceive Rudkin's ability in this - ultimately a bit of a puppet. Basket case is probably harsh but I do think the volatility in itself does kill this argument about us being a particularly well-run club.

 

What you say is also why I don't buy that Brighton and Brentford will go downhill as I'd alluded to in another post. The difference between us, Swansea, Southampton and other clubs who had our day in the sun (ours the greatest quite considerably I may add and I doubt for all I rate Brighton / Brentford they will hit our pinnacle) is that the genius of those clubs really does come from the very top. They've made their way up simply by shifting the odds in their favour and are prepared for seemingly every eventuality. I find it pretty absurd how clubs that deal with either of them don't seem to truly appreciate this.

 

I suppose given our situation hinges quite heavily on the manager and their vision, I feel quite assured that Maresca who has come from a culture of everything being done efficiently will know how to get things ticking over here and we should give him time to do this. But I do still retain a slight concern that he is quite miffed that Top / Rudkin aren't really on his wavelength and I do think down the line that could swing him towards going elsewhere, and I always want there to be a proper succession plan in place should we lose somebody key to us like he is likely to be. Yet our model never really will allow for this. You only have to see the reaction to the Rodgers sacking. It was amateurish stuff.

 

I suppose my ideals have become far more of the Brighton / Brentford sort of idea where it comes from the top and it's really quite at odds with how we do things. You are right though, it isn't unique to us, but I can't help but think we can be better.

 

I also think for his initial success, given this method hinges on our managers ability to build, the appointment of Brendan Rodgers was really bad. He's truly one of the most damaging managers we've ever had.

Edited 25 August 2023 by Dan LCFC

[filbertway]

Tl;dr

Were not a badly ran club...well.. we are ran as well as the poorly ran clubs are. 

 

We were fortunate to have intelligent members of staff. Our board and owners are miles behind Brentford, Brighton and Newcastle.

 

Decision making is too low level. but its a result of our success coming from our best decision makers and planners at the club being at that level. 

 

Rudkin and Top havent got a clue and Whelan seems to hate our fans.

[Claudio Fannieri]

14 hours ago, Finnegan said:

 

I've just had a bit of a rant in the Patson Daka thread and I think it was probably a bit more appropriate to post it here, ultimately. I'm not going to just copy and paste it or repeat myself entirely. 

 

But I don't think we're a terrible run club, even now, I just think we're a club with a very specific vulnerability because we allow our overall philosophy and direction to be driven from too low within the business. The whole point of a Technical Director / Director of Football is supposed to be that this individual is responsible for driving the vision of the club and protecting it's long term interests by taking ownership of squad building and maintenance away from staff with shorter life spans. Managers come and go very quickly with average tenures around 18 months, Heads of Recruitment also tend to have quite short lifespans. Your DoF should be a fixture of your football club charged with keeping up continuity between regimes.

 

It was established after the title success that the Srivaddhanaprabha/Raksriaksorn family wanted us to play more 'dominant' football, whether this was Vichai's or Top's preference, they wanted us to have more of the ball. The thing is, that's a very, very loose tactical direction - Claude Puel, Brendan Rodgers and Enzo Maresca have all been charged with getting Leicester to play "possession football" and all three of them have extremely different styles and very different interpretations of what exactly that means.

 

This lack of continuity between the three managers is a symptom of the problem, that Leicester City doesn't fully really have a footballing identity - it's just got a vague, obscure guiding principal and that can probably be roughly summed up as "we want to be recognised as one of those clubs that play football the 'right way'." So that's Rudkin's remit, have us play "good" football. I don't really think that Rudkin himself knows what that means and I don't think Rudkin has overly strong footballing convictions, I don't feel like he's passionate about any one style of play and I don't think he's got a particularly iron grip on the direction the squad takes.

 

Brentford and Brighton have surpassed us because they have a VERY clear vision. Matthew Benham and Tony Bloom respectively know exactly how they want their teams to play, exactly how they want them to recruit and most importantly EXACTLY what the culture of the club should be. I was watching a really good video earlier with Thomas Frank where he talks exactly about this, about Brentford's vision and about their commitment to a culture of (and he literally says this  )  "No Dickheads" at Brentford. 

 

I think as a club we have the potential still to be really good, we're demonstrating even now (and I think even under Rodgers) that our recruitment can still be excellent, I think the things we're valued for within the game we still have the potential to get right. I think we CAN still recognise talent and the targets the manager wants its just that the last three managers have all wanted VERY different things.

 

And that's it, we're stuck a little bit in the past in that the people that are steering our ship are still very much the Head Coach and the Head of Recruitment and that every time we throw out the bathwater the baby goes too (metaphors all over the shop here.) We're not alone in this regard, I'd say well over half of the clubs in the Premier League and nearly all of the clubs in the Championship are still operating in a fairly similar way. That culture, identity and philosophy are still driven by "The Manager" and that it's prone to change from regime to regime. Look at Burnley, you couldn't get much more different from Dyche to Kompany and clearly that lack of continuity hasn't held them back, they've transformed themselves very well over the last year. 

 

So we're not a basket case, we're not a disaster, we're not doomed. But we are comparing ourselves to clubs that have an ultra-specific vision and we aren't one of those. Because Top and Rudkin don't have an extremely focused idea of what our sporting direction should be, it's always going to be on the shoulders of shorter term staff and in cases like Rodgers and Congerton it's going to make us very, very vulnerable to EXTREME swings in our fortunes when things go wrong, as they very much have over the last eighteen months.

 

I do think if we aspire to get back to where we were we should be looking to replace Rudkin with someone that's got a more focused vision and someone who can really take the reigns of the club forcefully and drive it forward but then there's also a part of me that stops for a moment and thinks, you know what, I actually don't hate that the Srivaddhanaprabha family and Top value family, value loyalty, value commitment. Jon Rudkin is one of us, he was a youth team player here at 16, he was a coach here, worked at the academy here, helped develop a lot of the academy kids we've been proud of here and as a DoF he's helped us win us the League and the FA Cup.

 

In a world where staff are thrown away like commodities by greedy billionaires, I dunno, maybe we should be more proud of the fact that our owners have stuck with him and rewarded his loyalty? Or, yknow, maybe he's a useless **** and he's holding us back. It's FoxesTalk so one thing I'm sure of is there's no room for middle ground.

 

I thought I was going to write like 2 paragraphs here and it's turned in to a TED Talk and I still don't know how I feel. So thanks for coming and I'm sorry to anyone that's read all of this.

 

Absolutely superb post 👏🏼 

 

just another point to add, we are coming to the end of a cycle, 4/5 years ago we were Brighton, the exciting, well run club that everyone outside the top 6 wanted to join, we challenged for Champions League and won an FA Cup and instead of maintaining our model and continuing to sell 1 major asset each summer to reinvest and refresh, we took a calculated risk to keep our major players together and it backfired, the same will happen at Brighton, if they finish in and around top 6/7 again, they will come under pressure from De Zerbi to keep players and try to push on and that is when the struggles start, as you end up pushing your salary structure to its limit and FFP starts to bite you. 
 

It’s not a foregone conclusion but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Brighton in a similar situation to us.  There is always a mid size team who are well run and have a good go for a few years and are challenging the big 6 before FFP stops them in their tracks and then they slide down the table, it has happened with us and Wolves and most likely in time will happen to Brighton and possibly Brentford.