Sooper Steve's shin

Because we had an reserves/under-23 game the evening before, so he couldn’t select any from them.

Agree with all of this. I am not one for snap judgments and have faith in Brendan given all he’s achieved with us so far. But Maddison is currently not offering anything. We have two energetic and skilful number 8’s who could come in, but not a real like for like number 10. So the downside is a slight formation change. It could potentially work if one of Tielemans and Soumare/KDH push a bit further forward - it might be quite effective if they can rotate, so Vardy’s not isolated and we don’t lose that axis with Ndidi. The break gives us a chance to work on it, but would we go for that with Man City and Napoli up next?

I didn’t understand this part of our tactics 10 mins in and still not at the end of the 90. Nobody was showing for Soyuncu and Amartey - we weren’t making the usual shapes to knock into Tielemans/Ndidi or a fullback and then push out to Barnes or start attacks that way. Pereira effectively played right wing (he was nowhere for their first goal), Tielemans also pushed up unusually high when our defenders were in possession. I’m sure it was a tactic, I’m just not sure what it was (but it clearly didn’t work).

That’s one area I think Rodgers has got things wrong. He likes an exciting, high energy team but that generally means younger players - that has come at the expense of a bit of nous and game management in key areas (particularly midfield). There was an interview with Nigel Pearson or one of his scouts/analysts where they were talking about attributes needed within the team. Experience in the right places was key - hence the signings of the likes of Huth, Wasilewski and Cambiasso. We have it at either end with Kasper and Vardy, but yesterday was crying out for someone in the middle of the park to take hold of the game and get people in order. I said the same after several games in tail end of 19/20 (including B*urnemouth) and when we wobbled last season. In mitigation, Rodgers has not been helped by the long term injury to Wes Morgan during his time or Evans/Bertrand/Vestergaard all being out yesterday. Any of them would have improved the defence. But we’ve needed someone to lead in midfield for far too long - Ndidi and Tielemans are excellent, but our sub options (typically Choudhury, Mendy, Praet) don’t add that authority which is sometimes needed.

The way we play it (or should play it), I think Rodgers often uses the switch to 3/5 at the back as a way to play more on the counter. You’ll see Barnes gets pushed forward more or (as yesterday) Iheanacho coming on to give another forward option and a busy midfielder (Soumare yesterday, Choudhury last season) coming on to give more energy and win more in the middle. So it’s not really about piling more bodies into defence. However, I do think we may have to re-assess how we use it now the PL is back down to three subs per game. It limits the options, as ideally to make this tactical switch you are bringing off the 10 and one or two of the wide forwards. We could have done with at least Vardy coming off as well yesterday.

With Europa League and other Cups, I don’t think it’s tricky at all to keep three CBs happy these days. Evans won’t last forever, Fofana is only young so Tarkowski could have a good three-year spell as a main part of our defence. Soyuncu will pick up suspensions and was injured himself last season. Get them in and worry about keeping people happy later.

He might not have been realistic as backup, but it’s this type of player we can now give first team and European football too for at least the start of the season. Could be a real shop window opportunity for someone like this instead of filling out a Man City/Liverpool or other elite squad.

It’s often been said that we have shortlists for replacements in every position, so this will be the test of that over the next couple of weeks. I wouldn’t be surprised if we make a move for someone that we haven’t heard of but who the scouting team may have had in mind to look at next year or the year after if we lost Cags/Fofana. I think we will also continue pursuing at least one additional squad CB (more experienced, possibly on loan) that I’d have assumed we were trying to bring in anyway given Evans’ situation. Based on the last few years, you’d have to think there’s a good chance that (a) we’ll pick a good’un and (b) we’d be an attractive option for someone that the elite teams might be monitoring, particularly as it’s very much a first team opportunity. The difficulty may be doing a deal in time. The worst case scenario would be Ndidi dropping back until one of JJ or Evans is fit again - not as bad as it could have been with Soumare signed, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be the preference.

Soumare and KDH seem better suited to our team than any of Praet, Hamza and Mendy. I would have thought at least one of those three will go before deadline day and I won’t be too disappointed (although I have a lot of time for all of them).

It’s possible, although I don’t think Maddison has ever played there. It’s seems to me it’s an unnecessary tweak to the 4-2-3-1 that has seen us play some of our best football in the first half of the last two seasons. Soumare looks good, but I’m not sure I’d shoehorn him in at the expense of someone predominantly attacking/creative. The most obvious upgrade to our typical first choice XI over the last couple of seasons has been someone to pose the same threat as Barnes on the other side. Perez just doesn’t do enough. I also get that we have played 3/5 at the back a lot, but we can’t surely be looking at that long term otherwise we’d have been in for at least one more CB with Morgan gone. Assuming we go with four defenders, I don’t think you can leave out any of Barnes, Ndidi or Tielemans in our strongest team - and probably Maddison on stats. That kind of dictates how we set up, although it’s harsh on some players (Nacho, Soumare) but I think they’ll have plenty of opportunities. It also leaves the Perez problem - Albrighton looks a better bet based on the QPR game but not sure he has 40+ games in him.

We haven’t had fans for 18 months, but I’ve barely seen him anything less than idolised at the KP.

Or maybe it means he can replace either of them, if he’s doing the same things?

Agree with this. Initially, the thought of losing Tielemans is terrifying but our strategy seems to be to lose one player and then invest to strengthen overall. If Youri leaves and Soumare comes in and performs, we could up the calibre of RW targets from say the 15m mark towards 30m and really improve a problem area. You’d expect to have change from a Tielemans sale if you did that and we’d have a midfield/team more balanced and less reliant on one player. If you look at Maguire (replaced by Soyuncu and probably funded the Tielemans acquisition), Chilwell (funded Castagne and Fofana) etc - we lost decent players without necessarily seeming to have a like for like replacement in the squad (nobody thought Cags was ready to step up like he did), but you can’t argue we didn’t come out stronger.

Yeah, we signed an experienced left-back on a free in 2015 - look how that turned out.

Their website has the logo as white font on a lime green square - so could have been a lot worse. Also, the “trade online” underneath is not part of their usual logo. I think that would improve it.

Arguably, you could add Vardy to that - he was a shadow of himself after coming back very quickly from surgery.

Given Covid and the fact that this will be our first pre-season at Seagrave, it makes some sense just to stay home and play local. No need to risk anything. Forest, Derby, Cov and Northampton could all be decent warmups and the Community Shield (in all honesty) should be considered another friendly. If anyone is travelling, get Lille to come and visit for a celebration of underdog champions.

With the Euro squads being announced, it’s worth remembering that up to the turn of the year we might reasonably have expected to see three LCFC players in the England squad based on form to that point: Justin, Barnes and Maddison. The fact that none of them will be there due to injury just highlights how much poor luck we had on that front - we could have been Man City’s closest challengers with a fit squad.

Totally agree. It wasn’t just the injuries and loss of individuals in most cases, but the lack of subsequent cover to then be able to rotate the team that meant we had a side dead on its feet by the end of the season. We would have expected Evans and Soyuncu to be our main CBs at the start of the season with Fofana keeping them fresh, but both had injuries leading to Fofana playing pretty much all season. That he gets crocked in the last game was the icing on the cake. Ricardo, Thomas and others have had to play more/sooner than they expected. Arguably, Vardy, Maddison, Soyuncu and Ndidi all came back too early at various points and suffered from it. Iheanacho’s coming of age was a blessing that probably became a bit of a millstone - to shift away from two up front would mean dropping Vardy or Iheanacho. It would have been very brave to play JV alone until he rediscovered his scoring touch and Iheanacho was clearly benefitting from Vardy’s support. So by playing two up front, it limits the ability for Rodgers to switch back to a four: 4-4-2 perhaps leaves us weak in the middle (and we don’t have the wingers), 4-3-1-2 doesn’t give us width. 3 or 5 at the back at least allows us wing-backs to play up the sides. I think Under and Gray didn’t have the football brain the Rodgers’ system needs. What some have bemoaned on this thread as slow build-up is the strategic side of working an opening (see the goal vs Man Utd where we had 20+ passes in the build up as a classic example). The players need to be patient and clever to work the ball around, spot the opportunity and go for it. IMO, the downside of this approach came at the end of a long and difficult season when we tailed off with players too mentally and physically drained to make the same bursts they were doing before Christmas. Notably, it was Tielemans who kept going right to the end but we became too reliant on him to do it all.

Being in the Europa League took a bit of a toll injury-wise and we masked it early on in the season with good momentum and some strong performances from new signings and younger players. However, it came back to bite us hard towards the end of the season (ironically after we were out of the EL) and we couldn’t sustain it without the likes of Justin, Barnes and a fully-fit Maddison and Vardy. In the circumstances, it’s amazing that it was close to being a monumental season - in many ways, it was with the FA Cup alone. But top three and FA Cup winners could have almost matched 2015/16. As it was, we still improved on last year points-wise and we’ll be cleverer at dealing with Europe next season. If we still have Rodgers in charge and haven’t lost our stars at the start of the season, we are definitely capable of challenging for top three again - with all the benefit of experience, more development for the youngsters and hopefully some squad strengthening. Even in the worst case that we lose the manager (although I don’t see where he would push to go beyond one of the top four) and/or our best player in Tielemans, I feel that we’re now set up in such a way that we could both find and attract suitable replacements. We are a club where people want to be. Top is not going to sanction a breakup of the team, so max one player sold (unless we want to get rid) - possibly none at all. It is still far and away one of the best times in history to be a Leicester fan and we should be excited about pushing the team onto more.

Not really. If we can ship out a Chilwell and bring in a Fofana and Castagne every season, we improve. We have made money this way but reinvested it - Maguire out, new training ground in! That’s growth and development.

Technically, he breaks his fast every night at sunset. But yes, Wednesday is now confirmed as the last day of Ramadan and so his final day of fasting from dawn to sunset. I hope everyone wishes Little Wes “Eid Mubarak” on Thursday.

I think this probably gets our best available XI on the pitch, but it’s effectively a diamond - have we played this successfully before? It l’d a big ask to change the formation at this stage and with very little time to have worked on it since the last game.

I think we have to be bold to get the win, but also be mindful of the players available and the systems we know. It’s not a game to try something for the first time. For me, we don’t have three CBs that I’d want with Evans out and so that takes us back to the 4-2-3-1; if you’re playing that way then there’s only one choice for the front spot at the moment. It may not be a bad game to have Vardy’s pace and unpredictability available from the bench, plus keep him fresher for the Cup Final. Without Evans, I’d want to get some experience in at the back so I’d give Fuchs game time at LB. That solves the issue of who plays there - an inexperienced Thomas or one of the RBs playing out of position. Little Wes and Cags are clearly great players who both obviously benefit from playing Evans’ experience - perhaps they can get similar support from Castagne and Fuchs outside them (and closer together in a four than the recent three CB system). Wings are an issue without Barnes and with Under nowhere near being an option, so I’d use Ricardo on one side with Albrighton on the other. The rest of the side largely picks itself with Perez likely offering better support behind Iheanacho than a stuttering Maddison: Schmeichel Castagne Fofana Soyuncu Fuchs Ndidi Tielemans Ricardo Perez Albrighton Iheanacho That’s likely to be as close to the mark as my predictions on Line of Duty (i.e. way off!).

Is this really a valid online vote if there isn’t a coordinated social media campaign to rig it for one entrant? #vote5