Why I’m still struggling with Leicester City this summer – but slowly coming around
While most supporters have moved on and might be morbidly excited about this season in the second tier, Ric Flair can’t quite hack it just yet
It's me, hi. I'm the problem, it's me. By July, everybody agrees.
I absolutely hate the summer. It's not just the hay fever, or needing to cool my jeffries off in the bath six times a day – it's the turmoil of the off-season. I'm an emotional football fan at the best of times – at my worst, which is now, I'm a complete pillock.
I've not handled the Big Strong Leicester Boys podcast hiatus very well. I need the weekly antidote to my venom and my poor family would wholeheartedly agree as well. I've told the lads it's back to business as of July, enough's enough. They might all have social lives – I bloody don't. I want to gob off. There's only so many times you can bollock your seven-year-old son for not knowing who Paul Trotter is.
I'd like to think the start of pre-season this morning can begin to heal some of the hurt I'm still bowled over with – because to be honest, this last week has really shocked me at my levels of pettiness, bitterness and paranoia.
I thought I was settling into this new dawn, albeit a drop down in class, but one that we've experienced before. The opportunity to drain the swamp and rebuild some identity. But I'm not ready yet. I'm fuming and I'll tell you why.
How can this club be successfully rebuilt, given the manner of our failure, without any changes at board level? I just can’t understand it. Actually, that's the wrong question. Even if the club theoretically can be successfully rebuilt by the current mob, should they be allowed to? I can't bear thinking about them, it's making my head go again. I'm like Gemma Collins. Where's the accountability?
Removing the last men standing in Mike Stowell and Adam Sadler, who have worked under Rudkin for many a year, won't fool me. The day of reckoning will come.
I've had a lot of online spats this week. I realise that my negativity is now not commonly shared by others. There's been a seismic shift, fans have had enough of wallowing and stewing, and there's a strong propensity to look to the future. I hear you – that's where I want to be – but I can't just flick a switch.
Just when I thought I'd reflected on my inane ramblings about how concerning it was that we were throwing big money at Harry Winks and there being scant evidence that the club were learning from their mistakes, I was quickly teleported to the nauseating brown-nosing of our very own Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall.
I first assumed his love letter to Maddison was a pisstake and the “you deserve it” bit was banter about Spurs being the complete pits and even worse bottlers than we are, but no. It was sincere, and made me want to smear myself in fish paste and roll down a hill into the sea. Who on earth do these norrises think they are? They've just been complicit in the most disgusting relegation in Premier League history and now deserve lucrative transfers?
Now, this is where the pettiness is kicking in. Don't say it… don't say it.... Dewsbury-Hall can do one. Not having him now. Likewise, any player with that mentality and viewpoint of Leicester and how we've got to where we are.
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This is where my perhaps unreasonable remarks about Winks stem from. I'm worried that anyone stepping down to Leicester, that their heart isn't in it. We all know we'll pay generously – we won't have learnt this quickly to turn the gravy tap off. So while our finances remain sketchier than that blazer Enzo Maresca pitched up for his first look around Seagrave in, I just want to forget about the past.
If I've got to carry on stomaching the same board of directors, then I at least want to think that the new players coming into this club see Leicester with determination, pride and awe. That we are a big deal for them, that they have a point to prove. With the benefit of hindsight, having seen the interviews with Winks and the loveable Conor Coady, I’m happy to say they seem good characters and that's a start. So I apologise, Harry: HMS Piss the League is happy to have you.
But in case you're wondering what the paranoia was this week… I've long been an advocate of putting potato waffles in the toaster, as I'm too impatient to wait 20 minutes to cook them in the oven. Four rounds in the toaster and they're good as gold. But curiosity got the better of me after a stressful few days getting upset about Leicester, and I tried a crispy pancake in there. Massive error – it was like the Alamo.
I was so concerned I'd blow the house up after it wouldn't stop hissing that I actually turned the electricity off in the basement and sat in the dark contemplating what on earth is wrong with me.
August 6 can't come soon enough. Forget Forest, forget Derbeh, Cov are the absolute bins. I detest them. I want Enzo taking bodies. I'm ready. Let's have it.
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Do we deserve this?: Leicester City's mentality is a tanker that must start turning
