So are we down

[ZLF 271]

We are certainly not down and we can survive (I am confident that we can (not necessarily will) get points from at least 3 of our remaining games. just not if we play like we did on saturday.

[mrs miggins 0]

Indy wrote the following post at 18/04/2016 10:50 AM:Miggs I fully agree with your sentiment, I''d like us to become an established premiership team, but your choice of the figures for those two season negate the fact the our summer signings cost us about 13 million and we received about 9 million, it wasn''t till the panic of January we have additionally spent nearly 20 million.

We had three seasons up here and our net spend on players was not great, so had we had £180 million as reported budget available to Leicester do you think we might have established ourselves?

Funny how Stoke and WBA have become established and both had Pulis as manager to stabilise them in this division, I think MacNally knows his stuff and we lack the funds of others, we are punching above our weight and have to accept that, but just my opinion.

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Where''s the £180m figure come from Indy? they certainly haven''t spent that much on players, (unless I''ve misunderstood your point).

It''s no coincidence that Pulis is known for keeping clubs mid table; thats what he does, and that also makes my point . If we had him after Lambert went I very much doubt we''d have gone down. (However I must say that his style is soooo boring to watch). It''s not that we have spent less than every other team in the league as this is not the case, the main problem (imo) has been that in the previous PL season the player recruitment was poor; we spent enough, but on $hit like the wolf and Fer. This season once again we''ve spent enough but only in January where we''ve dropped a lot of points already and Klose wasn''t there to stop the goals coming in, Pinto hasn''t settled in; he''s just a better version of Whittaker. We tried to spend the money earlier at the start of this season (as I state previously in the thread) but the moves broke down, the Koulibaly deal in particular is annoying because he''d have been great (imo), even for the reported £13-14m he''d have cost. We also tried to get Naismith at the start of the season as well. The intention was there but not the execution for some reason.

Its about decision making for me; I''m not doubting the other clubs have an advantage over us as they have much much richer owners but it doesn''t always mean success and it doesn''t mean we should resign ourselves to forever being a yoyo club.

Our wage bill is reportedly £40m this season, Leicester''s £50m....Newcastles £75m, Sunderland''s £71m and Villa''s at £65m.

For me it''s about good decision making to become an established PL club. Every season in the PL we''ll spend around the same amount as a lot of clubs in this league, the problem we have had in the past is that the bigger signings we have made have generally been worse than the signings we''ve done for less than £3m (e.g. Howson, Tettey, Bennett, Redmond as opposed to signings like the wolf and Fer).

Who knows what would''ve happened if we had signed the players we wanted to at the start of the season instead of January (which we didn''t panic buy), personally I don''t think we would be stuck on 31 points, I think we''d have more, but that''s just my opinion anyway :)

[Indy 3,283]

In a roundabout way we''re on the same page just reading the book from different ends.

The 180 million was the budget laid out by the Leicester owner a couple years to push them to where they are now.

Anyhow regardless of spending, the attraction and club size, what is your view to why they are top and we are bottom 4?

Is it our scouts, manager and his coaching? The players or the board, how do you move our club to become established without key investment or lucky to stumble across a great manager like Lambert for us.....he just fitted this club like Moyes fitted Everton

[lincoln canary (& Golden Coppel) 0]

We are not down, but the sensible money says we will be.

With Arsenal and Manchester united still having much to play for, we can expect nothing against them. The optimist may say we can scrape a point at Home to Man Utd.

Watford at home is a must win. Norwich City don''t do must wins, but lets say on this occasion we do and collect three points.

And then Everton away. Despite their poor form at Goodison, i just can''t see us getting anything. It has all the makings of another Fulham.

So at best I think we''ll get 4 points. Which is not a bad return from those four fixtures, but 35pts will not be enough for survival.

My prediction is that Newcastle will save themselves. Sunderland may slip into the trap we have found ourselves in after beating Newcastle a couple of weeks ago.

You look at our starting 11 Saturday, and it is just not capable of being expressive enough to go out and try to win the remaining games. its a mixture of championship players, has been''s and premier league cast offs.

I''d look to bring in Hoolahan, Redmond and Vadis and go from there. We won''t stay up with the 11 that started Saturday.

[mrs miggins 0]

Indy wrote the following post at 18/04/2016 3:23 PM:

In a roundabout way we''re on the same page just reading the book from different ends.

The 180 million was the budget laid out by the Leicester owner a couple years to push them to where they are now.

Anyhow regardless of spending, the attraction and club size, what is your view to why they are top and we are bottom 4?

Is it our scouts, manager and his coaching? The players or the board, how do you move our club to become established without key investment or lucky to stumble across a great manager like Lambert for us.....he just fitted this club like Moyes fitted Everton

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Indeed Indy, we''re more or less on the same page.

On Leicester though I hope you can see though that they''ve got a long way to go until they end up spending £180m from when the new owner said that. The reason why they have succeeded this season cannot be easily explained and I certainly don''t have all the answers, I would say that its more about good decision making (and luck) than money though..

They haven''t got a radically different team from the one that looked doomed to relegation last season, but have carried on that momentum that saved them in the last 7 games or so into this one. So momentum is the first thing.

Players - Mahrez, Kante, Vardy, Huth, Schmeichel, Drinkwater, Simpson, Fuchs, Okazaki, Morgan, Albrighton. - These players, some of them other club rejects, are willing to work harder than any other team, plus they have a fantastic team spirit. You cannot buy this. If you could it would look like this, and it''s cheap compared to nearly every team in the league. Its hard not to talk about finance when looking at their key players Mahrez, Vardy and Kante altogether costing less than £10m! They''d not go for more than double that each (except Vardy perhaps because he''s a bit older) Fantastic scouting. So scouting players is the second thing.

Management - Although Ranieri has tweaked and improved what Pearson did at the end of the season (why didn''t he do that at the start of the season, they could''ve won it last year!) Ranieri plays more or less the same team each week. They all know their jobs, they have a very simple way of playing and they do it extremely well. They have an identity now unlike last season.

We can have an identity, or brand of football as well, but with AN I think it will take some time.

I believe AN is a decent manager but I''ll also say, I think he can be a very good manager, and be talked about in the same bracket as Moyes and Everton.

I think it took AN far too long for him to know what his best team was this season, however I also think thats partly because of the signings we didn''t make.

If we stay up this season we need to do what we tried to do at the start of this season; get players signed and sealed. It''s also good news that Mcnally said we''d be upgrading Colney as well (if we stay up).

If we go down (which I think looks likely) then we need to keep the players we have here, just like last time. As I say, this time we actually have a manager so we''ll go back up, I''m very confident of that, keeping Redmond will be a big deal for us as well.

Once we''re back up I think investment in facilities and scouting are the biggest things for us. We need to have an identity, with AN this may take some time, but I think it will be more than worth it. It won''t take extraordinary amounts of money (in football terms) to succeed, just hard work, good decision making and a bit of luck - and thats why its difficult for us. We are not willing to work hard enough. There has not been good enough decision making (e.g. contingency plans for the Koulibaly deal breaking down, or AN subs or constant tinkering). And we haven''t had the luck since the very first game this season..

[ricardo 7,339]

[quote user="mrs miggins"] Once we''re back up [/quote]

You make it sound like its a matter of course.Many a slip twixt cup n lip.[;)]

[Faded Jaded Semi Plastic SOB 1,017]

Taking into account goal difference I personally think we are going to have to win two of our last four games to stay up........