“One man holding the weapon”
Iain Wright
- Rudkin: 50%
- Top: 20%
- Squad: 20%
- Glover: 2%
- Hughes: 2%
- Marti: 2%
- Rowett: 2%
- Other previous managers: 2%
- Fans: 0%
The demise of Leicester City hasn’t been due to one catastrophic error, it’s been more akin to a death from a thousand cuts. However, when you analyse those wounds, it’s often one man holding the weapon.
“It’s not all Jon Rudkin’s fault” is something that has been said in the past, and being fair I’m only going to apportion half of the blame his way. Although, his presence infects just about everything.
It seemed pretty clear from Top’s infamous interview that he doesn’t have a firm grip as to what’s going on, and is utterly reliant on whatever the Director of Football tells him. Having an absent owner isn’t a problem in itself, as long as the people running things for him are doing a good job. That’s definitely not been the case for what feels like ages.
The blame I am giving Top is for not recognising this a long time ago and making a change. Worse than that, he’s actually promoted the protagonists. Ideally Top should be looking to sell the club, while there’s still something left to sell. He definitely takes a hefty slice of the blame.
The current squad also get a fair chunk. Those stats doing the rounds at the weekend confirm what’s clear from watching these players. They simply haven’t worked hard enough, or taken sufficient care and pride in their work. I’d be happy to never see any of them who are over 22 play for us again. But, ultimately they are the end result of Rudkin’s poor management.
The others in the list are part of the thousand cuts. Brendan Rodgers gave up, mainly due to the misinformation around a squad refresh from you know who. Even so, Rudkin should have acted sooner and removed him.
The other managers then had a poisoned chalice. Yes, some could have done better (Cooper’s recruitment, van Nistelrooy picking Danny Ward, Cifuentes’s lack of a plan B and Rowett’s lack of any plan whatsoever), but things had already started to go badly wrong. Steve Cooper shouldn’t have got the job after Enzo Maresca in the first place. Marti Cifuentes was appointed towards the end of pre-season. Both actions find their way back to Rudkin’s door.
Martyn Glover (head of recruitment) has been terrible, Andrew Hughes (set piece coach) has been mind-bogglingly bad, but both are still here due to Rudkin’s acceptance of failure around him. Both should have gone last summer.
Away from the football, the club just stinks. From PSR deductions, dodgy sponsors, strange meeting minutes, legal cases, poor communication, ticket rules and social media, there’s very little to like. Even less than when I started writing this, with the abomination of the 5000/1 Legends match.
All of this has resulted in a divided fan base. In truth though, that divide is a bit of a smokescreen. The players have had good support in the stadium, at least until it’s clear they’ve given up. While other clubs’ fans would have protested a lot more, there’s been enough to show how angry we are. While they are incredibly irritating, the KPFC fans refusing to do anything but passive ‘support’, they haven’t really impacted things. Good or bad, the club doesn’t listen anyway.
For me, it goes back to one man. Our predicament could be improved by one simple act. Jon Rudkin having a conscience and walking away. Yes, we had success early in his tenure. The Premier League win was just 12 months or so into his reign. By 18 months, there was a Rudkin Out banner in the away end at an FA Cup game at Everton. There’s been problems even during the good times (14 seconds, cough cough).
Ultimately, in this PSR era, being successful means being a shrewd negotiator, someone setting the right culture at Seagrave, having a philosophy and sticking with it rather than flipping between polar opposite managers.
In addition to this, Rudkin has:
- withheld the truth of our transfer abilty to successive managers
- allowed players to live all over the country and commute (so they don’t have connections with fans and don’t face the consequences of poor results)
- operated at a glacial pace, particularly with transfers
- arranged shambolic pre-seasons
- made contracts too generous
- renewed failed players too easily
- allowed valuable players to run down their contracts
- gives no sense of any succession plans when managers leave (look at Bournemouth this week as evidence of how it should be done)
- too much reliance on the same agents (costing the club a fortune in the process)
- limited understanding how PSR worked, until it was too late
- had too many jobs
- had too much responsibility
- failed miserably at all of it
There’s a lot gone wrong, but overall, the club won’t heal until he leaves. Please Jon, it’s time to step away.
“Top gets top billing”
Helen Thompson
- Rudkin: 30%
- Top: 35%
- Squad: 25%
- Glover: 5%
- Hughes: 2%
- Marti: 1%
- Rowett: 1%
- Other previous managers: 1%
- Fans: 0%
Jon Rudkin makes it easy to lay the vast majority of blame at his door, as do the squad, but Top gets top billing purely because he is the man with the power to have shaken things up and changed them instead of continuing the status quo and rewarding past failures.
The squad*, while put together by those in charge and given wages that beggar belief for their ability and or ages, are equally culpable. In games like against Hull, they’ve shown effort is possible but not guaranteed. They’ve also failed to recognise that our league status is not a cumulation of bad luck but poor performances and decisions.
Martyn Glover has to take some of the blame because our transfers of late have felt random and ineffective. Perhaps Rudkin plays his part here – he’s involved in negotiations but we just went through yet another game where Joe Aribo and Dujuan Richards weren’t used. Why did we sign them?
Surely the only thing all fans can agree on is that the fans are not to blame for this. We merely want the best for our club, to see committed, passionate performances.
*I am omitting the academy kids and Jordan James from blame.
The Fosse Way 