Kitchandro

Most managers are not like that. That sort of behaviour is extreme and bordering on insane. I take your point about Matt Mills but what he said is exactly in line with a) what plenty of other people have said and b) what we all know to be true based on his behaviour and interviews at Leicester.

I’ve heard that people are suggesting we ‘should have won’ and ‘played better’. This sounds like a fantasy land where we missed loads of chances. In reality we had just the one, despite dominating possession. We had 3 strikers make an appearance today and not one of them had a genuine goal scoring chance. Extremely poor performance and result. I cannot believe anyone would be ok with what they saw today. Considering we were playing a shocking Palace side, it was a disgrace.

Boos at the end are pointless. You always hear boos for draws at full time even when things are going well. Need to see things at the ground when it’s not matchday. But people are too lazy. If anyone disputes that please message me and I’ll join you.

Shocking result. 1 win in 10. Still the fans clap them off.

The defence was coached better under O’Neill and Ranieri, I disagree the players were better talents. Put O’Neill in charge of this team and they would absolutely smash that late 90s team.

People don’t forget, mainly because it’s a myth. Lockdown started in March, our football started to go downhill in December. Form had already tailed off badly before Covid interrupted things. We’d recently gone 5 without a win and lost to Norwich.

So if we lose the next 5 games, 12 defeats out of 14, on 4 points after nearly half the season, he would still be here? No.

Called it about 3 minutes before reading the updates. Sat back, invited them onto us and made negative subs? I also called it during the Forest game. I said we can get away with sitting on 3-0 against such a bad side but against anyone it will cost us like against Brentford and Southampton and countless times over the last couple of years under this manager.

We could have kept it up this half and it would have helped it. But we’ve just slowed it down, typical Rodgers. He just doesn’t understand psychology. We could have battered these 6 or 7 and it would win him some favour and build confidence. But he just doesn’t get it. Sums him up.

This match proves, despite people trying to shift blame to our players, that they really care about this sort of fixture. The difference has been application and individual quality (tactics are no different).

Personally I think there are signs we are still set up wrong even in this game. We were too slow to get up to support Vardy and we gave them chances despite them having none of the ball. But when our players are so much better there’s always a good chance we’ll win. And our players are at least a league above. Means nothing, we’re up for it because it’s a local derby and we’ve scored a fluke and 2 worldies.

It really isn’t. Lack of funds? Look at the playing staff, not the funds. Funds don’t score goals or mark from corners. It really isn’t hard to get results and performances from a squad with this amount of quality in. Honestly, it isn’t. We are performing worse than we would be if the players were organising themselves without a manager.

Sorry but this just isn’t true. You can win in spite of a manager’s tactics because of the players individual brilliance or mistakes from the opposition. We’ve done it countless times under Puel and Rodgers. Vardy was getting us out of jail for years.

The cracks appeared long before that Bournemouth game. That result was coming, we kept sitting back on 1-0 leads or even, bizarrely, when we were drawing. The first instance I remember, as others have said, was that Norwich home match in 2019. Iheanacho was subbed before half time just when he was building up some momentum and confidence with a run in the side. Then we limped to a dull draw, showing no urgency to score a winner at all. It was a very strange game. We got hammered by Man City and Liverpool after that and we never consistently looked the same team again after that. Since then we’ve shown flashes of brilliance but always followed closely by increasingly regular signs of tactical suicide, ineffective dull football and mental fragility.

In reference to our 2015/16 team people make far too much of counter attacking and far too little of the high press and high tempo. That was really the basis of our success and more accurately describes our style of play. Yes counter attacking was part of our game plan but it was really a byproduct of us winning the ball back in good areas and then looking for a positive forward pass as quickly as possible. This gave the opposition little time to reset. That’s the way Liverpool have played under Klopp and to an extent the way all good teams play in this country. Yes, some teams have higher possession stats than others for various reasons, sometimes because the lesser opposition don’t want the ball, or because they aren’t good enough to keep it, or maybe just because the superior players are just battering them and they can’t get the ball. But pressing high, using pace and playing forward passes quickly are essential to effective football. Statistically most goals are scored within 3 passes (and that’s not one of Brendan’s made up stats). When we transitioned into possession football (in my opinion a decision at least partly made because we lost Kante and lost confidence in the system without his energy levels and ball winning) we didn’t factor in that you need exceptional players to make it work. And even if you have better players, you still make it harder for them because you are asking them to play several inch perfect passes or dribble round players. We only won the title that year because we played a different style of football to other top teams at the time. If anything, we helped blaze the trail for more modern English football as it transitioned away from the Mourinho and tiki-taka styles that are now old hat. Even Pep employs a more dynamic faster paced style over here than he did in Spain. To be clear, I’m not suggesting Pep saw what Leicester did and copied us, but he understood the importance of intensity, pressing and even forward passes, and we unfortunately have largely abandoned those things over the last 6 years.

Fuchs sticking his ore in in defence of Rodgers now. Funny how it’s being reported on by the BBC yet they aren’t running with the several pundits who are rightly criticising him. His close personal friend Phil McNulty wouldn’t allow it. I don’t know why people are scoffing at Bielsa. He’s a rich man’s Dyche, he got miracles out of this Leeds players for 3 seasons, playing more attractive football. He wouldn’t be my first choice but I’d have him over Dyche.

Yes it was amazing - but it is not an indication of a great manager. It’s a few games, only 2 of which were against the big 6 and arguably none against clubs with better squads than us (look at Chelsea’s strike force and Man Utd that season, very average). Wigan won the cup and were relegated a few weeks later, anyone think Martinez is a top manager? People should analyse the squads before talking about perceived success, that goes for the 5th place finishes as well.

You're missing the point. It's one thing not to resign if you are trying your best to improve the situation and get better at your job, but he isn't. If your heart isn't in it and you can't give your best, and you have more than enough money to last you a lifetime, and you are in a management position and therefore responsible for other people, and when your role affects something that's important to people in a community, then it is your moral duty to resign.

Only if it's until the end of the season I can get behind this. However, what your post does highlight is that we've left this too late, which is what I warned against. We are now in a scramble to find stability, whereas if we'd have sacked him in the middle or at the end of last season we'd have been able to be more open minded with our selection of the next manager and we'd be able to take more of a chance. We now need results quickly and we only have ourselves to blame for not being proactive before we got into this predictable mess. The decline was slow but abundantly clear for quite some time.

That time was a year ago.

Yes, excellent post. I fell out of love with it a couple of years ago after not enjoying it for quite some time. I would add; having a season in lockdown which defeats the entire purpose of the sport with no fans there, the Qatar World Cup being in winter, the Super League clubs not being relegated or at least deducted points whilst in the lower leagues that is happening to clubs for much lesser crimes, the demolition of beautiful unique old stadiums for aesthetically and atmospherically inferior monstrosities, managers players and pundits justifying diving despite the fact 6 game bans would immediately remove it from our game, and managers justifying dull football despite all the money in the game.

Most of them will be, yes. Assuming we hire someone reasonably competent, tactically and motivationally. I’m shocked you’re even asking. It’s blatantly obvious that we are being hindered significantly by our manager.

So why didn’t he buy them last season instead of spunking it all on Southampton players? Why didn’t he do it the season before? Or the one before that? How many of his signings over the 3 years have been any good? Hardly any. We have bought so much rubbish under him, rubbish he has approved and suggested. They have backed him, he’s failed, now they’re trying not to bankrupt the club.

He’s been saying this for months though? He said they weren’t good enough to beat Forest when they were in Championship. And he’s been hinting that the board haven’t supported him all summer. Obviously he’s talking nonsense still, this squad is more than good enough to finish in the top half, but this comment is nothing new.

The most depressing thing of all is that despite all the anger on here, there doesn’t seem to be that determination to hound him out from the stands. That sums up the passive nature of our fanbase, and possibly our country. It’s a small club mentality to accept such a poisonous character as our manager.