Big_Nige

Whatever way you look at it you can’t argue that Vestergaard is integral to the way Enzo likes to set up a football team. He’s had a great season so it’s no real shock he’s been offered a new deal. Yes he was worryingly exposed away at Chelsea. But equally he was excellent away at Bournemouth. One thing I wish people would realise, Vestergaard played 0 league minutes in our relegation season. Neither Rodgers or Smith gave him a sniff. In fact he only played 10 premier league games, (starting 6) the season he signed. If memories serves right the last time he played in the prem for us was a last minute cameo off the bench against West Ham where he was bought on to see out a lead, we conceded from a corner a minute later where I think he was beaten in the air. That was Feb 22’ That Vestergaard was a broken player, signed and discarded immediately by a manager who’d lost the ability to galvanise a group of players. This Vestergaard is an integral part of a set up that the team is built around. I’m more than happy to give him a chance, but we do need to be sensible, and teams transitioning against us worries me, but leaving a single centreback exposed when a team breaks against you is suicidal even if that centreback has pace. If you set the team up correct defensively then I’ve no doubt Vesteraard will be an important player for us next season

Sascha Lenhart Came on in a cup game after Jamie Lawrence knocked himself out scoring a diving header (collided with the post?) Never seen again Fernando Pasquinelli and Leon Crncic were the nearly men, too much flair if anything

Booing ex players is just weird full stop, what does it even achieve? The whole club was rotten last season, and that was down to Brendan Rodgers and Brendan Rodgers alone. He sucked the life out the club, and by the time he went the players were broken. So as much as Youri Tielemans was an aberration and chugging round the pitch half the time, I’ll remember the good times and scoring the winner in the FA Cup was a damn good time

Enjoy tonight, and enjoy Saturday. Enjoy the close season, enjoy the fixtures being announced. Enjoy the transfers, the rumours, the contract extension and enjoy the 100 page threads. Enjoy Jamie Vardy. Enjoy pre-season, monsoon season and playing a Thailand XI. And let’s all enjoy being a Leicester fan again. We are back And can we please all stop being accountants just for one day, stop talking about amortisation, PSR, and having to sell KDH. Stop playing football on a spreadsheet governed by an arbitrary rule and turn this nonsense in to a siege mentality. Stop worrying and stop the pessimism

We’re all Ipswich tomorrow. Get those 3 points in the bag and come and join the party, or at least have one foot in it. You massively deserve it

Fixed it for you

Harry winks and Ricardo not premier league quality yet Souttar is?

We did to them what many teams have tried to do to us and go man for man. Vestergaard stepped into midfield to track Smallbone and press high. Everyone had a man to press, which left Faes 1v1 at the back most of the time. As disappointed as I was before the match that Faes kept his place instead of Coady as soon as I saw what we were trying to do it make sense. It’s not Enzo going away from his principles, it was the ultimate Enzo ball in a way. It’s the only time this season we’ve seen a team come to the KP and try and play like that, which was naive at best, but it shows we have a “second” way of playing, which is just the first , but when we’re allowed more space to attack into

He’s too casual. Comfortable on the ball, and has recovery pace, which can be the only reason he keeps his place. The problem is most of the goals we’ve conceded lately you can point the finger in his direction. Hull away, Millwall away, Plymouth away. I’ve never seen a defender make themselves as small as he does when “trying” to block a shot. He just always has a ricket in him Sell in the summer

I think we tried to adhere to the rules that summer, but at that point too late. We believed our own hype in the summer of 2021. Kept hold of an already large squad, and bloated it even more. Not one player permanently signed in that window (Lookman not included) positively contributed to our next 2 seasons in the premier league. We went balls deep and royally fckd up Now we’re having to pay for it i have some sympathy for the board in the fact that it was 100% a stick or twist summer. FA Cup winners, European football again, on the cusp of the champions league again. Do you shoot for the moon or are you pragmatic. It could have paid off, but instead it went just about as wrong as it could and all the bad decisions that were made at board level - contract length / transfers in/out became a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy. In hindsight what were we thinking but I’m sure a lot of us, me included, were praising the board that summer for acting like a big club and keeping hold of the team and adding to it As long as we learn from it, and it’s that small sentence that worries me the most

I'm 99% sure all fans want to be entertained as part of going to watch their club. I know I do. I think it’s been hard this season because until very lately there’s been so little jeopardy, and I feel that has crept in and twisted the narrative to make it seem we’re quite boring. Norwich was exciting because it meant something, beating Shef Wed at a canter when 15 points clear is always going to be slightly boring. I can get why people don’t like it, I’ve been frustrated on loads of occasions, but it’s easy to look at say Ipswich and how they are relentless and just go for it and think we should play in a similar gung ho fashion, but everytime I’ve watched them this season they aren’t facing 10 men behind the ball. In a way they are similar to us when we won the Prem. they dont have the same fear factor or respect of oppositions than we do, and thats not a slight on them, im jealous as it that means there’s more space to play high octagon football in. So we have to play in a patient manner, it’s frustrating at times, but we have scored some sensational pass and move goals this season even against the lowest of low blocks, and when we have had the chance to counter attack like Birmingham and Watford away it’s been devastating. If we go up it’ll be really interesting how it translates

I honestly think we’ll double down, if we go up I really don’t think we’ll sell anyone that we don't want to sell. And if we do it'll only be for the right price. KDH might be tempting as it’s pure profit, but other than that what benefit would having a fire sale do for us? Well have to replace those that we sell and let’s be fair, KDH aside, not many are going to fetch the kind of amount that’ll vastly improve our finances. We’ll plummet out the league and then be marooned in the EFL for years. We might be buying in a different market but I still think they’ll be incomings. Another raft of high earners and amortised transfer fees are dropping off the wage bill and I suspect the board will be weighing that up in a risk/reward way We’ll break it again no doubt, but the horse has bolted on our finances, we just need to take our punishment and try and get it in order in the coming years. But with 90m plus loses 2 years on the spin, and now a season in the championship, it’ll be pretty impossible to not breach next year too regardless of what we do I get the feeling PSR will change in the next 12 months and we’ll take “another” calculated gamble on it changing in a way that works more in our favour than the current calculations I'm not endorsing this approach by any means, I can just see it happening

I’ll bite, genuine question. What is about the style of play that makes you sick of it? While maybe not to the exact same philosophy as Enzo, most managers play a level of risk reward football by baiting in the opposition and playing through the lines? Football has evolved, rightly or wrongly, even since we won the league. It’s not for everyone I agree, I get frustrated at times, especially when chasing a game but I understand that keeping the ball and trying to craft a chance has more potential to pay off than banging it high into the box hoping for scraps And nearly everytime we’ve stepped on to a football pitch this season we’ve been met by a team playing a low block. Fast direct counter attacking football is impossible in those circumstances. He’s not perfect by any means, but it’s his first full season as a manager and he’ll be learning every week. Look at the togetherness on the pitch after the final whistle on Saturday. It’s been a long long time since we witnessed that, and that is worth its weight of gold for a football team The fact people want to bin off this potential baffles me

Just donated to the PayPal chaps. As a society we absolutely should be helping the more vulnerable, this country has gone to the pits and we can’t rely on the cretins in charge to change anything for the better. Anyone can fall on hard times at any point, who am I to judge why this has happened, and who am I to presume these unfortunate people need educating, poverty is a very real issue not a life style choice. I’ll try and bring a bag or two down on Saturday before the game too Keep up the good work, and get SK1 rocking on Saturday

Sensible decision. If he walks at the end of the season it’s 2 “quarterback” style defenders we’ll need to sign. For continuity it makes sense to keep him (and let’s not forget he’s been superb this season) but sign his ultimate replacement in the summer. We just need to be sensible with contract length If (when) we go up his pace is obviously a concern, but it’s a very black and white argument to say he’s not good enough for the prem because of it, the answer lies in the middle somewhere. It’s easy to look at how he performed under Rodgers, but in reality he didn’t really play at all, and his confidence would have been absolutely destroyed. Plus last season the lack of protection we gave to the back four was astounding, if you broke bast a puffing Tielemans or a mentally scarred Ndidi you were basically tearing down on Amartey and Ward and that is enough to give me PTSD

Rusty, lovely assist for Cannon’s goal mind

I thought Nelson’s reading of the game, in terms of getting in front of his man and making interceptions was exceptional. Yunis and Casadei will get the praise for the second goal, but Nelson was breaking up their attacks like that all day. Also really comfortable on the ball and was looking to break the lines from the first minute. Very promising

Can’t wait for this, without being too arrogant, nearly every game we play this season the oppo started with 10 men behind the ball. Will be refreshing to play against someone who will go for it Abdul to shine, 1-3. 9 points clear, sexy football time

I like JJ. He has really good aspects in his game, but I think he is equally stunted in this system. He’s an athletic overlapping fullback, so is playing a system that doesn’t suit his natural strengths, but Doyle is perfect for this way of playing. Has a lovely left foot and is perfect for Enzoball. He’ll be straight back in as soon as he’s available

That’s not true though is it. There’s obviously en element of square balls when moving the opposition around but more often than not Vestergaard is trying to break lines. If it’s not on it’ll shift left or right, then back to Big Jan to try again. He’s constantly trying to be progressive, it’s his role on the ball

Attacking The Half Space Between The Lines Passing Lanes Inverted Fullbacks Counter Press / Gegenpressing And I’m all for it, the more terms I can drop into a conversation that make me sound like a poundshop Enzo the better

In the system we play, Big Jannik is almost as key as Harry Winks. His range of passing is insane, and that outside of the foot through ball to Wilf was a thing of absolute beauty. People keep saying about all the time he has on the ball, but that is because of how press resistant he is. You press him, and you’re out the game because he’ll pop it round you. He won’t get the same level of respect by opposition players and managers in the Prem, but his ability on the ball doesn’t change and that could actually be a benefit with more passing lanes being open Maresca isn’t a fool, he’ll know that the main deficiency in his game is his lack of pace on the transition. Coventry and Cardiff being prime examples early in the season. But we’ve tweaked tactics again, look at when we lose the ball high up the pitch now, how hard everyone works for the first 5 seconds to nullify the threat of a counter, and if the counter press doesn’t work then more often that not we’ll comment a niggly foul. It’s proper game management that. Under Rodgers we became a very un-streetwise team, yet played a high line and got caught out time and time again,

Perez fell foul of not being a Mahrez type, when in reality, those 6 months pre covid with him tucking inside and Ricardo bombing on, we played some of the best football we’ve ever played (this seasons not withstanding) This isn’t revivalism before anyone says, his numbers weren’t good enough, and he got out muscled too easily, but in terms of the balance he bought to the team he was too often scapegoated

Nigel reinvigorated my love for Leicester, very much like how Enzo is doing now. It’s easy to forget just how bad the years of dross we were served before our inevitable plummet to league one, and what a low ebb this/our/my football club was at. Pearson breathed life in to a club that was in steep decline. Look how long Leeds and Forest were stuck in league one. Then, after the Sven circus Pearson came back, riding on a silver steed and put in place the building blocks, ethos and personal that was the catalyst for what happened next. Nobody can change my mind on that. I have so much respect for him and I’ll always have a place in my heart for our Nigel. He’s a man of integrity and in the world of football that’s a principle that’s in short supply. I’m looking at you Brendan

Why wait for them to get injured at Seagrave when we can sign them already injured