Slimani

[foxes21]

2 hours ago, Rigga said:

 even though we win, we can still highlight weak points..it's blatantly obvious we still lack a creative goal scoring number 10 (sigurdsson) Always room for improvement.

I'm not so sure. If its a creative 10, with the same workrate as Sigurdsson (he's covered the most distance in the league this season), then I agree. But if its a creative 10 that strolls about the pitch like a lot of them do (Ozil), then they won't fit into our style of play.

Basically, we need someone who will track back and defend from the front like Shinji, but also create chances. Anyone not on Shinji's level in terms of workrate and pressing, would be a step down.

[fuchsntf]

Once a player, stops being the negative buffer for the team, many move onto the next to critscise...

Slimani then becomes  the next one on the block...

This forum is the best example that negative posters just dont learn.

Some find one misfit in 20, and reckon they are experts...

I would rather have Souness, and Merson on my side than some dipsticks on here..!!!

[The whole world smiles]

1 hour ago, Eagle10 said:

And this is the definition of don't understanding anything about football.

Haha Only scores with his head when the ball is on a plate was a personal highlight.

[The whole world smiles]

Even on the day after the best, most emotional single night in our clubs history some people on here are not happy unless a player is being dished out.

 

You are an embarrassment to yourselfs and the club you allegedly support in my humble opinion.

 

I would say you will be all eating humble pie in a few weeks when he shows you his quality. But you dour bastards never eat humble pie you will just move on to your newest scapegoat and it will be Simpsons or albrightons turn to get dished out by the forum warriors again.

[norwichfox]

1 hour ago, foxinsocks said:

I am at the end of the failed slimani experiment.

Fixed it for you....

[AKCJ]

3 hours ago, red5 said:

Worst player on the pitch, I'd have taken him off and put Leo on.

**** that.

 

He said he would never play for us again. Let him rot as far as i'm concerned.

[cruyff99]

Personally, I was initially disappointed that he didn't seem to attack the long ball more aggressively and he didn't act as an outlet for the defence.

But - today I was surprised to see the optazone stats say he won 3 out of 4 aerial duels, so my first reaction could have been wrong.

Overall I think he has the potential to be an excellent player for us, and we need time to make it click.

I predict Ulloa will come on against West Ham, and if he does well, could come up in the pecking order by the time we play our quarter final match.

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[Sharpe's Fox]

5 minutes ago, AKCJ said:

**** that.

 

He said he would never play for us again. Let him rot as far as i'm concerned.

Disgraceful, Claudio treated the man like a dog if reports are accurate. I'm just glad you seem to be on your own in this because when he was warming up in the first half last night Leo got a great reception from the fans and even a recital of his song.

[iLikeFoxes]

I'm not so sure. If its a creative 10, with the same workrate as Sigurdsson (he's covered the most distance in the league this season), then I agree. But if its a creative 10 that strolls about the pitch like a lot of them do (Ozil), then they won't fit into our style of play.
Basically, we need someone who will track back and defend from the front like Shinji, but also create chances. Anyone not on Shinji's level in terms of workrate and pressing, would be a step down.

We need another Shinji, plain and simple. Or go on and give the real Shin 90 minutes. We were on the front foot for 60 minutes, Okazaki went off and we're camping in our own peno box.

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[Eagle10]

7 minutes ago, iLikeFoxes said:

We need another Shinji, plain and simple. Or go on and give the real Shin 90 minutes. We were on the front foot for 60 minutes, Okazaki went off and we're camping in our own peno box.

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Because you were already winning 2-0, not because Shinji went off. You were trying to defend the advantage and very well. If you needed to score, you wouldn't be camping in your box.

[RumbleFox]

Striker comes on with half an hour left of a Champions League knock out game after injury lay off against the third best team in Spain and doesn't score shocker.

[the fox]

Not gonna defend him or anything. But, I will say one thing, people here would be raving if okazaki linked the play with mahrez as well as slimani did. If you have a problem with his price tag, fair enough! But, make sure you put that in your comment.

[DANGEROUS TIGER]

45 minutes ago, Sharpe's Fox said:

Disgraceful, Claudio treated the man like a dog if reports are accurate. I'm just glad you seem to be on your own in this because when he was warming up in the first half last night Leo got a great reception from the fans and even a recital of his song.

So you believe "reports" do you? They are not facts, and are easily fictionalised. Wake up laddie.

[boobagab]

lol, Slimani has twice the amount of assists as a Leicester player than Okazaki does in two seasons despite playing 1/4 the amount of minutes. And he's still the second leading goalscorer on the team and the leading assister despite not starting a match this entire year. The team's transitions in the counter-attack are much more fluid with Slimani. 

 

 

[Eagle10]

5 minutes ago, boobagab said:

lol, Slimani has twice the amount of assists as a Leicester player than Okazaki does in two seasons despite playing 1/4 the amount of minutes. And he's still the second leading goalscorer on the team despite not starting a match this entire year. The team's transitions in the counter-attack are much more fluid with Slimani. 

 

 

People don't understand this. They only care if a striker win aerial duels in the middle of the park instead of inside the box, they don't care if he assists or if he scores, as long as he wins flick ons they are happy... I mean, in the forum, some posters find every aspect to criticize him when he is being by the stats one of the most influential players.

[Col city fan]

1 hour ago, AKCJ said:

**** that.

 

He said he would never play for us again. Let him rot as far as i'm concerned.

Your posts....

Sigh.....

[AKCJ]

6 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

Your posts....

Sigh.....

 

You know you're right when Col disagrees with you.

[foxes21]

18 minutes ago, boobagab said:

lol, Slimani has twice the amount of assists as a Leicester player than Okazaki does in two seasons despite playing 1/4 the amount of minutes. And he's still the second leading goalscorer on the team and the leading assister despite not starting a match this entire year. The team's transitions in the counter-attack are much more fluid with Slimani. 

 

 

Okazaki suites our style of play better than Slimani. That is fact.

[Patrick]

Square feet. Seen nothing from him that warrants a £5m transfer fee let alone £30m.

[STUHILL]

I actually thought he held the ball up well enough and there was one passage of play where he linked up with Vardy and Mahrez really well.

 

He just doesn't seem to be able to win a header from a long ball though, which is strange, considering he is so good when attacking it in the box. 

 

Still think he gives us a decent plan B, and he will score some important goals in the box, when we are struggling to find a breakthrough. An expensive plan B I agree, but we are in the last 8 of the Champions League! Not such a small club anymore 

 

If he can score a handful more important goals from now until the end of the season, then be interesting to see what happens and whether he stays. I suspect if Vardy continues in this form, then Slimani won't be happy with sitting on the bench here. Add to that, his best mate Mahrez probably leaving and the fact we could probably make a profit on him, if we sell to China... then I think there is a good chance he will move in the summer. 

[AmarteyAndChill]

When he came on we were so deep and he had 3 defenders round him so it was hard for him to retain the ball. In the prem hopefully we are further up the pitch and able to put crosses in etc as the whole team will be pushed higher up the pitch.

[iLikeFoxes]

Because you were already winning 2-0, not because Shinji went off. You were trying to defend the advantage and very well. If you needed to score, you wouldn't be camping in your box.

I get that but still don't like being so negative. We conceded the 20 yards outside of the box and as a result we saw a lot more entry passes than i would like to see. It could have easily went wrong.

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[Eagle10]

30 minutes ago, STUHILL said:

I actually thought he held the ball up well enough and there was one passage of play where he linked up with Vardy and Mahrez really well.

 

He just doesn't seem to be able to win a header from a long ball though, which is strange, considering he is so good when attacking it in the box. 

 

Still think he gives us a decent plan B, and he will score some important goals in the box, when we are struggling to find a breakthrough. An expensive plan B I agree, but we are in the last 8 of the Champions League! Not such a small club anymore 

 

If he can score a handful more important goals from now until the end of the season, then be interesting to see what happens and whether he stays. I suspect if Vardy continues in this form, then Slimani won't be happy with sitting on the bench here. Add to that, his best mate Mahrez probably leaving and the fact we could probably make a profit on him, if we sell to China... then I think there is a good chance he will move in the summer. 

Really expensive plan B indeed, I think you have to workout something to start him, putting a 35M player in the bench is so like Real Madrid.

[Stadt]

He's a goal scorer but his all round game is very poor, especially considering we signed him for £27m. None of our strikers are fantastic technical players which we should probably address on the summer, an Ilicic type forward would be decent.

[boobagab]

1 hour ago, foxes21 said:

Okazaki suites our style of play better than Slimani. That is fact.

A fact, lol. As in an objective fact backed by statistics, backed by the table (points per match), or backed by video? Because neither are on your side here. 

 

Slimani's style much more fluid for Leicester's countering. He makes much better decisions. Smart and quick thinking footballers are much more important than technically gifted ones. 

 

The key to Leciester's success is spacing. They want to stretch the entire opposition. Vardy and Mahrez thrive off running into loads of space because they know their pace or skill can beat the opposition. This even applies to Albrighton and Fuchs. One of the biggest reasons why Kante was sorely missed was because his timely ball recoveries usually came when the opposition was disjointed with holes in their formation. 

 

Look at Shinji here on the goal scored by Albrighton. Shinji starts off the sequence by attempting a shot with two players smothering him. Mahrez was completely unmarked at the edge of the box and he was ignored for an ill-advised shot (when has Okazaki ever even scored from there?). Lucky for Oka, the ball was blocked right onto Mahrez's foot who delivered a deflected cross in the box which Albrighton converted. By the way, give a lot of credit to Albrighton here. Most LW's would've just been lazily camping way behind the far post. Albrighton drifted towards the top of the box anticipating a knocked down ball. Again, Albrighton makes good use of spacing and attacks an area that was free. Shinji didn't. 

 

Then you have Shinji making a bad mistake here again. Ndidi wins the ball and the break starts. Okazaki seems in between two thoughts. He either had the option to give it to Mahrez or just attempt a simple back pass to Drinkwater. You can see that Sevilla was very narrow here so a pass back to Drinkwater would've allowed him to use all the space on the left side for a pass to Abrighton/Fuchs to break. Okazaki just loses the ball. 

 

These aren't one off mistakes from Okazaki either and his statistical output is just a confirmation. 

 

Then look at Slimani on the two late counters:

 

On the Vardy miss, Slimani starts the counter with a quick one-two to Mahrez who's free with loads of space to run onto. Do you want to know what Okazaki does in that situation? He either holds the ball looking to dribble through two guys or he collapses looking for a foul. 

 

On Slimani's attempt where he tries to round the keeper, he starts the sequence by dropping deep to receive the ball and anticipating Mahrez's break. He then makes a diagonal run after charging 70 yards. Yes, he didn't score but the keeper Rico did a good job tightening his angle. Again, ask yourself how often you've seen Okazaki break like that and make a diagonal run. The answer is rarely. Okazaki doesn't usually do that. He prefers to either peel off Mahrez and lag behind him or he likes to run into the 6 yard box to poach. 

 

Even on the offside call Slimani got, how many times have you seriously seen Okazaki attempt something like this? Slimani stayed wide, tried to beat trap but mistimed his jump by a split second. Slimani knows how to keep backlines stretched. He consistently challenges them. This failed too, but it was the right thing to do given Leicester's tactics. 

 

 

And this is all just in the attack. I'm not factoring in that Slimani is much better at defending set pieces than Okazaki is. 

 

If you have contrary evidence feel free to show us. It seems like you were already dismissive of Slimani's better statistical output. On video, I'm just not seeing how Okazaki is much better suited for the style when the transitions have looked better under Slimani. All of Leicester's best counters when Okazaki have played have literally just been Vardy playing heroically and dictating the attack on his own.