Nod.E

I don't want to side with the early leavers, as I agree it's ridiculous to miss out on a good percentage of the game just to avoid half an hour of traffic. One point though, are there still the road closures at the moment resulting in the traffic being much worse? Or has that all cleared now? I'm hoping the recent trend is a result of that.

If you park further away you miss the traffic anyway.

So let me get this straight, do tell me if I'm getting this wrong. You go to the games, so what you see is right and all the stats are wrong? And everyone else, many of whom also go to games, is wrong? Righto. It's as though some people see the word 'statistic', have some sort of PTSD response upon recollection of Maths in school and dismiss it as hocus pocus. Start small, mate. Shots on target can be classed as a statistic, y'know? Get comfortable with that and then perhaps rejoin the conversation later. Okay? Good.

The same people that complain about our lack of creativity complain about our keeper playing through the press. He's a spare man. It creates space. Without this approach, with teams sitting in against us, what do you get? Soyuncu and Amartey practicing 5 yard passes, that's what. If anyone wants to claim that's all we do now, please do feel free to out yourself as a moron. Our approach may be patient, cautious even, but it is not the clueless nonsense served up by Rodgers. Could Mads be a bit better at his passing? Maybe, but I'd say he's doing very well. You only remember the rare occasion it goes wrong because it gives you palpitations watching it. And the great thing about Mads is that he's not only comfortable with the ball at his feet, he's great in the air and he's a great shot stopper, too. His current ability alone makes his signing a coup. The fact he's only 23 with scope to improve further makes it a frankly ridiculous transfer that is difficult to comprehend. And then you get fans claiming he's dodgy. Deary me. If you have to claim, 'it's all opinions though innit', yours is probably a 'dodgy' one.

Why are you addressing him in second person?

People have just formed this arbitrary idea in their heads that Maresca isn't being flexible or trying new things. Yes he has his system but that's a good thing. How many managers regularly change formation? Building an identify is a positive thing. How many times did we say last year that we don't know what we are or what our identity is? Yesterday we saw Casadei and Akgun deployed as the two 8s in the same line up. That was partially a play to rest players, but do people not think it was also an attempt to add attacking intent to the side? All the noise before kick off was excitement at an attacking line up. It didn't work out. The players didn't perform. There was complacency, and we need to find a way to find more goals as we've slowed down on that front. This can happen. Even in our Premier League winning season we had back to back 0-0s at one point. Ultimately we do have a fundamental problem, which is that we don't have creative central players. The Akgun experiment as an 8 isn't working and Casadei looks out of his depth. We'll be a lot better off if/when we get someone playing well in that position. Potentially Alves or a new signing. Until then, we're doing enough to pick up plenty of points. Absolutely not a time to panic, and I'm disappointed at how widespread the moaning and extreme reactions are.

Do you hear that noise? Yes, nothing. It's the sound of Enzo not reading this thread.

Sherwood has and always will speak ill of us. Poor yardstick.

I literally refer to it and provide a reason as to why it happened. Right that's enough Foxestalk for one night. I'm losing brain cells by the minute out here.

I refer you to my last reply. That ain't not how it works m8

If the first goes in, the second doesn't happen. Butterfly effect. With hindsight maybe an early goal for them gives us the kick up the backside it looked at though we may have benefited from tonight. Who knows. Those two chances do not equal them deserving 3-1. Again, flawed thinking from you. Against better sides we can't afford those early chances, but it's unsurprising given we played without a left back and played Coast who has so few minutes under his belt.

It is working.

Just a reminder that even with some of our worst football this season, we have still picked up 4 points from the last two games. Do that for the rest of the season and we end on 99. I realise that's a flawed forecast, but a bit of perspective? Not a bad haul considering the reactions. How many points will we get when we play better? Well, we've see that already. Bloody loads. We have some limitations but only Leeds have a valid claim at deservedly beating us this season. Every game we play, boring or not, we look like we could win. Most games it looks like we should win. Either individual performances need to pick up or we need a small tactical tweak. These things happen, and there's absolutely no reason one or both of those things can't happen. And in January I'm absolutely convinced that we'll be doing everything in our power to bring in a creative central player. To say a lot of you are sh!tting the bed would be an understatement.

And that's definitely going to happen is it? We have a creativity problem yet still should win most games. It may not have been vintage tonight but should we have won it? Absolutely. Poor game management cost us. Said it before, where was all of this piling on when it was clear Rodgers had checked out? You can have concerns, we've hit a tricky spell and it looks like we have a few headaches to address. Ultimately we're top of the league and clear of 3rd by 8 points plus GD. And mouthbreathers are talking about the sack. Honestly baffles me how some folk manage day to day life.

Stop fishing.

Some truth in that, but then I don't miss Luke Thomas. To be honest most systems struggle without creativity in the middle. Liverpool made it work but always had world class players in their 3 up top, and kind of got away with it as they had the top assisting full back maybe ever in Trent. Ultimately they've addressed that problem in the past couple of windows. Remember we were in for McAtee but didn't get our man. I'm sure Maresca views that type of player as the missing piece. I was suggesting replacing an 8 for Kelechi. So instead of having two 8s in front of Winks, drop one deeper and replace the other with Kelechi for him to play more as a 10. Risky strategy and we'd definitely lose the ball more often, but I think we'd create more clear opportunities. I think our defence is good enough and opposition weak enough to take that gamble. How long is Praet out for? Agree Vardy didn't make the most of some promising openings. There's still a role for him but I'm growing more intrigued to see what Cannon can do. Is he fast?

System isn't the problem, it's personnel. We don't have the players for other systems, and where this system struggles is if you don't have creativity in the middle. It's exacerbated by teams coming and sitting deep against us. I think given how strong we are at the back, though, we could tweak it. Take one of the midfielders out and play someone alongside (rather than in front of) Winks. With the inverted full back that still gives us three in the middle. That frees us up to play Kelechi in between the lines. It's not perfect but at least we'd have some creativity centrally. Probably the best we can do until we go some way to replacing Maddison.

Really frustrating. We showed no desire to score a second or a third because we had full faith in our ability to keep a clean sheet against them. So did I to be fair. But it was complacent. Again it would have gone down as a poor watch but another win on the board. What happened in the last 5 minutes or so was bizarre. We looked really nervous out of nowhere and it wasn't as though it came from Wednesday's pressure. I don't think Choudhury covered himself in glory. I reckon without that sub we probably hold on. He looked nervous and it seemed to spread through the back line. We've been quite good at closing games out and hoofing it when needed but tonight we kept giving it away and conceding free kicks. Literally all we needed to do in that last 5 minutes was play the channels. That's what annoys me more than anything tonight. Regarding the football - we just desperately need to sign a 10. Maybe time to play Kelechi there until we hopefully bring someone in in January.

I thought my short game was pretty smart until I started watching his videos talking about shot shape from 20 yards Yeah very much sounds like my life on the course. The two lads I joined my course with are always well in front. Wouldn't mind as much but one of them started golf at the same time as me 5 or 6 years ago and his ball speed on the range with Driver is in the 160s. I'm happy with anything in the 140s! I'm 31 and 6ft 2 so don't really have an excuse. I think the issue is a combination of collapsing my lead knee through impact and 'standing up' slightly at the top of my backswing. When I've tried to change either I just get so wayward though. It's a difficult one to address because the last thing you want is to be OB off the tee. I'm wondering how much distance I can add with purely strength improvements. Core, legs etc. I'd rather do that than try to change my driver swing!

Season ended at the wrong time for me! Struggled for much of summer to put in scores to match expectations, then even as I felt I was playing better I wasn't able to put anything really low in. My course is a par 71 with a course rating of 72.7 (meaning effectively 73 is 'par' for a scratch golfer.) Even so, I've posted one or two in the 83/84/85 region the last couple of years. Through the summer the 95s became 90s before eventually I was regularly shooting in the late 80s. Ended up shooting my best score of the season in our 'Masters' event, played between Major winners. Last qualifying round of the season. Was only an 86, but the wind was a farce that day, which meant it was enough to win it. Pured a 5 iron about 110 into the teeth of the wind at one point! Me and my mate won the Summer Pairs Match Play a week beforehand to qualify. Not to blow my own trumpet but I played shots I didn't know I had in me that day. Nice to get on a board. I was away for much of October but every time I've played since I've picked up where I left off. My ball striking with irons is usually what lets me down. Play like a bit of an old man usually. Fairly accurate but somewhat short with driver, feather an iron down there then short game saves me. Since about September though my iron play has this better tempo, slower backswing, and my confidence is through the roof. This time last year I was really struggling to enjoy the game. Every single iron shot was a slap. Just no fun when you feel like you're not really striking the ball so much as gathering it up. Things that helped for anyone that finds themselves in the hole I was in last year - 1 - Start of August I switched from 120g shaft irons to 105g. Never knew it made such a big difference. Arguably more important than stiffness. 2 - I've had so many lessons down the years and never really felt like I advanced leaps and bounds following any of them. I've stuck with the general idea from my most recent batch of lessons in April and trust that it's right for me and those changes have become second nature. But a guy I've played with a few times, who isn't a coach but knows his stuff, literally just told me I wasn't moving my chest away from target in my backswing (transitioning my weight), and that it was all too quick. Sometimes it just takes a small change for everything to fall into place! It's worth getting fresh eyes on your swing and just trying small changes rather than reinventing the wheel. 3 - I lost my Pitching Wedge. Mate gave me a spare Ping Glide that he had and it's a cheat code. Annoyingly it doesn't go the distance my p790 pw went, but around the greens it's ridiculous. I'm disappointed not to have a tap in with any chip around the green at this point, and pitches feel easy. I'm probably going to do away with my gap wedge and have two PWs in the bag. I never realised how simple a high bounce, low loft wedge could make chips and pitches. 4 - I bought a secondhand sim set up. Net, SkyTrak, mat. This isn't what turned the corner for me as I've only started using it this month, but I'm finding that having a solid session or two each week just keeps the confidence levels topped up. Nothing groundbreaking here, turns out practice does help. Do use TopTracer or similar for a simulated round though. Mindlessly hitting balls is boring and as a result I always end up playing badly and damaging confidence. The moment it becomes a game I start to play well. Long story short, April needs to hurry up. It'd just be golf for everything to start falling apart in March wouldn't it? Started the season off 14, went up to 15.7 and ended off 13. Had the season carried on another month or so I'd like to think I'd get down another couple shots. Being more positive, the next thing I need to work on is finding distance with driver. It's probably mostly technique, but I want to get stronger as well. I don't think I carry my drive much further than 220 in summer. I know total distance with roll is around 250 as I have a watch. Will make a huge difference if I can add 20/30 yards. Any tips welcomed!

Even if it isn't a deliberate ploy to aid the rich teams, daft interpretations like that of the handball rule do benefit them purely on the basis better teams are more likely to find themselves in the box more often. More opportunity for the ball to graze somebody's fingernail so they can have a circle jerk over whether it should be a penalty or not. I fail to believe so many officials are this incompetent. I believe they're incompetent, but this? Nah. Somebody powerful wants it to be like this.

The right to opinion doesn't mean you won't get shot down when your opinion stinks. The idea that the best route out of my house is out of the third floor window is an opinion, but should I act on that? No, because that would be a crap opinion. Dare I say it, it would be an opinion worthy of criticism. I know, shocking.

Look, you've obviously made your mind up so nothing I say is going to change that. But don't make yourself look silly. Vestergaard and Doyle while he was fit have been responsible for the best forward passing from defenders I've seen in a Leicester side. Personally I think you (and others) just don't like the Championship, or you don't like seeing us have to break down teams that come and park the bus. Or both. What we see is purely a reaction to that. It's almost as though it's a delayed reaction. All the people that should have been angry at Rodgers when it was clear we were a sinking ship have now awoken and levelling their anger at a manager that is doing a fantastic job of rebuilding us. Leicester City fans, everybody. Special breed.

We could play counter attacking football when we won the league because we were underdogs. Teams took the game to us. We also had Vardy at the peak of his powers and was among the fastest players in the game at the time. We are playing a style of football that suits the situation we're in and with the players we have. Deal with it. This mindless whinging is really beginning to p*ss me off.

Have people that say Maresca doesn't have a Plan B stopped to consider we might not even have seen Plan A yet? I doubt his philosophy at its core involves deploying a stopper in the 8 and playing a right back as a left sided centre back. He has shown remarkable managerial versatility in my book.