Kitchandro

So you think we did win the league spending like Man City & Chelsea? We didn’t. Our team cost something like £20m. And even if we did spend lots of money overall, do you think that makes them great, or just rich? The recruitment was good, but that was largely down to great scouting from the likes of Steve Walsh and others. Not throwing money around. The owners got lucky. They appointed several managers, most of which were pants. Pearson and Ranieri were the exceptions (neither appointed on the back of great research, more on their reputation), and fortunately both of them had a huge positive influence on the club no one could have foreseen. That doesn’t mean Vichai didn’t do any good things behind the scenes or that he was hopeless. Just that, he and Top get far too much credit when football is about what goes on on the pitch. Unless you’re major rich in football terms, any success you have will be down to great management and/or clever recruitment. (to be clear, it was very much the previous clever recruitment that Rodgers dined off before he started having his own ideas about it, and not great management).

No. I’m bored. I’ve been bored for years watching this team. Appoint someone younger and exciting. Someone who plays attacking football. Fed up of being bored more than anything else.

Come on now. Comparing him with Rodgers is not a good idea. If Rodgers got 1 point in 7 games that suggests you couldn’t really do worse. Smith didn’t do worse, but he still didn’t get the best out of our players. Looking at the individual games does not do him any favours. The Everton game in particular showed him up as tactically inept and a poor motivator - we looked scared, passive and would have been battered by a side who could finish better. Iversen performed miracles. I say it on every thread: We need to start having standards if we want to be successful. Smith is not up to standard. He will be sacked in the next 12 months if we keep him. It would be a hideous appointment akin to Shakespeare. There are so many talented young managers out there if we are willing to scout and conduct a proper interview process. We won’t, but obviously I’m talking about what we should do, rather than what we will do.

No, people are angry that the statement is bad, not because it exists. I’d also disagree with your 2nd sentence, I doubt anyone wants that. Unless you can find quotes suggesting this? I think probably what people wanted was us to stay up and be run correctly, maybe sack a manager when they deserve it now and then. Maybe.

I think Piper does say a lot of sensible things. He’s very critical of Rodgers. But then he spoils it all by saying he loves him. He’s a typical media ex-pro in that regard, contradicting the fact he hasn’t got a good word to say about Rodgers by then saying he’s a ‘top manager’. Like you’ve literally just explained at length, for the third time today, why he’s a terrible manager, Matt.

If we appoint him he’ll be sacked by Christmas. He is not the reason we went down, but he is nowhere near good enough. If we appoint him we have clearly not understood the situation and have learned nothing. We need a tactically astute, motivational manager, I see no evidence that he is either. His tactics have been extremely poor and he clearly did not lift the players. If we are going to become a club worth supporting again, we need a Pearson-esque appointment. And if we want to become a force again we need even better. For god’s sake, please just appoint someone with potential and character rather than than doing no research and picking someone obvious. Keeping Smith would be like when we stuck with Shakespeare for the sole reason that it was convenient. As I say every time we need a manager, I’d rather not have heard of him. He should be picked due to his ideas and character, not his name. This is not the time for a safe pair of hands. Promotion while we have the parachute payments is essential.

Playing like we are trying not to concede, shocking set-up.

Walking out with kids and smiling…all business then!

IF required?! I can assure you Vardy is very much required now. 1 up front is absolute madness in this scenario, even if you’re generally in favour of it.

We chose to go down with a whimper then. It’s almost like the players think they’ll be spared the abuse against West Ham because it was ‘out of their hands’. Shameful.

It’s win or relegation. Everton will surely win against a side already on the beach. They actually have a bit of fight, even if they are rubbish. If Smith even considers taking a point he shouldn’t even be allowed to take the last match.

How do you know this when we haven’t tried attacking in years? If we sit back, we will concede, because like you yourself have said, we can’t defend. And we do have recent and consistent proof of that.

Eindhoven lmao. Stop talking about a third rate competition as if it’s remotely prestigious. That was not a big game. (We bottled the FA Cup final as well, unless you think we intentionally played Chilwell offside by an inch).

Before all that though we need a manager with a style of play. We haven’t had one since we won the league, we have been reliant on individuals and only in patches have we shown any sort of cohesion under any manager. Yes having a plan B is important, but we need a plan A first! What happened to high tempo and organised pressing, both of which are essential in English football? If we just had those two simple things, it would go a long, long way to improving us as a team, whoever the players are.

In Ranieri’s second season we played exactly as we have this season under Rodgers and Smith. Trying to play possession football and failing. I don’t know why everyone makes up this narrative that teams found us out. We tried to play possession football because we lost Kante and thought we couldn’t press without him, but we didn’t have the players to play that way.

If I was being an optimist, I’d say this forces our cowardly team to try and win on Monday, which is how they need to play. Unfortunately, we are crap and I’m not an optimist.

Iheanacho, but I’d be embarrassed for him if he didn’t demand a transfer. He’s one of the few players who can claim the club has treated him poorly (football wise), even before this season.

Let’s be honest, it’s not going to be anyone any good.

And he’s always got a Hollywood one-liner after every single goal that he’s reading off his notepad. A Martin Tyler wannabe.

That’s not the point though, that statistic is misleading. The point is we concede so many goals because we play too negatively and invite pressure on the defence. As was highlighted before the season started, we’re actually quite clinical for the amount of chances we create. And if the other post is true, the statistic is even more misleading because we’ve dished out a few hammerings rather than regularly scoring goals.

They’re hiding now, again, especially the midfield.

This is revisionism. We gave the top teams a good game and narrowly lost. However we were generally very poor against the lesser sides, even in some of the games we won like Hull away when they could have 5 and Mahrez scored on the break. If you look through the fixtures it will jog your memory. West Ham away, Villa away cup and league, both Hull games, QPR away, Stoke at home, West Brom at home, Sunderland at home, Palace both games, Swansea away, Newcastle away, Southampton away. We were poor to awful in all these games, tending to play very negatively with Vardy out wide and only coming out of our shells when behind. We raised our game against the top sides but were tactically poor and deserved to be bottom until we threw caution to the wind in the last 10 games.

The reality is they do make a difference, even if they aren’t ‘culpable’. Managers live and die by their reputation in the press and among fans. Certain managers get a much tougher ride from both and Rodgers would never have stayed in the job if he has the same treatment as Conte or Steve Bruce.

100% Top. He is the boss. Rodgers is one of the worst things to happen to this club in a very long time, but remove him 18 months ago and replace him with a progressive, decent manager and none of this happens. You can’t ‘blame’ Rodgers for being a narcissistic sociopath, that’s his nature. It’s Top’s fault for falling for it.

We had Ndidi and Soumare playing against Everton, both essentially playing that role. It made no difference.