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Pearson's change of tactic

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Leicester City as Nigel Pearson’s men made it three wins in succession to climb off the bottom of the Premier League. What has been noticeable is the attacking intent shown by the Foxes in this recent revival, throwing caution to the wind time and time again in pursuit of scoring goals to propel them out the relegation zone and it so far has worked perfectly. Taking the last three gameweeks where Leicester City has recorded nine points, the Foxes have hit the net seven times from 50 goal attempts of which 35 have been in the opposition penalty area resulting in a total of 17 shots on target. Also managing 44 key passes and 12 big chances all the stats mentioned above are the most by any club in a clear indication as to how Leicester are planning on beating the drop.

Has pearson heard keegans interview 'you score 3, we will score 4'?

Either way it does look very promising! Cmon you foxes!!!

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If we had played with this much attacking intent throughout the season, with the same drive and determination that has been shown throughout the season really, we wouldn't be in the position we are in now.

 

That being said, Pearson needed time to adapt to get the know how to win games in the Premiership.

 

Really, if you look at Pearsons record... He is a great manager. He got us out of the slumps of league one, in the play offs, left, the other manager came in with the big pound notes, flopped, Pearson came back, we are in the Premiership banging on the door of survival. If we stay up and if we can keep hold of him, I think we are destined for big things under Nigel.

 

I will be the first to admit, I doubted he would cut the mustard of the big time but in recent weeks, 3 back to back wins against established Premier League clubs... I will never doubt him again, regardless of if we stay up or not.

 

I really do believe we can do it now! 3 more wins will put us on 37 points, that is enough I think! But with the way we are playing at the moment, why not more!

 

Burnley away is a real test, every game we play now is like a cup final, Burnley are struggling to win against teams in a similar scenario to Swansea, West Ham and West Brom to an extent but this game will be completely different.

 

I'd go for the same system... They will be very nervous and they should really commit men forward themselves which leaves Vardy, Kramaric and Ulloa the opportunity to counter.

 

With the team we have and the way we play we have really underachived, we are no where near as bad a footballing side as anyone below West Brom. 

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If we had played with this much attacking intent throughout the season, with the same drive and determination that has been shown throughout the season really

I'll say it again, we have played like this for a good chunk of the season. I listed out a dozen or so games (before the last three) that we clearly showed attacking intent but didn't always get the results it probably warranted.

 

Yes Pearson did sacrifice this when we went for the diamond with 4 bloody cm's and a back 5 with 5 defenders. But in part that was often because the attacking play hadn't yielded the results.

 

I don't think there has been a massive shift in his philosophy of how he probably wanted us to play, it's just worked now rather than losing 3-2 or 4-2.

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I'll say it again, we have played like this for a good chunk of the season. I listed out a dozen or so games (before the last three) that we clearly showed attacking intent but didn't always get the results it probably warranted.

 

Yes Pearson did sacrifice this when we went for the diamond with 4 bloody cm's and a back 5 with 5 defenders. But in part that was often because the attacking play hadn't yielded the results.

 

I don't think there has been a massive shift in his philosophy of how he probably wanted us to play, it's just worked now rather than losing 3-2 or 4-2.

 

 

I'm talking games like Hull, Crystal Palace & Sunderland at home. We sat back and were scared to lose. If we had put them under the cosh, we would have had more chance of claiming all 3 points.

 

Yes, we have showed attacking intent in games like Spurs & Liverpool but with those games, they have more threat going forward so punished us for doing so. If we had played the same way against the teams around us, we would have won. In my opinion anyways.

 

But that being said, I am as positive as ever about survival and think the momentum as well as the ability, we will carry it through to survival!

 

Drinkwater looked like his old self when he came on which is good news, gives us more options. The depth of our squad and versatility of the players really shown through against Swansea.

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I'm talking games like Hull, Crystal Palace & Sunderland at home. We sat back and were scared to lose. If we had put them under the cosh, we would have had more chance of claiming all 3 points.

 

Yes, we have showed attacking intent in games like Spurs & Liverpool but with those games, they have more threat going forward so punished us for doing so. If we had played the same way against the teams around us, we would have won. In my opinion anyways.

 

But that being said, I am as positive as ever about survival and think the momentum as well as the ability, we will carry it through to survival!

 

Drinkwater looked like his old self when he came on which is good news, gives us more options. The depth of our squad and versatility of the players really shown through against Swansea.

Well I'd completely disagree about the Palace game we were all over them and missed chance after chance. That's one of the games for me where we attacked and got nothing, same QPR away. Threw caution to the wind and got nothing.

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It's been a bizarre season and it's not over yet, we could still blow it. I'm still left scratching my head at what's gone on but that's possibly the learning curve of being back in the PL after 10 years away and it being a first for a lot of the squad and our manager. I just hope we can get over the line, treating every game as a must win and getting enough points to stay up now as it'd be heartbreaking to still get relegated.

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We had the same attacking, high energy game at the start of the season, and it served us well.

Then all the cautiousness and tinkering started, and we looked at a loss for a result, that's what pissed me of with Pearson, he was to blind or stubborn to see it didn't work, thankfully he has started playing to our strengths again, and the players look for more confident playing like it.

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We attacked really well, but I think that the difference is though that we seem to be more disciplined in the way that we defended. We got the balance between defence and attack spot on.

 

Against Swansea, when they had the ball we clogged up the midfield and made it very difficult for them to play through us. This meant our defence wasn’t under constant pressure, and surprise surprise no-one made a horrible mistake.

 

Also substitutions. Earlier in the season, defending a narrow lead against Burnley Pearson took off Hammond and then put on Knockaert. Against Everton away, he took off Cambiasso and left three forwards on the pitch. Four points dropped.

 

This time, with 15 minutes left he took off Kramaric and put on Drinkwater. HALLELUJAH a defensive substitution to protect the lead and close out the game!  Pearson has cracked it at last!

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Don't think much has changed at all. Plenty of times we've attacked & attacked and got nothing out of games losing 2-1 or whatever in the process.

 

If anything we haven't been defensive enough and had the tactical nous to contain teams well enough as they've had a free-run through our team, practically queuing up to score against us.

 

In the past 3 games the opposition haven't taken their chances and we have, games prior to that it was the other way around. Fine margins indeed.

 

anyway, maybe with the added confidence of a few wins it will help the players performance levels, so we don't see repats of the rare woeful performances like we did Vs Hull & Sunderland at home.

 

all we've done is claw ourselves back from the brink & give ourselves a chance, as incredible as that is... we now need to repeat that to actually take the chance

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Also substitutions. Earlier in the season, defending a narrow lead against Burnley Pearson took off Hammond and then put on Knockaert. Against Everton away, he took off Cambiasso and left three forwards on the pitch. Four points dropped.

 

Still banging that drum!! lol

 

Against Swansea, when they had the ball we clogged up the midfield and made it very difficult for them to play through us. This meant our defence wasn’t under constant pressure, and surprise surprise no-one made a horrible mistake.

 

Helped I think by them not having a decent striker and being quite slow to move forwards. But the banks of players we have was much much better than us so often being wide open.

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As demonstrated in the games all year.... we only lift our level when its "last ditch".

 

Hence we look great and reaally push when we are losing with 10 mins to go, or when we needs the points as the season closes out.

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At the start of the season we didn't have much choice as we had a few injury problems, so we just went for it culminating in the spectacular win against United.

After that game though, Burnley and Newcastle spring to mind, where we dropped points because of our attacking intent. Burnley equalised after catching us on the break when we had too many men forwards, Newcastle we made attacking subs and we ended up losing a point. There was also an awful game against Palace in there.

I said it on here, as did others that going all out in games will cost us, Nige thought the same and switched to the diamond, his reasoning was sound pack the midfield hard to break down, the diamond isn't a bad formation but we didn't have the right players for it particularly at the tip of the diamond. We lacked creativity and more importantly pace.

That obviously had to change the awful Swansea formation should never be repeated, then it was back to square one, he didn't know his best team or best formation and it became a bit of a mess, fortunately lessons have been learnt and we have come out the other end with a good chance of survival.

The ironic thing is it was Pearson's lack of stubbornness and willingness to try new formations and change the side that damaged our season, maybe if he had stuck to 44 bloody 2 we would have been better off, or maybe we would be where Burnley are now, they have set up in the same way with the same players every game this season and now they are bottom.

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Still banging that drum!! lol

 

 

I was hoping to sneak that one past you! :D

 

 

 

Helped I think by them not having a decent striker and being quite slow to move forwards. But the banks of players we have was much much better than us so often being wide open.

 

True. I think Huth has made a huge difference though. Not just as a defender, but playing three centrally really restricts the space on the edge of the box. Swansea had what, only TWO decent efforts on goal all game? I think this the first game all season where I was confident we were going to hold on.

 

I'd still prefer to see the extra man in midfield rather than defence - but the end result is pretty much the same.

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Leicester City as Nigel Pearson’s men made it three wins in succession to climb off the bottom of the Premier League. What has been noticeable is the attacking intent shown by the Foxes in this recent revival, throwing caution to the wind time and time again in pursuit of scoring goals to propel them out the relegation zone and it so far has worked perfectly. Taking the last three gameweeks where Leicester City has recorded nine points, the Foxes have hit the net seven times from 50 goal attempts of which 35 have been in the opposition penalty area resulting in a total of 17 shots on target. Also managing 44 key passes and 12 big chances all the stats mentioned above are the most by any club in a clear indication as to how Leicester are planning on beating the drop.

Has pearson heard keegans interview 'you score 3, we will score 4'?

Either way it does look very promising! Cmon you foxes!!!

 

We started the season like this too.

 

It's the defensive, yet unable to do it, tactic that he changed to that was the problem.

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I'll say it again, we have played like this for a good chunk of the season. I listed out a dozen or so games (before the last three) that we clearly showed attacking intent but didn't always get the results it probably warranted.

Yes Pearson did sacrifice this when we went for the diamond with 4 bloody cm's and a back 5 with 5 defenders. But in part that was often because the attacking play hadn't yielded the results.

I don't think there has been a massive shift in his philosophy of how he probably wanted us to play, it's just worked now rather than losing 3-2 or 4-2.

Don't agree that there has been that intent to win by attacking as the main focus in as many games as you suggest.

Since maybe Newcastle away we have had as a priority trying to 'stop' other teams - he came out and said this in an interview at the time (I've paraphrased) and for months on end we were shite. We have never played that way in in years with any success, we don't have the personnel to do it. It's all been so self inflicted in my opinion.

Low and behold as soon as we try to win games with attacking, pressing play we win games again.

The correlation is clear. Never mind this 442 353 / diamonds bollox. It's the mind set of playing to our own strengths - not trying to be cagey - that has won us matches whether it be in the Champioship or PL.

Let's hope he sticks with it now we have a chance, because reverting to 5 at the back, or with the primary object of not losing games, we will be in the shit again, mark my words.

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About time he got it right tbf. While the players no doubt take some blame for some truly awful performances, the mess Pearson created in his own mind over our formation and team selection was entirely of his own making and I sense, in reality, that he has simply 'hit upon' this run of form rather than it being the result of any calculated change in methodology.

There will be a big test ahead if we lose with a poor performance at Burnley. Who's got the confidence in nige to successfully change things after his change success rate so fat has been one in about ten?

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We started the season camped on the edge of our box against Chelsea and arsenal, outplayed by stoke and we sort of nicked a point against Everton.

Against Utd, we were outayes for an hour and then had no choice but to go for it

Could not agree more. We were picking up results when we were putting men behind the ball against Stoke, Arsenal and Hull as well. At the moment the emphasis is on us to take the game to our opponents hence we have gone for it. But the west ham and west brom game could easily have gone against us, but we had that little bit of luck in the right areas at the right time.

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About time he got it right tbf. While the players no doubt take some blame for some truly awful performances, the mess Pearson created in his own mind over our formation and team selection was entirely of his own making and I sense, in reality, that he has simply 'hit upon' this run of form rather than it being the result of any calculated change in methodology.

There will be a big test ahead if we lose with a poor performance at Burnley. Who's got the confidence in nige to successfully change things after his change success rate so fat has been one in about ten?

I haven't got the confidence he won't go back to 'cautious Nige'.

We should never be on this position, but let's hope he can see the correlation between when we are being attack minded and our win rate over an 18 month period.

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If we had played with this much attacking intent throughout the season, with the same drive and determination that has been shown throughout the season really, we wouldn't be in the position we are in now.

 

That being said, Pearson needed time to adapt to get the know how to win games in the Premiership.

 

Really, if you look at Pearsons record... He is a great manager. He got us out of the slumps of league one, in the play offs, left, the other manager came in with the big pound notes, flopped, Pearson came back, we are in the Premiership banging on the door of survival. If we stay up and if we can keep hold of him, I think we are destined for big things under Nigel.

 

I will be the first to admit, I doubted he would cut the mustard of the big time but in recent weeks, 3 back to back wins against established Premier League clubs... I will never doubt him again, regardless of if we stay up or not.

 

I really do believe we can do it now! 3 more wins will put us on 37 points, that is enough I think! But with the way we are playing at the moment, why not more!

 

Burnley away is a real test, every game we play now is like a cup final, Burnley are struggling to win against teams in a similar scenario to Swansea, West Ham and West Brom to an extent but this game will be completely different.

 

I'd go for the same system... They will be very nervous and they should really commit men forward themselves which leaves Vardy, Kramaric and Ulloa the opportunity to counter.

 

With the team we have and the way we play we have really underachived, we are no where near as bad a footballing side as anyone below West Brom.

So it was only Pearson that had to adapt, the players are only robots.This means only Pearson can take the credit,

if we survive.

I agree with alot of this post, but like many forget, no team can play all season at the pace we have done in the last 3 games.

Plus many seemed not to take into account or chose to ignore the fact (though Pearson never used it as an excuse)

that our top players were not available and carried knocks well into the end of 2014.

Another critic that doesnt stand up, Pearsons tactics...we play in the PL , if people have noticed, so for me no matter what a manager chooses for for games set up, the players shiuld be expected to do basics and put in decent performances

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We started the season camped on the edge of our box against Chelsea and arsenal, outplayed by stoke and we sort of nicked a point against Everton.

Against Utd, we were outayes for an hour and then had no choice but to go for it

We were playing against £200m of talent of course we were outplayed at times, but what won us the game?

We said bollox we will try and outscore you. Not trying to nullify them to our own detriment as we did for months after.

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I don't agree that Pearson has waved a magic wand in the last three games and we are suddenly tactically superior to our opponents. We have been playing like this since January/February and are only starting to reap the rewards now. For me, the difference was the situation we were in. Everyone knew how bleak it had become before West Ham and the players are giving that extra 2%-3%, combined with some luck finally going our way. That has been the difference for me. The West Ham game could have gone either way as could the West Brom game. The Swansea game, we were fantastic and thoroughly deserved the win. I have been saying this a lot this season, we are actually playing well. The fact of the matter is that we have been too naive and wasteful. The goals we have conceded are poor, and the chances we miss are golden. That has reversed the last few games. Confidence is another thing. When things are going well in any type of job, you look forward to coming in the next day. That must be how the players are feeling, and sometimes it is just that confidence that makes half a chance turn into a goal. 

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Well I'd completely disagree about the Palace game we were all over them and missed chance after chance. That's one of the games for me where we attacked and got nothing, same QPR away. Threw caution to the wind and got nothing.

 

It's true you are right about both games, but just because it doesn't work EVERY week doesn't mean it's not whats best for us.

 

We've certainly got a lot more points playing 2/3 strikers and having a go than we have trying to defend be it 4-5-1 or 5-4-1.

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