Lillehamring

Then we differ on the meaning of nullify - today Mavididi led the team in key passes, as did fatawu against leeds, he also managed 5 shots in that game (no leeds player managed more than 3). Granted, Leeds did switch to double up on our wingers which did slow things, but then surely that should have freed up our #8 - annoyingly, rather than responding to this, we played into it, that's on enzo and our players. I think the point is, this has little to do with the opposition and almost everything to our own shortcomings.

I've been very critical of Justin and i still don't think he's that good, but i thought he actually had his best (ie. a bit above average) game of the season today!

That alone is no sign that teams know how to beat us. Besides, the fact that we had 43 shots in those defeats suggests that we have never been 'nullified'. Hull and Leeds got their tactics right and all three teams had a shade of luck. As Enzo says, we will lose games, but just because we do doesn't suddenly mean that we're easy to beat.

"No plan B" is the new "When it clicks"

No one has 'sussed us out' - leeds and boro approached their games completely differently - there's not suddenly some magic 'how to beat leicester' formula. We didn't lose either game because the opposition were significantly (or even remotely) superior or because they completely nullified us, we lost them because they took their chances and we didn't, we had more than enough chances to have taken points from both games.

But the worry is why it so often seems to come down to these fine margins - as cityfanlee23 pointed out we've been in far more close games than we really should have been. I suspect in the situation you describe it would more likely garner such responses as "why did we make that so difficult" and "we could easily have lost that". Generally speaking, we actually did play quite well 2nd half (certainly it was good to see us come out focussed today for the 2nd half) - the problem is, even though we have scored a lot of goals this season, we should have scored far more, there have been too many games where we've created loads of chances but scraped a goal or, in the three losses, failed to score. In the three losses we've had 43 shots, 23 of those shots didn't even hit the target! That's awful.

The question of the subs is a very good one - leaving it to 85 minutes was meaningless, when boro were looking leggy after 60 or 70. to lose without scoring against a team that had conceded 23 goals in 15 games, whilst leaving Daka, Cannon and Casadei sitting watching is a real worry. With the system we have it surely should be an option to swap out the two #8 for two strikers. I mean, 1-0 down with 7 minutes to play surely you have to go all in - imagine their leaky defence having to go 15 minutes against mavididi, daka, vardy, cannon & fatawu! But no we get Vardy and the interminably slow nacho and the game peters out.

Not strictly true - we had 7 of our 12 shots after the 67th minute - unfortunately, 5 of those shots were wide of the goal. It's not enough, but it should have been enough to get at least 1 goal against a team that has conceded tonnes of goals. So much has been said about the poor finishing in this league, but we've been pretty guilty ourselves of poor finishing.

It doesn't really help things that the 'focus' of our attack is nacho, who might as well not be on the pitch. First half KDH knocks back a header for an easy tap in, nacho didn't even move.

But we played today exactly the way we played when we won 13 games out of 14. The three games we have lost this season have all really come from bad form in the final third, nothing to do with our tactics. I do agree that we need to be more versatile, but as for overcomplicating, on the contrary he's actually over-simplifying things.

yes - a back heel from vestergaard on the edge of the box was the real brain fart here.

Another frustrating result and though the performance was poor, it was an improvement over the leeds game. I think it's easy to start finding fault with the system or the players, but that game was like the vast majority of games we've had this season. We were in total control, but for one random phase of the game (not this time the 45-60 section, but the 30-45 section) - the only difference was today we just couldn't get anything to work in the final third. Ricardo is not a #8, this wasn't the game to bring mcateer back and, biggest fail of the game - ****ing nacho - i swear i've no idea how he's getting game time, the guy just looks like he's in a different world. Interestingly, all three games we've lost this season we've hit the post but hardly caused the keeper any problems besides. Either we need to rethink what we're doing up front or we need to bring in players who can create and finish. We shouldn't forget that boro have only lost one of their last 10, so this was never going to be easy and we certainly created enough to get at least a point, but it feels like something isn't quite right just now.

but that's not what middlesboro did? we had acres of space and bags of time - the outcome today is the combination of a great free kick against a horribly toothless attack.

Well nacho was atrocious today - didn't look interested in the game and his lack of urgency is terrifying.

I suppose we need to remember that this is a decent in-form team we're up against, so not unhappy with the scoreline, even understandable the chances we've given up (though the manner of how we've conceded them is a bit worrying), but i am disappointed in our attacking play, some good moments but far too often things just broke down, and invariably because of the deeply ineffective disinterested looking nacho.

Hardly think that was the time to experiment - and of all people Justin who had misplaced numerous passes throughout the game.

Yes, i agree with you - i think you mistook my original comment to suggest aimless hoofing, i thought i clarified it in my second post. The reason i suggested to play these smart direct balls to daka is because, vardy ain't quick enough now, and nacho is no good playing over the top to. I'm not advocating changing everything, but just when we know we're going to play teams that press (like Leeds and sunderland) maybe these are the games to let daka have a run out, to take advantage of the counter attacking possibilities - be that fast flowing passes, or direct balls into the space behind the defenders. In these last two games we've not taken advantage of the opportunity to counter attack....

Despite the fact that we certainly have done this! I'm not saying we go all route one, but in the games where we have been under more pressure (the liverpool games spring to mind) we have had vestergaard and faes playing balls over the top into the space teams are leaving. In the same way we have also played long diagonals into the space the wingers have been finding. Leeds, sunderland and even QPR left space to attack and we've failed to exploit it.

Exactly - not only that but they played way better than they did the only other time i've seen them and we played pretty poorly and even then, but for the woodwork and a worldie save, we could have still nabbed at least a point. What seems more important to me is that we take this as a new start and go on a run again, play to our strengths and with the confidence we had up to a few games back.

I think Mads will probably feel he could have done better - either holding it or parrying it somewhere that didn't have three leeds players standing waiting - that they were there is probably what really cost us the goal. Certainly don't think it was vardy's fault.

Up to the goal we had 60% possession, although from the start of the second half it was 50% (though in those 18 minutes they out shot us 6-0 - it does seem like that period is poor for us - 46-60 we have been out scored 1-3, not awful but the only period we have a negative GD) From the goal to the end we had 76%, out shot them 6-3 (4 blocked, 1 miss and the KDH header), had 6 corners to 0 - sadly we just didn't take advantage of this.

But did they? I thought we were scrappy in possession and wasteful/malfunctioning in the final third; there seemed, to me, to be a return to the first games of the season, especially coventry, where we seemed to be overthinking everything rather than just playing naturally, and a real drop off in our ball recovery compared to the levels we have seen the players achieve. Psychologically, too - we didn't seem as hungry as we have done, at least not until the last half hour - it almost felt like a case of 'ok, let's get this defeat out of the way'.

That's more how i read the performance/result. For me there seemed an inevitability about the whole thing - what with our twin record breaking runs due to end at some point, coming up against probably the strongest attacking force in the league that, let's be clear here, needed to get something from the fixture (a leicester win would have built a 17 point gap) - it felt like this was the fixture to expect loss number 2. I wrote in the post-match about how similar this was to the hull defeat - whilst leeds definitely gave us more of a game, they, like Hull, exposed some of our weaker links and got a slightly less but equally frustrating goal, whilst we created more than enough to get something from the game but, other than a fatawu shot agonisingly coming off the inside of the post, failed to test their keeper. Yes we are better with ndidi and doyle than the deeply unimpressive casadei and justin, but we should still have enough to be putting in better performances than we've seen in the last few games. Does this, then come down to tactics? I'm inclined to think not, though i do feel enzo is encouraging them to be too cautious at times (especially against QPR), but the amount of chances we're creating and the small amount of goals we are conceding suggest things, tactically, are ok. However, i do feel like enzo seems to have abandoned his free flowing approach to squad rotation, especially in the front 5 - granted that has been impacted by injuries, but it seems an age since we saw Marcal have a run out, and I think in the last two games we could have caused all kinds of trouble by playing daka and hitting it long for him to chase now and then - especially with nacho looking atrocious just lately.

I'm afraid to say that remains unproven, because we simply didn't pose any - first half we lacked energy and couldn't dominate possession, not because we were pressed, but because we were just, as you say, scruffy. 2nd half, with ricardo playing #8 and leeds holding on we looked better, but we got into that early season drag of just playing it around waiting for the perfect chance, the few times we did get in the box, well, it was back to the 'poor decision making, poor execution' of earlier in the season. I feel like, subconsciously, they didn't really want to win it - the burden of going unbeaten was too heavy - and if you're going to crack, there's no shame in it being against a leeds side that, clearly, wanted it more than anything on earth.

...