Tom12345

Given our FFP issues and as a Premier League club we will be offered players at only inflated prices, while I have concerns with Yunus, 10m is a bargain. We can’t get someone like Yunus for 10m. Just sign him, if we can.

Just want to reply to this so you guys above can see his stats. 95 goal contributions out of 232 played with most of them being a late sub when the game is gone. He probably still has the highest goal contribution per minute played ratio in the entire team. Yet people lay into him as if he has done nothing other than score a few goals. He has certainly scored his fair share given how sparingly he has been used. Wherever he is going to play (at the highest level) he is going to be a regular first team player.

100% You cannot really score much if you are a lone striker with a team playing style that focuses on passing around at the back and wingers going on the side crossing into the box. Kel is best at playing with someone next to him or just behind making all those passes and 1-2s upfront. When on the rare occasions he can do that, including with Barnes or when he was playing as part of a two, he has excelled with goals and assists. It is not his fault for not being used to his strength. We certainly can’t blame him for it.

His crosses today show why he should have played more. He stopped the crosses after Faes refused to pass to him. Faes is so overrated is so mistake prone. Albrighton should stay instead of him.

5 trophies and a relegation in a decade. Never a dull moment.

No. This is how we play normally. Apart from the last two games, this is pretty much consistent with how it has been for us this half season. We have no second gear when we need to chase a game. The key is that Blackburn took advantages of the mistakes we made, which we have often gotten away with in the Championship. I don’t see us having played any poorly than normal.

Not drunk. This is how we have played much of this season. We don’t have a second gear when we need to push for a goal. I don’t see any difference. Just that today Blackburn took their chances.

Faes has been an idiot. He has been refusing to pass to Albrighton for the last 15 mins, while making stupid passes.

POTS - I would have given it to Ricardo. His transformation has been impressive, playing a role that is very difficult to excel at in Enzo’s system but he did. Ricardo also deserves it for his loyalty amongst other things (Vardy has already won enough awards). A bit disappointed Ricardo did not get recognised with an official award.

Why do they do this before the season has actually ended? Vardy could score from the half way line with a bicycle kick at Blackburn deserving of the goal of the season award?

I have to say, despite being sad to have been relegated, spending this season in the Championship has been refreshing and a lot of fun. Yes, I would not be saying it if we did not get promoted. Getting away from the last few seasons of frustration under Rodgers has been good for the mind. And definitely loved there being no VAR. On balance, I think the PL needs to reconsider how they use VAR. I know it is here to stay, but they really need to cut out the hairline offside calls and the ridiculously biased slow-mos they show to the ref. The beauty of there being no VAR is that on balance the refs still get those VAR reviewable decisions right, but without interruptions and without those hairline calls which is how it should be.

Come on. King Power has had to pump millions after millions into this. King Power is a commercial enterprise with shareholders. If you have been in business, you know that is not normal nor sustainable, and to keep your job as Chairman you need to justify to the business and shareholders why it is great for the brand notwithstanding the millions written off. When you are in business, you know that is called marketing or stakeholder management. If it means a couple of photos, then he is doing great. How much money have you invested in the club thus far? Yes, probably a lot to the ordinary folks, but hundreds of millions?? Top and King Power have put in more money than all of the fans combined for years. We complain about FFP in front of our computers, but that is actually real money King Power lost.

We should try to renew Nacho for 2 years. We can’t buy someone better with FFP and if we renew for 2 years hopefully we can still sell him for value next year. Renew Vardy and Albrighton at lower wages to keep some of the old guard spirit for another year. Plus they can still do a job. Release Ward, Vesty, Doyle and Yugun. Retain Fatawu. If we are not going to play Soumare, Thomas, Kristensen and Souttar please sell them. Otherwise reincorporate them into the team properly.

Exactly. We got relegated! We did not stay in the EPL at someone else’s expense, like Everton did. We have already been “punished” not only by not getting our expected return - at least a 8th finish - but relegation and losing a fair part of our first team. We spent a year in the Championship. Is that not enough “punishment”? The rules are truly fu*ked that clubs like ours still get punished. If you are down, the rules are designed to make sure you are never ever up again.

Mentality. Everytime we go out there we should be giving 100% to win.

The Championship is full of ex-Premier League teams. It is a genuine competition, with no VAR. It is hard to choose. I love the promoted teams having a shot at staying up next season. But I would say: Leicester (we should not have gone down last season), Ipswich (what an amazing job they did on a shoestring budget) and one of Leeds and Southampton. The others will get hammered next season in the EPL.

No. Let’s not talk about it now.

I agree with you. Aside from the “possession” point we have been talking about, I think the even more important point here is “purpose” and “mentality”. What a lot of people have said here is that against Southampton we seem to do more with the possession we had. We had more purpose. But what that translates to, much more importantly, is a better mentality. We wanted to press, to win, to keep attacking. That was what put Southampton under pressure and on the back foot and why in the end they could not get a decent chance against us. In games where we had loads of possession (but my argument is that possession does not matter as much in this context), we instead feared losing the ball, we feared therefore going forward and attacking, and we therefore invited pressure and boosted the other team’s confidence. This is why we bottled so many times. This is also the reason for Rodger’s downfall. This is why I feared what Maresca said about him not being happy. What I fear more than anything else is overcoaching and his desire to be too perfect to the point where we fear and therefore bottle. Again, if we win 5-0, he should complement on all the risks the players took. Yes, we may have lost possession at times, but it is exactly because of that we gained confidence and the upperhand in mentality, as I mentioned above. Top managers like Pep, Klopp and Ferguson see that. If Enzo can see that and learn from this, he can be much better.

I thought about that but I don’t think so. A spirited performance like that should be celebrated and encouraged. Not dampened.

Exactly. That too. You control the game also by attacking, pressing, playing meaningful football in the opposition half and a positive mentality. Did Southampton have a shot on target?

Exactly.

Worrying that Maresca in his post match interview said that this is not the best performance by the team (ok this does not have to be the best) but more relevantly that he implied that he is not happy with certain things and you have to look at the overall complete performance. I may be thinking too much, but this sounds somewhat the same as the way Rodgers criticised the way we played all those years ago against West Brom when we scored 3 in the first half. He talked to the team at HT and said he was much happier with the second half (we did not even look like scoring). 5-0 should be good in anyone’s books. If we win 5-0, we must be doing something better than what we have done before (ie. the boring predictable possession football). Wait, that’s it, we didn’t have as much possession but we tried to do something when we had the ball hence we had the chances to go 5-0. Not saying we sack him, but he really needs to embrace positive football, mixing things up with long balls and counterattacks, be comfortable without possession, utilizing the big squad by adjusting himself rather than playing the same team week in week out, and be adaptable. I rather we win 5-0 than holding on the ball for dear life so we can get our possession % to be more than 60%.

You are right in the first paragraph. But if you expand this to your other points, I think you will realise it is not the fault of our existing strikers who are clearly a level above this league. It is because of the stubbornness of Enzo and his style which underutilizes or mis-uses them - just like what you said about Leeds not using their striker correctly (I am not sure about that). We will play better with two strikers and Nacho plays better in a two than as a lone striker as it has already been proven in the past. The fact is he has been kept on the bench despite the number of games we had and the first team hardly getting a rest.

I think this thing with Pep is overblown. He only worked there as a coach for a year or so. Not for a long time. Not as a no. 2 either. He was one of a number of coaches there.

Drop Faes. Start Nacho and one of the other strikers. Have Albrighton on the bench at least so we can have decent crosses into the box or some of those early long balls when we need to mix things up.