cityfanlee23

I think a big concern for some (inlcuding me) is that most fans are talking about “when it clicks” and so far it really hasn’t, but the issue is we simply won’t be allowed to play with such high possession in the premier league, and we struggle to create chances with 70%+ so how will we create chances against better defenders in the premier league with 40-50%? I know championship teams park the bus and premier league teams don’t, but it’s far harder to score against premier league teams that don’t park the bus than championship teams that do imo. The issue then becomes what are we actually building towards? If it clicks in the championship that’s great, but if we get promoted and suddenly can’t play the way we’ve been building towards then not only do we need a rebuild in just 6 months time, but we also need to likely completely change our approach tactically. Some elements of our play will obviously remain, but it seems to me like we are building a tactical approach that we won’t be using next season if we go up, seems like extra unnecessary work.

But apart from that he’s one of the best strikers we’ve ever had and with the right team will score 25 goals a season and we will be really sad to see him leave to any premier league club that wants to pay his wages… right

At this point I hope he's gone in January, was convinced he would come good but he just can't be bothered. It's difficult for our strikers to get clear chances given how we play but even when he's not getting chances he doesn't even seem willing to run, on multiple occasions today I saw him standing in a position where if he took a couple of steps forward he would cut one of Boros passing lanes, but he just didn't care enough to do it, low and behold they pass in that lane multiple times and he just walked/jogged around watching it. He needs a fresh environment and we need his wages off the books for a replacement. Love Nacho but the step down should have made him shine, if he continues like this it will be a very sour ending.

I think something worth mentioning that is a bit of a trend is the amount of "nailbiter" games we seem to end with. By "nailbiter" i mean games where we go into the final 15 minutes or so where we are either 1 goal ahead or drawing, where the opposition only have to pounce on a mistake and steal points from us. So far this season these are the nailbiters: vs Coventry (1-0 down in the 77th min, won 2-1) vs Huddersfield (73rd min winner) vs Cardiff (1-1 before a 92nd minute winner) vs Rotherham (1-1 before scoring winner in the 84th min) vs Norwich (1-0 up before finishing the game in the 87th min) vs Preston (1-0 up until the 76th min, won 3-0 in the end) vs Stoke (1-0 until the 90th min) vs QPR (1-1, 80th min winner vs 10 men) vs Boro (0-0 until 83rd min goal cost us the game) Some of these results can be looked at in different ways for example Preston where we ended up quite comfortable, but the point is in all of these games we have go into the final 3rd of the game in the same position we were in today where the opposition is just a goal away or a mistake away from taking points from us. It's worth noting that in most of these games even when we have conceded I've still felt like we will get a result as we have the individual quality to make things happen, but in most of these games we had ample chances to put the games to bed long before that final period, but far too often we spend the first half slowly and waste a lot of chances. Things can come good, we definitely need to look at the Vardy/Ian/Daka situation in January as something isn't really clicking there, but with that said I can imagine it's hard to click given we hold so much possession the opposition just crowd the striker out, so given the wages the 3 of them are on, to have something like 9 goals between them is not really sustainable, but I suppose we would struggle to change JV's situation given his contract is almost up anyway. But overall I think it's really important that as much as we have turned the ship around under Enzo and we finally have a blueprint and a decent culture around the club again, Enzo's work so far really cannot be understated, we do need to find a solution because we have the quality to put most of these games to bed earlier, and although the table does not lie, we are top and deserve to be, today is a reminder of what can happen when you don't take chances. Credit to Boro they deserved a win today IMO, they played really well.

I did not imagine seeing this a year ago on here not wrong though

Jesus lads do I need to be the voice of reason here? I don't thnk we need to really change a lot, we just need to play faster and I think we would break teams down and punish them more, also need a few signings in Jan. Just concerned that we keep making the same errors every week though, we do the complicated tactical philosophy part, but we fail at doing a lot of the basics like making that final pass or just lumping it upfield instead of trying to backheel outside of your own box.

Not sold on him atm, he's got the ability but constantly seems to second guess himself and then makes mistakes. If he puts his head down and runs he would have most full backs in this division.

Yeah I've no idea what planet he was on there backheeling that, and it was a very poor refereeing decision to pull it back given he played the advantage and pulled it back the moment boro got into the box, what a free kick though.

Every week we go into the final 75 a mistake away from dropping points. We HAVE to take our chances.

Problem is we are always a mistake away from conceding, like that.

What on earth was Vesty doing there, and also that is a HORRENDOUS refereeing decision with Boro in our box to call play back. Had to play on there.

Just to clarify I'm the one saying that we are/should be planning for a promotion already and that is the entire foundation of my points. The ones who just blanket call everyone a moaner seem to be the ones that only look to next week, which imo is not how we should be looking forward. We can agree to disagree and look forward to potential promotion

Oh i'm fully confident we will make some signings. And I agree one of the big problems with this season is that teams are not setting up how premier league teams would, so it's a bit of a concern that when we do go up, we will have been playing a specific way that we likely won't be allowed to play in the top flight, Burnley have got the same problem at the moment where they have had to try to very quickly change their style to suit higher quality opposition and so far it's not really working, but they have signed a lot of new players who have yet to impress. We won't have 70% possession in the premier league should we go up, so it's about what we do with the possession that counts. It's really hard to tell what will happen should we go up, can only hope we are in a position to buy some decent players.

They would be more open yeah, and that's probably an argument in favour of our style, but the argument against it would be that premier league teams would also be far better defensively, which is something we struggle to break down, they likely would not be parking the bus like many teams do in this league, but they would not need to. An open premier league team is still infinitely more dangerous than a park the bus championship team. Yeah it's early days and the turnaround has been great, but that doesn't really excuse issues, it just gives a little bit of breathing room to improve.

Again, you're just straw-manning my position with hyperbole. I don't understand how it's "negativity" to state something that we can see, most first halves this season have been poor. The table is great, but unlike seemingly much of this forum, it does not paper over the cracks for me. I don't expect 4-0 wins every week.

And I agree, we have the quality to see the 90 minutes through, but should we get promotion and continue making very poor defensive mistakes and wasting good attacking chances, we will be punished by top tier teams. It works in the final 10-15 minutes yes, but for the first 75 we are a mistake away from conceding, premier league teams won't often waste the chances that championship clubs do.

It's the vast majority of first halves this season, please don't strawman my position.

Fair enough, yes we deserved to go down, but with the squad we had we massively underperformed and realistically would still be there if we had no held on to Rodgers for so long. But given the table we should still be preparing the club for potential promotion both off and on the field. We have some very glaring issues imo.

Yeah I think that often gives a bit of a false sense of comfortability, as soon as we lose possession and teams run at us we often flounder.

Because that is where we should be. This squad should be putting games to bed with quality, week in week out we go into the final 10-15 mins where teams are a goal away from taking points. Every single football club in the top 8 is already putting plans in place for if they potentially get promoted, we all expect to go up, so why would we not be looking 6 months into the future? The earlier we can prepare for the premier league the higher chance we have of staying up. Edit: I get that we can only take games one at a time, but my point is that we are building a blueprint under Enzo with a very specific style of play, so as much as it's 1 game at a time, we should also be looking at the style in the context of where we might be next season, I'm just not letting the table or results paper over very obvious cracks.

I think we look comfortable because Boro are happy to let us pass ourselves to sleep, the moment Boro get the ball we fall apart right across the pitch. Boro are just letting us pass it to death.

All entitled to our opinions, but if you think that's good i'm not sure what to say. If we get promoted and play how we've played in most games (in the first half) this season we will be multiple goals down before we even come into the game. Really, really poor imo.

I'd be tempted to throw Cannon on now, if not throw Fatawu up there, i've got very little faith left in Vardy or Daka to turn this around.

Difficult place to voice concerns this season given the league table lol, some big wake up calls needed.