Brendan Rodgers Finally Sacked

[Dan+]

3 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

He's sort of done a mirror image of what he's done at Liverpool with you - although I think his highs with Leicester are higher (he actually managed to win something, rather than his biggest accomplishment being almost winning a league title) - but his lows were lower (probably because we got rid of him quicker).

He's a good short-term manager. He's abysmal at building a team and once the club is in freefall... it's honestly just a nightmare for all the fans involved.

He's a short-term manager who is framed as a long-term manager because of his perceived style of play, his age and his image. It's all style over substance with him.

The difference with this and Ranieri is we did act earlier. We sacked Ranieri with I think 15 league games to go. Here we've done it with 10. It's more precarious as a result.

What the fuck did we achieve by not sacking him after Forest. What a total waste of well over a year - while the likes of Emery and De Zerbi joined teams who haven't finished above us since 2014 and 2012 respectively.

[OrangeKhrush]

Leicester may need a manager capable of building a team from the championship.   I think are genuine risks to go down now and the players look checked out.   Bournemouth on the weekend is must win as it's City after that

[Dan+]

It's us or Bournemouth. I think Southampton are likely done and Forest aren't far behind. If we lose on Saturday I think it's over - will demonstrate that they are incapable of digging anything out even without the shackles of Rodgers.

West Ham are what people have pretended we are - a poor team but have enough quality to dig out of it. Everton have a bad squad but a good manager who will create exactly the kind of siege mentality that is alien to this club in 2023. Crystal Palace have an advantage of points and favourable fixtures. Wolves should be just about OK. Leeds the same.

Rodgers 100% had to go, but I tell you what, the amount of flack he took has definitely let equally culpable parties off the hook.

Me and plenty of other fans have been calling for his departure for well over a year but the hierarchy of the club just continued to let the house burn down. The decline to me was quite obvious around October / November 2021 and by the time of the outrageous treble header of losing to Tottenham from 2-1 up in the 94th minute, throwing away another win against Brighton and then the 4-1 loss to Forest in the FA Cup following two weeks off, we had the perfect chance to shake hands and call it a day in February 2022.

What did we achieve by not doing this?

Rodgers went on a rant about how we needed an overhaul of the playing squad. Now I don't entirely disagree with him, but I found it hard to listen to him absolving himself of the blame while it was he and his head of recruitment that had done such a bad job of keeping the squad ticking over.

We then did absolutely nothing in the summer. We sold Fofana unplanned - now while I resent Fofana for the way he went about it, I do think his desire to get out of here was only increased by what we were actually doing. What I mean is if we had demonstrated some capability of improving the squad and looked like we were going places ourselves, I think there's less chance he'd have done what he did.

I mean do you fucking blame him?

Our only signing in the summer was Wout Faes, in as an emergency Fofana replacement. He is, for me, probably a lower PL centre half. So it was another downgrade. Though the fees paid dictated that this was the likely outcome.

Fast forward to the last two weeks. So we get a draw at Brentford, meaning it's 1 point from 6 games going into the March international break. Rumours are he was going to sack Rodgers if we lost at Brentford. But we drew. So he survived.

We then lost to Crystal Palace two weeks later and then decided to sack him.

It has now transpired we have no real succession plan.

We are absolutely terribly run. I've long held suspicions that we weren't quite the well-oiled machine people think we were. I think we did a very good job for years of creating the illusion of being well-run. We had 4/5 instances of freak brilliant recruitment, the luxury of having an elite striker that we were in no danger of losing - something the likes of Chelsea have spent hundreds of millions chasing, and failing to procure.

No well-run club acts like this. It's an absolute shipwreck. I've seen our issues for a good 18 months, have wanted the manager changed for over a year, yet when it's come around to actually replacing him, we've got no idea and we've just sacked him on a whim, off the back of a result the same group of fans could've all seen coming. It was as on-brand for this laughable Leicester side as it could've been.

The lot of them deserve relegation. They're a disgrace and I want them out.

[Dan+]

It's sounding like Jesse Marsch. Fucking hell man. There is zero imagination at all with us.

[Stan]

Jesse Marsch in advanced talks... 

 

@Lucas pros and cons please. I've heard a lot of cons... 

[Whiskey]

I genuinely had to check that it was Fabrizio Romano's actual account that was saying Marsch was close. 

Fucking hell - think Leicester drop now.

[Dave]

9 hours ago, Stan said:

Jesse Marsch in advanced talks... 

 

@Lucas pros and cons please. I've heard a lot of cons... 

He referred to football as: "We're in the entertainment industry" which is enough of a red flag to me.

[Dan+]

I've seen nothing but absolute barrels from Leeds fans. There was an influx of them onto Foxestalk with "good luck, you'll need it", they really, really didn't like him at all and that concerns me. It's an unbelievably unimaginative, desperate appointment but one that we backed ourselves into by our inaction. If we had sacked Rodgers back in the summer, or even September, we could've gotten somebody like Emery or De Zerbi. But I doubt our board had even heard of De Zerbi.

The fact Graham Potter is seriously considering Southampton should raise some real alarm bells at the club. They're 1/6 to get relegated and he sees them as a better prospect than us. That should tell you something.

I will give Marsch a chance because what else can you do, but I'll be honest, I don't think he'll even make it to Christmas. He's failed at Leipzig despite being a long term Red Bull man, and he failed at Leeds. There will be a tactical shake up, which we do need, but I think it will crash and burn fairly quickly unfortunately.

[Dan+]

There's no imagination at all in their appointments. I think this dates back to even the Vichai days really.

 

- Pearson was an ex manager, liked by the fans, wasn't entirely happy at Hull. Obvious pick.

- Ranieri was a big name who threw his name into the ring. Got the job. The rest is history, but if you look at the process of actually getting him in...

- Shakespeare was the interim manager.

- Puel had managed in this league albeit not particularly successfully.

- Rodgers had managed in this league and was making noises about leaving Celtic.

- Marsch has managed in this league, albeit not successfully.

 

They seriously lack any outside of the box thinking. They've lucked it a few times IMO. I think when you see how desperately we've acted here, you realise this isn't part of any particularly good planning.

If they had gone for Adi Hutter, somebody who hasn't managed in this league but has a decent track record in Germany, superior to Marsch, then I'd say fair play and respect their decision. This just smacks of desperation and totally lacks imagination.

But good luck to him. He'll need it. I fear.

[Dave]

I'm very surprised Leicester are not waiting until the summer to appoint somebody long term. There should be an influx of good managers overseas available.

[Stan]

38 minutes ago, The Palace Fan said:

I'm very surprised Leicester are not waiting until the summer to appoint somebody long term. There should be an influx of good managers overseas available.

Our owners don't really have a clue. There are a lot of things being mismanaged at the club. 

[OrangeKhrush]

I think Leicester and Potter needed to just wait until the end of the season,  then agree to a long term rebuild,  Potter is probably better suited to building a squad rather than ready meal squads. 

[Tar-Mairon]

Probably three reasons why Marsch is likely to be the one.

1) He won't bail if they go down. He apparently refused the Southampton job because they only offered him to the end of the season. I think he was happy to commit to Leeds if they went down. They probably think that if they do go down, Marsch won't be making noises to leave and will oversee trying to get them straight back up.

2) Confidence. Marsch is an excellent communicator and good at how he comes over in the media. It does sometimes sound a bit like a marketing manager making a pitch. They are probably hoping he can "inspire" their way out of it.

3) He kept Leeds up last season. Leeds fans might argue that it was despite him and not because of him and Bielsa would have done it anyway (I don't know enough to argue the rights and wrongs of that) but the record is there, he kept Leeds up and this is probably factoring into the thinking.

 

[Dan+]

8 hours ago, The Palace Fan said:

I'm very surprised Leicester are not waiting until the summer to appoint somebody long term. There should be an influx of good managers overseas available.

They're at total panic stations, they haven't got a clue what they're doing. I think that much was evident by the timing of Rodgers departure.

While I was happy he was finally binned, I knew it had ultimately revealed we are a hugely flawed club in how we're run. We've been abysmal for well over a year, what happened at Selhurst Park was absolutely not out of character for this team and manager - so why did that tilt the scales? Even more laughable was they had just had two weeks to sort this. It just proves they do virtually everything on a whim.

Our luck was always likely to eventually run out.

There are plenty of managers abroad but we seem to be one of those "PL experience trumps all" clubs when it comes to managers. Look at the list I put up there. They're the calibre of candidates that Agbonlahor & O'Hara would come up with on Talksport. No serious imagination.

It's sounding a little less like it might be Marsch. Again, I think this is just because they don't truly know.

If Brighton lost De Zerbi this summer or Brentford lost Frank, despite having very good seasons, they would know immediately who was coming in to replace them.

We've been absolutely dire for well over a year and treat the Rodgers sacking as if it's been sprung up on us, as if he's fallen ill or something.

They're getting exactly what they deserve. Operating like total amateurs.

[Stan]

2 hours ago, Dan said:

so why did that tilt the scales?

For me it just emphasises the point that it may be because we dropped into the bottom 3. 

[Dan+]

2 minutes ago, Stan said:

For me it just emphasises the point that it may be because we dropped into the bottom 3. 

That is probably it but I think it's a method that's doomed to fail.

Not even getting any post Rodgers bounce has convinced me beyond any doubt we're done.

[Stan]

Just now, Dan said:

That is probably it but I think it's a method that's doomed to fail.

Not even getting any post Rodgers bounce has convinced me beyond any doubt we're done.

I'm convinced we're done because the players just seem to have lost all belief, hunger, confidence and ability to do the basics.

Sadler and Stowell are caretaker/interim managers for a reason. They're in the Rodgers mould which is why we desperately need to get someone new in sharpish. Someone with fresh ideas and impetus. We're not beating Man City this Saturday but at least give the new manager as much time as possible to work with the squad.

[Dan+]

Just now, Stan said:

I'm convinced we're done because the players just seem to have lost all belief, hunger, confidence and ability to do the basics.

Sadler and Stowell are caretaker/interim managers for a reason. They're in the Rodgers mould which is why we desperately need to get someone new in sharpish. Someone with fresh ideas and impetus. We're not beating Man City this Saturday but at least give the new manager as much time as possible to work with the squad.

I think there is such a culture ingrained that they've already mentally clocked out and I included Rodgers in that. He gave up as far as I'm concerned. I think a sizeable proportion of them have their eyes on the exit door and I was thinking what XI could you realistically pick that didn't include players looking for a way out, and I struggled to put anything together.

[Dan+]

Whispers that we've U-turned on Marsch apparently.

[Stan]

1 hour ago, Dan said:

Whispers that we've U-turned on Marsch apparently.

Or he's rejected us

 

[Lucas]

On 08/04/2023 at 14:12, Stan said:

Jesse Marsch in advanced talks... 

 

@Lucas pros and cons please. I've heard a lot of cons... 

Well, focussing on the positives, he's a very likeable guy. Right now, the mood at your club is rock bottom, from fans to the team, so he will lift that. Man management is key at a time like this.

The players at Leeds from what I heard and read, really enjoyed his training sessions.

He's one for one when it comes to relegation dogfights. So there is some experience there to lean on.

He'll get you creating some chances which right now, seems something you're struggling to do.

He likes to play 4-2-2-2 or a 4-2-3-1 which I think looking at your squad, is something they will likely take well to. It could be time to start playing Daka and Iheanacho together, with Maddison and Barnes behind them.

[Dan+]

Marsch deal is off. I was convinced it was basically done but seemingly not.

Dean Smith interim is the rumour now. I think I'd sooner him as interim than committing to Marsch.

[Honey Honey]

Marsch pulls out after watching the Bournemouth game. Obviously doesn't think he can keep Leicester up.

[Fairy In Boots]

13 hours ago, Dan said:

Marsch deal is off. I was convinced it was basically done but seemingly not.

Dean Smith interim is the rumour now. I think I'd sooner him as interim than committing to Marsch.

Smith will brink Shakespeare with him I’d imagine 

[Stan]

Rafa's turn to be seriously linked...

 

Apparently the owners' plane was in Liverpool yesterday, and returned last night.