StriderHiryu

LMAO what a Championship goal

Cannon has some brilliant finishing. He showed it in those clips from Preston North End last season, but we're seeing it first hand today. For that goal, he also dropped in deep like a false 9 and then attacked the space he had engineered.

Game set and match! Happy New Year my fellow Foxes!

A very disjointed display, something you'd expect from playing so many of the rotation players. I hope Enzo gives as much game time to the squad players, even Casadei. These guys need to play a few games in a row to get used to system football, and this should be a game where we only concede from a self-made error. After the goal we looked quite good, and with a few better decisions could have threatened a bit more. Delighted for Cannon to get his first goal, I'm hoping (but not expecting) we can get Yunus onto the scoresheet too. A lot of these players will probably feature in the Cup game too, so I think it's better to pass judgement after that game, or maybe even the one after. I will take a scrappy 1-0 win today all day, every day.

At the same time, you'd have to say that all 3 thus far have been poor. Wait! Not Tom Cannon ha ha ha. As I've been saying, Cannon has looked elite and will prove to be the cut above in this game

Feeling confident about prediction 1, less about prediction 2 . You can tell a lot of these players haven't played enough matches with one another, players aren't aware of where each other has moved to. Players like Casadei, Yunus and Cannon need a little run in the team to get better at it, and will likely look way off it for a bit. To win today, we need some magic from one of the wide men, or to hope KDH bails us out late on.

A big test IMO but very interesting to see how the players that have been chomping at the bit perform. I'd expect to see a pretty poor performance, but think we will grind it out eventually.

This is the type of signing that takes us from a 98% chance of being champions to 100%. I heard he had some attitude problems but this is the sort of cheat mode signing that gets you over the line. You could question the loan only nature of it but personally I don’t think it’s an issue.

Not sure if this is real or not because on the official site, the final squad hasn't been listed yet. Fatawu was in the 55 man initial squad but not in this one. Guess we will find out soon...

Hamza lost the ball 10 times. Watch the first 15 minutes of that game again, he gave it away 5 times in the first 15 minutes! Often times when under no pressure and having time to pick his pass. The stats show he had a great game defensively, as previously mentioned. But I'll have to agree to disagree with those saying this was his best game for us this season. This was against a team that did not press the midfield pivot of Winks or Choudhury at all. They backed off into a low block and let us build from the back as often as we wanted to. I'm a big supporter of Hamza and think he's had a great season. He's always done a good job for us this season, and in general his passing has been good every time he's played. But for me, this game shows why Enzo doesn't pick him in games against the high pressing teams in the division. I can't go as far as to say he had a bad game, because he most certainly didn't. I just think that in possession, he needs to be sharper on the ball.

Might be controversial but I thought he was not so good tonight. Defensively he was superb, often times rescuing teammates when they made mistakes. But on the ball especially in the first half he gave it away a lot. Generally speaking this season he has been good on the ball but not so much tonight. I think you see the games Enzo uses him in, ones where the opposition sit back so much that if he loses it, it’s not terminal. The role he’s been asked to play is very difficult, but I suspect we will sign someone to compete / rotate with Winks and Ricardo.

I can see 5 or more changes with the team. I think we’ll win but it will be a crap performance due to lack of cohesion. And I’ll take that.

Tonight felt like the day we start to ride off into the sunset. When we won the Premier League title, after we beat Swansea away we stayed top for the rest of the season. Perhaps it would have been like that regardless of tonight's result, but despite a lack of rotation, we've had killer consistency and will have enough in the tank to get over the line. AFCON might prove to be a distraction initially, but I think a run of games will give some of the fringe players the boost they need to challenge for first team places. And when JJ is banging in goals like he did tonight, it shows you that we have quality all over the pitch.

Looks like Shrek got the better of Peter Griffin today...

At some point the finishing will click. When it does he will be capable of scoring 10-15 goals even in the Premier League. Harvey Barnes had a very similar problem and ended last season as our top scorer. And even though Barnes was really solid for us, he had nowhere near the ceiling / potential that Fatawu has. With that strike he did everything right. Maybe he hit it too hard! If he hits it like that with that technique every time, he will score a ton of goals.

Abdul deserved a goal for that!

It's looking more and more like Southampton are the biggest threat to us, not Leeds or Ipswich. They have gone 17 games unbeaten, the teams that get automatically promoted are the ones that go on long runs, see our 9 games won in a row, and the run we are on now for example. The way they play is quite similar to us in that they control games. So like us they dominate games and don't give away stupid chances. I think our fans would prefer Leeds' full-blooded approach compared to our patient style, but the patient style in 2023/24 seems to be the most effective style. It allows you to build attacks whilst keeping a good shape when you lose the ball. Leeds drop stupid points for a reason IMO. Ipswich play that style too, but their squad isn't as good as Leeds or Southampton. Though they may well splurge the cash in the window as they might not ever get a chance this good again to go up.

PUT THE FOOTBALL BACK ON RIGHT NOW!!!

The Darts has been pretty good over the last few days!

Yeah I agree, their setup has been a lot more passive than I expected. One thing we must take into account is the number of games we are playing. Players are going to be tired, and tiredness leads to mistakes. But after scoring we took our foot off the gas... which is exactly what happened in the second half against Ipswich. I'd like to see subs as I think fresh legs / hungry players could make a difference. Admittedly, the subs in the last game did absolutely nothing other than make us worse though!

A pattern in games this season is after we take the lead, it feels like we play with the handbrake on. I'm not really sure why! Our passing is a lapse and we are taking it a bit too easy. It feels like Fatawu and Hamza are wearing clown shoes in possesion. That said, our pressing / winning the ball back has been brilliant. James Justin and Hamza Choudhury have done very well in that aspect of the game.

For your New Year's resolutions, lads, put a poster of KDH up above a treadmill and keep running till you can do the yards he can. Your partner will appreciate it HIGH PRESS MONSTER!

Great move, unlucky KDH! Don't think it's fair to say "he should have scored" because he did everything you're supposed to in that situation... head it back the way it came, get a good contact on it, get it on target, head it downwards...

I'm hoping we can be 2 or 3 up at 60 minutes because we need to give these players a rest!