smudgerfox

I cant understand why Evans doesn’t attack the ball in the way that Mings and Konta do defensively. Bugger the system just go and head the ball way …Pipes was just saying he watched Evans playing for Northern Ireland and he was first to every header - that’s the only system we need ::::

I know - I am too. Well if they have any sense they’ll be pleased he’s showing some passion , acknowledging the fans matter and doing everything he can to get the team going… neither do I but a lot of people need encouragement- as was evident in the Raniera era - which lets not forget was hardly an inglorious one…

Idiocy. Do you really think they pass along the back line as a matter of tactical intention? I have criticisms of BR but I certainly don’t think that. Those passes are the direct result of a loss of confidence. A pass forward might appear, the under confident defender hesitates to make it and the chance disappears. As the press comes down on him he passes sideways to someone else who does the same. And if you want an example of how a tiny hesitation can undermine a team look at the offside Lookman goal on Saturday. If Albrighton delivers an identical cross first time it’s a goal, but he takes a tiny momentary touch before crossing and Lookman runs offside. So if crowd encouragement and positivity and noise helps the defenders be bolder with their passing it could actually help solve the problem. I really don’t see the point in spending all that money going to matches and by being sullen and negative and quiet you make it more difficult for your team to win. None of which rules out critical discussion of the manager and his tactics.

Didn’t we bring back Soyuncu and Pereira in a freezing Ukraine last season?

Rainieri used to do what Conte did yesterday - urge the crowd to be more vocal when it went quiet. Brendan could do himself a lot of good by following suit because its a way of saying ”You matter, you can change things..” - a good way to mend fences. I can also think of times when the sound suddenly picked up for no real reason and you could see the players responding.

While I’m not a great fan of passion on the touch line - think Ian Holloway - this is a fair point. BR is a technical manager, obsessed with formations, style, tactical fluidity. He sees victories as successful execution of the game plan, defeats as unsuccessful execution. It results in a colourless, stylistic type of football - a kind of overthought football In which player instinct plays little part. You can see players thinking what Brendan wants them to do in a given situation rather than it coming naturally. I imagine this is because he wants to be seen as a great thinker in the game - on a par with Pep, Klopp etc - at least in part because he’d like to succeed them. The trouble is that means dropping points because unlike Klopp and Pep he doesn’t have the very best players at his disposal and to play their kind of style you really do need the creme de la creme. It’s high risk football because you’re committing players high up the pitch which puts extraordinary pressure on those left behind. They have to be strong, fit, fast, have perfect timing and anticipation. Meanwhile other teams are much more pragmatic and find ways to win games which don’t involve a tactical masterclass…

If United were a rational club BR would not be even mentioned. His implosion at Liverpool and his failure to secure CL TWICE after being so well placed to do so with us is enough to raise serious doubts about his suitability. I know many people say finishing fifth was in itself an achievement for LCFC and out of all context it is. But being top four so long - he should really have brought home the bacon at least once - look through both seasons results - there are days against “lesser” opposition when we get beat or draw and play appallingly….that’s when we’ve thrown it away The other thing Is it’s united’s defence which primarily needs fixing and BR is the last man you’d call in to fix that .. 50 goals conceded finishing second at Liverpool…1.5 goals a game here… But all that assumes United will make a cool calm rational decision when in fact their recruitment is like a drunk in an offy - I’ll have one of those and two of those…

One other thing worth mentioning about our achievements last season. Our FA Cup win and our sustained though ultimately failed CL challenge last season owed an awful lot to the prolific goal scoring of Kelechi. A player who BR refused to start until more or less forced to, because he doesn’t fit the hallowed BR “system”. A graphic came up in MOTD last night that showed Kelechi as 4th in the goals scored to minutes charts …everyone else on the graphic was a regular starter at their club. Yet we persist with Vards who misses penalties and whose touches in a game can often be counted in single figures. As with defensive corners the system is paramount even when it demonstrably doesn’t work.

We still managed to concede twice and went behind early on - even this great result contained some of the ingredients of our poorer performances….

It’s not the system it’s the implementation of the system but if you can’t implement the system change the system

You could just as well ask why the keeper doesn’t come and take charge more often? You’re right, we keep conceding the same goal and do nothing about it. When asked, BR says we don’t have the personnel to defend corners - to be fair that was when we were missing Evans, Soyuncu and/or Ndidi but even so that is an astonishing claim for a-so-called elite manager to make - virtually inviting the opposition to score. Or he said yesterday we need to be more aggressive in defending corners but I genuinely struggle to understand what that means. It seems to me the product of over technical coaching. Defenders attack the ball to get the first touch and do everything they can to stop the opponent getting the first touch. It really is that simple.

Brendan has cleverly and I assume deliberately conflated the booing with the club’s recent achievements. He implies that the boos are because we are not satisfied with an FA Cup win.a Community Shield and two fifth place finishes, This is not the case. The boos are because we fear the club is rapidly losing its momentum and to slip back will make our long term ambitions even harder to achieve. Imagine the higher calibre of player we might have signed had we had one less wretched performance in each of the last two seasons and qualified for the Champions League each time. Despite the huge disappointment entailed both times, there was very little criticism of the manager. The boos are because we fear we will never fulfil our full potential until we solve some very simple but costly shortcomings which ought to be relatively easy for an elite coach to solve, Conceding from corners (to say we need to defend more aggressively is no solution Brendan); lamentable defending more generally; wretched first half performances in particular, with games often lost by half time; poor rotation of squad; insistence on playing out from the back when our keeper and most of our defenders are clearly uncomfortable doing so; wretched attacking set piece execution. Addressing all or even some of these basic problems would make it much easier to win football matches. And while we continue to drop points because of them we are likely to remain dissatisfied with a coach who ts both handsomely paid and highly regarded in world football but seems unable to make the most simple off fixes,

BR on set pieces “we need to defend more aggressively” - what does that even mean? What we need is a man blocking off the front post, man to man marking and a man on the back post and a speedy forward on the halfway line. Old fashioned you cry - but could anything be worse than conceding the same goal a very game as we are now? BR on first half/second half “ we started slowly but better in the second half. ‘ Yes Brendan, you have made the same observation frequently in your time here. But is it just a teeny bit possible that our opponents bank first half goals and then ease off - allowing us to look slightly better in the second? Chelsea played in third gear for much of the game - if we’d shown the merest hint of a comeback they’d have stepped up again and blown us away. When can we expect you and the team to produce a consistent 90 minute performance and why are you wholly incapable of it up to now?

Yes i feel sorry for him really - strapped to a click bait conveyor belt and still managing to cover the real goings on at the club with authority and intelligence

I don’t disagree with anything you say, but is it the best way to find new audiences to provide a load of patronising nonsensical pap? Surely if there’s anything that is commercially viable it’s news about the only Premier League in the city - but genuine news, and analysis and insight. A good news service on sport in Leicestershire I would subscribe to. RL have improved their coverage of LCFC beyond all dreams - their podcast is the most popular one on BBC local radio. Hiring Pipes was a master stroke because he knows and loves the club, understands football, takes his work seriously and is likeable. There’s a lesson there.

Well if you don’t think fake news is a problem then you must have been in a coma this past five years. There is the dishonesty - pretending something significant has happened or been said when in fact Steve Howey has proffered the wholly unqualified opinion that Brendan Rodgers would be attracted by the Spurs job. There is the fact that people would like to read interesting and insightful news about our club - and I’m sure would be prepared to pay for it. But that isn’t what we get - we get short cut - dishonest (there is no other word for it) sensationalism whose only value is to advertisers who get their wares seen by more people curious as to whether a particular story will break trend and actually have some factual foundation. So just to be clear based on a few current examples - I don’t care what BR has to say about Conte taking over at Spurs, I don’t care that Tony Dorigo “hopes” Leicester will be tired when they face Leeds on Sunday (described as a “ridiculous” warning) in the headline) - I don’t care that “respected” Jonathan Northcroft says Man City want Rodgers after Pep (though I accept that may at least hold some long term significance), and I don’t regard Mikel Arteta saying the Foxes caused his side “some issues” as remotely newsworthy. It does the profession of journalism a major disservice

I’m thinking about drawing up a list of the spurious “news items” on LCFC on the old Mercury site and making an official complaint. Doubt they’ll do anything but would be good to let them know that the switch to click bait nonsense has been noticed and is causing great annoyance. The journalists are good - but what they’re asked to churn out is not. Anyone with me on the match for better coverage?

Anyone who suggests Brendan should go and be replaced, needs their head testing. Really, the guy has moved us on as a club - possibly not as much as might have been possible but certainly more than we had any right to expect. But there is no doubt at all in my mind that he does have a couple of blind spots. He's a technical coach and he thinks all games are won and lost by switches in tactics and formations. That of course also makes it all about him. Every post match interview he outlines the subtle changes made in line-up (either ours or the opposition, or both) to account for the outcome of the game. It leads to him undervaluing corners, free kicks and bog standard defending and other basics of the game which can get you points without playing some fancy, subtly calibrated formation. He wants his defenders to be aggressive and play on the front foot without acknowledging the risk this poses of them being turned, booked for fouls, conceding dangerous free kicks or being pulled out of position, leaving space behind. It's all very well blaming the individuals (Soyuncu, Westergaard, particularly) but they are being instructed to play like that even if they're not up to it. We play out from the back but have a keeper who - and I regret to say this - isn't capable of consistency in doing that securely. While other teams spot our weaknesses and exploit them - you get the feeling that BR would regard that as tantamount to cheating. He wants to play his way and for his way to be shown as superior. The other aspect of BR's management I am suspicious of is the fact that his teams always have a disastrous result in them. His teams are always capable of conceding a flood of goals - his Liverpool side conceded 50 (they scored 101 - a record) in finishing second in 2014. Everton, Hull, Cardiff, Swansea, Crystal Palace all managed to score three against them in one of the games. His Celtic lost to Gibraltar's Lincoln Red Imps, Alashkert of Armenia (3-0!) and Astana of Kazakhstan - and 7-0 to Barcelona and 7-1 to PSG n the Champions League. I think of Bournemouth, Newcastle, Liverpool on Boxing Day, West Ham, and Spurs - a couple of games for each, where the team has seemed utterly clueless, and I'd love to know why that is.

Can anyone explain why one of the worlds top coaches is unable to do anything about slow starts and appalling set pieces both attacking and defending ?

Tielemans the best all rounder for me. Does a bit of the physical and destructive stuff but has a sublime and unparalleled range of passes and shooting techniques. He has the advantage over many of the candidates extin that he plays with better teammates but he makes every one of them 10 per cent better - the perfection of his passes almost tells the receiver what to do next. Much as I loved him Izzet is the closest to an all rounder but he was never really in the same bracket as Youri. Gibson might be on a par with Muzzy. Tthe others were all primarily excellent at one part of the role. Kante was utterly superb at tackling, blocking, transitioning, but no better than Savage in the final third. (See his goal v Watford)..Lennon wasn’t too far behind - a brilliant disruptor but again not a passer or a shooter. Gary Mac brilliant at the passing but lightweight out of possession - Parker ditto. I loved watching Cambiasso but too short lived a career with us for best ever status. Youri is a genius - any club would want him ..

Thanks Niall

Can you get one for me and I’ll meet you near ground to get mine? Cheeky I know but I’m in west London

Looking for one for this meself

I think this is spot on …we’re playing top 4 style without the defensive base to do so - look how integral Van Dijk is to Liverpool’s success - they dropped a level without him last season. Man City struggled (by their standards)) until they acquired world class defenders especially centre backs. We could do with BR being more pragmatic - bolstering the defence, stopping playing out from the back until we have the players who feel confident doing it, returning to the sound basics of clean sheets and sound defence - f””k the system get Kelechi in as a player who can score and create goals with minimal pressure and possession…stop trying to be a poor mans Barcelona

West Ham had six players in our half when the ball was with our back line. They had a four matched up to our back four, standing ten yards off them, and two centre mids in the half way line area. They didn’t so much press as simply occupy the space we wanted to pass in to. We feared them on the break especially after first goal and by occupying the space and knowing that Amartey and Soyuncu are not confident passers they let them have the ball. All of which made us hesitant and slow when trying to play through them, especially when a few early attempts went wrong and invited pressure. The upside of West Ham’s tactics was that they nearly always had at least six players in advanced positions to transition quickly once the ball was ŵon back. Moyes outthought Brendan (again!) and Brendan offered no response to rectify the situation. The game followed the same pattern as last seasons matches with a similar outcome. West Ham let us have the ball and allow us to believe we’re dictating the game - win it back and attack in numbers and at ruthless speed and with ruthless finishing. They have great players to execute this game plan - we have no answer to it. That’s why we lost heavily again but there are some other factors. Kasper sold Perez short with the pass that led to the red card. His distribution often plays us into trouble and he’s a mistake waiting to happen in a side that always wants to play out from the back. When you look at other sides who successfully play 4231 the three players behind the striker are usually Rolls Royce, high impact players. The attacking threat is directly related to their ability to join up with the striker and to win the ball ,back high up the pitch. Our three are performing very poorly at the minute. Barnes is being thwarted as defences force him to take the ball back to goal denying him space to run into, while Maddison and Perez are both ineffective and weak - our attacks routinely break down when they get the ball. Finally Vardy gave the ball away under no pressure for the first goal. It’s a minimum requirement in that system for the lone striker to be good at retaining possession. He simply has to do better than that…