Fosse Friday - 21 June 2024: The nice guys, the price hike and nine since Nige
This week's update is welcoming Steve Cooper in his conversion from Notts Forest to the good side
The good
Well, at least we have a manager now…? Welcome to the chaos, Steve Cooper, you follow in the footsteps of Martin O’Neill and Wes Morgan in turning blue.
Our new boss, the perennial nice guy, penned an open letter to fans and while the official statement said merely that Leicester City can ‘confirm the appointment’ rather than professing joy - at least Top said he was delighted. And as a bonus, Fabrizio Romano will ignore us again for a little while.
If you want more thoughts on Cooper, we’ve got both the realistic and the optimistic.
We’re just glad we swooped in and got our new Welsh boss the day before the Wales job became available.
Later on Thursday, Abdul Fatawu seemingly got bored of waiting for the club to announce his permanent signing - so did it himself.
And also on Thursday, LCFC Women announced new one-year contracts for both Sophie Howard and Janice Cayman. The higher turnover of players in women’s football means the five years Howard will have represented the club by the end of her new contract automatically makes her one of the most important figures in the club’s recent history - her full-blooded commitment to the cause establishes the fact. The versatile Belgian veteran Cayman proved useful in her first season as a Fox, the highlight probably this superb winner away to Everton.
We could all do with one of Shinji Okazaki’s smiles again and perhaps we’ll see more of them. You can add a new club to look out for this season as Shinji is the new manager of 6th tier German side Basara Mainz.
We’ll come onto the ticket price hikes in the bad but Union FS were right in calling out the club and trying to stand up for Foxes fans. Hopefully their joint effort with other fan groups and the Foxes Trust can finally get through to the club.
The bad
Match ticket prices were announced buried this week on the website as the fixtures dropped and the managerial gossip heats up. Leicester City are “pleased to announce” - sorry Steve - that what could have enticed the next generation to support the club is now a pipe dream for some and a rare treat for many with the hike in prices.
Ticketing was already a sore point given the £25 Season Ticket card cost forced on those who don’t want to go digital. The gulf in the difference between a season ticket’s per match price to what those who can’t or don’t have one is ridiculous. £72 to sit in the West Stand and see us get thumped by the elite? Great…
Given the task in front of us, if ever there was a time to show that the Blue Army actually mean something to them apart from cash, it was now, but instead it’s another miss on both the approach and communication. Pricing out fans, current and prospective, and for what?
Wout Faes started for Belgium in their opening Euro 2024 fixture. Whereas he predicted he might have the “luxury problem” of other clubs coming in for him after some barnstorming performances, instead he gave us a Premier League preview of the terror that could be in the offing. Faes was caught looking straight at a loose ball (from a poor backpass, admittedly) in the penalty box and deciding to leave it for a little while to see if Slovakia fancied scoring. Spoiler… they did. The replays only made it look worse too, close to a throwback to Hull away.
Jannik Vestergaard also gave us a preview of life to come in the Premier League. He was getting described by Pat Nevin as looking like someone “towing a caravan” while getting outpaced during Denmark v Slovenia.
Denmark took a point off England but it was a mixed bag of a game for our representatives. Vestergaard looked a little more solid but he benefited from not having as much to do as expected, largely due to Harry Kane’s frequent wandering anywhere that wasn’t the opposition box. Victor Kristiansen gave us one good, one bad which probably mean Bologna still need to give us £15million (please). He got the assist for the Danish goal but this only really made up for having no idea Kyle Walker was behind him and this directly leading to the England goal.
The daft
Fixture release day gave us a case of deja vu with Liverpool on Boxing Day… again. Can we lock Wout Faes in a box to avoid a 2022 repeat? We’ll face Manchester City three days afterwards too. No need to waste any wishes to Santa for points over Christmas then.
This week marked 9 years since the terrible Thailand debacle that saw three players sacked, and Nigel Pearson’s job made untenable given one of those players was his son. It’s in the daft rather than the bad because there’s been so much that’s happened in the time since that this barely got a mention and hasn’t for a couple of years really.
It’s too crystal ball gazing to imagine the what ifs had that not happened but no Claudio, no dilly ding, dilly dong and the infamous debate of could we still have had the 2015/16 we did if Pearson had stayed?
Hot goss
The first half of the week was much the same, would it be Graham Potter, yes it’ll definitely be Potter, actually no it won’t and hey look, it’s actually been Steve Cooper all along. The sources to rely on were a little different to normal but at least we can all get back to our regular programmed summer gossip over player personnel instead now.
Well, soon. It looks like Cooper’s first signing could be set piece coach Andrew Hughes, last at Norwich. As per any of the people we’re linked with, other teams are circling but perhaps the lure of Seagrave can make the difference.
For players, we’ve resolved all the contracts that expired, Wilfred Ndidi aside. Understandably he was looking at his options and likely waiting for us to appoint a manager. It seems he’s got suitors in Ligue Un now too, Marseille adding themselves to the mix. Wilf is picking between us, Marseille and a few others:
Every year, scouts and directors of football flock to Portugal in the aim of picking up some top talent at slightly lower rates. We’re said to be interested in Benfica winger Casper Tengstedt. The Dane put his name on the wider international map in his side’s Champions League tie with Inter Milan last season, contributing three assists.
The one with legs? Joe Rodon knows new gaffer Steve Cooper, having played under him at Swansea and we certainly need some defensive reinforcements.
Billed as cover and the heir to Lorenzo Pellegrini’s throne at Roma, Edoardo Bove is the latest player linked with a move to us. The Italian side seem stuck in a similar state to us where they could do with making some money, leaving them looking to sell their academy prospect. They’d want around £18 million and we aren’t the only Premier League side interested.
Thing we learned
Six players were released by LCFC Women, ranging from the unsurprising (striker Remy Siemsen, who struggled to make an impact, and loaned-out goalkeeper Demi Lambourne) through the understandable (defensive midfielder Aimee Palmer after just one year at the club and midfielder-turned-defender Josie Green after two) to the eyebrow-raising (promising midfielder Monique Robinson). The number also includes captain Aileen Whelan who had already announced her retirement from the game.
England youth international striker Ava Baker also signalled her departure from the club on Instagram, which was most surprising of all. But Leicester have Denny Draper, daughter of former Fox Mark, coming through the ranks and perhaps there’s only room for one of the two to challenge Lena Petermann next season - or maybe Ava’s got a better offer elsewhere…
What we haven’t learnt yet, and this may contribute to some of the above departures, is who’ll be at the helm for LCFC Women next season. Perhaps with the men’s side having been dealt with, this is the next item on the to do list.
Anything else?
Andrej Kramaric picked up the Man of the Match award when Croatia drew 2-2 with Albania, forever reminding us of the what if we’d actually just played him a little more. Of all the players that have passed through at Leicester City where it just hasn’t worked out for whatever reason, he is up near the top of the list for ones who got away.
One last thing…
He gets a bad rep from some of the Foxes crowd but you can’t say Ayoze Perez didn’t try his best for us. Resident Leicester fan among the football photographers, Michael Regan, snapped this from the Spain dressing room showing that you can take the boy out of Leicester but he’ll just keep his Fox-centric shinpads with all the memories.
This week on TFW
“A little more pragmatism, a little less threat of relegation. Not because promoted sides can’t play possession football, but because our squad doesn’t suit it at the top level. It worked for (most of) last season, of course, but the gulf is enormous. We’ll need to play with more pace. I think Steve Cooper will recognise that and I think Leicester City fans will respond to it.”
We go again: Convincing myself Steve Cooper is the right man for Leicester City
“There is a line of argument that Leicester have a better chance of staying up under Cooper than we did with Maresca, purely because Cooper is much more likely to be pragmatic in order to get results. We know Maresca would never have done that, he would have sacrificed himself to protect his ideals.”
Steve Cooper is a sign of where Leicester City are right now
“Nobody needs reminding how those at the top of our club have been letting us down in recent years. So with all this talk of ‘change’ on the political horizon, I thought I’d have a go at addressing some of the key things that we as Leicester fans should be wanting the club to amend as we move into the new season.”
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“It would be naïve to think prices wouldn’t go up, as we see that everything around us costs that bit more than it previously did. But as I looked closer at the prices per block on the LCFC website, I was struck by just how much ticket prices at the King Power have gone up.”
Pricing out the next generation: Ticket hikes show how Leicester are taking fans for granted
“December packs in a game almost every four days and presents a lot of opportunities to try again if at first you don't succeed or to start seeing gaps in the table. With four home games, the atmosphere will be vital and we'll start to see what sort of fight the side has about them. These will be the games to target some points from.”
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“We’ve been tentatively linked with Adam Hložek this summer - an attacking player for all-conquering Bayer Leverkusen. It was billed as a race for Hložek between us and Red Bull Leeds, but the trail has gone cold in the last few weeks as we’ve prioritised a new manager, or a new kit, or organising some friendlies, or whatever it is we’ve got up our sleeve.”
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