Xen

RICARDO!!!!

Castagne, KDH, Ndidi all terrible. Tete invisible. Feels like it'll be a miracle if VK sees the full 90 without getting sent off. God that was painful to watch. Credit to Faes and Iversen in particular for keeping us in it, somehow. Ricardo and Mendy at half time, at the minimum, please. Our midfield options are astonishingly bad with Youri out. Bodes well for next year...

Exactly. At one point Wilf was arguably the best DM in the league - his form has gone out the window particularly under Rodgers, but we know what he's capable of and if we're tweaking things to get the best out of him again, it's a no-brainer. Mendy is a different kind of option in that position and will be equally useful, but if Ndidi is showing any signs of getting back in form then we need to encourage that. Reasonably happy with the lineup. Ricardo being dropped is odd as he's had more rest than Castagne, but presumably the thinking is that Ricardo against tired legs is a very dangerous prospect. Iheanacho for Daka could be questioned, but the latter had a good international break whereas Nacho got hooked at half time losing to guinea bissau...

Kristiansen, Souttar, Mendy all on at HT for Thomas, Amartey and Soumare. At least. Iheanacho for Vardy too, to be honest.

Amartey and Soumare both shocking there.

I'd rather Iversen have absolutely nothing to do all game, to be honest...

Looking forward to seeing a Ricardo-Tete partnership down the right. Having another Portuguese speaker behind him should help Tete, particularly with some of his defensive positioning which has looked suspect the last couple games. Rest of the team is uninspiring but should still be enough to get past Blackburn, at least on paper. A few players who should be fighting to win back a starting spot (Thomas, Amartey, Soumare) and even Praet has an opportunity to stake a claim for Youri's position - let's hope some of them step up and give a decent showing.

Would've voted Fosse if I'd been there. Would vote City now. I'm not really fussed between the two and it'd be nice to have something unique so I would still lean slightly toward Fosse, but our biggest and best achievement (and arguably in all of football) is in the record books as 'Leicester City', and for that I think 'City' wins out

Said in the prematch thread, our midfield was the weak spot against villa and, on balance, youri is probably the one to drop, at least to start the match. Shame he's not available to come on after 60, but it's not the end of the world.

Not necessarily what I would do, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Rodgers pick Amartey to start this one. Souttar had an injury and only started last week because Amartey was ill, so he might want to manage that carefully. Especially with Tottenham's speed of attack, Amartey might have some merit... would expect to see Souttar at some point at least though. Midfield is a tricky one to pick though. Youri/KDH behind Maddison puts a lot of pressure on the CBs so I'd be tempted to drop one of them and go with a specialist DM behind 2 CMs. Not sure Mendy is good enough to justify making the change though, and Ndidi is horribly out of form - but a return to being a 'true' DM might help him now we've got a better balance to the side. But then who to drop... Maddison has to play, KDH brings the energy but Youri is technically better... I'd be tempted to start with Ndidi/KDH/Maddison and bring on Youri at the hour mark to do his thing against tired legs. Rest of the side stays the same from Villa, with some welcome returns to the bench to hopefully get some minutes.

What exactly do you think this is showing? To me it looks like he's average for goals/assists (despite being a defender), admittedly poor at progressing play, but doing a pretty good job, comparatively, at actually defending. Which, given that he's had no true RW in front of him for the majority of the season, its no surprise that that's where he's had to focus and the stats reflect that. If everyone is fit and on form he's probably our 4th choice fullback, but he's still a perfectly adequate midtable PL player, and his versatility as a LB and even CB in a back 3 has proved useful. He's not the kind of player to get you up and out of your seat, but he's pretty good at just doing his job unspectacularly but reliably. Edit: Looks like those percentiles are as compared against other fullbacks. In which case, the defensive stats are even more impressive, and it really emphasises what kind of role he's had in the team - no consistent RW in front of him means no-one to really progressive-pass to, and he's not going to risk taking players on when he's got limited support down that side. For a player that's been overplayed and with weak areas both in front and alongside him (RCB), he's done an alright job.

Hopefully this is a good sign that Iheanacho will be starting more often, now that we have the wing options to play to - and best utilise - his strengths...

Surely its easiest just to force yourself to eat something in the morning for the time being, especially if its only for 7 days... Doesnt have to be a big meal, just a slice of toast would suffice.

TETE!

If we can start strongly then hopefully our threat from the front 4 will be enough to make them a bit more cautious, and take a bit of pressure off of the midfield. Defending from the front, and keep the intensity all over the pitch. Mendy off the bench if things start getting dicey.

Perfect line-up. Wonder if the plan was always to play Souttar from the start - given he's been nursing an injury lately and Amartey is suddenly nowhere to be seen, I'd imagine our hand might've been forced somewhat by illness or something. Excited to see what Tetê can do, and how well he links up with Iheanacho. Maddison central too without being required to drift wide... stuff of dreams. Bring it on

We're 'only' 4 points behind Reading, with a game in hand and still have to play them at home. If we can capitalise on that and maintain these good performances, then we've got a great chance to stay up. But 5 goals from 11 games really isn't good enough, so a lot will depend on us sorting out our attack. Crack that, and I think we'll survive.

Thought that I might've missed a couple. Thats good news in Bertrand's case, shame we cant get a (small) fee out of Perez but in the grand scheme of things it wouldnt make much difference. How we've let ourselves get into this situation, I don't know. Shocking mismanagement over the last few years. At least the January window shows we still have some intent to keep progressing, hopefully its not too little too late. As an aside, looks like Harrison might be less likely in the summer now, so we'll have to look for another attacking player as well...

I figure I'd let it do it in its own words. I asked it "ELI5 What ChatGPT is" and it's response was Essentially, you can ask it a question in normal language (unlike key-word searches in Google, for instance) and it comes back with something that's usually fairly accurate, comprehensive and understandable. And it's even capable of handling follow-up questions, like a normal conversation. I've even seen it used to write simple computer programs from scratch from plain-text descriptions, so it can 'understand' as well, to an extent. It has its flaws as with any machine learning, but its remarkably effective and seems to handle nuance better than most AI attempts so far.

Only going off of the 'likely' rumours from this January just gone, I'm expecting something like this... Out: (*out of contract) Soyuncu*, Tielemans*, Evans*, Praet, Albrighton, Perez, Vestergaard, Bertrand, Ward Minimal fees coming in, if any. Vardy might want to move on as well, although I imagine we'd mutually agree to end his contract for him to pursue other ventures freely, if so. New Contracts: Mendy, Amartey In: Tete, Harrison Youth: Alves, Braybrooke to be managed back from injury, before joining the first team. Brunt and Nelson also to step up to squad places. Stolarcyzk 2nd choice behind Iversen. Worryingly high number of outgoings, and I can't see where we get the money from to replace them without a further cash injection. Maddison going might be a necessity just so we can spread those funds around the squad a bit more. If by some miracle we can finish strongly and convince Tielemans to give us another couple years, then we're a bit more balanced and we might just about get away with it, although CB is still looking dicey. Lets hope Glover has a few tricks up his sleeve...

On paper, it's an 8/10 Notoriously a tough window to be a buying club (unless you're Chelsea) and yet we've addressed the 3 most troublesome areas in the squad with some very promising signings, and at good value too. A nice balance to the squad now. Our wage bill has been an issue and we're starting to make inroads on that. Vestergaard hanging around despite our best efforts, but at least it's confirmed that we're trying to make the changes we need. Clear intent on Harrison too. Not surprised a deal was tricky given the circumstances, but reckon we'll be back in for him in the summer. GK would have been nice to see a change, but 3 first XI signings is already a busy January so I'm not surprised we held our hand on that. Would be nice to see Iversen get a go - we might be able to save ourselves from needing to buy in the summer if so - but imagine we'll stick with Ward...

They set the odds initially but then any movement in the markets is just reacting to where punters are putting their money, to minimise losses/maximise profits for the bookie. 99% of the time there's no insider information behind it, and trying to make sense of odds is no different from trusting random rumours from the (not-so) ITKs... Even suspended markets are just the bookie's way of protecting themselves in case the influx of bets ends up paying out.

Not surprised the player is hesitant - I'm sure it's nothing against LCFC, but not every player is going to jump at a mid-season sideways move. Reckon we'll be back in for him in the summer if this doesn't go through today.

£25m for consistency in the PL seems like a bargain, if you ask me. Even just on its own it's great, but having a reliable player in the side allows for others - who might be a bit more hot-and-cold - to flourish. Just look at how Albrighton, Simpson and Kante allowed the likes of Vardy, Mahrez and Drinkwater respectively to up their levels in the title season, because they knew exactly what to expect from their teammates and could focus on their own role in the side. £25m in the current market - especially in January, and from a relegation rival - is a really good price if he delivers.

In the summer, yes. Vardy is injured and not the level he used to be, but Daka and Iheanacho are both going to benefit massively from Tete coming in, more proactive fullbacks (Kristiansen and Ricardo) and Maddison's return to the side. Plus a potential addition like Harrison. We've gone from having very limited options that other teams can double up on to a much more varied attack which will give everyone more space. I think we'll see an up tick in attacking output across the board. Come the summer I wouldn't be too surprised if only 1 of our 3 strikers remained at the club though, so imagine we'll prioritise there alongside CM for our 'big' summer transfers.