Fosse Friday 057 - 13 June 2025: Macca, Monga and the invisible sponsor
This week's update is on the dancefloor with Ricky P and Benalouane
The good
Having plucked a fair amount of good news out of very little last week, this week served up some very, very good news straight from the club themselves.
NINE new contracts for a whole host of the next generation of (potential) stars, and hopefully another on the way for Jake Evans, fingers crossed.
The club announced that the following will all be staying and have been extended, either on scholar contracts or permanent professional deals:
Jakub Stolarczyk, Jeremy Monga(!), Sammy Braybrooke, Olabade Aluko, Silko Thomas, Bobby Amartey, Toby Onanaye, and Stevie Bausor. While we have also made an offer to last season’s Loan Watch star, Brandon Cover.
Is that some excitement for next year we’re feeling? That was the theme on the site this week. Keeping Monga in particular feels like a huge success.
Both Chelsea and Man City were said to have made him offers, but he has committed to signing a professional contract with the Foxes next summer.
This is the banner headline, from Rob Tanner in The Athletic:
Leicester are now in a much stronger position in terms of retaining Monga, and the only way another club can sign him now is if they make an approach to them and negotiate a transfer fee, which, considering the overwhelming opinion about the youngster’s potential, means it would be extremely expensive.
Stolarczyk is the other highlight, as we have probably all made our peace with losing Mads Hermansen in the next few weeks. While he is a loss, we know Stolarczyk is more than capable.
Congratulations to Kasey McAteer for starting and scoring as Ireland drew 1-1 with Senegal. Here’s his goal (skip to 40 seconds in if you’re in a hurry):
We’ve got a confirmed pre-season friendly! Getting Fiorentina to come play at the King Power on August 3rd is pretty exciting as far as recent pre-season fixtures are concerned. Well, at least if you’re a season ticket holder because…
The bad
… £20 for a non-ST ticket when 11% of 2024/25 season tickets haven’t renewed seems very steep.
If you’ve been tracking the BC.Game saga, you know that Josimar Football posting anything about them is not going to be good news. Philippe Auclair and Steve Menary have been doing some superb detective work.
In less surprising news, Communication FC have not responded to their request for comment.
This is the opener for the latest piece:
“Declared bankrupt in Curaçao for not paying punters, BC.GAME, main sponsor of Leicester City FC in the 2024/25 season, moved jurisdiction. But the company behind BC.GAME does not exist.”
It doesn’t make for happy reading. Nor does the fact that BC.Game’s advertising uses three of our players with the slogan ‘Stay Untamed’.
Not sure who is damaging who more with that one.
The daft
Any news on the managerial front? No… oh, just Brian Barry-Murphy heading off to be the new manager of Cardiff City.
A compensation package? For Brian Barry-Murphy? On a Friday? In June? Two weeks before he gets sacked anyway?
Stop it Rudders!
… and Brighton trying to poach our goalkeeping coach.
That’s Jelle ten Rouwelaar, you know, the one Ruud brought in back in November. Okay.
Apparently his future at the club is in doubt or something.
So who would actually be left?
By our reckoning, it’s just Ruud, Kingy and… wait, we’ve still got the set piece coach!
How did we get on with them last season? Oh.
Having to take a break from mocking Spurs because their statement on the sacking of Big Ange contained everything we don’t get from comms at LCFC. When we do actually get any comms, that is.
Popping onto the official site to see this headline about a player who’s been effectively exiled for months.
But old Jannik isn’t going anywhere. Not least for the fact that he still has two more years on his deal. And also, err, he doesn’t want to:
“My focus is on the fact that I have two years and will do everything to help the club back to the Premier League. If the club wants something different at some point, they must say so. It is the club that must make those kinds of decisions.
If the club wants something different, it is up to them. And we have not had that conversation. That’s why my focus is to help the club back into the Premier League.”
Here we go again, get ready for the Vestynnaissance 2.0.
Poor King Claudio. The man just wants to retire (or thinks he does, anyway) but clubs, and now his own country, keep trying to tempt him into just one more job. Even he couldn’t be tempted by the mess of the Italian national side.
Beaten 3-0 by Norway in the World Cup qualifiers last week, Italy find themselves 3rd in their group table, behind Norway and Israel.
Also no points to AI or whoever claimed to do the write-up on this in The S*n for the following wholly inaccurate statement, how dare you besmirch Claudio:
Wrong.
It’s the height of the summer break, which means one of us spent some time watching a video entitled “how a person with 11,003 hours on Football Manager starts a save” this week.
Imagine our surprise when the FM guru embarked on a search for forwards for his Manchester United side and the top two suggested options were Patson Daka and Odsonne Edouard.
No wonder FM had to go back to the drawing board.
Hot goss
The first transfer window slammed shut *checks notes* three days ago. Right. Our business may have only been sorting out contracts for the youngsters but when it’s anyone’s guess who’ll be the manager come July, it makes sense.
Hot goss doesn’t have ridiculously short and pointless breaks. No, it just rolls on with more and more dubious, entertaining rumours.
Like new Rangers manager Russell Martin setting his sights on Conor Coady.
Oh no, Brussell, please…haven’t you crushed enough Leicester dreams.
In fact, most of the goss this week is players that could leave Leicester this summer.
Manchester United, the team who cried wolf about being poor, are apparently looking at Wilfred Ndidi, as reported on by Ben Jacobs:
“Wilfred Ndidi is another name that I’m hearing, newer that I can add to the radar that Manchester United are considering.”
He’s on the consideration list for David Moyes too. Everton may be interested in a double swoop for him and Victor Kristiansen.
Jakub Stolarczyk, having had his contract renewed by the club this week, has also reportedly been the subject of a failed bid from Norwich City.
The goalkeeping situation is, like most of the positions at the club, still pretty unclear. Will Mads go? Will Jakub go? Will someone like Stevie Bausor step up to be third choice?
Did we turn Ben Nelson into a secret scout as part of his loan move? We’re being linked with Oxford midfielder Cameron Brannagan.
The club seem resigned to losing him, but we’re not the only team interested, with Sheffield United and Stoke circling too.
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before, and another time before that, and another…you get the idea. Regardless of our managerial choice, we’ll forever be linked to Alex Oxlaide-Chamberlain, who Besiktas don’t seem too fussed about leaving.
Thing we learned
Promising LCFC Women defender Nelly Las will represent England at the U19 Euros this summer.
As we’ve covered before, next season will be tougher in the WSL with the cash-rich London City Lionesses gaining promotion. Las is the club’s brightest young prospect and it’ll be interesting to see how she fares on the big stage.
One last thing…
What’s just one season between old friends? Click for the pictures, stay for the dance moves.
It’s wedding season and holiday season for footballers and we very much enjoyed seeing Ricardo hanging out with Adrien Silva, Nampalys Mendy and Yohan Benalouane for the latter’s wedding.
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.
Subscribe
Reading this on Substack?
Get this email in your inbox every Friday at 11am UK time:
Follow The Fosse Way
For match reports, previews, historical articles and more, check out The Fosse Way.