Alan Frost

Can't argue with any of this, although I'm just a fan. I do think maybe the most important sentence for us is the one about player wages. which was probably even more true (by quite a lot ) in 2015/6. Its very important for LCFC. I suspect it gives a lot of fan satisfaction. It certainly does me. Nothing as good as passing a Ferrari in my 2005, £2000 Skoda Superbe. I'm also pleased Vardy and Barnes now seem to be being grouped together at last. I now know Barnes is n't a "striker ". I've been corrected on that so many times by forum members (he's listed as midfield in our first team list) which is how i got fooled ; but it appears that his imitations of one are now so good that the PL are not automatically ruling out his goals. Has anyone thought yet of playing him up front with Vardy ? I think Vardy would welcome it , they seem to enjoy the chances they are creating for each other, and as I pointed out long ago it could save us an awful lot of money and risk. Replacng strikers from outwith the club is imo one of the most expensive and biggest risks in the game , and often totally unnecessary to the best managers. I quoted a club up the road as an example who had to replace as they improved O'Hare with Woodcock with Withe with Birtles. All very cheaply, all not really strikers,all England international forwards many times. They also found time to buy Francis , more expensive but by then they were into European Cup cash. Francis of course repaid his cost or most of it , almost immediately. The guys in question tended to ignore labels and tried to sign Footballers. Most Footballers are very versatile with most of their skills applicable and useful in many roles. For instance i understand we currently have as arguably our most effective defender an ex -striker, still quite young who seems to me to have retained his pace and "striker" skills (not counting JJ who is injured). He might surprise a few ,I think, given a couple of games refresher course. if we got desperate it would n't be risking a lot, maybe a goal lost balanced with a goal gained. I have worked out that Barnes can't be a winger and what most call a striker ( an insult imo to Vardy and Barnes as it groups them with Andy Carroll ).He can do both together but its not very fair or snnsible, but we have the answer to that in house, in fact two of them, and both fit and uninjured. ( I had to put that carefully, its quite important it was n' t misunderstood. I think most forum members will understand). Apart from those two we have four defenders who can imitate being a winger excellently. Some would say three , I think 4. (Didyalairk that "with Withe with" bit). For "all very cheaply " read "we made lots of money for the club". I seem to vaguely remember phrases like " bought for £50k later sold for £250k." I'm not a linguist but in modern English a rough translation would be "bought for 50m sold for 250m " I think that one went to a German club (just looked him up -(he went to Koln for a modern equivalent of £300 0m."all very cheaply") He was s a remarkably nice and intelligent guy and would never have been mistaken for a "striker' but he could impersonate one perfectly for match after match. and do lots of other good things in the in, between moments.He's worth looking up . I'd quite forgotten what he did for Arsenal.before they got interested in "strikers" and boring.. Fot the younger guys Wenger got them back to unboring.again.. Prior to Woodcock they had had decades of being boring (and lucky) a sort of early man U.

Glad to see there are a few other optimists on here besides me. Obviously everything will depend on injuries and to who, and the JJ injury means My last f/c of how we'll do I consider null and void-he was that important. Of course even from extensive reading of the club match centre and media I don't know our full injury position but I assume Castagne could be back ready to play within a week. I count we have 19/20 players fit at the moment counting Daley-Campbell who performed well enough recently to be considered temporarily at least first team. BR I think should be a good enough manager to get at least a draw from Prague and near maximum points from our next 4 league games and an eventual 4th place or better in the PL. We may get further problems so might Man U, Man C Liverpool and any of the chasing bunch. Only the Manchesters have the resources to soak up problems. Man U I think will eventually pay the price of having OGS as manager, inexperienced , making mistakes, the last big one saw them exit the ECL, and tactically devoid. So far his big heap of expensive players is saving them, with his only tactic being to keep throwing goal scorers on until the opposition break. That might last to the end of the season but I doubt it. we're six points up on Liverpool. Chelsea have a new manager bounce but I don't expect their results to be better than ours to the season end. So Man C are the only real threat and we won't catch them, they have Pep and a big squad, unless something totally unseen hits the club. However a top 4 finish seems likely to me provided our key players Kasper(vital for attitudes), Soyuncu, Evans, Ndidi, Tielemans, Barnes, Maddison, Vardy stay fit. IMO we should achieve top 4 even if Madison OR Tielemans miss a few games , preferably selected games, or Soyuncu or Evans miss a few games (preferably selected , for knocks rather than forced by short term injury). The rest of our squad slotted in around this core should imo get us a top 4 finish, a Wembley final( unless we draw Man C ) I trust BR will find an effective way ,or ways , to use Cengiz Ûnder. This is no time for the selection mistakes he's been making recently. Before some dullard tells me 1 loss in 20 ,10 games or whatever and this guy is complaining yes i am. It should have been zero losses in 30 games. Football people say impossible, managers in practically all other disciplines have these sort of figures as targets and good managers hit them. Its time over funded football started to produce. I could almost guarantee that if our players and manager had put the effort in that hospital workers had put in since last March we 'd be champions again this year. Some would say well all the others could put in the same effort it would stay the same. Correct, we might even do a bit worse. They won't and we have an advantage here I think with a happy well motivated well grounded bunch of players who will step up if asked by BR. Another team of unbelieveables.! And Why Not ? This might not be true of Cengis. If I'd have been pissed around with as he's been I'd be tempted to say F.--- you. Roy Keane and some other past greats would have already told him and floored him as a final word. Fortunately I hope and think Ünder is made of better material and will step up and might even become a key player. BR much as I rate him is not the finished article yet. If he had a boss like Abramovich on site, who said you will play Ünder and you will turn him into the star of the team . Six weeks or you are out, then BR might have done it by now, if Ünder is capable of it,which imo he might be. I don't think he's the type of guy,although pleasant I'd push much further. Especially as we need him a lot at the moment, whether or not he's got star quality. So Top 4,(second), FA cup or EFL trophy. ( I take it the CL drop outs like Man U, Rangers are still in this) Miracle season Top 4, Wembley or EFL final. Brilliant season. Top 5. FA cup knocked out by Man C, Good season Anything less, disappointing to me unless we lose another key player. even then we might do a good season but I would n't complain if we did n't. I thought I detected some 2015/6 spirit v Liverpool. If this could be grown who knows what could happen.: the reason I think was obvious but I ain't gonna say it.

Klopp is ok in my book but at the moment you are correct and I am wrong. He is learning and I think deep down is a good guy. Everything else I agree especially about the older L'pool fans.

I saw the one he did today but I usually notice Mane's. You can almost see the moment when he's worked out that the only way L'pool are going to score is a penalty. Salah was clever , I'd have to watch it again to be sure but he went down backwards looking as if he'd been pulled -he was n't- the camera had a clear view. It wasn't commentated on at all ,so it was clever, even as to his choice of victim who I think was Ndidi, our best player today, but in Salah's favour I doubt that was calculated. Either way he and Mane are fine players who will probably soon work out they will get more penalties and play even better. "Earning" penalties by diving takes up too much time (its more difficult than just playing ) There's one team who get a lot more penalties but who missed one against Xtal Palace. They don't do a lot of diving imo. Burnley recently got probably their fifth maybe ninth since the war, (I made that bit ,the numbers, up) Thay don't do a lot of diving either despite what must be almost irresistable temptation. They probably would n't be very good at it and I suspect their manager would give them hell even when it worked. Same with Cloughie except he'd have dropped them and fined them as well, heavily. I once cheated in an exam , i was only in the second year i was 12. I never got caught but it cost me a lot of marks . I never did it again.

Worry not ,i think I can find you but to save me a lot of typing read the new member's post I alluded to . It'll be quicker to do that than for me to do a lot of typing. Its safer and assures you I have n't hacked your computer. Have you checked for your dish or stream being hacked.? Tell you what I'll look his post up for you tomorrow if you can't find it. Are you getting complacent? It seems to me MOTD, The BT comentators, most of the forum, the new member I alluded to and me are all out of step except you. I forget what army drill sergeants used to call that but it usually involved a lot of potato peeling at best. I do agree about the Allinson incident was fortunate ,if it hadn 't have been for their new signing's quick thinking it looked as if Ndidi, Soyuncu and Kasper and maybe some of the stadium seating, might have been injured..

Did you watch Leicester v L'pool? If so your stream has been hacked ,probably by the Russians . They can even hack sky dishes but i'll admit I'd be puzzled as to why you have been hacked. I watched motd as I'd missed I thought 35 minutes to see where l'pool were all over us. Which i'd read about on here. Did n't ever happen. (I thought I'd missed the first 35 minutes. In fact I think that was the channel timer on BT sport.) I'd only seen live from where Barnes stops abruptly right on the left wing. Totally losing his marker and allowing Vardy an Ings like chip at the L'pool goal. I never ever saw at anytime L'pool over running anything except their goalie overran one of his own defenders in fact I'd guess could have been a MF or even a STRKR, the goalie was starting to get Kasper worried. He'd come a long way presumably on an excursion ticket . Fimino /.Salah once in a moment of genius did overrun our goal. There's a new member on here, with I think 19 posts, I don't think he's even made the youth team yet. His post starts with the word "This" He'll tell you what was on your stream before the russkies got at it. Have a noggin it all really happened. MOTD HIGHlights pretty well started with Barnes heavy braking alluded to above. They were nearly all of guys wearing blue except for Salah/Firminos " brilliance." That wasn't fortune . that was justice. I want them to keep thinking about it and then get really clever and work out why it happened. I can I think tell them. But its important its worked out because in a few days we play again and we need 12 points from our next 4 league matches. Easy if we can play todays team, easy if we make mimimum changes. Draws at the moment are almost as bad as Losses.

Bejasus , were it within my power you'd be a key player in the first team. Your observation outdoes at least 80 % of what is herewith written. The number may be a little low but the rest is true. It was a moment of genius especially by Firmino who had his back to goal. I really felt we were playing like 2015/ 16 from the moment I started watching.

Let's give the ref a little credit for honesty. I think he'd have liked to have given us the penalty but made the honest decision. I know we've got more than one guy with conspiracy paranoia on here but thats what it looked like to me.

Thank God for your line 7. I've been posting that for about 2 months. I just liked the word I'd never used "cemented" Adopts sarcastic face and duchesss tones with lips tightly sealed .Of course you do realise he is n't a striker don't you. Adopts gruff voice " I don't feckin' care ,when he imitates one no one can tell the bloody difference." I'd spotted your line 10 .Honest . within two minutes of sorting my BT sport stream out after 35 minutes . L'pool' (and our) body language were saying it in ten foot tall letters.for the first time in about half a dozen matches. What's more I can tell you why.

Just hope BR is smart enough to mentally erase the seven minutes after we finished scoring.

I forgive him. Barnes might have been second, Wilf definitely first.It was hard splitting the other 10 but scorers are always favoured even if its a tap in into an empty goal. No one ever lost money by understimating the smartness of almost everybody involved in football. Ø Including me , I'm a supporter Ø. (thanks ,Danny). Often attributed to Einstein. I suspect it was his friend Niels Bohr who Kasper probably knows about. He or his brother was a Danish international goalkeeper in 1908. Among other things. I think Bohr said Plato said it which probably means Socrates originated it. They'd have been writing or speaking Greek of course which may obliterate some of its obscurity. Its a wonderful insult -you can often be home, in bed, and asleep before anyone works out whether they've been badly insulted or wonderfully complimented ,but you do have to say it with a nice smile.

Too polite to say thats a silly question and obviously Evans may not be ok enough but I think he'll be ok( I hope so) , and maybe others had knocks , but bearing that in mind obviously yes. JV needs about another match and I can't think of any improvements from our decreasingly fit squad. Can't remember our next 3 fixtures but we obviously need 3 points against Villa. Draws are almost as useless as losses for a while. I must be honest and admit I'd have played Ûnder today and certainly would have had him on by the time we scored, which would hardly have affected the result except perhaps favourably. I missed the first 35 minutes so don't know who he'd have replaced. Funnily enough I'd posted to someone that paradoxically I thought our injuries would improve our team. I obviouly got that wrong in view of what nearly happened. Well it did happen but we were delivered. If I believed in a god i would certainly believe he moves in Mysterious Ways and might wear blue. Even !970s managers would know the answer to your question .They would have been taught it as the first basic and also when it did n't apply. On another subject (think I'm running out of posts-I heard that !) I thought Klopp gave an amazingly smart and accurate interview even if it was choking him, I was impressed. Couple that with his reported words before the match and I'm glad we're now six points ahead. He's a very smart cookie imo.

Yes ,last season is totally irrelevant, its passed. We also are far stronger and better all round. BR ain't perfect but he's very good and even more important lucky. Bejasus he was lucky today, but he nearly made a mistake the team did n't. The Irish are usually smart and often lucky. I hope you're right about the 75 points. That would almost guarantee ECL football in 2021 ,our most important target in my view. An FA Cup win would mean little, but to me would mean as much as for the other oldies who remember 1963 . 1969 was a bit easier to bear but being a football fan at all means you have to endure quite a bit of pain..

I thought at 37 minutes (having sorted out my BT sport feed after 35 minutes ) we were playing better than I'd seen us for 4/5 matches. Thieleman's "pass "had little to do with Liverpool's goal . Technically its true (I'll take your word it was Tielemans). Liverpool's goal to me was due to Fimino and Salah's technical skills and vision in Firmino's case with his back to goal. I was n't too worried as we passed the ball out as usually we cleared it eventually before L'pool had time to endanger our goal.

Sort of agree . I thought there was quite a lot of evidence today they've been practicing headers but I 've seen that before occasionally and been wrong. Those that are fit should still be practising them. Ndidi ,Evans, Soyuncu and Vardy could be let off as a reward, they and probably a few I've forgotten are already reasonably good but are needed to help the others (and further improve themselves ).While I agree with BR's philosophy that the ball should be got onto the ground asap its to realise that in very important sections of play (corners and other set pieces) the ball pracically must be in the air. Then of course the other team will put it into the air of course , either deliberately or because they can't help it either. Cloughie , a good header in his playing career put it best as so often . He said something like " If you were meant to play it up there lad, God would have put grass up there.". But he knew you could n't ignore the ball being in the air.

Thanks for help, Paul, much appreciated. I wanted as i said to watch the Match room video a couple of times before posting. I did type a thanks earlier but fortunately sacrebleuits442 ,the blur and deepblue have posted imo excellent posts which are pretty close to my thoughts and indicate why last night was such a disappointment. I still don't see it quite as positively as yourself unfortunately. I think we won with a formation and 7 changes initially which meant JV got about half the useful match time the clock indicated., and meant poor Ünder was again somewhat thwarted in getting a fair go although he had the ball in the net second half. Iheanacho's off side , meant it did n't count. In fact it was a close decision and I'm not sure he was offside,but then Mike Dean was. the ref. Fortunately Ünder also won the corner leading to iheanacho's goal. which along with his quick thinking helped. A clean sheet of course is always good although less important in the cup. Iheanacho'I think is improving and i think if he really commits to it he would be very useful playing with JV who would keep him working and trying.I hope so he seems a nice guy. Its a pity we went into the Brighton match with 7 changes at the start plus several more during the match which probably will mean facing a really big league match with about the ssme number of changes if we are to field our strongest team. I don't imagine we'll be fielding Daley-Campbell ,who did have a promising debut but probably better delayed until after a critical match like Liverpool. The Perez injury was unfortunate but as they say its an ill wind. I doubt his injury will be a long one. As I say the two posts I mentioned above may in return help you in getting a bit more insight into Wednesday's disappointments. As you can imagine i was delighted we scored from a short corner ,as I've posted plenty about them. Ünder and Tielemans quick thinking , followed by Youri's excellent ball gave iheanacho an excellent chance which he took well. It was straight forward but he leapt well and did an excellent attacking header. Ending all our misery. What would be a big help would be some insight into why our selections and tactics have gone so badly wrong since about the third week in January. My theory is that BR who is imo an excellent manager has one fault common to many good man managers . He' s one of the good guys but finds it difficult to be as ruthless as anyone in management knows is sometimes needed. In the long run this is less kind to all those you are managing, and almost always reduces success. It can often lead to some demoralisation in the rest of a team and Wednesday' s awful match with practically everyone below par may have been another sign of that, along with the Wolves, Leeds and even Everton matches. The only thing I'd add is that many of these points managed to produce a real stinker which many of our posts seemed to think meant we were lucky to win, and we took an unnecessary risk . Luckily we were saved by Brighton's ineptitude in front of our sometimes open goal. Good news about JJ.

Could have been a lot worse. To some extent we reduced our chances slightly last night,although it was better than being knocked out. I think if we learn our lessons from Brighton we have a real chance of doing Man U. and then who knows ? I remember our disappointments of the sixties and would love us to go all the way ,it would certainly go a long way to easing any disappointment this season.

Its hard to post anything positive at all. Honestly compels me to admit the best team ,who were also appalling, lost. You would really think an organisation where management are paid in millions per annum and the main employees considered worth millions , paid thousnds per week , and called professionals, could do several times better. There were exceptions and after rewatching the match summary just to check I really saw that I'll try and write something positive about them. We are considered one of the better clubs and usually I agree. It just feels a bit unbelieveable at the moment. Usually its arguable whether modern football is sport or entertainment. At least I found out it must be sport, but not as we used to know it.

It was a real error but surely forgiveable . BR had n't been here long enough or seen enough of us to know exactly what was wanted. For all I (we ?) know maybe things had even been already started regarding Perez. BR needed "recalibrating" in the sense he'd been in the Scottish PL for a few years where playing standards standards are not what they were. I certainly forgive him, as if he's to blame for the error , he must be credited imo for having such a successful transfer policy since. Admittedly Ünder is still a little bit unproven but Fofana, Castagne, Tielemans, Justin, Thomas (not a transfer admittedly), Praet, outweigh the error and by a lot. If he manages to further improve our squad strength this summer by the same amount, reasonably economically, we definitely should be up with the big guys at a fraction of their costs, We're pretty well there now. I reckon that overall we've probably achieved the best transfers in the PL. over the last two seasons, and could make a huge profit on transfers , not that I'd want that to happen. I am less happy, and puzzled as to why he keeps being played. I think in all his recent matches we've had a better alternative, in fact more than one. Perez looks very unhappy to me, a little bit remote from the rest of our excellent squad . I hope he ends up somewhere where he's happier with his football ,possibly in Spain. I'm actually more puzzled by the forum members who seem blind to his obvious shortcomings. What do they put his match statistics and ratings down to ? Perez seems to me a pretty nice guy, quite a brave guy, with average PL football skills but with not enough physical attributes and skills combined to ever make a good ,or even useful PL player. He's also a poor decision maker in my opinion. Selecting him is not doing him any favours at all.

I know little about football but had a long and reasonable career in management , which is mainly people skills plus a few other things, (electronics in my case) and imo basically football management is largely people skills plus a few other things. Now to come to the point Barcelona at their peak were the best team I ever saw, largely due to the fact they had 3 players who had come from being kids I believe at their famous and possibly the best ever academy, which I forget the name of. The players were Messi, Iniesta and Xavi. They had a few others too and when they passed the ball didn't just go accurately to the right player , it went to his best foot, accurately and often did n't need a touch to control it. You only need 3-5 players in a team with that skill and the rest just ordinary footballers and the whole team passes accurately because the really skilled guys contnually correct passing errors and restore the accuracy. As a result until they reached the oppositions penalty area where players are more tightly packed no one else touched the ball. Their end product was not as good as it should have been because they wanted the pleasure of having the ball and making it talk and in the more congested penalty area even they could lose the ball occasionally so they never rushed to get there. Thats how it looked to me anyway.and you guys will know all this anyway.. Even so they were a pleasure to watch and did n't do too badly.for a few years. The point is their academy was residential and in loco parentis. I assumed our new facilites were residential and certainly should be, with teaching football skills and also education using local school facilities. Necessary or a lot of parents especially those of the smarter kids who I suspect often make the best footballers, won't sign up to it.The parents of the poorer kids would die to sign up to it, a footbller who's good is a route out of being poor for the whole family. Micheal Owen bought an entire street oop north for his entire extended family, some of whom might have been race horses. I went to an in loco parentis hostel for a while before university to start learning electronics. Of course I had to have A levels so we were not young kids. It was what was called a thick sandwich course ,and some of us were. I imagined we would be doing something similar at our academy. Providing accomodation and education costs peanuts compared with buying in good players and the money in successful football, or even rubbish football. I could add some slightly more luxurious accomodation might help a lot in signings . many young high earning footballers have a WAG and the wife would really appreciate a club which initially provided temporary well built accomodation so she moved when he did to keep an eye on her young fit and attractive Golden goose. Maybe this is taken care of by club houses these days, it certainly was by Rangers when they moved up the English contingent ,in the wake of Heysel, Most of them moved to the village I lived in and a friend of mine (a builder) made a lot of money as Butcher and others kept moving upmarket. Even my son made a bit when he dropped the spuds at a Rangers dinner and said F--- it (I'd brought him up well) and they liked it and he got a big tip. Reading your posts I've obviously got it wrong. I believe Cruyff had a lot to do with setting up most things at Barcelona which Pep presumably carried on. Something seems to have gone a bit wrong lately , maybe as simple as Pep left . I don't know, but that's football . I'm also describing football but not as we know it , Jim. I'd like to see someone in LCFC thinking on this scale. I'm sure the owners would like it and may even be heading there. Whaddya think .Pie in the Sky ?

Hear Hear. It seems to me ManC 1st team, ladies, under 23s . under 19s .Prem league div 1 team , prem league div 2 team and even their bloody snooker team are all top of their bloody leagues. We're not from the Middle E and we should be aiming at top in everything we contest and smiling where we're not (a sort of sinister smile).Surely BR would support that, his reputation is as a good coach and I'd assumed that our new facilities meant we had a good academy.

Afraid I don't agree with the last bit. In my opinion based purely on Brendan's origins and most of his actions, the only guide I have, He's probably smart, doesn't lack guts and has mostly players with v good attitudes. I've been a bit puzzled by recent selections but i put that down to my ignorance of most hard facts.

Suppose its inevitably a bit of a bluffing game between Graham Potter and BR. Used to be a sport.I don't think BR's a fool so I'll back him, and in any case I've got no choice which is as it should be.I hope if they do leave anyone out its taller guys. I suppose one answer is to trust G. Potter and have either a weaker bench and a stronger team or a strong bench and a weaker team.Make 3 changes or not as appropriate after 15 minutes and the rest after say 60 minutes (or not). With 22 players on a pitch 2 substitutes don't make a lot of difference over 30 minutes but might help. Anyway its out of my pay grade or knowledge. I know nothing but I'd be going hard for a win and would pencil in my Liverpool team before thinking about Brighton. Don't know much about football (who does) but I try and help and have never got comfortable on a fence yet.

Like your team and common sense. I might change the formation a bit and go for Amartey or Mendy in place of Choudhury but your team should be enough and chy probably needs another confidence booster more than Amartey or Mendy.. They are more pragmatic and just get on with things like Justin, vardy, Barnes and Kasper. Might go to penalties , so we need our best shot stopper and morale booster goalie. IF Kasper really decides we want a win Brighton will have a tough job.

I don't regard it as the poxy FA Cup and I posted fairly recently we should be pursuing all 3 competitions strongly, Europe, the PL and Cup. Recent results in The PL where imo we failed to field our strongest team by including players who were clearly contributing little heve n't changed that feeling.and In my view that led to Vardy playing an unnecessary 25/30 ? minutes against Wolves. 25 minutes of a Vardy with less match fitness could not guarantee turning the Wolves match around any more than Lionel Messi could have done. 9() minutes yes, 25 no. The substitution was correct but would imo have been totally unnecessary had the right team been selected at kickoff, , without Vardy . Ten men and a weakness , or 9 men and two weaknesses may be less strong than a straight 10 men, or very occasionally 9 men as often used to be the case at one time in Italian football and even unlikely Newcastle proved for a short while at the w/e. It was for a short while but probably seemed like an hour to them and a day to Steve Bruce. Let me stop being long winded . IMO playing Perez is definitely a mistake. Iheanacho is poor imo but I recently have changed my earlier opinion and see signs he may yet become a useful player. However I am merely saying avoid ten men and a weakness as I've often posted, Eleven men is much better and we could have played eleven useful talented players in all our recent matches. Result is that we failed at Wolves ,Everton and against Leeds but imo there is still no need to make another mistake in playing Perez against either L'pool or Brighton . Our strongest team can't afford to be carrying a passenger either against L'pool or Brighton.. Tactics? pencil in the strongest team possible v L'pool. Once that is done the strongest team that does n't weaken us against L'pool should be fielded at Brighton. I Ihink we have the squad resources to do that and at least will feel if we fail against either we tried our best. If we get an injury at Brighton which weakens the team v L'pool, c'est la vie. Field the strongest team we have left. Why undermine our best with craven approaches. Fortune favours the brave. Barnes ,Justin , Vardy and in fact most of the team are not tired imo, they are just puzzled and maybe very slightly demoralised by team selections that seem strange to most of us , and must seem bizarre to them. Let's stop being gutless. It does n't suit the club or its players I'm glad and proud to say. In my experience a cautious ,timorous approach rarely succeeds . Boldness risks failure in one or both competitions (Europe is not yet a factor) . Go for success in both. We have the resources to do it. Thielemans may be a little tired , but it does n't look like tiredness to me. As always BR knows far more about that than I possibly can. , To do this is harder than I am making it sound it but essential to try. Its almost too late to maximise this season. I just don't see how anyone looking through the forum's history section, player ratings esp. recent ones as I did today, can possibly be making some of our recent selections . We heartily approve of you BR, your player purchases ,assuming that a well run club like LCFC gives the man who carries the can the biggest say, have been brilliant. We can forgive what should be only slight blemish when you were new to the club and trust you to act in the best interests of the club and all our squad,Occasionally even nice guys have to be ruthless. I don't believe anything is ever best served by timid arse-covering selections whether it be Leicester City, the national squad, or indeed any enterprise. Selections which never leave a team feeling really good ,even if they succeed. Go for both , Foxes. There is a time for timidity but it is not now,or often.