Feed The Yak!!

Yep, we looked good against Bournemouth last year in the cup. Enzo would probably always have left us in the summer due to the size of the Chelsea opportunity and our board misleading him. That said, if there was a fraction of a chance of him doing a McKenna and staying on due to the relationship with the fans, our lot sure as shit snuffed that out.

He can be frustrating but we can't possibly afford not to play him. He's one of the few players we have who can run at defences

Strong disagree on Vestergaard. Think we actually gain a lot having someone so composed on the ball at the back. Just ideally needs to be paired with someone pacier.

The club should be working overtime to bring in a new right back asap in Jan

It's maddening. Iversen is sat right there on the bench. Reeks of Ruud not doing his homework tbh.

When did Ward rise above Iversen in the pecking order? Seriously asking in case I've missed something. Last I recall we were essentially relegated before Rogers finally realised his mistake and played the superior keeper but by then it was too late. What did Ward do to regain favour?

Yeah it's concerning. Presumably we've just seen us in the most free-flowing attacking style we'll see all season?

Half on Okoli who can't even get in the team. Don't want to write players off but it seems like torrid business.

The irony of this is the unyielding support Rodgers had from our lot even when it had been clear for 18 months that he was dismantling the side and would get us relegated. Those that called it out were assaulted in the stands. If the board hadn't sacked him, I truly believe our lot would have been happily clapping along to a midtable championship finish this season. The footballing literacy of our fanbase must be amongst the worst in the country.

Was this when 80% of the forum thought we were going to lose in the play-off semi finals? It was his first season in English football, his second ever as a manager, and he reinvigorated a totally broken team and won the league while one of Leeds or Southampton will fail to go up. In Arteta's first season, he had Arsenal fans calling for his head too. But their fans can get away with being less patient and more entitled. We don't have the resources or wealth of alternative options to do that but I think that ship has sailed. I can only imagine what Enzo thinks of our fanbase. The same ones showing him no support are now outraged that he'd be open to exploring other options

Seen this sentiment parroted a lot recently and couldn't disagree more. I swear people on here either have amnesia or are willfully misremembering the absolute state we were in at the end of last season. Couldn't buy a win even against championship opposition, our best players leaving for a fraction of their value, the most fragile Leicester defence any of us have ever witnessed etc etc etc. Rodgers left us in disarray and many were resigned to a playoff finish at best. In the summer, everyone on here would have snapped the hand off of someone offering us top of the table with five games to go. Don't pretend otherwise.

40 yard hoofs up the field: Stoke 34 - 1 Leicester How many times must Enzo get absolutely schooled in the art of proper out-of-your-seat English football before Top sees sense and gets rid??

Because qualification for the Super League is predicated on past Super League performance. The big 6 could finish wherever they liked domestically and would still qualify. It would absolutely kill domestic football as we know it.

Infuriating how quickly some of our fans have been willing to turn on Maresca. Contrast that with Rodgers being given free rein to dismantle the club, with us getting battered left and right by championship sides like Forest and Blackburn, after several transfer windows and with Maddison and Barnes etc in the team. Maresca has transformed not only Ndidi, Vestergaard, and our entire defence (which seemed completely beyond repair), but also the mentality of the team and the atmosphere around the club. I always back us to grab a late winner or bounce back if we concede as opposed to folding like a deck of cards as we would be guaranteed to do under Rodgers, even against midtable championship opposition. If people can't see the polar difference in management then I really do despair.

Yep, assuming he'll play the Faes role at RCB.

When Rodgers was sacked, the board had finally woken up after it was too late. It had nothing whatsoever to do with mounting pressure from the home fanbase. In that regard, a significant portion of the fans were just as culpable as the board in burying their head in the sand despite being routinely confronted with evidence that Rodgers was dismantling everything that we'd been building and was both unable and - more unforgivably - unwilling to turn things around. Instead of being outraged by the enormous gulf between our resources and our performances, many accepted what they were witnessing as some kind of return to natural order. I'm delighted that Maresca has in such a short span of time made a mockery of Rodgers' complaints and excuses. After the events of the past few seasons however, I'm also concerned about the expectations of our fans. For entirely different reasons than you.

Iversen was no doubt a downgrade but still would've kept us up if Rodgers hadn't refused to drop Ward for two thirds of the season.

Bit over 18 months for me. Only Deeney Day rivals the final game of the 20/21 season as the most depressing match I've seen as a Leicester fan. After capitulating at the end of 19/20, throwing away a 14 point cushion, we'd done the exact same thing again, playing like relegation candidates for the latter half of the season (The FA Cup win was a miracle that I'll forever be grateful for because 99 times out of a hundred we lose that game and had Chilwell started his run half a second later, we would have) Somehow, we still had a chance of a CL spot if we beat Spurs at home and Chelsea slipped up at Villa. Something that struck me within the first 5 minutes was how unmotivated Tottenham looked. Their fans had already joked before the game that they wouldn't want to do Chelsea any favours and that 7th place was a less than attractive prospect due to the new conference league. When the game started, though, it didn't seem like a joke anymore. They really did look like they were already on the beach. We were 2-1 up in the 75th minute and Villa were beating Chelsea. All we had to do was see out the game. We had everything to play for. Spurs looked like they couldn't care less. And there's really no explanation for what happened next. We conceded 3 goals in 20 minutes. The last of which involved Bale waltzing through our entire defence in a manner not too dissimilar to Blackburn's second goal just last week. After Deeney Day, I was devastated but something about that collective pain seemed to galvanise the players and they stormed the league the next year, determined not to leave anything to chance. Under Brendan Rodgers, nobody is galvanised by anything. The same mistakes are repeated over and over. I’ve lost track of the number of humiliations and abject collapses we’ve been subjected to. If anything, the grooves seem to be carved more deeply each time, expediting the patterns of failure leaving us more and more fragile with every passing game. The response to Southampton's penalty miss was particularly alarming, as in some kind of paradoxical way the players seemed to be aware there was a pressure to respond and managed to retreat even further, conceding shortly afterwards. The mentality that’s been instilled into this team means we’re only ever going to move in one direction. The best time to remove it was a little over 18 months ago. The next best time is now.

He's taken up some good positions but Castagne's first touch has been woeful today

Never a yellow

Wilf. Looked to be doing a poor job marking him before the corner even came in.

Lookman must start.

You could not have picked a worse example

Wouldn't have thought so, widely regarded as their most important attacking player last season.

No team is free from playacting. It's just a feature of the modern game and unfortunately it won't go away until it's punished more severely. So no it's absolutely not 'fine' for Italy to do it but not England. The problem is the hypocrisy. The footage of Immobile jumping to his feet after Italy's goal against Belgium got replayed time and time again on all English media outlets. So many smug, superior comments from the pundits as well. You can argue that Sterling didn't dive against Denmark because the penalty was given (even though very few neutrals watching would agree with you) but how does that apply to last night? I'd urge you to rewatch the game if you claim it didn't happen but Sterling threw himself to the ground on at least 3 occasions and the ref was having absolutely none of it. Similar story with Kane. England fans in this thread are claiming that Italy 'are the worst cheats in the world' without a shred of self awareness though so clearly nothing has been learnt whatsoever