Fosse Friday 038 - 31 January 2025: Crocks, The Ox and a new Icelandic Fox
This week's update is watching Sky Sports and refreshing the socials feed
The good
Two wins, Jeremy? Two? That’s insane!
Yes, Leicester City Football Club managed to rack up six points this week, three on the men’s side and three more on the women’s.
The men, of course, won in North London, while the women beat Liverpool - almost doubling their goals-for tally for the season in the process.
Whether beating Spurs will be enough to quieten down the protests planned for next weekend’s visit of Arsenal remains to be seen, and probably depends both on the result on Saturday and whether any signings turn up on Monday.
But for now, it’s nice to be able to bask in some actual positive news for once. We’re even - impossibly - out of the relegation zone.
Stop the count!
The prospect of new faces looks pretty slim, so we have once again reached the “it’s like a new signing!” stage of the transfer window.
The big news from Ruud van Nistelrooy’s pre-match press conference is that Mads Hermansen is available for Everton this weekend.
There were some positive murmurings too about Wilfred Ndidi and Ricardo Pereira, who are both “progressing” in their recoveries, although their returns don’t seem as imminent.
Ndidi’s injury, you may recall, was described as looking “like it’s at least a couple of weeks” on December 12th. Calendar experts may note that by the time he returns it will have been at least two months.
Another January tradition, along with not signing anyone and wondering where that bloke who stubbed his toe six months ago has got to, is King Power heroically pulling some financial levers to turn their loans to the club into shares.
Last year, they did this to the tune of £194 million. This time it was £124 million.
The impetus for this - we think - is new Premier League rules on shareholder loans, which were put in place after Manchester City’s attempt to absolve themselves of literally hundreds of (alleged!) financial crimes caused the existing rules to be torn up.
We are presumably only a few years away from fans having to present a degree in economics at the turnstile to get into the ground.
One of the LCFC teams has been active this January, at least.
The Women have brought in Olivia Clark, Welsh international goalkeeper, to compete with Janina Leitzig, and forward Hlín Eiríksdóttir to bolster the ranks of a side that has quite literally only scored five times all season.
And no, we don’t know how to pronounce it either.
The bad
Oh no, it’s happening again?
Jeremy Monga looks to be Trey Nyoni 2.0 with rumours swirling around of interest from Chelsea and Manchester City.
It might not quite be at Demarai Gray sulking levels yet, but the 15-year-old has - trope alert - wiped all references to LCFC off his socials.
Although some eagle-eyed individuals (with too much time on their hands?) claim he does this often, so perhaps it’s all a red herring.
For those keeping score, Nyoni played again for Liverpool in the Champions League this week and we still haven’t seen a penny for him.
Yep, it’s another less than cheery stat. CIES Football Observatory have been predicting results for the rest of the season in the big leagues and it’s not happy reading.
It’s projecting us to pick up even fewer points moving forward than we managed in the first half of the season.
How? Their logic uses performance to date and factors in the number and location of the passes and shots made and conceded so far regardless of end result.
Ah, yeah, that’d do it.
The daft
“A brilliant result for Brendan Rodgers and a reminder to all those Leicester fans that wanted to get him out.
We had a top-class manager then. Be careful what you wish for.”
Gary Lineker, who at this point is essentially an anodyne take in human form, delivers another beauty.
Celtic finished 21st in the Champions League, incidentally. Apparently that’s a good result these days.
We assume when Notts Forest kept talking about ‘doing a Leicester’, they meant the trophies and not getting humiliated by Bournemouth. Shame.
Something called “Game Changer Wrestling” was in London this week. We wonder how many of the 17 people who went to watch got the Jamie Vardy reference here.
Hot goss
With just a few days left of the window, the prospect of much more business looks slim.
The warmest link so far looked to be Chuba Akpom, who you may remember from his famous loan at Sint Truiden, and who currently plays for Ajax.
Unfortunately, that warm link promptly went ice cold with news from Amsterdam that Leicester have dropped out, leaving Akpom to choose between Florence, Lille or, er, Sunderland.
Let’s play a game of retired or playing in Turkey. Alex Oxlade Chamberlain: go!
That’s right! Currently plying his trade on the physio’s table at Besiktas, the Ox is on Leicester’s hitlist, according to The Mirror.
Injury issues have persisted at his new club, with a torn thigh muscle keeping the England international out for several months last season. He has yet to complete a full 90 this season
Sounds a bit overqualified.
Another utterly implausible option on the table is Patrick Wimmer from Wolfsburg, where Leicester City FC are battling with AC Milan and Juventus for his signature.
After our success in plucking one Brighton cast-off, in the form of Facundo Buonanotte, is it time to try for another?
Transfer “insider” Pete O’Rourke suggests old Jon Rudkin has the hots for Tariq Lamptey to solve our right back woes.
On the outs front, Leicester are open to offers for Patson Daka, according to the intrepid reporters at iNews. He could be part of one of the saddest transfer moves of all time if Everton’s interest bears fruit.
Remember a couple of weeks ago when we mentioned Andrej Kramaric’s post-match rant after another Hoffenheim loss?
Do you think trying to sign Luke Thomas was the change he was after?
If Hoffenheim submitting multiple bids for Thomas is odd, Leicester’s decision to not immediately take the offer and peg it to the bank, cackling wildly, is even more bizarre.
Loan watch
We’re back, baby! #welcomeHamza
Just as we threatened to pull the plug, the transfer window has lured us back in. Hamza Choudhury has joined our personal PSR saviours, Sheffield United, for the rest of the season.
Performance of the week
Silko Thomas played 87 minutes of a Wigan win last Saturday!
Honourable mention
Brad Young sat on the bench for both of Hartlepool’s games this week!
Fixture to watch
Hamza’s first game for Sheffield United could be at Pride Park this weekend, as the promotion-chasing Blades take on the relegation-threatened sheep.
Will anyone be able to claw the performance of the week honours away from Bangladesh’s finest the rest of the way? Tune in to find out.
A trip down memorabilia lane
We don’t claim to be fashion experts, but we do like to dabble. Sew-on patches started to come back into fashion, and we spotted these excellent Leicester City ones on sale if you’re so inclined. Our favourites are these 1970s beauties:
But this one is also great if you’re looking to make your own jacket with more character than the official Northern Life collection.
Thing we learned
This week’s historical away day article focuses on Everton in the 1920s.
We think we prefer football reporting one hundred years ago - these excerpts are taken from The Daily Courier’s report of our 5-4 win at Goodison in 1929:
“A more pulsating and exciting game I do not wish to see, and yet there was so much in it, which savoured of the tragic… Leicester served up some delicious materials… Scientific football won on the day.”
Read the whole article over on the main site.
One last thing…
Given the rather pressing nature of Transfer Deadline Day, we asked our writers to pick one position, or player, they wanted us to sign. We’d like to know your thoughts with the countdown underway:
Post Horn
We always want to hear what you think - drop us an email with things you’d like to ask, discuss or see at posthorn@thefosseway.net.
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