Hammo

Extremely gifted, he is going to be a star. Be nice if it was with us. In the Premier League.

If having a blatant penalty denied to us is the price we have to pay for being able to properly celebrate goals without the threat of a VAR overrule, I'll happily live with it... ... especially as we won anyway!

He used to be my favourite player - when he was a dynamic thrusting overlapping right back - but Ricardo had one of his worst games today. I gave him a 3. Passing it backwards became so ingrained that he even did so (kind of) for their goal!

Never was the expression ”all’s well that ends well” so apt. One beautiful last-minute counterattack obliterates all that went before.

You need to insert ‘ backwards’ and ‘to the oppisition’

But according to Hinchcliffe we’re top of the table so not allowed to complain

What is the opposite of ‘dynamic’? That is us at the moment.

As we saw on Wednesday, the slow, passive, come-and-get-the-ball-off-us approach is counter-productive (as well as tedious to watch) as it not only breeds a mindset of arrogance and complacency in our players but also offers the opposition an invitation to press hard and put us under pressure. I just hope the shock visible in the body language of many of our players after their late equaliser has already brought about a dialogue with the manager that sitting casually on one-goal leads in this league (rather than ruthlessly going for the kill) is a recipe for disaster.

The tweaks we need are obvious. Be bolder and braver with the passing in midfield and move the ball forwards faster (to catch their defence out of position). Not even trying to score a second goal cost us two precious points tonight. The longer it went on the more complacent and sloppy we became and the more likely it seemed that Wednesday would punish us. Which of course is what happened.

The cracks are appearing. Four points from a possible 12. They are sussing him out. Another Rodgers? Let’s bloody hope not…

An utter waste of space. Slow and ponderous, creates nothing, easily dispossessed. Little Boy Lost

Complacent from first kick to last. Thought they could just turn up and win. Disgraceful performance

Complacent, boring, error-strewn, tedious … but (somehow) winning

These accidental handball penalties are killing the game. Especially in Europe. UEFA instruct their refs to give all of them. It is nothing short of scandalous. The punishment is way out of proportion for the supposed ‘crime’. Time for everyone in authority to have a rethink on this one. Sooner rather than later.

I thought the difference between winning and drawing yesterday was that Vardy was a damn sight hungrier than Iheanacho and Fatawu is a much more talented and threatening footballer than McAteer. Maresca deserves credit for making those changes even before the statutory 60-minute mark - though, on the flip side, hooking off (an admittedly exhausted) KDH completely messed up the balance in midfield, allowing Watford to set up camp in our half almost at the end. There appears to be a bit of a war going on on here between those who appreciate our current possession-based style of play and those who find it dull. I get both arguments… but even if our football often lacks energy and excitement (as it did for almost all of the first half yesterday), as long as we are ultimately winning matches and remain on course for automatic promotion, that clearly is all that matters.

Doesn’t bear thinking about, does it? Be like an orchestra without a conductor.

Really thought he had come good at last against Sunderland but looks like that was the exception rather than the rule. He was diabolically bad tonight. Slow, sloppy, weak, almost always caught in possession. Frankly I can’t remember one thing he did right. Maresca should have hooked him at half time.

It shouldn’t do. Both defeats had hugely positive impacts on the title win. The first led Claudio to re-shape the defence; the second - as many players subsequently acknowledged - was a major motivator in the (undefeated) run-in.

If past experience is anything to go by, I imagine a lot of people now boasting that promotion is already a ‘done deal’ (which of course it isn’t even nearly with so much of the season still to go) are doing it so that they can equally boastfully tell the more cautious, rational and mathematically-minded among us “I don’t know what you were worried about” if and when - as admittedly seems likely given our fantastic start - it does eventually get ‘done’.

Watch the whole of the Man City 1-3 Leicester game if you ever get the chance. Huth? Mahrez? Kante? Nope. Man of the Match that day was Danny Drinkwater. The game of his life.