Lillehamring

not really. faes is no slouch and is a better defender than justin.

We tried ricardo as a #8 (i think against boro) and it wasn't great. If ndidi is rested, don't see why he would be, no reason to suggest Praet can't have a decent game there...

We finished 31 points off 5th place, as good as kante was that season even he couldn't have mad any realistic difference to us. Besides, Ndidi played 17 games for us in 16/17 and finished as our highest OPTA ranked player; (mendy only played 272 minutes, King was our most used CM) Interestingly, in 16/17 Ndidi registered 4 tackles per game, kante 3.6 (who.scored) - kante, also, has never matched his tackles p/g rate he registered for us in 15/16

yeah, but we're not talking about perception on FT, we're talking about perception in the media. The worry is that the stronger the media narrative becomes that Kante essentially won us the league on his own or was a level above the rest of the squad, the more fans will buy into that idea and the brilliance of that season will become distorted and move away from the ultimate TEAM performance that it was. I think most FTers know how things really were.

I think i'd have felt that more before the west brom and plymouth games, i think we've steadied the ship and have our confidence back - if we lose it will be á la Hull - with some dodgy deflection and a melt down from our front 5.

Yes. For me it was all a part of the whole pattern of the press from the early patronising days of 'bless em, aren't they doing well', to the 'well, i knew they'd do it all along, i was the first to say so', to the final 'dear god, let that never happen again' - to have kante playing for chelsea was almost a lifeline for the media to justify how we only won it because we had a chelsea player playing for us.

Agreed - 15/16 for most of those players was beyond their natural level; the following season they showed in the UCL that they could still play to an amazing standard if the will was there, but in the PL it wasn't - the team settled back to it's natural level, particularly the back four - i guess they had nothing left to prove - even with kante in the middle we'd never have overcome that mindset. The real question is: had he stayed would we have won the champions league?

Spot on - kante won a lot of possession but so did the defence - for me the most overlooked player that season is drinkwater, as he was so often the trigger for mahrez and vardy - but again, one of many that year who raised their standard.

Yes, about how good he was, but not that he 'won it for us'. subtle difference.

He's probably have won it if he'd gone to a 'proper club' in 2016. Couldn't have a leicester player anywhere near that award

Be that as it may be, the point is, unlike the current inclination to believe in the media, he wasn't the only reason we won the league. It isn't about his quality as a player, it's about his contribution and he contributed as much as players like morgan and simpson who, honestly, aren't the best defenders the premier league has ever seen by any stretch of the imagination, nowhere near the quality of a kante, mahrez or vardy - but it wasn't about the quality of individuals, it was about the quality as a team.

Not saying my memory is flawless, but during the season i think we can all agree that he was never considered to be the 'only' reason we were playing the way we were playing, whereas from the moment he was playing for a 'proper club' that has increasingly become the narrative.

But based on the 'whole being stronger than the component parts' theory, you could say that about anyone, so it's true by default. I'm not saying he hasn't become one of, if not the most successful members of that squad, i'm just whining about the fact that the moment he went to chelsea the narrative flipped from him being 'one of the whole that was stronger than it's component parts' (certainly less important than mahrez or vardy), to 'we only won it because we had kante'.

nah, even before he'd played a game for chelsea it started.

I'm no expert but i would suspect that, given the go ahead has been something of a formality for some time, a lot of this sort of stuff has probably been under way for along time....

well they did say 'soon' - they obviously expected this update.

Worst home team in the league---- 1. Home Advantage : Increased overall performance levels of each team when they play at home venue. 2. Scoring : Increased likelihood of scoring more goals when the teams play at their home venue. Calculated based on the goals scored. 3. Defence : Increased likelihood of conceding less goals when the teams play at their home venue. Calculated based on the goals conceded. 24 Millwall FC -22% -24% -19% 0.80 / 1.30

I think previously we've switched ricardo to invert from the left and played hamza as the right sided CB?

Fair enough - but if pace at the back was the key factor, i'm sure we'd have steered well clear of doyle and coady as the focus of our defensive rebuild.

My only issue is the now all too familiar 'kante won it for us' schtick - but if memory serves, hardly anyone mentioned the bloke during the season, he was way down the list after vardy, mahrez, even drinkwater. The moment he went to chelsea the media were all over him as though having a chelsea player in waiting was the only reason we won it.

especially overseas fans - ticket plus international membership is pushing or more than 100 quid - just not affordable for one-off visits.

The first answer to this is, regardless of the chicken and egg nature of these games, the slow steady approach has worked almost every time and the few times it hasn't was more to do with poor finishing than the pace of our play. The second answer to this is - if it is a result of our negativity that teams sit deep, how come we haven't played this way in every game? It also seems to be the go-to tactic against us to start briefly with a high press, sit deep for an hour, go all in for the last 20 minutes (with maybe the odd short burst of pressure when we switch off before/after half time) - that such an observable pattern exists suggests opposition teams are dictating the pace of games - it's no coincidence that our biggest wins and some of our best football has come against plymouth, blackburn and southampton - all of whom played with a high line.

I've noticed this come up in several posts - this assumption that it is maresca's wish for us to play slow, negative football or to only be interested in winning the possession - but i think the reality is simply that in most games that type of football for enzo is the most effective way to play, to break down a deep sitting team, today much like the blackburn game, that wasn't the case - it was clear from his post match that he really enjoyed the plymouth game and the way we played, i'm sure he'd like us to play the sort of football we played against plymouth rather than how we played against sheffield...

To be honest just not using Ward has improved our defence.