Is Shakespeare the right man for the job?

[PintsandPyro]

3 minutes ago, moseeds said:

We're still trying to play a rapid, fast counter attacking style no different from 2-3 years ago. During which time bodies have grown older and more weary. And of course opposition teams have evolved far faster than we have meaning our tactics look even more basic than they did a few seasons ago. I'm not sure why we have no 'plan B' in terms of trying to calm games down - at the moment we seem to default to playing deeper and deeper as the game progresses, much like we did under Ranieri last season.

The opening has been tough but I fear it will take several games against 'lesser' opposition to break free of the defensive/deep mindset which will inevitably sap confidence. I'm not so sure we'll get much from the next 3 games. I'm hoping I'm very wrong.

This. Big 3 games for Shakes coming up.

[Dan LCFC]

3 hours ago, filbertway said:

I think while the owners place so much trust in Rudkin we'll never fully look to push ourselves to the next level. He must know that any manager worth his salt at this level will want someone more experienced/talented in the DOF role.

 

So we'll just appoint managers towards the end of their careers looking for a nice pay day or new lads happy to be yes men.

This concerns me a lot more than Shakespeare does.

[volpeazzurro]

2 hours ago, Fox Ulike said:

The criticism on here is bizarre.  I know we won the League in 2016 – but we didn’t suddenly transform into one of the ‘big 4’.  I think some people need to get the bus back to reality-land, as we're starting to show the same sense of entitlement that is so attractive  in Forest fans.

 

The only game you can fault Shakespeare for is his substitution in the Arsenal game. And even so, there are no guarantees that we’d have held off Arsenal.

 

Man United have hammered everybody they have played at home. They beat Everton and West Ham 4-0.

 

Chelsea have hammered Stoke away and won at Spurs, and beat us with an offside goal. And we’re a penalty miss from holding Liverpool at home.

 

The season starts now. Win at Bournemouth and WBA and you’ll all be back on here saying how you never lost faith in Shakespeare!

1.True indeed, we didn't suddenly transform into a top 4 team but with the players we had and the players we've bought, we shouldn't be relegation fodder or a bottom half team.

2. Yes,  the substitutions against Arsenal were poor.

3. Man Utd have hammered teams yet Stoke got a creditable result playing a particular way. But you don't even give yourself half a chance by fielding a midfield 2 of Ndidi and James (as hard as they tried) against an international midfield of vastly experienced players like Pogba, Matic and Matt. Now they've gained momentum, do that trick again and they'll score 6 against us like they should have done on that day.

4. Ditto our midfield 2 against a similarly star studded Chelsea midfield.  They didn't even have to break sweat against us and just saw the game out, never got into 2nd gear.

5. We were a penalty miss from drawing with a poor Liverpool side at home, which would have been a travesty for them because as poor as I thought they were,  we were far worse. A lucky draw would have just served to paper over the cracks, we're deluding ourselves if we see anything else.

6. No mention I see of Huddersfield, the newly promoted side who not only again managed to over run our midfield, but outplayed us at our former old game. Good luck to them, they deserved it.

7. A nice cup win against Liverpool midweek but were you there like me? Christ,  they should have been 3 up at half time!  Poor poor first half but better second. Again, just a bit of paper over the cracks, we were poor. Even poor teams win the odd lucky game.

[Shefffox2]

Just now, hackneyfox said:

Yeah, great idea and then we can re-sign Schlupp for £20m.

Think Schlupp was 12 million, rather have Jeff +£4 million than Musa, and Slim v Benteke  ? 

 

[NotTheMarketLeader]

On 24/09/2017 at 14:03, orangecity23 said:

I win in 9 does look bad. Wonder why you picked 9 games as the sample size? Oh, because if you'd chose 11, then you would have have to include 2 more wins. The 3 games from the end of last season also include a 1-1 draw against Bournemouth where we had a goal that was a foot onside disallowed, and a 2-1 loss away to Man City where Raheem Sterling scored an offside goal that was incorrectly given, and Bobby Madley managed to cleverly see a double hit penalty whilst completely not seeing any encroachment into the box by defenders before the ball was hit. If the officials had done their jobs properly, we could have won both of those matches. Can we not forget that we played all 3 of those games with a central defence of Benolouane and Fuchs, as Rudkin's botched recruitment meant we had completely run out of centre backs as well? A theme that is being repeated this season as well, as we are down to our last few central midfielders AGAIN, for the second season in a row.

 

We did try and start yesterday's game by attacking, we had the first real chance when Vardy got in behind, and Mahrez volleyed over on the rebound. Liverpool were trying their best to force us back as well, we weren't passively retreating into our own box, we were forced back by good attacking play and individual defensive mistakes. Despite how "defensive" our first half was, we still scored a goal, had another disallowed, and had 2 more chances for Okazaki (the botched Mignolet clearance and the header), plus the Vardy/Mahrez chance.

 

Here are the whole of last season's Shakey results. The guy didn't just have a "new manager bounce", he had the best run of form by a new English prem manager ever, figures that weren't far off the likes of Guardiola. He got thrashed in 1 match by Spurs, in which we were fielding a makeshift central defence and midfield due to injuries, and the thrashing was largely down to sacrificing one of his 3 centre backs to try and mount a comeback by bringing Gray on (incidentally, the kind of change that all the Armchair managers on here were saying was a massive mistake when he didn't make it in the Atletico Madrid game). The form tailed off a bit during the crowded period when we had the Champions League tie to prepare for, when we rested players to give ourselves a good chance, which again, which is what most people wanted at the time. Still, should have beaten Palace, which we would have done if Benteke's foul on Benny had been spotted on the equaliser. Other that that, he beat all the teams you would expect to beat, and only lost narrowly to the big teams (Spurs excepted). That has carried on to this season, we haven't been humiliated at all, and were not far away from getting something from all the big teams we have faced. Our performance against Huddersfield was poor, but we are the only team to score against them at home (and along with the Hammers, the only teams to score against them at all), and we still took a point away, and if Vardy had got that open goal, could have had all 3.

 

26. Round	27/02/2017	20:00	H		Liverpool FC	3:1 (2:0)
27. Round	04/03/2017	15:00	H		Hull City	3:1 (1:1)
29. Round	18/03/2017	15:00	A		West Ham United	3:2 (3:1)
30. Round	01/04/2017	15:00	H		Stoke City	2:0 (1:0)
31. Round	04/04/2017	19:45	H		Sunderland AFC	2:0 (0:0)
32. Round	09/04/2017	16:00	A		Everton FC	2:4 (2:3)
33. Round	15/04/2017	15:00	A		Crystal Palace	2:2 (1:0)
28. Round	26/04/2017	19:45	A		Arsenal FC	0:1 (0:0)
35. Round	29/04/2017	15:00	A		West Bromwich Albion	1:0 (1:0)
36. Round	06/05/2017	15:00	H		Watford FC	3:0 (1:0)
37. Round	13/05/2017	12:30	A		Manchester City	1:2 (1:2)
34. Round	18/05/2017	19:45	H		Tottenham Hotspur	1:6 (0:2)
38. Round	21/05/2017	15:00	H		AFC Bournemouth	1:1 (0:1)

Problem is, there are a lot of 'IFS' in this post which don't change the reality.

[NotTheMarketLeader]

On 24/09/2017 at 14:32, orangecity23 said:

Wahey, so you've once again expanded the window to include the maximum number of losses. Did you know that if you ignore all the games he has won, then he has won no games? Terrible stats, what a loser. Can't you get it through your head, that his stats are being skewed by a small window of games which are disproportionately made up of games against Top 4/5 teams, the most difficult teams in the league to play against.

 

Lets talk his full league record:

P 19 W 8 D 3 L 8

 

The losses are against Man City, Man Utd, Spurs, Arsenal x 2, Liverpool, Everton and Chelsea. These are difficult fixtures, even the top clubs don't get out of fixtures like that without losing a few games. Klopp played Man City and got absolutely spanked,Arsenal got thrashed by Liverpool, Chelsea beat Spurs. He has not lost a single game against opposition outside of that traditional "top 7" group. Shakey will start picking up wins, when we start playing more of the teams from the bottom end of the table. We have been dealt the hardest set of opening fixtures out of any of the Premier League teams, and despite that, we are still not bottom of the table. Our form will recover, we only have Man City and Tottenham left to play in the first half of the season, every other fixture is against easier teams than what we have faced so far.

Problem is though we play the top 7 a good few times.

 

In fact 37% of our games are against this 'top 7' you mention - we can't afford nil points every time they crop up unless we want to be in a trapdoor scrap.

[hackneyfox]

16 minutes ago, Shefffox2 said:

Think Schlupp was 12 million, rather have Jeff +£4 million than Musa, and Slim v Benteke  ? 

 

I know he was but prices have gone up, even for 'footballers' like Schlupp,

Rather not have him fullstop.

[CosbehFox]

10 minutes ago, NotTheMarketLeader said:

Problem is, there are a lot of 'IFS' in this post which don't change the reality.

But it's the same argument against Shakespeare at the moment. I have seen arguments built off 'if Huddersfield had a goal allowed' , 'if Liverpool took their first half chances'. 

 

The facts are over a sustained period - his record is average, pretty mid table form really and we had had an awful lot of tough fixtures during his reign.

Edited 25 September 2017 by Cardiff_Fox

[orangecity23]

3 minutes ago, NotTheMarketLeader said:

Problem is though we play the top 7 a good few times.

 

In fact 37% of our games are against this 'top 7' you mention - we can't afford nil points every time they crop up unless we want to be in a trapdoor scrap.

And in Shakespeare's matches so far, he has played them 10 times out of 19, more than 50% of the time, and he has one league win against Liverpool (plus a cup win against them), so it's not zero points every time. If you extrapolate the points from Shakey's full run over a season, you get a 54 point season - not a relegation scrap, even with that poor form against top teams. That's despite those appalling midfield and centre back shortages he's had to endure, plus effectively sacrificing 2 out of those 19 games (10%) to prioritise the Champions League last season.

 

There's no point me talking about this any more though. People have made up their minds.

[Fox Ulike]

53 minutes ago, volpeazzurro said:

1.True indeed, we didn't suddenly transform into a top 4 team but with the players we had and the players we've bought, we shouldn't be relegation fodder or a bottom half team.

2. Yes,  the substitutions against Arsenal were poor.

3. Man Utd have hammered teams yet Stoke got a creditable result playing a particular way. But you don't even give yourself half a chance by fielding a midfield 2 of Ndidi and James (as hard as they tried) against an international midfield of vastly experienced players like Pogba, Matic and Matt. Now they've gained momentum, do that trick again and they'll score 6 against us like they should have done on that day.

4. Ditto our midfield 2 against a similarly star studded Chelsea midfield.  They didn't even have to break sweat against us and just saw the game out, never got into 2nd gear.

5. We were a penalty miss from drawing with a poor Liverpool side at home, which would have been a travesty for them because as poor as I thought they were,  we were far worse. A lucky draw would have just served to paper over the cracks, we're deluding ourselves if we see anything else.

6. No mention I see of Huddersfield, the newly promoted side who not only again managed to over run our midfield, but outplayed us at our former old game. Good luck to them, they deserved it.

7. A nice cup win against Liverpool midweek but were you there like me? Christ,  they should have been 3 up at half time!  Poor poor first half but better second. Again, just a bit of paper over the cracks, we were poor. Even poor teams win the odd lucky game.

 

Nobody gets relegated after 6 games of the season.  I'm not disagreeing with much of your assessment, but I guess it's all to do with your expectations. If you think that a Liverpool side with Coutinho and Salah is 'poor' then my advice would be to get out-and-about and watch a few more Premier League teams! God knows how you would describe Crystal Palace.  

 

Agree with you about the midfield two though. We can get away with this with Okasaki in the team - and hopefully he is now one of the first names on the teamsheet.

 

I'm not worried if we're getting narrowly beaten by Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal. I've seen enough in those four games to think that we will have a good season and will finish top 10.

 

How we do in the next three games against Bournemouth, WBA and Swansea will give us a clearer assessment of how Shakespeare is doing.

 

So no need to blow your own brains out just yet.

 

 

[Lionator]

We're basically playing a formation which suits a player who left us for Chelsea 15 months ago.

[Fox Ulike]

2 minutes ago, Lionator said:

We're basically playing a formation which suits a player who left us for Chelsea 15 months ago.

Then I must have dreamt that we got to the Champions League quarter-finals last season.

 

 

[NotTheMarketLeader]

6 hours ago, the messenger said:

When you have limited midfield options surely the best thing would be to put 3 in midfield, shakeys faith in the 442 system and Mahrez is going to cost him is job, the first half against Liverpool in the cup was an embarrassment and the first 40 mins against them in the premier was an embarrassment, why is it that a lot of fans can see we are out numbered and asking to much of a midfield 2 and Shakey cannot see this and he's supposed to be the professional!

 

This. 

 

Re: Mahrez I've been saying it for a year (was it me or was there a cheer from some of the crowd when 26 came up on the subs board).

 

Re: 3 in the middle - could agree more. If the quality required is not enough in the two - you need to make it a three.

 

Its not as if our 2 are playing against 2 of Chelsea, Manure, Liverpool or Arsenal. 

 

Its our limited 2 against there better 3 ffs.

 

Six games gone; he's also had last season - no all his career to get to the crux of these oh so complicated mysteries of the universe.

 

Its not the losing of games to top teams it's not getting the basics right; common sense matters.

Edited 25 September 2017 by NotTheMarketLeader

[volpeazzurro]

55 minutes ago, Fox Ulike said:

 

Nobody gets relegated after 6 games of the season.  I'm not disagreeing with much of your assessment, but I guess it's all to do with your expectations. If you think that a Liverpool side with Coutinho and Salah is 'poor' then my advice would be to get out-and-about and watch a few more Premier League teams! God knows how you would describe Crystal Palace.  

 

Agree with you about the midfield two though. We can get away with this with Okasaki in the team - and hopefully he is now one of the first names on the teamsheet.

 

I'm not worried if we're getting narrowly beaten by Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal. I've seen enough in those four games to think that we will have a good season and will finish top 10.

 

How we do in the next three games against Bournemouth, WBA and Swansea will give us a clearer assessment of how Shakespeare is doing.

 

So no need to blow your own brains out just yet.

 

 

Ok thanks, shotgun back in cabinet ?

I think Salah has been a brilliant player and as for Coutinho, thank God they took him off at half time in the first match. When I used the term poor I meant in relative terms for a team with supposed Premiership title ambitions, I thought their defence was shocking but we didn't really test it that much with the tactics employed.

[NotTheMarketLeader]

1 hour ago, orangecity23 said:

And in Shakespeare's matches so far, he has played them 10 times out of 19, more than 50% of the time, and he has one league win against Liverpool (plus a cup win against them), so it's not zero points every time. If you extrapolate the points from Shakey's full run over a season, you get a 54 point season - not a relegation scrap, even with that poor form against top teams. That's despite those appalling midfield and centre back shortages he's had to endure, plus effectively sacrificing 2 out of those 19 games (10%) to prioritise the Champions League last season.

 

There's no point me talking about this any more though. People have made up their minds.

 No they are fair points you make. 

 

All the positive stuff is way back.

 

Lets see how we go the next 5 games

[vanity]

If these losses were evenly distributed throughout the schedule, and surrounded by wins, we would be absolutely fine with Shakey as well as our performance, *especially* considering Shakey is down several players in the MF through no fault of his own. Instead, because these games are clumped together, people are freaking out. 

 

We need to stop looking at this so narrowly. Give Shakey your support and let him prove that this team can handle the lesser teams in the league, let him prove we can win away matches, let him run roughshod over our next 5 games + Leeds. If Leicester can handle the inferior teams, we will be top-10 three games from now, top-6 five weeks from now.

 

This is the real test for Shakey. He needs to get the team ready to be aggressive and attacking in targeting a MINIMUM of 10+ points the next 5 league games, whether or not Silva gets registered. If we simply beat the less-talented teams on our schedule, we will shoot up the standings like we did after we beat Liverpool last season. The squad will build some confidence, will make winning a habit, will keep advancing in the CC, and start beating some of the elite sides in the league. 

 

In fact, we will become one of the elite sides. Shakey has the lads playing hard. Now we start cashing in. And if the team fails to do this, Shakey will be gone anyhow.

Edited 25 September 2017 by vanity

[Col city fan]

2 hours ago, NotTheMarketLeader said:

This. 

 

Re: Mahrez I've been saying it for a year (was it me or was there a cheer from some of the crowd when 26 came up on the subs board).

 

Re: 3 in the middle - could agree more. If the quality required is not enough in the two - you need to make it a three.

 

Its not as if our 2 are playing against 2 of Chelsea, Manure, Liverpool or Arsenal. 

 

Its our limited 2 against there better 3 ffs.

 

Six games gone; he's also had last season - no all his career to get to the crux of these oh so complicated mysteries of the universe.

 

Its not the losing of games to top teams it's not getting the basics right; common sense matters.

Very few people wanted to sell Mahrez in the summer. Even when he was piddling about on deadline day. There were cries on here about not wanting to 'sell our best player' etc.

I think it's clear Shakey believes Mahrez is undroppable. For all his being completely open about not wanting to be here, he's not once been given a kick up the arse by being dropped,

As mercurial as Mahrez can be, no player should ever be bigger than the club, yet Mahrez seems to be bigger than LCFC at present, with the club being currently run in a very amateurish way.

Still, I guess all those people who wanted him to stay, whatever, have got their wish. 

Edited 25 September 2017 by Col city fan

[Clever Fox]

50 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

Very few people wanted to sell Mahrez in the summer. Even when he was piddling about on deadline day. There were cries on here about not wanting to 'sell our best player' etc.

I think it's clear Shakey believes Mahrez is undroppable. For all his being completely open about not wanting to be here, he's not once been given a kick up the arse by being dropped,

As mercurial as Mahrez can be, no player should ever be bigger than the club, yet Mahrez seems to be bigger than LCFC at present, with the club being currently run in a very amateurish way.

Still, I guess all those people who wanted him to stay, whatever, have got their wish. 

Accurate assessment as always Col. We'd all like to see him play the way we know he can but he's clearly not doing it for whatever reason. I suspect Shakey was hopeful that after a few games he'd get the bug back and start performing again. This clearly hasn't happened and so it's time to leave him out, Especially that we have Gray hungry and willing to step in and seize his opportunity.

While I can understand Shakeys approach with Mahrez it's time to move on and give Gray his head and opportunity. In a perverse way, it might be the kick up the backside Mahrez needs. As the longer he's out of the team the harder it will be for him to get the move he so desires.

I've watched him closely this season and he's actually a much better player now than two years ago, just not performing for whatever reason. I have a theory that he's not happy as to how he's being used. But that's just my opinion.

players are not stupid and Shakey will lose respect from the rest of the Squad if he doesn't address the situation, and soon. 

[the messenger]

11 hours ago, Ricey said:

How easily people forget quite how bad we were last season. For the 40 minutes on Saturday we were not an embarrassment. Ok, perhaps a bit open, but with the midfield options we have at the minute you can see why. We were creating chances, working hard and unsettling their defence. It was a typical performance from us that on another day could have seen us go into the break ahead.

You must be blind a lot of us are saying the same thing our midfield is being over run, Shakey is asking to much of the midfield 2.

When you have limited options you have to probably except king will play but for god's sake put Iborra in with King And Ndidi.

[Ricey]

19 minutes ago, the messenger said:

You must be blind a lot of us are saying the same thing our midfield is being over run, Shakey is asking to much of the midfield 2.

When you have limited options you have to probably except king will play but for god's sake put Iborra in with King And Ndidi.

Iborra isn't fit enough yet to start. He was dead on his feet for the last 20 minutes last Tuesday.

[Guest ttfn]

I'll caveat this by saying that I have big reservations not only about Shakespeare but about expected goals modelling, but I found this interesting:

 

https://understat.com/league/EPL

 

(Sort by expected points)

 

Basically shows that given the chances we've created we should be 7th, even after our tough start.

[jim5000]

From Football365 'winners and losers' this week

Quote

 

A list of the teams who Leicester have lost to in the Premier League this season goes some way to explaining their poor start. Many sides will emerge from games with Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United with four defeats; there is no shame in that.

The optimist’s view is that picking up points in both of their other games sums up a team capable of finishing in that echelon below the elite sides. The pessimist’s view is that both of those games were against newly-promoted opposition; the very least a team with Leicester’s expectations would hope for is four points.

Craig Shakespeare has now won 11 and lost 10 of his 24 games in charge. When one considers that six of those victories came in the first six games of his tenure, with the feel-good factor of his interim appointment still in full effect, and five of those early wins were at home, the outlook becomes slightly less rosy. His popularity as a coach is well-documented, but three wins in his last 14 Premier League games as a manager doth not a good record make.

 

 

I do fear for Shakespeare, I'd love him to do well but he seems completely tactically inflexible with his insistence on sticking to 4-4-2 when we don't have the personnel for it, and he doesn't have any other answer. He's been unlucky with injuries but so have many managers, and in the Premier League you have to make your own luck. He's just blindly sticking to 4-4-2 and hoping it comes good.

Edited 25 September 2017 by jim5000

[Countryfox]

1 minute ago, jim5000 said:

From Football365 'winners and losers' this week

 

 

2 minutes ago, jim5000 said:

but three wins in his last 14 Premier League games as a manager doth not a good record make.

 

 

Football365 can doth one ! ...

[CosbehFox]

9 hours ago, ttfn said:

I'll caveat this by saying that I have big reservations not only about Shakespeare but about expected goals modelling, but I found this interesting:

 

https://understat.com/league/EPL

 

(Sort by expected points)

 

Basically shows that given the chances we've created we should be 7th, even after our tough start.

Which is in part why I am not running around panicking. Every game had a pivotal chance missed by us. Which is a damn sight more than what we were doing around January time last season. 

[Lionheart10]

11 hours ago, ttfn said:

I'll caveat this by saying that I have big reservations not only about Shakespeare but about expected goals modelling, but I found this interesting:

 

https://understat.com/league/EPL

 

(Sort by expected points)

 

Basically shows that given the chances we've created we should be 7th, even after our tough start.

Also if Vardy had scored open goal at Huddersfield and penalty against Liverpool he would be Leagues leading goalscorer.