Wesley Fofana Completes Move to Leicester

[...Dan]

 

[Stan]

From one Big Wes to another.

Excited about this if we can get him.

[Stan]

 

 

Quote

 

Wesley Fofana, who also likes the #Milan , announces its decision to @lequipe

“I accepted the offer from Leicester, I dream of playing in the Premier League. This contract can change my life, I have to protect my family. I received so many offers "

 

 

[Dan+]

I'm really happy with this, I think it's a quality signing. Lets get a couple of decent attacking options in now and we're looking a lot healthier all of a sudden.

[Cicero]

Wish his first name was Bananafana

[Eco]

16 minutes ago, Cicero said:

Wish his first name was Bananafana

[Stan]

GIMME HOPE, FOFANA!!

 

 

He's done an interview in France which is quite revealing as to his intentions and want to move...

• Says it's his dream to play in the Premier League
• Would be crazy to say no to Leicester so as not to miss out on that opportunity
• Despite enjoying his time at St Etienne, and being there for several years, he's not happy with how some fans have targeted his family, including his sister in school, for wanting to leave the club. Hence deleting his social media the other day.
• Was happy to stay at the club and 'give 100%' despite nearly leaving last summer to RB Salzburg, but a deal couldn't be reached.
• Has spoken to Puel but he's not letting him leave. Might be a directive from the manager himself or the club not to lose such an asset.
• Has agreed a contract with us but only St Etienne not accepting the £26m/29m Euros offer from Leicester.

[Dan+]

I've thought ever since it came out he had followed us on all his social media that he was probably coming, why else would it have happened unless he was just messing us around? Someone on FT made a post the other day comparing it to the Praet deal where we knew for a while it would happen but it took until deadline day, so I wouldn't be shocked if this was still another fortnight away, annoyingly, but I do think it'll go through and based on everything I've been told it's a really good bit of business.

I do think the way he's going about leaving St Etienne could bite us on the arse one day and I could see it being a similar natured departure. Doesn't really sit right with me but doesn't stop me wanting us to do it, just brace yourselves I suppose.

This firmly is not a Congerton buy, by the way.

[Stan]

22 minutes ago, Dan said:

This firmly is not a Congerton buy, by the way.

Why not?

[Dan+]

15 minutes ago, Stan said:

Why not?

I do have an indirect link to one of our scouts so have gotten the odd bit of information, nothing major, and couldn't give you any potential names we've looked at this summer, though I do know of a few players we've missed out on in the past and chosen not to go for, some of them infuriating. This scout is no fan of Congerton, backs up a lot of what the Celtic and Sunderland fans say, says that he was given a list of targets this summer to go for and basically nothing was done on them so we've lagged behind.

Congerton and Rodgers' target was Tarkowski but it looks to me like we've been priced out. Fofana was a target of the scouting team. They also supposedly claim to be the ones who went for Soyuncu, Ricardo, Maddison and a couple of others. I have no reason to doubt this person who tells me this, it's a long term family friend who just happens to know this scout. My only cynicism is he seems to claim to be behind all of the successes and none of the failures. Claims Puel signed Diabate and Ghezzal against their advice as well

I think a lot of my negativity was from some of this knowledge but this signing tells me that maybe things have turned a bit for the better. He does say that football is very political though and that you don't want to make enemies. He wouldn't want to piss Rodgers off.

[Stan]

10 minutes ago, Dan said:

I do have an indirect link to one of our scouts so have gotten the odd bit of information, nothing major, and couldn't give you any potential names we've looked at this summer, though I do know of a few players we've missed out on in the past and chosen not to go for, some of them infuriating. This scout is no fan of Congerton, backs up a lot of what the Celtic and Sunderland fans say, says that he was given a list of targets this summer to go for and basically nothing was done on them so we've lagged behind.

Congerton and Rodgers' target was Tarkowski but it looks to me like we've been priced out. Fofana was a target of the scouting team. They also supposedly claim to be the ones who went for Soyuncu, Ricardo, Maddison and a couple of others. I have no reason to doubt this person who tells me this, it's a long term family friend who just happens to know this scout. My only cynicism is he seems to claim to be behind all of the successes and none of the failures. Claims Puel signed Diabate and Ghezzal against their advice as well

I think a lot of my negativity was from some of this knowledge but this signing tells me that maybe things have turned a bit for the better. He does say that football is very political though and that you don't want to make enemies. He wouldn't want to piss Rodgers off.

Before you mentioned that cynicism it was something I was going to start this quote with  

I think it'd be quite disingenuous of us to pile all the shit at Congerton's door (even if he does have a poor record at other clubs) and not give him any credit at all for getting any good deals over the line. This isn't to get above our perch too much but I'm guessing what he worked with at Sunderland was in no way similar to how things work at our club. Resources and facilities are vastly different, not to mention the compared statuses of the clubs at each time.

I guess after seeing what happened to Rennie, it'd be wise not to piss your boss off  

[LFCMadLad]

34 minutes ago, Dan said:

I do have an indirect link to one of our scouts so have gotten the odd bit of information, nothing major, and couldn't give you any potential names we've looked at this summer, though I do know of a few players we've missed out on in the past and chosen not to go for, some of them infuriating. This scout is no fan of Congerton, backs up a lot of what the Celtic and Sunderland fans say, says that he was given a list of targets this summer to go for and basically nothing was done on them so we've lagged behind.

Congerton and Rodgers' target was Tarkowski but it looks to me like we've been priced out. Fofana was a target of the scouting team. They also supposedly claim to be the ones who went for Soyuncu, Ricardo, Maddison and a couple of others. I have no reason to doubt this person who tells me this, it's a long term family friend who just happens to know this scout. My only cynicism is he seems to claim to be behind all of the successes and none of the failures. Claims Puel signed Diabate and Ghezzal against their advice as well

I think a lot of my negativity was from some of this knowledge but this signing tells me that maybe things have turned a bit for the better. He does say that football is very political though and that you don't want to make enemies. He wouldn't want to piss Rodgers off.

I can tell you from experience that Rodgers can be absolutely ruthless when he wants to be. 

[Dan+]

4 hours ago, Stan said:

Before you mentioned that cynicism it was something I was going to start this quote with  

I think it'd be quite disingenuous of us to pile all the shit at Congerton's door (even if he does have a poor record at other clubs) and not give him any credit at all for getting any good deals over the line. This isn't to get above our perch too much but I'm guessing what he worked with at Sunderland was in no way similar to how things work at our club. Resources and facilities are vastly different, not to mention the compared statuses of the clubs at each time.

I guess after seeing what happened to Rennie, it'd be wise not to piss your boss off  

I do tend to think it's a convenient excuse to pin every wrongdoing at Congerton's door but it would make some sense. I'll give you one example I've been told but last summer they went for Perez instead of Ziyech, which said scout found outrageous and to be honest so do I.

 

4 hours ago, LFCMadLad said:

I can tell you from experience that Rodgers can be absolutely ruthless when he wants to be. 

Tying into the Rennie point - Rodgers recently sacked our physio of 20 years, reasons not really made particularly clear, something to do with the injuries to Chilwell & Maddison but I'm not sure I buy it. We've gone from the same physio department being accused of doping because of how good our injury record was in 2016, to now sacking the head of it because of a couple of injuries we picked up? Something doesn't tally up somewhere. There are either some bizarrely different perspectives in all of this, or what I fear, is that Rodgers is passing the buck for what happened last season and if that's how the players view it, I think it's going to eventually blow up in his face.

[...Dan]

Hasn't Soyuncu Evans been a really solid partnership? Is there actually a place available for him? If he's not gonna be a starter I'd prefer him to stay in France another year. Saying that though, he seems to have already burned his bridges at Saint-Étienne, their fans aren't happy with him at all.

[Dan+]

2 minutes ago, ...Dan said:

Hasn't Soyuncu Evans been a really solid partnership? Is there actually a place available for him? If he's not gonna be a starter I'd prefer him to stay in France another year. Saying that though, he seems to have already burned his bridges at Saint-Étienne, their fans aren't happy with him at all.

Yeah to be honest I think probably one of the best partnerships in the league last season, even despite the poor finish it was hard to pin too much of it on those two. I get the feeling he's planning to play a back three though. I wonder if Evans is going to be phased out as he's getting on a bit now. We do need a centre back.

It's so annoying that we didn't sort it for this weekend. We're playing Ndidi at centre back for god sake.

[Stan]

6 minutes ago, ...Dan said:

Hasn't Soyuncu Evans been a really solid partnership? Is there actually a place available for him? If he's not gonna be a starter I'd prefer him to stay in France another year. Saying that though, he seems to have already burned his bridges at Saint-Étienne, their fans aren't happy with him at all.

It points to Rodgers playing 3 at the back but does also give us some much-needed depth in that position. There's only so many times we can rely on a 36y/o Wes Morgan and it showed how badly we suffered when Soyuncu was banned at end of last season and with Evans out for the first 3 games of this one. 

 

[Dan+]

It would've been so much easier if Benkovic had worked out. It's becoming increasingly clear to me that that move just isn't going to work.

[Stan]

5 minutes ago, Dan said:

It would've been so much easier if Benkovic had worked out. It's becoming increasingly clear to me that that move just isn't going to work.

Yeah I think it speaks volumes Rodgers liked him at Celtic but not good enough to be here. He hasn't done much at Bristol City last season either. 

Seems like he's got a lot of improving to do even to be considered. Says a lot Ndidi is being drafted in before him. 

[Dan+]

10 minutes ago, Stan said:

Yeah I think it speaks volumes Rodgers liked him at Celtic but not good enough to be here. He hasn't done much at Bristol City last season either. 

Seems like he's got a lot of improving to do even to be considered. Says a lot Ndidi is being drafted in before him. 

They're saying injured again. I mean seriously?

[LFCMike]

17 hours ago, Dan said:

I do tend to think it's a convenient excuse to pin every wrongdoing at Congerton's door but it would make some sense. I'll give you one example I've been told but last summer they went for Perez instead of Ziyech, which said scout found outrageous and to be honest so do I.

 

Tying into the Rennie point - Rodgers recently sacked our physio of 20 years, reasons not really made particularly clear, something to do with the injuries to Chilwell & Maddison but I'm not sure I buy it. We've gone from the same physio department being accused of doping because of how good our injury record was in 2016, to now sacking the head of it because of a couple of injuries we picked up? Something doesn't tally up somewhere. There are either some bizarrely different perspectives in all of this, or what I fear, is that Rodgers is passing the buck for what happened last season and if that's how the players view it, I think it's going to eventually blow up in his face.

He threw his long term assistant, Colin Pascoe, under the bus in the summer of 2015 to save his own job at Liverpool. He lasted himself until October.

[Dan+]

1 hour ago, LFCMike said:

He threw his long term assistant, Colin Pascoe, under the bus in the summer of 2015 to save his own job at Liverpool. He lasted himself until October.

This isn't helping my gut feeling there was one of two things going on here for me, either...

 

a) This physio was leaking the team. I received some of the leaks myself indirectly and posted the odd one on here. I'm not sure who leaked it but he'd be a prime suspect.

b) Rodgers has thrown said physio under the bus to deflect from his own shortcomings.

 

I think it's quite plausible that it's both actually. It wouldn't be a big deal but this bloke had been at the club since 1999, was well liked, we haven't exactly been bad for injuries either really. If you're getting injuries, do you really just sack one person? That seems a very simplistic solution to me and it adds weight to option B. We're not getting the full story and we probably never will.

[Dan+]

That GFFN reporting we've had 29mil euros turned down. Infuriating. Puel having a right laugh at us here. Horrible feeling we're going to panic and lash stupid money at Tarkowski.

Fofana's been very outspoken about this, he's actually come out and said he wants the move, says it's a lifechanger (and does allude to the money, I quite like his honesty really) but St Etienne are holding firm. It's annoying that it's Puel of all people in charge of them, he was quite a shrewd operator in the transfer window if nothing else and he'll know the ins and outs here. He learnt playing hardball from the best.

[Stan]

6 hours ago, Dan said:

That GFFN reporting we've had 29mil euros turned down. Infuriating. Puel having a right laugh at us here. Horrible feeling we're going to panic and lash stupid money at Tarkowski.

Fofana's been very outspoken about this, he's actually come out and said he wants the move, says it's a lifechanger (and does allude to the money, I quite like his honesty really) but St Etienne are holding firm. It's annoying that it's Puel of all people in charge of them, he was quite a shrewd operator in the transfer window if nothing else and he'll know the ins and outs here. He learnt playing hardball from the best.

I know we have history with Puel but apart from wanting the player to stay, I doubt he has much power over what bids are accepted. Surely that's a decision made from above him?

[Dan+]

4 hours ago, Stan said:

I know we have history with Puel but apart from wanting the player to stay, I doubt he has much power over what bids are accepted. Surely that's a decision made from above him?

I do agree but I do think Puel's knowledge of the ins and outs at Leicester will give St Etienne an advantage. He'll have a good idea of what we can spend this summer I'd imagine.

I wasn't a big Puel fan but some of the people giving him genuine shit over this (mine is in jest) are a bit embarrassing. He's doing his job, exactly what I'd want us to do in their position.

[Dan+]

I stress if it's true St Etienne said he can leave for a certain price, we've met it, and they've said no then that's a bit off.

I still think this'll go through. My worry is that someone else swoops in.

I want this bloke though. Got real Soyuncu vibes about him.