Dan

Can totally see this. So essentially us and them ended up just swapping Coady and Evans. Evans is a good defender and has probably never quite been as appreciated as he should've been for us. I called it during the time that he was the superior of him and Maguire as a partnership and stand by it. But there's something a bit off with him for me. I can't escape this idea that despite being made captain here that he was yet another who mentally clocked out of the place and the fact your captain can do that speaks volumes. He's got it in him, after the West Brom debacle too. He's also played in 8 of Northern Ireland's last 10 games despite being available for less than 50% of ours in the same time period. He's a good defender but he's not quite the leader you could easily think he is.

Tell you what, for all I've bashed us look at Leeds. Still no new signing in. I don't give them a great chance of going back up. I can see visible effort to fix things at our end. I can't say the same here.

We're signing Casadei on loan by the sounds of it.

Doyle official. Danish goalkeeper coming too. This is better. Keep them coming.

I'm extremely torn on us. I think the tools are there for us to piss it but I also think it's nowhere near a guarantee and it hinges a lot on how good Maresca truly is. I think we're behind where we should be in progress of our squad, but that comes as no surprise at all to me.

We were linked with Yates and I can't say I was too enamoured. Swansea's about the type of move I expected. I expect Doyle to be announced tomorrow as he had a medical earlier. It's a loan now rather than a permanent which is a shitter. We're quite a way off still. After a promising weekend two weeks ago with Winks/Coady signed there's been very little since. Now Doyle as I say is virtually there but we still need a lot of work - I'd say probably another 5/6 or so even after Doyle is in. My big fear is that lots of these players we have now, the deadwood, end up just being who we use rather than new signings. So more players who've mentally clocked out of this place on decent wages rather than the opposite. We're so fucking shit at moving players on. I think I'll punch somebody if I read "Praet Torino" one more time.

Slight delay but both still coming. Doyle's a done deal apparently. Steffen would be a loan rather than a permanent as well which I'm a bit happier about.

We're likely to confirm Callum Doyle and Zach Steffen signings this weekend apparently. Delighted with Doyle. That's exactly the kind of deal I want more of. Young, left sided centre half, just won Coventry player of the season (though my mate who supports them is baffled at how it couldn't be Gyokeres who he thinks is top drawer). Only shitter is we're capped in how much we can sell him for - but then if Man City want him back, that by default means the signing worked. Steffen I'm less convinced about. I'm generally of the belief that I'm taking a shot stopper over a distributor but I appreciate that's at odds with how Maresca will see it and he'll prefer a distributor. His shot stopping looks pretty ordinary at best. Just feel it's another stopgap type of signing if anything. I'm OK with it for a sensible fee but Middlesbrough fans I've come across weren't huge fans. It's not a disaster signing but just kind of think that the scouts may have had a bit more up their sleeve - particularly given he's out until September, meaning the dreaded Ward may get the nod.

We should be all over Amad Diallo if they are.

What a disappointment he was. He'd looked excellent every time I'd seen him before. You did have to wonder why he was still in Croatia at that age though. In other news - lots of our ITKs are saying we're going to sign Callum Doyle. Lovely stuff. A bright prospect and even more importantly will annoy Coventry fans.

We're the same with pre-season. Only four friendlies, two of which are in Asia a week before the opening game which is completely ridiculous, a bit of residue from the hopefully finished stupidity era. It happened to us in 2013/14, we were dodgy in pre-season, funnily enough it was a loss at Northampton that seemed to cause the most meltdown (that's one of our other friendlies this year) and we went and got 102 points. I'd be intrigued to see a proper study into pre-season times, number of friendlies, performance and then correlation with the actual performance. For all I've just said that about us, I think you could tell in pre-season a year ago that Arsenal were going to be a different beast. I mean even from what I said that's mental. Who the hell were they paying that sort of money?

Needs to happen for the Mane - Kane - Sane front three.

You can see from the furore at the airport that he's clearly considered a big thing over there and that this move is a bigger deal than probably a lot of our fans perceive it to be. I'd say there is a good chance he ends up out on loan at Leuven - but then there's a case that we're not even in a stronger league than them this coming season. He's a complete wildcard to me. We've had other Thai players train here in the past and we did sign one, albeit he never really played and he, like about 90% of this club seemingly did his ACL, and I believe has just left us this summer. I'm good with it. It's a completely risk-free signing with potential upside. The sort of deal we probably should've been doing more of if anything. I think the fact we're now in the Championship will allow us to take a couple more of these sorts of gambles that we wouldn't have really been able to as a Premier League club. Worth mentioning they have just relaxed the rules on foreign players in this country again slightly, think you can name now either 2 or 4 players in your squad that bypass the rules.

We have. I called it the day I saw Thailand had an FM wonderkid. Fingers crossed he's as good in real life as on that.

We do need to get a bit of a move on. We are likely to need 10+ signings this window. While I'm not expecting everything done by 21st June, I've lost any trust in the process here after the last couple of years that we're getting things done. Nothing sounds close. I want something this week. Martyn Glover I expect will have loads of names lined up. Now we just need to negotiate them. That's where things are probably going to fall down.

Basically where I am with us. Already fed up of some of our fans saying "we're in the Championship now, what do you expect" when we're linked to crap managers or players - just because you go down it doesn't mean you have to try and start behaving like run of the mill teams in the division. Both us and Leeds are going to have the divisions biggest budgets. Both should be aiming for automatic promotion - that isn't going to be achieved by hacking into Millwall's scouting system.

Been linked to Gustav Isaksen as well, Danish winger at Midtjylland, 22 years old and just scored 18 goals in 31 games. Highly rated. He seems like the sort of player who would represent quite a gamble as a Premier League club but as a side wanting to go up from the Championship a real coup. Right profile of player for me. Only red flag for me is the fact Brentford haven't gone for him.

Given the number of signings we're going to make this summer it's hard to really judge each one yet on an individual basis as so much of it depends on the context in which they fit into the squad. To put it simpler if Cairney is signed as well as a number of younger players I think it's a smart move, but I don't want us anchoring ourselves to a load of players who aren't good enough in a year. Does surprise me he's that old. I thought he was about 28 when we were first linked. He is a good player at this level though - I think a decent move, but just don't give him a stupid contract. Two years, I'm hoping.

It's hard to pinpoint one exact thing that did it but what I think is just completely daft is how so many fans could see it while the club either couldn't, or pretended they couldn't. I've not posted loads about it really because I think it's just the end result of everything I've been saying for a good 18 months. 18 months ago I sensed we were club in decline. Not irrecoverable decline, but decline nontheless. But to recover that decline you have to actually tackle it and do something about it. We have spent practically that entire period just putting our fingers in our ears, blah blah blah-ing every warning sign and hoping things would get better. Despite a few upturns, they never did. Whatever good results happened, we were always 2/3 games from another meltdown. I think the seeds of a team that could crumble were planted as early as even 2019 and 2020. You could perceive the 2019/20 one of two ways. You can say that this is a good season for Leicester, finishing 5th is higher than all bar around 3 finishes in our history. You can also say it was an almighty squander from the position we were in. The clubs attitude every time is to just focus on the positive and pretend there is no drawback. This leads to a reduction in standards and ultimately living in a delusional fantasy land. There were so many red flags this season it was unreal. I'd been pining for the Rodgers sacking for so long that when it finally arrived it was so farcical that I didn't even feel that usual relief. Some relief, granted, but I knew we weren't necessarily out of the mire this time. So it proved. The clubs lack of preparedness for something that was so abundantly obviously needed for so long is a major, major red flag. The owners statement this week was a load more on the defensive. Has tried to deflect away from the wrongdoings of this season by pointing out some abusive comments (which I don't actually condone if true), no apologies, and so far, no further action other than reportedly instructing an inquest into what went wrong - from the very people that are most to blame. It's just fucking mental. I'm over the relegation because I've been expecting it - I'm already worried we're going to fuck up the response. It took an extraordinary level of incompetence to get this squad relegated. Yet here we are. The only thing that gives me any solace is that Leicester City are pound for pound the most chaotic club in the country and I really do believe that. I think our case is very heavy. I mean we've won the league with the lowest ever wage bill and gone down with the highest in the space of 7 years.

I like Toney a lot but I think you're going to be a little disappointed on the fee.

Don't agree. There's loads to play for including another 5 games against the rest of the cluster of teams down the bottom. If Rodgers was right about anything it's that it was in our own hands. We did it before and we can do it again. I've literally in this decision gone from about 90% sure we're dropping to about 80% sure we're not. But it's time for those players and fans to stand up. There's nowhere to hide anymore.

We've had 10 in less than 3 years. I'm beyond blaming Rodgers at this point, we need a proper investigation into why this is happening. It seems to happen to such key players too. Ricardo, Justin and now literally our two best academy players. It's gutting. Even two you named there came from us!

Sammy Braybrooke does his ACL too. I'm honestly just beyond fed up of it. I don't know how it's even possible to be this unlucky, which makes me think it just simply cannot be bad luck. Why does this keep happening to our players? What is going on?

Yep got to give him some credit here. I've been calling for action and while he's not done 'everything' I want you can't accuse him now of just sitting there and letting us sink, which a month ago it really did look like. We're really banking on survival now with those loans from the Australian bank. Part of me wonders if they think they can convince him to stay. I don't think they're going to manage it but the seeming lack of interest in him has surprised me.

Tete is the one I want and have wanted a while, although when he went to Lyon I assumed we were totally out of that race. I got told a while ago we wanted him so there's definitely something in it. The problem is I think we just won't have the nous to get this one over the line. We've not been quick enough this month in general. The Kristiansen deal for me sums it up. I'm happy with the signing and I think it's an encouraging one, a return to the type of profile that's made us successful in the quite recent past. But how has a signing from Copenhagen taken until three weeks into the window? Their season was over in November and he didn't go to the World Cup. Things are critical here, we need players in, he should've been ready for the Fulham game. Now I'm more sympathetic on the Tete deal. It appears to me that we've got to do two deals to get it over the line, one with Lyon and one with Skakhtar, and it does appear that Tete's fairly recently fallen out of favour under Blanc for Lyon so it's one I think we've thought to try and move quickly on. But going back to Kristiansen, if it's taking us that long to get a simple deal like that done then I really don't hold out much hope for this one. I hope I'm wrong but I just can't see it. Then I think we'll go back to Fiorentina for Gonzalez and I think they'll quote us too much, and we'll walk away. I think Souttar will sign in the next week but I'm going to predict that it's Souttar only. I'm rarely happy with how our windows go these days. Leaving ourselves one short seems to be a real habit unfortunately.