Rudkin Out

[Brown Nose]

 

[Blue Maniac]

This cannot be a thing that happened, surely

 

[HFox]

Another article this time from Tom Collamosse detailing the club’s disasters. This bit about Rudkin stood out

Rudkin's desire to earn the best deal for Leicester is admirable yet his haggling can be counter-productive.
At the start of the window Sheffield United wanted Hamza Choudhury on loan with an option to buy. Leicester would agree only to a loan with an obligation – for a player on a hefty contract who is unwanted by the current manager. On Friday, Leicester agreed to a loan with option after all. Valuable time lost over a single issue, in a month when speed and flexibility are vital.

 

[Brown Nose]

Another article this time from Tom Collamosse detailing the club’s disasters. This bit about Rudkin stood out

Full article:

Inside the crisis at Leicester: Why there are fears Ruud van Nistelrooy could quit and how problems of their own making - led by a dithering regime - are sending them towards the drop​

• PLUS: Inside a team inquest led by senior players after the loss to Crystal Palace
• Join Mail+ for more exclusive scoops, in-depth reporting and analysis from inside Premier League clubs

By TOM COLLOMOSSE
Published: 21:00 EST, 25 January 2025 | Updated: 03:45 EST, 26 January 2025

After Leicester had subsided to defeat against Crystal Palace on January 15, a few senior players had seen enough.

With the rest of the team back in the dressing room at the King Power Stadium, it was explained to them in forceful terms that the Foxes were sleepwalking towards the drop.

Keep doing this and we are going down again, went the general message. Though boss Ruud van Nistelrooy added his thoughts, this inquest was player-led. The trigger is thought to have been Palace's second goal, where Marc Guehi had ambled forward unnoticed to volley home at the far post.

Why had the shouts from the bench - 'Pick up the six!' (Guehi's shirt number) - not been heeded? Why was young winger Kasey McAteer tasked with marking Guehi, a far stronger player? It was the last straw.

Unfortunately, the chat made not a shred of difference. Four days later, Leicester were even worse as they lost 2-0 at home to Fulham, a seventh straight defeat under Van Nistelrooy. This time the fans' patience snapped as director of football Jon Rudkin, along with other board members and Van Nistelrooy, felt the full force of their fury.

As Mail Sport revealed on Friday, matters reached boiling point again in the changing room after the 2-0 home defeat by Fulham as Van Nistelrooy turned on Facundo Buonanotte, who had performed sloppily as a second-half substitute. The duo are said to have had a fractious exchange in Spanish, which Van
Nistelrooy speaks fluently after playing for Real Madrid and Malaga.

Indeed, in recent times Van Nistelrooy's mood is said to have darkened, particularly at the lack of transfer activity this month, with some even fearing he is considering quitting – as he did at PSV Eindhoven two years ago. Though this may be a dramatic take on matters, Sunday's match at Tottenham could be decisive in many ways.

Van Nistelrooy is a symptom of this malaise, not the cause. The Foxes hired the Dutchman in November after Graham Potter and David Moyes had made it clear they would not be interested in succeeding Steve Cooper.

It was a puzzling call: Van Nistelrooy's only experience of managing in a top-five league was a four-game stint in caretaker charge of Manchester United, after the sacking of Erik ten Hag and before the appointment of Ruben Amorim. That spell included two wins over Leicester, but surely those results alone could not have been the basis for appointing him. Could they?

Players are said to appreciate Van Nistelrooy's clear communication in tactical meetings, which are short and to the point. Despite an outstanding playing career, Van Nistelrooy is believed to be relatively quiet and reserved around the club's £95million training centre and behaves more like a traditional manager than a natural training-ground coach.

Four points from nine games is a grim haul yet like managers before him, Van Nistelrooy is working under tricky circumstances.

The only member of staff he has brought with him is goalkeeping coach Jelle ten Rouwelaar. First-team coach Brian Barry-Murphy, who has worked under Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, was appointed by the club, rather than recommended specifically by Van Nistelrooy.

First-team coach Ben Dawson, Danny Alcock – another goalkeeping coach – and set-piece specialist Andy Hughes all joined Leicester during Cooper's five-month tenure. Instead of one group of staff promoting a particular idea, as was the case when Enzo Maresca led Leicester to the Championship title last season, there is no single principle uniting the coaching team.

When Van Nistelrooy was hired, he made it clear he needed a full-back, a left-sided centre-back, a winger and a forward. But with financial restrictions in the background, and with the slow-moving Rudkin in charge of transfers, progress has been painfully slow, with only full-back Woyo Coulibaly signed in a £2m deal from Italian club Parma.

Rudkin's desire to earn the best deal for Leicester is admirable yet his haggling can be counter-productive.
At the start of the window Sheffield United wanted Hamza Choudhury on loan with an option to buy.
Leicester would agree only to a loan with an obligation – for a player on a hefty contract who is unwanted by the current manager. On Friday, Leicester agreed to a loan with option after all. Valuable time lost over a single issue, in a month when speed and flexibility are vital.

Crucial under Cooper, Buonanotte has started only three of Van Nistelrooy's nine league games and Mail Sport understands Brighton have discussed the possibility of cancelling the season-long loan deal, with the 20-year-old unhappy at his lack of game time even before last Saturday's clash with his manager.

Stephy Mavididi, meanwhile, is thought to have been unsettled by the Foxes' pursuit of another winger and even though Jamie Vardy has seen off plenty of rivals down the years, the news that Van Nistelrooy would like another forward is unlikely to have put a spring in his step.

The player to provide competition for Vardy, who turned 38 earlier in January, was supposed to be Odsonne Edouard, but he does not even get on the bench as Leicester are desperate to send him back to
Crystal Palace – despite the staggering £5m cost of the season's loan.

There are mitigating circumstances. Leicester's objective this season is to stay up and they are only two points below the line. With Southampton virtually adrift, Leicester, Ipswich and Wolves look to be locked in a fight for 17th. The Premier League is looking more and more like a closed shop and even previously consistent performers like Leicester will suffer if they slip up.

While the Foxes are not viewed as a typical 'newly-promoted' team because they won the Premier League title in 2016 and the FA Cup five years later, they are still fighting the same forces as other clubs who advance from the Championship. Despite the fears over top flight spending rules, the club is financially secure, but those regulations mean they cannot spend as freely as they might wish this month.

Yet many of the problems are of Leicester's own making. Vardy's contract is up at the end of the season, with a further nine players' deals due to expire in summer 2026. Recruitment has been haphazard.

The powerful Rudkin is a key ally of chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha but looks like he needs help.

Former boss Enzo Maresca was often frustrated by Leicester's laboured approach to recruitment and wanted the club to appoint a specialist sporting director, with greater knowledge of today's market than the current staff. It seems he had a point.

It has long appeared that Leicester players are given too much rope. In recent seasons it has become relatively normal for players to take concerns above the manager to club executives – a disastrous trend that can only undermine the boss.

While many of the squad live in the Leicester area, some have opted not to move and have long daily commutes, which is hardly conducive to creating a strong team ethic.

Most of the squad never took to Cooper from the start and sure enough, others were grumbling about Van Nistelrooy's methods from fairly early in his reign.

These are the same guys who thought it wise to travel to Copenhagen for a Christmas party hours after losing to Maresca's Chelsea on November 23 and to pose on the dancefloor near a sign that read 'Enzo I Miss U'. That was the day before Cooper was sacked.

The time has come for some of these players to have a look in the mirror, and the same is true of board members. A group of supporters are planning a protest ahead of the home game against Arsenal on February 15.

A dithering regime that looks increasingly out of its depth, a manager who is running out of answers and a team who seem to down tools at the first sign of adversity. No wonder Leicester fans have lost hope. It falls to those on the pitch, those in the dugout and – most pertinently – those in the boardroom to restore it.

 

[Rock Fox]

A dithering regime that looks increasingly out of its depth in a puddle,
a manager who is running out of answers - Did he have any answers in the beginning?
and a team who seem to down tools at the first sign of adversity. It'd be nice if they picked up the tools to start with, when we're still 0-0, the real adversity only comes after the first, second, third, etc.. goal.

 

[Miles Away]

For the love of God, add some signings this week and take advantage of this.