Here you go KP
There is also a very good piece about our start too the season in The Guardian.
“When I first came into here I was asked what success would look like,” Leicester City manager Brendan Rodgers says. “We always knew it was going to be really difficult to punch our way through into that top six because of the resources, qualities and the size of clubs at that level, but that was the challenge and why I came here. We were able to do that last year and success again will be to work our way in there again.”
Rodgers’ men are on course to challenge for not only a top-six berth again, but even go one step further than last season and inch into the Champions League positions following a record-breaking fifth win in their opening seven games of the season at Leeds United.
Leicester are threatening to punch well above their weight again in the Premier League, defying the belief that to aim high you have to spend big. Ever since their arrival in the top flight in 2014 at the heart of Leicester’s relative success has been the consistent productivity of their recruitment policy and it has been bearing fruit once again.
That isn’t to say they haven’t invested. Their current squad is estimated to be the eighth-most expensively assembled in the division (at £284 million) and there have been considerable outlays in the last two summer transfer windows on £30 million-plus signings Youri Tielemans, who orchestrated the midfield at Elland Road and scored twice, and Wesley Fofana,
the teenage defender who already looks a sound investment, but those fees are relatively conservative compared to the spending of some of their rivals.
It also doesn’t mean they get every signing right, as the disastrous window of summer 2016 — when they tried to spend big to sustain a title defence and Champions League challenge at the same time — shows. Ahmed Musa and Islam Slimani, and later Fousseni Diabate, Adrien Silva and Rachid Ghezzal, have all been blots on the copybook, but for every failure, there has been a host of savvy signings that have not only brought quality to the squad under various managers but also added to the residual value.
Since then, Leicester have sold one key player in every summer window. N’Golo Kante, Riyad Mahrez, Danny Drinkwater, Harry Maguire and Ben Chilwell all moved on for a combined total of £250 million. They were recruited for just £25 million.
However, it isn’t just about business for Leicester’s owners. Leicester know they can’t compete with the might of the “big six” in a financial sense, with their vast global revenue streams, so at the heart of Leicester’s recruitment policy is the club’s culture, structure and leadership.
For starters, there is a long-term philosophy; rather than look for the more expensive quick fix, Leicester take a more holistic view on player recruitment and development. It was a major factor in Rodgers’ decision to leave Celtic for Leicester because the club is one of the few Premier League clubs where the perception among managers is that if they can get it right, they could be at the club for a long time.
Although there is the reality that expectations at the club have risen and results must come too, there is also the view that a manager may be afforded more time if the owners can see the seeds have been sown.
A classic example has been the search for a central defender in the last window. On Leicester’s hit-list were James Tarkowski at Burnley — an established Premier League defender, England international and a ready to go, immediate plug-in and play option — and teenage Saint-Etienne defender Fofana, who had played only 30 senior games.
Leicester did bid for both but in the end, they were happier to pay the upfront £32 million for Fofana — one of the biggest fees the club has paid — in the belief he will offer greater long-term potential and more residual value in the future.
This wasn’t a one-off policy. Leicester typically sign young players with potential who are experiencing success from clubs similar to their own so the transition is less drastic, from humble clubs with no ego and where the emphasis is placed on working hard. James Justin from Luton Town, Caglar Soyuncu from Freiburg, Timothy Castagne from Atalanta and James Maddison from Norwich City are strong examples.
For the system to work it relies on those at the top of the club to trust the director of football, the head of recruitment and, ultimately, the manager to do their work, and Leicester is one of the least politically cluttered clubs in the Premier League.
There is no interference from the ownership or potential agent influence and there is a director of football in Jon Rudkin, who has risen through the ranks himself, from originally being a coach in the academy, who likes to empower the manager and let him run the club.
The manager has the final say on all transfers and on appointments among his staff, including the head of recruitment, currently Lee Congerton, who first worked with Rodgers as chief scout to identify promising youth at Chelsea when the Leicester boss was reserve team manager at Stamford Bridge. They linked up again at Celtic.
Managers may come and go, and so have heads of recruitment with Congerton succeeding Eduardo Macia and previously Steve Walsh in the role, but the process of identifying talent at Leicester doesn’t change.
There is a continuity within the scouting and recruitment department in terms of supporting each other within the established process of identification of a potential target, researching the players’ abilities and personality, and establishing his suitability to fit the Leicester profile. Over time, parts of the process may have evolved, especially in the utilisation of technology to aid the scouting and research areas, but fundamentally the philosophy remains the same. Generally, they must be youthful, of good value, with the potential to be developed and a good fit for the ethos of the squad.
The process is all-important. Too many clubs have interference from above, or managers and head coaches who will be gone in 18 months. At Leicester, the system is engrained regardless of personnel.
That same process is now established at sister club OH Leuven in Belgium too and the newly-promoted club, where again the club’s owners backed those in charge of recruitment, are sitting eighth in the Belgium first division.
Ultimately, Leicester are a club who know their own identity. There is an understanding of the financial limitations and the need to delve into different transfer markets than those clubs they aspire to challenge. There is also a sense of ease with the fact players they develop may be enticed away at some stage by those rivals.
Tielemans, Maddison, Soyuncu and the rest did not exactly go under the radar. Other clubs were aware of them but it was Leicester who took the plunge where others hesitated. Now their market values will have rocketed. Leicester’s squad is now estimated to be worth £422 million by Transfermarkt, but to Leicester, those players will be worth more. They will all be in the £50 million bracket that Leicester commanded for academy graduate Chilwell in 2019.
One may go again next summer, as has been the trend, but Leicester will already be in the process of identifying their replacement, using “the process”.
