Sooper Steve's shin

If he shaves his head, he’s got the Pep/Enzo look that we need.

Outstanding work.

Vestergaard being good.

He can be next season’s Connor Coady. Coady can be Vardy’s second season. Souttar to be next season’s Vestergaard.

Personally, I think he is criminally overrated - often makes sloppy mistakes, gets caught out of position and a shaky defender at best. That run was typical too (where would he have been if it had bounced to a defender and they broke away?).

Most graphic description of a roller coaster ride I’ve ever heard!!!

Funny how every opposition team we’ve beaten and a good number of pundits (particularly at the start of the season) bleated on that we were a Premier League side - yet most on here saying we need a complete overhaul. I think the truth is somewhere in between - I never bought the idea that we were a PL side playing in the Championship. People forget we lost Maddison, Barnes, Tielemans, Castagne, Evans etc over the summer. We didn’t replace them with any proven PL quality bar Winks and Coady (although the latter made no real impact on the pitch). We brought in the likes of Hermansen, Mavididi and Fatawu who look like PL players but have never been. And we revitalised some who had been discarded like Vestergaard and Choudhiry, as well as playing some in new positions (Ndidi and Ricardo). All of that happened with Maresca coming in fairly late in the summer, so I think we’ll be fine to do what needs to be done over the next three or four months.

Not really - a Coady or a Nelson would do. I’d have happily taken Ndidi or Justin in his position based on the run of performances prior to Norwich. People don’t want perfection, just someone slightly more solid and sensible in an important position.

Good point made on the last pod (I think it was Harry) about experience and Pearson’s use of Hammond and GTF. I would add the likes of Cambiasso, Huth and Wasilewski as signings that NP made to add a bit of experience and nous to our squad at the right times. There was an interview with one of his analysts who talked about that being part of the qualities they wanted for certain signings. I guess it’s easy to be seduced by the young exciting player with a high ceiling, which was generally the Rodgers way (Maddison, Tielemans, Fofana etc). But he never balanced that with older heads. And it needs to be older heads who can dig in. Even a Schmeichel in goal gives us something else in these tight games, no matter how good Hermansen is. I think at the moment we have Coady who could come in and naturally fill that role. Our other seasoned leader is Vardy, but he’s out for a few weeks now. The remaining older players are generally quieter types - Ricardo, Albrighton, Vestergaard, - which is fine but we need more steel. Hopefully we get it done this season, but I’d like to see us bringing in one or two of this sort of player in the summer to help some of these issues.

There’s a very good episode of the Quickly Kevin 90’s football podcast with Brian Little where he talks a lot about his time with us and mentions this game. We’d lost two play-off finals on the bounce (Blackburn and Swindon), so this was one he had to win by any means. Derby were a decent footballing side and we had a few injuries, so he played to the strengths we had - height and physicality. Walsh, Ormondroyd and Roberts as a front three. It was definitely the worst footballing side we had for any of those finals but it worked. Glorious day.

Of course it is! My bad.

Got to be Leicester 5 Cambridge 0 Can we also add Nuge chasing a squirrel?

The point is that we play a system that doesn’t require a traditional left back. The left-sided defender in our system is better suited to being a mobile central defender than a traditional left-back like Kristiansen or Thomas. To be honest, I don’t think there is any reason why the fullback who steps up into CM could not come from the left (with the right sided defender then being a mobile, right footed CB) but it needs a certain type of intelligent and technical player. Ricardo fits it perfectly, Enzo has only trusted Hamza as the alternative in that role (probably because he is traditionally more of a midfielder).

Absolutely. Ederson and Allison play exactly the same. Yea, there is enhanced risk of a clanger from either of them, but it’s outweighed by the attacking advantage (otherwise Pep/Klopp would have stopped them doing it years ago).

All valid. If the tech was there to make instant offside calls, then I’d be all for it. I’ve been amazed, though, at the positive difference to our viewing experience through not having VAR this season. It will be the downside of going back up when we smash this league…

This is the only valid use of VAR in my view. Offside is offside - by 1cm or 5 yards. It’s black and white, so if he’s even slightly offside then that’s an error (whether or not it’s clear and obvious).

We will find out pretty soon - he’s on four yellows for the season, which I think puts him one away from a one-match suspension. Vestergaard is the same, although we have more cover for him. I think he could play both Ricardo and Hamza when Winks is out, one of them playing the hybrid RB/CM role and other taking Winks’ place. We haven’t involved anyone else in those positions as far as I can recall (even as sub) and I don’t see him putting Ndidi there given his more limited passing range.

Vardy Chandler Lineker Worthington Rowley Hine Fryatt Ulloa Heskey Claridge Cottee Nugent That‘s fixed it.