Chelmofox

Am i one of the only people not bored with these dominant first half displays? It's not 'rip roaring', but it's fascinating. At times today it felt like we were just taunting little puppies with a tennis ball. If they somehow got it, we would just snatch it off them and start again. Even in the first few minutes you could see in the Stoke players eyes how petrified they were of the majority of our team. About 1/4 way through the first half i believe we had 89% possession, and i think we looked good with it. At times in the first half Stoke looked like they relinquished possession just because they had nothing they could do with the ball. Opposition keepers are time wasting even when they are only 1-0 down. Its incredible. Seeing us bully them and watching the opposition get slower and slower, and mentally fatigued - its absolutely brilliant. You know the big mistake is coming any moment. This lot had 1 shot on target. At the end we should have been far more clinical and ended up with probably 4. 2-0 MASSIVELY flattered Stoke. Each of the last 3 home games i have said 'this is the worst team i have seen at the KP'. We are just making these teams look incredibly sh1t. But Stoke were the worst I have seen at the KP. Woeful.

I felt he was far too deep a lot of the time. He is much, much better than he had been, but a lot of the time everything was tight in the middle of the pitch with a gaping whole up front. Don't know if this is what the coach wants or if this is Nacho's natural instinct, but Vardy doesnt seem as deep. Maybe Enzo wants the contrast. Very well taken goal though. Excellent.

The guy is simply awesome. How the heck we have him in this league i will never know.

Had an intern come to our company summer party dressed like this. I think it’s a thing.

Those shoelaces look like trouble to me.

Every game i have been to i have been nervously confident but not cocky. Today, i think we are absolutely going to batter these. Just feel it in my bones and think a few of them will be looking to make a statement before the international break. Kels looked super sharp for the first time in a long while, so he gets the start and bags an early one. Another from KDH and i would love a goal for Fatawu. Vards comes on at the end and runs them torrid for his goal. Think this can be 4-0. Probably means a 1-1 draw then

Destroy them. Hopefully Nacho takes the new confidence into this game.

The redemption of Vesty is a wonderful story, and i love watching him play out of his skin and loving his football. BUT - he is out of contract at the end of the season, so should be back up from here on. Faes never seems to get a game off, so the 3 of them need rotating with the view that Faes and Coady as the first choices.

I love singing this. We need it in a version for when we do go back up.

That second half was f***ing brilliant. After the first half i was worried a little, and felt the ref had largely lost control of things too. Then when their keeper resorted to time wasting almost immediately i knew something was up. KDH pounced and they legs turned to jelly. Last goal was brilliant from Nacho. We've not seen anything like that from him so far this season. Long may it continue. Just brilliant all round.

He's magic you know...... Looked really sharp. Looked a different player.

Got a feeling this is going to feel like playing through treacle. Think we will be hearing a lot of screams of 'forward!!!' or 'get it in the box' in the stands. Have horrible feeling it's going to be 0-0. If we win its only going to be by 1. Don't expect a rip roaring evening.

Surely he is going to have a massively over inflated value based on his 'potential' and being English. Admittedly Arsenal are stacked with talent, but he's 23 and barely featured for the last year. This is the sort of risk we should be avoiding imho, unless he comes in cheap.

It's going to happen at some point no matter what. I think the big PL teams will be watching him closely but strongly doubt they will pull the trigger this season. We are not far from the managerial sack race and Ten Haag is clearly in sights to get fired, but i think there are other options out there they would go to first (Potter is still without a job right now). The concern should be if we get promoted and Enzo gets us to mid table after about 15 games, but he didn't quite get the players / squad he wanted. Then i can see one of the bigger clubs offering him silly money if they hit troubled times. I know Enzo is seen as a builder, but so was Potter, and he dropped everything to join Chelsea. Its easy to say managers like Enzo will look at Potters failure as part of that decision making, but as a Manager with some experience, you will always back yourself of one of the big clubs does come calling. Maybe i am being pessimistic, but unless it goes Pete Tong and Enzo gets the sack and he goes sooner, the maximum time i see Enzo here is 2 seasons.

I don’t!! Not really sure how much longer we can justify picking him at all, but we have to rotate Vardy and it still seems Daka is out of favour in this regard. Only consolation is that if Nacho stinks the place out for 70minutes, Vardy comes on as impact and creates havoc.

Sorry if posted before. Everything about this is brilliant.

More of a reason just to get out of this crappy league. Nothing is more motivating than being top of it.

Of course. He's still learning himself and adapting to teams that might be more aggressive to it. He will make mistakes - we've all said this. Martinez did it against us. We've seen Edersen do it. Mistakes are made in every sport. What's key is how you deal with those mistakes (i.e don't lose all confidence and start making more) and how you can adapt to limit the impact from those mistakes. Yesterday, Ricardo very nearly recovered it for us. What makes me annoyed is when the method is referred to 'idiotic' without any reference to the benefits. Also, there are posters talking of 'yet another mistake from the goalkeeper', as if Hermansen is some cretin who doesn't know what he is doing.

A grand total of 6 goals conceded all season

I feel the gears point is a bit of cliche, and i think largely used to indicate whether we think we are going full pelt or not. Electric cars don't have gears, they are just more refined when running slower and can produce lots of power when needed. That for me is Enzo ball. To counter your point, i've been really impressed, especially since the Hull defeat where i felt that day the system was part of the problem (although on a rewatch we outplayed them and they had some luck). We said in the earlier games that that we needed to be more clinical, and we have been recently. We seem to be able to sit back more and counter when we need to (see Southampton and Blackburn) or play the possession game much more but with intent. We are seeing games out much more effectively and the defence has been really solid. Blackburn was an interesting game for me. I felt we struggled after we scored. They were well coached and had a game plan we've not seen other teams execute. It was also the first game where a playing out the back brain fart led to a goal. The scoreline flattered because we were clinical, but i think as the game went on we were significantly the better team. But imho this is the sort of game where quality does shine, and we had that quality. My slightly unpopular view is that, in the Championship at least, i don't think its going to get much better than this. Again, the term 'process' is a bit of a cliche, and some of the players will incrementally get better at it, but i expect in the middle of Winter for some players form to drop as well. I don't think there are gears to go through, other than us turning it on more when we have to. The limiting factor now is the players themselves (Vardys age, Nacho's skills, KDH's one footedness etc), and if promoted i expect Enzo and the recruitment team to have eyes on where they will want improvements. However, this set of players playing this system should win the Championship, and thats largely all i care about right now.

Not sure. Preston are a bit of an enigma so far. They had some of the easier fixtures to start the season with, but you still have to deliver. Last 2 results not great for them and they were walloped yesterday. I personally think they are going to park the bus and this will be a little bit like the Hull game. It won't be the toughest game in my opinion - its going to feel like one of those annoying games where we need to break them down.

Boggles my tiny mind......

I love the fact he is both dangerous going forward (a lovely cross for goal 1), but he puts a defensive shift in. Not the odd bit of defensive work, a proper shift.

People who reply to page 8 of the Post Match thread and say 'we were ok, but we really need to think about the whole playing out the back thing......', as if they are the first to bring it up.