There are a lot of parallels between the last 18 months, and the similar time period between 2000 and 2002 that ended our first golden era of Premier League football. A badly run club off the pitch, terrible financial situation, big infrastructure projects that become white elephants, a terribly toxic and underperforming manager, a catastrophic loss of form following success and a squad of players that are either not good enough or have a woefully weak mentality.
This time feels worse though. Maybe that is recency bias or the fact that I am living through this decline as an adult rather than a child. But the fact that we have gone from almost achieving top 4 twice, winning the FA Cup and Community Shield and reaching the semi finals of a European competition, to almost inevitable relegation in the space of two seasons is horrifying and almost unprecedented. Except maybe Leeds circa 2002-2004, has any club collapsed as quickly and suddenly as us?
Under MON, we had huge success but I don't think anyone ever expected us to get beyond 8th and the odd League Cup, with perhaps the faint hope of winning the FA Cup. This time felt difference. Having won the league and then re-established ourselves as a top 6-8 European contender, it felt like we could follow through and push on. That is why this one feels worse IMO - and why it's ultimately more unforgivable than what we went through before.
There are some differences, of course. When we went down in 2002, we had the hope and optimism of moving into a new stadium, followed by the despair of administration and potential liquidation. The latter was mostly caused by the collapse of ITV Digital - I suppose we can be fairly confident that Sky Sports won't be doing likewise.
After we went down, we came straight back up. We also then when straight back down again and stayed outside the top flight for 10 years. 9 years after promotion, we can only hope that relegation will serve as the reset we so desperately need to kickstart the third golden era. The alternative doesn't bare thinking about....
Is this decline worse than 2000-02?
posted on 9/4/23
It’s worse than 2001 for two reasons. Firstly FFP and points deductions. That is the next thing that will come into play. The club stands to lose £100m minimum and have tied players into contracts they can’t get out of (including Vardy on £140k a year).
This means a rebuild under Ted Lasso with their hands behind their backs financially. That also opens the door for the very real possibility of back to back relegations.
What is so damaging about fans like Mersey is that he’s clinging onto Top and his family as if they are a lifeboat in a storm when in reality - they’re the captain of the Titanic. He hasn’t got the perception or intelligence to understand that we are where we are not because of 1 mistake with Rodgers - but because of a litany of them.
He also can’t see that the owners are cutting us further adrift with the Marsh appointment - and therefore the reason Mersey is so damaging to the rest of the fan base - is because he will campaign for us to stick with a chairman who is killing this football club through his decision making. In Merseys simple child like mind - he thinks this is fine because Top still has money. Well so did the Venkys
Anyway I’m not supposed to be here - just emailing admin to deactivate my account, but someone please do me a favour and stop Mersey and TB controlling the false narrative on these boards. Please challenge them - they’re bad for the club, they’re bad for this forum
posted on 9/4/23
comment by Nuneaton_fox (U7936)
posted 1 minute ago
comment by Merseysidefox (U4842)
posted 30 minutes ago
I think the main difference between now and then is the financial situation. As long as we all don’t turn on our owners they have enough financial clout to mean the club isn’t at risk, which was the reality of the last time and having seen what has happened to Bury and their fans since let’s be thankful the bail out came and we’ve been able to enjoy the greatest ever era of our club.
However I’m not stupid enough to believe we’re not in huge trouble. The loss of tv revenue in the championship and the need to balance our wages for FFP will mean a complete squad overhaul with the potential of getting it badly wrong and a long time to come back.
But the fall from grace has been as spectacular as it has been fast and it’s been hugely depressing to witness. You could see the rot setting in and the need to remove Rodgers months and months ago. The biggest mistake made this year was the belief Rodgers could turn it around when it was totally clear it was broken.
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Interesting, is this bordering on criticism of Top and the owners Mersey?
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Of course it’s not 😂 He’d rather chop his own arm off then admit Top is the reason we are where we are
posted on 9/4/23
For the OP, I've never fully bought in to the thinking that we could consistently challenge for the European spots, you can look back at my posts over the years and find instances of me espousing let's get to 40 points. Anything else is a bonus.
It's still shocked me though as to how far and fast we've fallen. It seems very similar to Leeds' Ridsdale moment, when he tried to get them to be consistently top 4 by borrowing £75M if I remember correctly? That didn't end well. It looks like Top and the management apparently going away from the tried and tested model of selling a big player to invest in the squad to try and get us European football will have the same disastrous impact on us.
We could of course bounce back immediately - look at how impressively Burnley have turned things round. However, they have usually been very careful with their finances and aware they needed to budget for a possible return to the Championship so were not presumably hamstrung in the same way we are likely to be. Unfortunately, FFP and the dire financial state our club is in at the moment mean that we might end up in administration with a points deduction and exiting the Championship the wrong way, with all the further issues that entails.
Looking at some small crumbs of comfort, at least the plans for stadium expansion are only that at present, so we won't be playing in a half-empty shiny new 40,000 seater stadium any time soon. I am making the assumption here of course that these plans get put on hold if we are relegated, but then we are talking about a decision from the same management that has overseen our spectacular fall from grace, and thought that a manager who was publicly calling out his players and started the season with a dismal 1 point from the opening 7 games was the right person to take us forward, so who knows?
To me it is inconceivable that this would have been allowed to happen had Vichai still been at the helm. Even if Top is on a steep learning curve and may eventually come good (which might still be the case) the club is paying a terrible price for his education.
By the way, I wonder how many of our fans will continue supporting the club in the Championship? I seem to recall typical attendances of 24-25k in the 2000s?
Incidentally, there is a story going about that the Premier League is going to go it alone, so Sky Sports et al will be losing out in due course. Not an immediate issue of course but one imagines it may threaten Sky TV somewhat.
posted on 9/4/23
Good post Nuneaton. I think the biggest issue we have is the fact that FFP and the financial position will really hurt us.
The hope is we can offload 2-3 players (Maddison being 1) for decent money and we can bring in some decent targets on lower wages. But that is a big if and the likes of Vestergaard could be happy to run down hugely expensive contracts whilst not really contributing.
If that happens we could fester for a while. I hope we wouldn’t fall further but if the club became toxic it could be a risk.
posted on 9/4/23
I suppose one benefit might be that players such as Vestergaard, who have effectively been discarded for our present campaign, may come back into contention at the lower level?
It's not looking good for Jonny Evans unfortunately, he doesn't seem to be able to keep fit these days so is unlikely to be of much use in either division.
Talking of centrebacks I wonder if Soyuncu might get another shot now that Brendan has gone? He will presumably be off in the summer in any event.
posted on 9/4/23
Sorry wrong imoji. Should have been
Saturday reminds me of how I felt after we lost 3-1 at home to Sheffield Wednesday.
posted on 9/4/23
Good post Nuneaton.
Can't believe that one or two posters think we are an established top six team on the back of just two fifth place finishes.
We were able to mix it with the big boys temporarily as will Brighton and Brentford. But when your top players get cherry picked or too old to compete the smaller teams fall away again as it's impossible to continue the challenge when you fall foul of the FFP . The top six or seven with their massive "gate" revenues have a massive advantage. What happened seven years ago was a once in a life time event. Generally the older supporters accept that, the younger ones will expect to see it come around again and soon, it's unlikely to happen unless we can "buy" the league with the backing of Qatar or similar huge investors. We are an up and down team, always have been, certainly for the past sixty years that I've followed them. Had a couple of really good years with Gillies, Bllomfield, O'Neill, Rodgers it looks like it's over for a while, we'll be back.
posted on 9/4/23
I'll ignore the typically patronising assertion that young people are too thick to realise the limitations of supporting Leicester
Do you know one person who use to disagree that Leicester couldn't compete with the big boys and that we should know our place? Our Lord and Saviour, Khun Top. We didn't give a manager a £10m a year contract, invest £100m in a new world class training facility and draw up plans for a massive stadium redevelopment, all with the intention of being happy to accept mediocrity.
There are 6 'elite level' clubs in the Premier League - 7 if you now include Newcastle. Yet this season, 2 of them are struggling in mid table, leaving the door open to the European places. Villa, Brighton and Brentford are taking advantage - if we hadn't screwed up over the past 2 seasons, that would be us. Our aim should have always been to be the 'best of the rest' and take advantage when one or more of the top clubs struggle.
We haven't gone from 5th to quite possibly 20th in 2 seasons because of some mystical, gravity defying phenomenon. We are where we are because of terrible decision making, from the owners, the board and the manager.
posted on 9/4/23
comment by Foxello (U6985)
posted 5 hours, 21 minutes ago
I'll ignore the typically patronising assertion that young people are too thick to realise the limitations of supporting Leicester
Do you know one person who use to disagree that Leicester couldn't compete with the big boys and that we should know our place? Our Lord and Saviour, Khun Top. We didn't give a manager a £10m a year contract, invest £100m in a new world class training facility and draw up plans for a massive stadium redevelopment, all with the intention of being happy to accept mediocrity.
There are 6 'elite level' clubs in the Premier League - 7 if you now include Newcastle. Yet this season, 2 of them are struggling in mid table, leaving the door open to the European places. Villa, Brighton and Brentford are taking advantage - if we hadn't screwed up over the past 2 seasons, that would be us. Our aim should have always been to be the 'best of the rest' and take advantage when one or more of the top clubs struggle.
We haven't gone from 5th to quite possibly 20th in 2 seasons because of some mystical, gravity defying phenomenon. We are where we are because of terrible decision making, from the owners, the board and the manager.
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Correct.
posted on 10/4/23
My philosophy is slightly different to Appleton although I can see how the experience of following Leicester has given him the somewhat jaundiced view that we are an up and down club.
I agree with Foxello that we should aim to be best of the rest, such that we are able to take advantage of any slip ups in the 'elite' 7 clubs, such as is happening this year. That means aiming to be top 10 at least, but it does also mean that if we have a season where we slip up, we may not be in mid table but instead fighting relegation. So I'm trying to be realistic by saying we should get to 40 points first as quickly as practicable, then anything else is a bonus.
I don't believe that we necessarily have to be an up and down club, but unfortunately it looks like we may have a down this year.
Assuming LCFC survive, it's a lesson for the future. There has been some bad decision making, which to be frank is always going to happen at times, what must be avoided is compounding the issue by doing an ostrich and hoping the problem will magically resolve itself. It has been apparent that there needed to be a managerial change since the early autumn, it needed to be made then, if that had been done we would likely now be away from the drop zone as a result.