Sooper Steve's shin

I did not realise how much VAR had changed (perhaps even ruined) the game I grew up watching until these first two games of the Championship season. Football as most people prefer it just isn’t suited to the retrospective punishment and it loses a lot in the spontaneity of watching and getting invested in the game. I say this as someone who didn’t really have an issue with VAR in principle and I wasn’t too offended while we were subject to it week in, week out. I think there’s something to be said for using technology to call offside if we can make it instantaneous. That’s a really tough call for linesman - although one they had been making for more than a century. Watching a game flow and knowing that it’s not going to be hauled back and celebrating a goal as soon as it goes in are two things that we have to get back to.

Unpopular opinion: we missed him more than Madders when they were both injured.

Some proper legends, others a bit more dubious: Logan, Walsh, Elliot, Taggart, Wasilewski, Neil Danns, Sean St Ledger, Morgan, Huth, Nathan Dyer, Izzet, Ulloa Danny Simpson played for them, others included David May, Wes Brown, Silvestre, Djemba-Djemba, Danny Webber and Dwight Yorke A handful of Leicester shirts in the crowd, mostly MU local supporters.

Difficult one. He’s absolutely not our worst goalkeeper ever and potentially decent enough - has played well for Wales, did OK in sporadic games for us before this season and made some good saves this. He did keep the score down v Brighton and made a great stop with his foot that turned out to be offside. However, he’s almost certainly going to be having confidence issues given where we are in the league and the fact he is replacing a legend. Add to this the personnel and shape of the defence has been constantly changing during our first six games, he hasn’t been able to build any rhythm or rapport. His central defenders have ranged from imperious (Evans) to impetuous (Fofana) via bombscare (Amartey) and out-of-position (Ndidi), as well as Soyuncu and Vestergaard in the Cup. Personally, I think Ward is well down the list of problems this season.

The World Cup (and it's timing) this year should make quite a big difference. Both Tielemans and Fofana will know (and we have to accept) that they have a better chance of playing in it if they are with one of the traditional big teams. If they want the deals to happen, you'd think they should be able to exert pressure on the buying clubs and/or reduce their demands to make a deal happen. But if Arsenal/Chelsea don't make the right bids, it's not at all in the players' interests to down tools - particularly for Youri who might otherwise just wind down his final 12 months. They should be giving absolutely everything for us to get that World Cup spot and then we can all re-evaluate in January. If they perform for us and have a decent tournament, we could cash in at a higher price when they'd probably have a better pick of teams. It perhaps explains why we are holding out (apparently against what both players want and risking them becoming unhappy) when a sale of one or both for, say, a combined £90m would otherwise have gone a decent way towards kicking off a rebuild.

Some things about this could have made sense - old school, no nonsense CB, “only” 29 so could have another four or five years. Might have been the solid presence alongside our younger, flashier/riskier CBs like Fofana or Cags. But then again, that’s what Vestergaard was essentially supposed to be. And we have Evans filling the older head role (while he remains fit). We do need more bite and grit, but probably from an older head in midfield or maybe a Fuchs-like steadying left back (which was what Bertrand was supposed to be!).

Rodgers in for me. The injuries we have had to cope with over the last couple of seasons have been horrendous. Assuming we cannot blame him for that (although some people seem to) he deserves more than a bit of credit for the FA Cup win and consecutive European qualifications. I have read on this thread that we are “destined for relegation” if Brendan stays, which is rubbish - even with our (relative) troubles of poor form, a stretched squad and some glaring squad holes, we have never seriously looked in danger of finishing outside the top half let alone in relegation trouble (perhaps until the last two results when we were obviously focused first on Roma and then getting over Roma). We have seen some coaching masterclasses against some of the best teams and we have played exceptional football in spells. I’d certainly agree that those times have not been often enough and it’s slightly worrying how often we are playing within ourselves/underperforming, but we still have a pretty young team aside from Vardy, Evans and Schmeichel. As much as we can say let’s get rid of X or Y players, we have got real talent in there that matches anyone outside the top five - and, in some cases, we have players who could hold their own in a top three team. A new season without Europe and going full tilt at the Premier League is an exciting prospect. With just a couple of better results when we weren’t distracted, we’d be at least 8th and we should really have been more than a match for West Ham and Man U this year. Next year, the top five will probably stay strong - depending on how Chelsea pan out over the next few months - although Arsenal or Spurs are more than capable of a crappy season that we could capitalize on. I’m excited for that as we see out this season.

This is Leicester. 28 mins of perfect build up.

Perhaps playing in a team with fellow French-speakers Fofana and Mendy will help? Pass me those straws.

Don’t let this last half season cloud what he is capable of - he’s clearly been affected by the contract stuff, almost certainly angling for a move last summer that didn’t come off. But we know he can absolutely run a game, pass through the eye of a needle and score a cracker. He will go somewhere and be absolutely immense once he has his fire back, I have no doubt about that. We’ll miss him but life does go on.

If Burnley go down, we should go all in for Pope and Tarkowski. I have not really thought much of the latter when we’ve been linked window after window, but he is bigger than he looks, fearless and a proper defender. Would be great alongside Soyuncu and the older, calmer head we have needed all season.

Still buzzing. Probably half the team can go into “hero” category for that. Our sloppiest play came from more seasoned players with Tielemans, Soumare and others giving the ball away a little too often. But Thomas and KDH were different class and completely opposite in that respect - always calm, always found a man. Plus they both ran their knackers off and got stuck into challenges. Amartey and Ndidi (even after the penalty) really put themselves on the line in the Big Wes school of defending. Great showing. Kasper superb at the back, Iheanacho and Maddison also showed at times why we are a threat going forward - we’re in a run where we always look like scoring in a game at the moment. Liverpool like those fast, one touch build ups through the middle but we smothered those. The other outlet where I thought we suffered (but actually handled OK in the end) was the Trent ping across to Tsimikas - if he did that ten times I wouldn’t be surprised. We seemed to give them space on the left to allow it, maybe it was a tactic as it never came to much?

I certainly agree. A lot of knee-jerk reaction here for a team that has finished top 5 twice and won the FA Cup in the last two seasons. We didn’t sell anyone important in the summer, so we should be in a very good place. People are on at Kasper but he kept us in the Cup Final and would probably be first choice at three-quarters of the teams in the PL. Ditto for Ward who got rave reviews in the Euros. Not sure how we realistically improve on full-backs of Pereira, Castagne, Justin and Thomas or CBS of Evans, Soyuncu and Fofana. They’d be first choice anywhere but maybe the top two or three. Ndidi and Tielemans is a dream midfield with Soumare and KDH a fantastic backup. We know RW is a problem but who else below top three can call on attackers like Barnes, Maddison, Vardy, Iheanacho and Daka. I really struggle to see how/where we *realistically* improve player-wise except for RW. Difficult to even say we should be adding depth as we struggled to limit to the 25 player limit with what we have. In my view, it’s just mentally we are lacking and where an older head could possibly come in at CB or CM - albeit we’d have to sacrifice a very good player to do so. We cannot just stack up players on 50-100k per week who don’t play.

Experience. I have said this for the last couple of seasons when we crumbled at the last and I still firmly believe we need one of those signings that Pearson was good at - an older head to steady things like a Wasilewski, Huth or Cambiasso. We don’t have those leader types in the team (or arguably the squad) except at either end of the field in Schmeichel and Vardy. We need a hard b*stard centre half and/or centre midfielder who can knock a few heads together (our own or the opposition’s). Tielemans is fantastic and has a certain type of leadership in terms of dictating play, but he does not seem to be the vocal leader to fire a team up. Ditto Ndidi who is great defensively but seems a quiet lad. Evans is a good organizer of the defence but I’m not sure he’s one to be getting things through to the midfield. Soyuncu, Castagne, Perreira, Fofana, Amartey - all quiet lads. I don’t know who the person is - it may be a leftfield shout from overseas like Cambiasso - but I think it’s character we lack more than any particular deficit in playing ability or football skills.

Not working for me either. Can someone post the team???

We are a reactionary lot! One win and it’s Europe, one loss and it’s sack the manager. In a way, I’m pleased the result is currently so tight - just 50.41% in favour of getting rid after about 500 votes. But I’m also disappointed it’s that high. Yes, we have been patchy this season. Some good stuff interspersed with some pretty poor stuff and a few disappointing results. But, end of season run-ins aside, we have performed at a pretty high standard for the previous two and a half seasons - and we won the FA Cup! There are differences to the Ranieri situation in that I don’t believe the players have lost it and we don’t look in danger of going down. We have had bad luck with injuries to key players - not just Fofana and Justin, but Evans, Ndidi, Maddison and Tielemans this season and the last couple even worse. It looks like we have now shaped a squad to just about cover and compete if all are fit, but that’s bringing it’s own challenges. We can switch from what has mostly been the default formation to any number of systems and I think we have tried to do that. Yesterday’s 3-4-3 from the start was quite different to the 5-3-2 from earlier in the season and our 4-2-3-1 standard. So I think criticism of Rodgers for doing the same thing all the time is misplaced. We just haven’t had consistency to get combinations clicking anywhere on the pitch. Don’t get me wrong, I am disappointed with what we’ve seen so far this year. I think we are underperforming but I also think we are not far off turning the corner and hitting a purple patch. For all that was said about the Chelsea game, they are an elite team in the peak of form. Kasper made saves, Cags is recovering confidence, Amartey is improving, Castagne and Ndidi looked good, Vardy feels more like the player of old than the end of last season. The fifth-placed team and FA Cup winners from last season do not improve the squad to become worse. Better times are ahead. And I reserve the right to take all this back and talk about how rubbish BR was if he leaves us for Man U!

Gerrimin!

Exactly. Ricardo has seemed to lack a bit if defensive discipline this season and we’ve been notably punished by it. Castagne is probably seen as more sound defensively, so it makes sense to have him if we are playing Lookman as a more attacking winger than Perez or Albrighton. He’s also going to be facing Zaha and we won’t have the same protection from Ndidi as we usually do.

Hamza to show us why Barcelona wanted him, please.

How?! I can see the 442 and it could switch to 4231 or 424, but I don’t see that we have a central three in a 433.

Fully agree and I doubt anyone can complain after that performance. But then Evans comes on and also shows his class, while Soyuncu looked considerably better with either of them alongside him. It will be interesting to see what settles down as the first choice pairing - Soyuncu has pace that the other two do not, Vestergaard has the height and presence, Evans has the know-how. It’s been so long since we had enough fit defenders to have a choice! Personally, I’d lean towards Cags and Jannik as the first choice given that they will be longer term options and Vestergaard really does give us extra presence both defending and attacking. Cags has the pace and aggression to work well alongside him and, despite recent lapses, still has the tools to go on and be a great CB. It’s difficult as Jonny has been a fantastic servant, but we’ll have enough games that he will play a fair amount. I also thought it was interesting to see which side they lined up on - Soyuncu has always seemed to prefer the LCB slot, despite being right-footed but he was RCB on Saturday. I’d always thought Evans as more left-footed (despite him playing on the right) but Transfermarket lists both him and Vestergaard as “both” when it comes to preferred foot.

Brendan doesn’t chuck new signings in. Lookman will not start.

With Hudson-Odoi and Lookman apparently being lined up this late in the window and both seeming to perform much better on the left, maybe Brendan’s “strengthening of the attack” has been about getting a back-up to Barnes all along. He might consider Perez, Albrighton, Ricardo and Maswanhise give us enough options on the right.

This. Looked good in pre-season, scored in the last reserves game. He’s 19 in a couple of months, I’d personally prefer to see him given the chance than bring in someone underwhelming like Lookman or even James. We don’t have an endless pot of money, after all…

Yes.