Fosse Friday 018 - 13 September 2024: Battery hens, a Big Mac moment and the hot dog kid
This week's update is reminiscing about trips to Thornton Heath
The good
It was a relatively quiet international break for our players, with the highlights probably coming from Kasey McAteer, Victor Kristiansen and Wilfred Ndidi. Plus there’s always reason to celebrate when we’re coming out of the international break without a whole batch of new injuries.
Kasey made his debut for Ireland against England in Dublin. In a 15-minute substitute cameo, he put in one good left-footed cross and a reducer on Harry Kane. Ireland lost 2-0.
It’s a tough environment for Kasey to come into and make an impact, with the new Ireland manager Heimir Hallgrimsson struggling to establish any kind of new manager bounce. Another home game on Tuesday, this time against Greece. Another 15-minute cameo for Kasey. Another 2-0 defeat.
From a Leicester perspective, there were some nice words from Ireland’s newest cap for a certain former England international.
Meanwhile, VK racked up an assist in Denmark’s own 2-0 win against Serbia on Sunday (although basically he just put the ball in an area and let Youssef Poulsen do the rest) and Big Wilf laid on a goal for Victor Osimhen in a 3-0 Nigeria win over Benin (someone called Ademola Lookman got the other two goals).
Closer to home, just hours after last week’s Fosse Friday went out, our Under 21 team won at Hull last Friday. One recurrent bugbear among some fans is the lack of coverage afforded by the club to our Academy teams over the past couple of years. Unsurprisingly, whereas the Leicester report got phoned in, the Hull equivalent went into more detail.
Leicester did post the video of the only goal of the game from U21 debutant Jake Evans though - and you can see why.
Two of our own are up for an award, both nominated at the 2024 Asian Football Awards. Hamza Choudhury is nominated for the Male Footballer of the Year award and Asmita Ale is up for Young Player of the Year. The awards take place at Wembley later this month on the 25th.
We’ve previously displayed a bias and admiration of LCFC related art and Frank Sharman is producing Foxes-themed prints that could probably pass the test for the non-football lovers in your house over on Etsy. Although there’s other prints too for different sports and artists, the Vardy one or the black and white 5000/1 print are just lovely.
The bad
We start this section with The Sun’s report last night about a “Premier League manager facing dressing room unrest three games into season with stars unhappy at having too much freedom”.
Yep, it’s our Stevie who is apparently letting everyone off the leash and now they’re roaming around like freed battery hens squawking off the record to Fleet Street. Presumably.
We’re clearly not going to link to The Sun but we’ll quote them here for you:
“They were used to being told exactly what to do in almost every aspect of the game by his predecessor Enzo Maresca.
Cooper prefers players to think for themselves and make their own decisions, which some Foxes have found difficult.
His habit of asking them for input on tactics — and even about potential signings — has also left a few of them nonplussed.”
The report goes on to say:
“There is no tension between Cooper and the players other than from those he is not picking regularly — but the squad have not gelled as well as he had hoped.”
So I think we can all see where these reports might be coming from. This will be a good test of whether fans are on board with Cooper or not - and with a couple of winnable games on the horizon, it’s time all the tensions were eased with our first league victory of the season. It’s Arsenal away after Palace and Everton, so the narrative of a winless start will gather momentum if it’s not squashed soon.
“It’s just really great to be playing, to feel like a player again. And to get treated like a proper football player is really nice.”
More shots fired at Leicester City and its managers. This time it’s from Harry Souttar, who seems to be embracing his time at Sheffield United. To be fair, it’s been a rough couple of years when no less than four managers have looked at him and decided to not even give him a chance.
Remember the most viewed tweet (X?) ever that just happened to be from our very dodgy legit shirt sponsor? The comments are a gift that keeps on giving. This week they’ve been accused of having little to no security measures by a user who claims somebody else got into his account and withdrew his funds. It’s okay though, they’re doing a brand upgrade and partnering with erm, Jason Derulo…
The daft
Daniel Amartey hasn’t had an amazing time since leaving Leicester City. After heading to Besiktas following our relegation, the defender had his first season in the Süper Lig disrupted by injury. Insert the ‘you can take the boy out of Seagrave’ etc. here.
He’s yet to feature this campaign and has been accused of both doing a runner from negotiations that would have seen him sold to Saudi Arabia and not understanding how transfer windows work by Besiktas spokesman Huseyin Yusel who labelled him ‘strange’. Amartey has denied all of this but Besiktas fans seem to have decided it’s time for him to go.
A red card for Turkey this international break and it wasn’t Caglar Soyuncu? Even despite this? Ouch.
Dennis Praet has only been at Royal Antwerp for a hot minute and they’ve tapped into his model energy in a way LCFC Admin could never. The photoshoot is…different? Part indie film, part glossy magazine tries to make politician seem wholesome. Praet’s floppy 90s wannabe hair fits so nicely into their video tape effect too.
Christmas is only just around the corner right, ok don’t shoot the messengers, we’re just letting supermarkets dictate the calendar. LCFC’s merchandise hasn’t quite caught up yet but fear not, if you’re getting an early start, Vinted is here to plug the gap. Or terrify your children and animals.
There’s a second bit of daft merchandise for the week. Who remembers Fridge Magic from the 90s? It paired two clubs at random to give a fridge magnet for each. Not sure there’ll be too many takers for this Leicester, Spurs combo these days (although we might be able to think of one…).
Loan watch
English Championship
Tom Cannon (Stoke City)
Next game: Saturday 14 September v Oxford (A)Ben Nelson (Oxford United)
Next game: Saturday 14 September v Stoke (H)Harry Souttar (Sheffield United)
Next game: Friday 13 September v Hull (A)
English League One
Amani Richards (Exeter City)
Next game: Saturday 14 September v Blackpool (A)Silko Thomas (Wigan Athletic)
Next game: Saturday 14 September v Bristol Rovers (A)
English League Two
Brandon Cover (Port Vale)
Last game: Started, played 69 minutes - W 4-1 v Newport (A)
Next game: Saturday 14 September v Chesterfield (H)Chris Popov (Barrow)
Did not play v Swindon (H)
Next game: Saturday 14 September v Grimsby (A)
English National League
Brad Young (Hartlepool)
Did not play v Boston (A)
Next game: Saturday 14 September v Ebbsfleet (A)
Scottish Premiership
Sammy Braybrooke (Dundee)
Next game: Saturday 14 September v Ross County (A)
Dutch Eerste Divisie (second tier)
Wanya Marcal (De Graafschap)
Did not play v FC Eindhoven (H)
Next game: Friday 13 September v Helmond Sport (H)
Thing we learned
A quick pre-publication email to the brilliant, Leicester City fan-owned, Crystal Palace-based Bookseller Crow about this week’s historical away days article on airships, boxers and charabancs and we were able to add an interesting little section on the time WG Grace took on Leicestershire County Cricket Club at Crystal Palace.
2 down means just 17 to go, history fans! Up next before our visit to the Emirates: the Victorian era at Arsenal…
Over on the ‘Everything to play for’ podcast (which focuses on incredible sporting stories and feats), they’ve released the first part of their episode focusing on our story of the 2015/16 Premier League season.
Okay, as Leicester fans you’re probably not going to learn anything you didn’t already know. But it is always fun, and still mind-blowing, to hear the story told and celebrated. Worth a listen as the nights get colder and you need a bit of a mental boost.
One last thing…
This week marks 32 years since our first league game that aired live on TV. Maybe not the spectacle that the broadcasters hoped for. We took on Wolves at Filbert Street and the sides played out a 0-0 draw.
The day is best remembered for Russell ‘hot dog kid’ Hoult being called up from the stands to replace Carl Muggleton in goal after he injured himself pre-match. This gloriously grainy footage lives on.