Leicester City Discussion

[Dan+]

We need fucking shooting if we get him in. That move alone could totally fuck any progress we make.

[Pyfish+]

He is the kind of guy that sends a club backwards rather than helping progression. Best bit of business he was involved in was bringing Defoe in but then he was responsible for bringing a lot of Championship and below-par players in. £10 million for Rodwell turned out well too of course... 

[Dan+]

On 07/03/2019 at 09:12, Pyfish said:

He is the kind of guy that sends a club backwards rather than helping progression. Best bit of business he was involved in was bringing Defoe in but then he was responsible for bringing a lot of Championship and below-par players in. £10 million for Rodwell turned out well too of course... 

It's just utterly beyond belief that we would do this but it would be very Leicester to absolutely nail some aspects of our process then totally fuck the others.

I even read that the Defoe thing was largely helped by you having Altidore who still had a very good reputation over there and that Defoe had been a disaster at Toronto.

[Pyfish+]

The Defoe / Altidore deal was definitely win win for both clubs. Otherwise, I don’t think we would have stood a chance at getting Defoe to play for us. Altidore was dire.

[Stan]

100 Leicester goals for Vardy.

74 goals in the Premier League. Only Kane, Aguero & Lukaku have scored more since 2014/15.

Legend of the club.

[Dan+]

Best striker we've had in my lifetime. He's not even had that good a year by his standards and he's still only had six players outscore him in the league.

I'm delighted that Rodgers has talked him up and said that he wants a pressing striker like him to be his focal point of the team. That's exactly what I've been calling for all along but Puel never truly seemed to appreciate his value.

[CaaC (John)+]

Hamza Choudhury charged with misconduct for social media comments

Leicester midfielder Hamza Choudhury has been charged with misconduct by the Football Association in relation to comments made on social media.

The 21-year-old wrote the messages in 2013 and 2014 and apologised for them earlier this week.

The FA said the comments constituted an "aggravated breach" as they included reference to ethnic origin and/or race and/or sexual orientation.

Choudhury, a graduate of Leicester's academy, has until 13 May to respond.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/48140058

[Stan]

How many other players gonna get done for social media posts when they were 15 or 16 then? 

Not saying what he said was acceptable or right in any way, but do the FA ever show any common sense? 

[Dr. Gonzo]

38 minutes ago, Stan said:

How many other players gonna get done for social media posts when they were 15 or 16 then? 

Not saying what he said was acceptable or right in any way, but do the FA ever show any common sense? 

On the one hand, I agree it's not fair to hold peoples' words from when they were stupid kids to be the same things they think and feel now... but on the other hand, he's alleged to have made a racial slur and said unsavoury shit about people who killed themselves (so likely suffering from mental problems).

I think the best example the FA can set is to have a 0 tolerance policy. Yes, it's unfair because chances are he's changed a lot in 5 or 6 years and almost everyone is stupid when they're a teenager and says stupid and edgy shit because that's just what teens do for some fucking reason... But this is the FA trying to take on societal issues that are stem from outside football and have ventured there way into football because people are Jim Broadbent's. And because players are considered role models to children, it sends the wrong message to not punish a player for saying something... even if it was a long time ago and even if the player doesn't harbour those thoughts or feelings anymore.

And yeah, that can be particularly harsh on the player here, but it's for the greater good of trying to stamp out these shite views in our society from being pervasive in English football. And I think the message that sort of zero tolerance policy sends greatly outweighs the negative aspects from a player/club being unfairly done over by the implementation of that policy. It's a Hot Fuzz approach to society:

[Stan]

3 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

On the one hand, I agree it's not fair to hold peoples' words from when they were stupid kids to be the same things they think and feel now... but on the other hand, he's alleged to have made a racial slur and said unsavoury shit about people who killed themselves (so likely suffering from mental problems).

I think the best example the FA can set is to have a 0 tolerance policy. Yes, it's unfair because chances are he's changed a lot in 5 or 6 years and almost everyone is stupid when they're a teenager and says stupid and edgy shit because that's just what teens do for some fucking reason... But this is the FA trying to take on societal issues that are stem from outside football and have ventured there way into football because people are Jim Broadbent's. And because players are considered role models to children, it sends the wrong message to not punish a player for saying something... even if it was a long time ago and even if the player doesn't harbour those thoughts or feelings anymore.

And yeah, that can be particularly harsh on the player here, but it's for the greater good of trying to stamp out these shite views in our society from being pervasive in English football. And I think the message that sort of zero tolerance policy sends greatly outweighs the negative aspects from a player/club being unfairly done over by the implementation of that policy. It's a Hot Fuzz approach to society:

All fair points. 

The double standards is odd though - Hennessey gets let off by pleading ignorance about Nazis etc and I believe Declan Rice tweeted one support for the IRA yet didn't get punished. Why was an example or punishments not handed out to them? 

Interesting to see what punishment will be given after this charge. For me a warning suffices given the passage of time. A ban would be over the top in my opinion. 

And whatever that punishment is, will the FA give the same out to whoever's tweets or Facebook posts are dug up from the past in the next years to come? 

[Dr. Gonzo]

Just now, Stan said:

All fair points. 

The double standards is odd though - Hennessey gets let off by pleading ignorance about Nazis etc and I believe Declan Rice tweeted one support for the IRA yet didn't get punished. Why was an example or punishments not handed out to them? 

Interesting to see what punishment will be given after this charge. For me a warning suffices given the passage of time. A ban would be over the top in my opinion. 

And whatever that punishment is, will the FA give the same out to whoever's tweets or Facebook posts are dug up from the past in the next years to come? 

The Wayne Hennessey thing is a fucking joke tbh. He should have absolutely been punished, I don't believe for one second he had no idea who the Nazis and Adolf Hitler were - and even if that's true, he should be punished for being so fucking ridiculously stupid. Because if these players really are role models, then clearly Hennessey is a bad role model because he's about as stupid as anyone I've ever heard about if he's never heard of the Nazis before (but again, I'm sure he fucking has). I'd not heard about the Declan Rice tweet... but yeah, that's also not acceptable and should be punished.

No excuse for the double standard. But I do think it's fair game if someone's tweeted shit about other races, nationalities, ethnicities, shite like that, to have someone dig into it and for there to be some culpability for having said stupid things in the past. Even if it's a bit unfair.

I don't know what the punishment should be, tbh. I think the more recent the tweet, the more severe the punishment should be - but then the FA has to deal with the question of "does this player still feel this way?" for shite that's really old. And the Hennessey defense of "well, actually I am a giant fucking moron and I didn't know any better" is actually a lot more believable if you take it and apply it to teenagers "I was a giant fucking moron when I was a teenager and I didn't know any better, but now I'm older and have learned I was wrong" is significantly more fucking believable than "I'm in my 30s and I don't know what Nazis are."

Has anyone actually stopped to think about Hennessey's defense? Why did nobody at the FA ask him, "Wayne, have you seen Raiders of the Lost Arc or The Last Crusade?" He's in his fucking 30s, he's probably seen the 2 best Indiana Jones movies. Even if that's all some people know about the fucking Nazis, they know about the fucking Nazis. It's absurd they believed him.

[Dan+]

The FA showing themselves up for the absolute freaks that they are again. Making an example of a younger player because they know they've dropped a clanger on the Hennessey shambles. I'm sure Rice would've had this treatment if he wasn't deciding who to play for out of England and Ireland.

He was fucking 15 when he wrote those tweets. Yes they are bad and yes they're distasteful, but what an absolute waste of everyone's time, including their own, all to virtue signal.

If he gets some kind of ban it will be the single most ridiculous ban I have ever heard of.

Frustrates me there's nothing we can do about it either. Once you're up against the stupidly over-powered virtue signallers you've got no chance in 2019. Sad state of affairs.

[Smiley Culture]

The FA should really hold a zero tolerance policy against stupid stuff people tweeted as a kid or as an adult, you can’t really decide what people can and can’t say or do, how they have with the Hennessey sham. 

Find it strange how these things just randomly come to light years after they’ve been posted. Does someone sit at home just trying to find these things to expose footballers?

[The Artful Dodger]

The only like for like comparison is with Andre Gray who was banned for 4 matches. So it isn't unprecedented or out of sync with punishment of other players. This is the worst thing about football, people who can't help but blather on about how it's unfair on them or their club if they get punished for something, be it a refereeing decision or the retrospective action. 

The hennesey affair was a mess from start to finish but it has no bearing on this. 

Edited May 2, 2019 by The Artful Dodger

[6666]

A punishment for dumb tweets from when he was 15 that didn't even affect anyone...? that is a bit of a joke in my opinion.

Why these footballers don't go back and delete old tweets is also a bit ridiculous. Everyone says dumb things just for the sake of saying dumb things at that age. Difference of course is that with social media, it has a longer life and they may not have known or thought of that when they were young but surely they know that once they've grown up.

What he said wasn't on the level of Andre Gray though and he was younger than him as well so he'll most likely recover from it.

[Dr. Gonzo]

9 minutes ago, Smiley Culture said:

The FA should really hold a zero tolerance policy against stupid stuff people tweeted as a kid or as an adult, you can’t really decide what people can and can’t say or do, how they have with the Hennessey sham. 

Find it strange how these things just randomly come to light years after they’ve been posted. Does someone sit at home just trying to find these things to expose footballers?

If I had to guess, I'd imagine there's journos (or people interning for journos or people who want to be journos) that look into players social media accounts and if they find stuff they'll either go to the FA or just write about it somewhere and then BAM that's a new story for them to tell about a premier league player/club.

I'm of two minds to this. I think it can be a bit unfair to punish people for things they said a long time ago, particularly when they were a teenager. On the other hand, I don't really see a way of tackling this situation that is effective unless it's just a zero tolerance policy. You start coming up with excuses like Hennessey and people will find ways to excuse that kind of behavior. If you simply don't tolerate that behavior regardless of circumstance, then it sends a pretty clear message about future conduct.

[RandoEFC+]

The bigger problem is that Twitter and Instagram etc provide a platform for people to put on to the world wide web whatever they like with impunity and stuff like this, and much much worse stuff, is getting fired out onto the internet every second of every day, and it only gets noticed if you're famous enough for someone to trawl back through your posting history.

Really you should have to put some sort of legal identification when you open a social media account that only gets seen even by the website administrators themselves if something you post gets reported or triggers some sort of alert. There has to be some way to hold people accountable for what they post online if it's illegal or out of order because it's not acceptable to have a society where people can anonymously make racist comments or even preach hateful religious extremism whilst hiding behind a screen.

As for this particular incident though, another non story. People do and say stupid stuff when they're young and the misfortune of Twitter and the internet is that it makes it permanent. It's absolutely crazy though that any Premier League club doesn't have someone monitoring all past social media activity on official accounts of their players the second they turn professional. Choudhury could easily have had this flagged up by a club official a long time ago and gone and removed it before too many people saw it.

[Stan]

41 minutes ago, The Artful Dodger said:

The only like for like comparison is with Andre Gray who was banned for 4 matches. So it isn't unprecedented or out of sync with punishment of other players. This is the worst thing about football, people who can't help but blather on about how it's unfair on them or their club if they get punished for something, be it a refereeing decision or the retrospective action. 

The hennesey affair was a mess from start to finish but it has no bearing on this. 

Gray was 21 and a professional football player already, so it's not that like for like. He'd already be under a professional contract so would know not to say what he did. Choudhury was a kid still at school as 15/16 year old and no doubt less mature. 

Why does the Hennessey thing have no bearing on this? Bit odd to completely dismiss it to be honest. 

[Stan]

2 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

As for this particular incident though, another non story. People do and say stupid stuff when they're young and the misfortune of Twitter and the internet is that it makes it permanent. It's absolutely crazy though that any Premier League club doesn't have someone monitoring all past social media activity on official accounts of their players the second they turn professional. Choudhury could easily have had this flagged up by a club official a long time ago and gone and removed it before too many people saw it.

Very much agree with this, for sure. Especially in this day and age where this isn't the first instance I'm quite surprised that Clubs don't instruct their players to get rid of anything that could be construed as offensive or controversy just to remove all doubt altogether. Or have some advisor if they're totally not sure. It would remove any potential bad publicity for player and club in the future. Not even just for Premier League clubs either. 

[The Artful Dodger]

13 minutes ago, Stan said:

Gray was 21 and a professional football player already, so it's not that like for like. He'd already be under a professional contract so would know not to say what he did. Choudhury was a kid still at school as 15/16 year old and no doubt less mature. 

Why does the Hennessey thing have no bearing on this? Bit odd to completely dismiss it to be honest. 

At 15/16 you know right and wrong. If he's old enough to make racist remarks and stupid enough not to delete them then it's his own fault. The andre gray case was the precedent because it involved comments made years ago. 

[RandoEFC+]

Being 15 and being 21 is a world apart when it comes to knowing what is and isn't okay. Alright stuff like racist remarks you'll know it's not acceptable but when it comes to considering the consequences of your words or actions on yourself and others, being 15 and being 21 are like I say, a world apart.

[Stan]

Funny how Declan Rice's 'Up The RA' post was brushed off though as well - dare I say the FA only wanted to 'remind him of his responsibilities' because he was about to play for England?

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/mar/21/declan-rice-apologises-ira-social-media-england

Player is 16 years old.

Old comments brushed up from the past.

Rice sincerely apologises for any offence.

FA 'will write to player and remind him of his responsibilities.

 

Choudhury was 15/16.

Old comments brushed up from the past.

Choudhury apologises for any offence caused.

FA charge him. 

 

This is the double standards I was alluding to. Hence the 'unfair' feeling, too. 

[6666]

Not just an age difference but didn't Andre Gray say gays should burn or some crazy shit like that? No way the same thing.

[The Artful Dodger]

He's only been charged, there hasn't been a punishment. I doubt he'll get the ban grey did and may well get away with a fine. 

[Dan+]

Knowing the FA it's probably because he criticised women's football.