FC Porto (a) 5-0 loss post-match thread

[Rialto 290352]

19 hours ago, HoustonFox said:

After reading all the posts, I almost want to watch, just to see how bad we really were.  

 

Were / are we as bad as when Holloway got us relegated, or Taylor got us from top to bottom and we conceded 9 and scored none in our first two games, and we finished bottom behind Derby?  

 

I've seen some poor Leicester teams in my time and this is not up there in terms of dross we've been served (Levein, Bassett, Megson FFS).  Then again, maybe it is.  The thing we have now that we didn't have then, is hope.  Hope that this team of champions can prove their worth and can turn it around.  We don't have a De Vries, Josh Low or Junior Effing Lewis in the squad, we actually have some good players.  I know we have to tuck in, get behind them and at best, shoot for top 10.  I think that's achievable, so let's keep the faith.

 

I'll get my coat now  

I am no fan of Craig Levein as a manager but there is a lot of difference between then and now.  At that point the club had little money and that was reflected in the players of that time.  I don't think that De Vries was a bad buy at all.  Damn it he only cost £50,000 and his wages were a fraction of those earned by the current side.  Junior Lewis on the other hand..............

[shen]

1 hour ago, MattCan said:

No, Ranieri had his reasons, which are kinda obvious. The reason of your reaction to my post is obvious as well. You see, I say it like it is. I'm not here to win popularity contests.

No, that's not the reason for my reaction at all. I'm not gonna pick a fight with you though. Your arrogance has already made you blind.

[Dan LCFC]

Sadly the entire episode was another example of how everything that made Leicester such a like-able team has completely evaporated into thin air. I've been trying to avoid going down the "motivation" or "something wrong behind the scenes" routes because I think it's too many people's default every time something goes wrong, but I really do think there's a good case for it on that showing. Where the hell is the fight? How can they not care about this?

 

We are in a very, very weird scenario. On one hand, we are living the dream. We have after years of going to Oakwell, Glanford Park, Deepdale etc... ended up in a competitive game at Porto, a game which is a dead rubber for us because we've already won our Champions League group. I have a Sunderland fan on Twitter calling me ungrateful and to an extent, he's right, but I'm looking at the bigger picture which the vast majority of neutrals seem incapable of doing.

 

But it's all so bizarre, because we are complete and utter shite. We have got to be the worst side to ever qualify for the knockout stages, and it's absolutely beyond me that Porto have managed to come below us. We have had it very, very good, but that doesn't mean we should stand for a self-inflicted capitulation, because that's without a shadow of a doubt what it is. Don't let these slimy media people tell you this is "normality resumed" as if it's because everyone else has gotten good and that we deserve to be shit. We have done this to ourselves, no-one else.

 

Earlier in the season we were up and down, a lot of crap but the occasional performance that kept my hopes up. When did we last play well? I'd say probably the Palace game (and they're shite themselves), we were a bit better at Spurs but still not great, poor in Denmark, awful against WBA, terrible at Watford, good for one half but nearly threw it away against one of the weakest sides in the competition in Brugge, dire against Middlesbrough, horrific at Sunderland and calamitous last night (I am trying to use a different word for each awful performance, there's been enough of them).

 

We've completely capitulated and it's not on. Don't make excuses for last night, it's a sign of what's been happening for weeks. We would fight in every game in the past few years, that's completely gone now, we just roll over and die.

[ScouseFox]

DU DU DU DUUDUDU DU DU DU DUUUDUDU

 

i hat a belter time oppoooooooor TO 

[TheLittleBigMan]

I'd describe that performance as "gaping". 

[Royston.]

On 07/12/2016 at 22:00, Chown said:

Leicester City have won their Champions League group, a competition they are playing in for the first time in their history. Some of the comments in this thread are embarrassing.

define irony

[Lambert09]

What do we think the score would have been with our best  team? 

 

I still think we would have lost by 2 or 3, they were bang up for it. 

[Shaggy]

On Wednesday, December 07, 2016 at 21:41, ealingfox said:

We want our Pearson back. 

You have got to be joking !!!

[ealingfox]

5 minutes ago, Shaggy said:

You have got to be joking !!!

 

It wasn't me.

[inckley fox]

On 08/12/2016 at 08:00, Barky said:

It's also not true. You're cherry picking the best of Walsh-Pearson and focussing on the worst of Walsh-Ranieri.

Well the only fruitful Walsh-Ranieri signing, up to now, was Kante. And he was a Walsh-Pearson target. You may wish to add Slimani to that, I suppose, but there were reports of our approaches for him going back over two years, and well into the Pearson era. Plus it's still debatable as to whether he's worth the fee or not.

 

On the other hand the entire rest of the league winning side were Walsh-Pearson signings.

 

So you can debate whether Kante and Slimani were Pearson-Walsh or Ranieri-Walsh era targets.

 

But Inler, Benalouane, Gray, Amartey, Kapustka, Musa, Hernandez, Mendy, Zieler are the remaining Walsh-Ranieri / Ranieri era signings in regular first team contention. Pick and choose who you consider to be good enough.

 

Simpson, Fuchs, Wasilewski, Morgan, Huth, James, Drinkwater, Mahrez, Vardy, Ulloa, Okazaki and Albrighton, meanwhile, are the Pearson-Walsh era signings who remain in first team contention.

 

I hope you see my point. Especially if price tag comes into consideration. And that goes even if you add Ben Hamer to the second list!

 

None of this means Pearson is a better manager than Ranieri. Ranieri, even if we go down, will be our greatest boss. But the scouting worked better under Pearson, and if you deny that I think you're going to struggle.

[Jock Wallace]

On 12/7/2016 at 22:12, bigDfox33 said:

 

twat

[Barky]

8 hours ago, inckley fox said:

But Inler, Benalouane, Gray, Amartey, Kapustka, Musa, Hernandez, Mendy, Zieler are the remaining Walsh-Ranieri / Ranieri era signings in regular first team contention. Pick and choose who you consider to be good enough.

 

Simpson, Fuchs, Wasilewski, Morgan, Huth, James, Drinkwater, Mahrez, Vardy, Ulloa, Okazaki and Albrighton, meanwhile, are the Pearson-Walsh era signings who remain in first team contention.

 

I hope you see my point. Especially if price tag comes into consideration. And that goes even if you add Ben Hamer to the second list!

Still cherry picking.

 

Ok, were they good signings?

 

Inler - no (although I think this is harsh - he was a model pro with bags of ability, just too slow for our style, I wonder if we miss him off the pitch)

Benny - no

Gray - yes

Amartey - yes

Kaputska - excluded, too soon to tell 

Musa - seems decent enough to me, yes

Hernandez - free transfer, so yes

Mendy - excluded, too soon to tell

Zieler - as a back up keeper, great signing, yes

 

Hit rate - 5/7 (71%)

 

Simpson - looked a bombscare under Pearson, Ranieri has made him, but has to be a yes

Fuchs - yes

Wasyl - no

Morgan - yes

Huth - yes 

James - excluded

Drinkwater - yes

Mahrez - yes

Vardy - yes

Ulloa - hmmmm, go on then, yes

Okazaki - yes

Albrighton - yes (although Pearson himself didn't seem to realise, as with Simpson all credit to Ranieri for making him)

 

Hit rate - 10/11 (91%)

 

So sure, if look at it like that and give Pearson the benefit of survivorship bias then his signings look better. But obviously a fair assessment would include all signings. So for the premier league season we can add:

 

Kramaric - no

Lawrence - no

Cambiasso - yes

Hamer - yes (as a back up)

Upson - no

Schwarzer - no (not even as a back up)

Powell - no

 

So now we're at 12/18 - 67% and Ranieri wins.

 

Going back further than that it gets tricky to classify them as good or bad given our current status, like Dean Hammond for example, I'd say he was somewhere in the middle, neither good nor bad. But there was plenty of examples of duff signings like Bakayogo, Futacs, Whitbread etc. 

 

I hope you see my point, Walsh/Pearson made some brilliant signings but they made their fair share of duffers as well. They also clearly benefitted from the fact that all of their best signings (bar Huth/Cambiasso) were made while we were in the lower pressure environment of the championship and that gave the likes of Mahrez, Vardy and Drinky time to get to grips with their game before stepping up. Certainly in the case of the latter two neither really shone until Ranieri arrived. It's much harder now for the likes of Gray, Amartey and Musa coming in to a team where expectations, pressure levels and the standard of the opposition are all much higher, but from what I've seen so far they seem good value signings who will play a big part in this clubs future.

[Chico1958]

So it was just a bad dream

 

 

Thank God thats over............................Leicester City 4 Man City 2

 

It was like the last 14 PL games never happened in my house yesterday