Perspective on yesterday

[HighPeakFox]

6 minutes ago, whoareyaaa said:

 Mahrez was playing for himself

Er what?

[Alf Bentley]

Just had a message from my mate the Derby fan, whose analysis is generally balanced and informed.

 

He reckons:"I think Leicester look pretty good under CS despite the two losses. They should finish in the top half. I don't think Derby will be anywhere near automatic promotion".

[whoareyaaa]

6 minutes ago, HighPeakFox said:

Er what?

There was a few occasions where he could have picked out a team mate, obviously that is his game and he is capable but just stuck out for me

[HighPeakFox]

Just now, whoareyaaa said:

There was a few occasions where he could have picked out a team mate, obviously that is his game and he is capable but just stuck out for me

Ah, he wasn't perfect, true. That's not quite the same, in my eyes. I was at the game (I only say this because the game looks very different on TV), and didn't for a minute think he wasn't giving his all for the team. Gray, however, looked more guilty of the crime you mentioned, but I think it's immaturity in his game. My feeling (with Gray) is the management is waiting to see if/when he grows up.

[whoareyaaa]

1 minute ago, HighPeakFox said:

Ah, he wasn't perfect, true. That's not quite the same, in my eyes. I was at the game (I only say this because the game looks very different on TV), and didn't for a minute think he wasn't giving his all for the team. Gray, however, looked more guilty of the crime you mentioned, but I think it's immaturity in his game. My feeling (with Gray) is the management is waiting to see if/when he grows up.

They was both guilty of it yesterday but its part of there game I suppose, Gray is still young so has plenty of time to improve and should be given time, we should have a better valuation of Mahrez once the window shuts, but its only in his best interest if he stays to play at the top of his game if he wants his move.

[6ups 6downs 2 cups]

The problem yesterday was we never seemed to pick out the right ball in their half, we defended well enough, Man Utd are trying to get that fortress feel back. Be interesting how they play against the big teams.

[RumbleFox]

I dunno, too early to tell I think.  Our possession stats were not much better when we won the league, nor last season when we were sh1te so it is so hard to tell.  I think we have to just give it time and see where we are.  In terms of shots, and shots on target, we far out performed Everton and Arsenal against similar strengthed opposition today so we are at least creating some chances with limited possession.  It is really hard to quite define why we sometimes look good and sometimes don't. When we won the league we had feck all possession and invited a lot of pressure but somehow you felt confident.  Yesterday I shat myself about 17 times.  Shakespeare is new, some players are new and there are signs that we look better than last year so I hope we can push on and finish top half, 7th is probably about our limit.  We need to be able to play how we did when we won (godly defending, godly pressing and devastating on the break) but also need to somehow nurture a slightly more progressive style as well.  God knows how we do that.  As long as we are "exciting" to watch I don't mind if it is tika-taka or defend and break but I would like to see us be able to mix up the two a little more.  I am confident.  I think we at least look "up for it" and "together".  We can do it.

 

X

[volpeazzurro]

The lads all played well yesterday but the way we set up,  the result was never in doubt. The fight will always be there but the result against the bigger teams will remain the same until Shakey tries something new. Surrendering possession constantly and hoping that we can block or stop about 15 opposition shot and win with one good breakaway is speculative at best.

[HighPeakFox]

Can I just remind everyone who and what we were up against yesterday? Had we gone gung-ho, it would have failed badly. 

[PaulW]

12 hours ago, suffolk fox said:

Really?  Are they all premier league quality?  Hand on heart are they as good as Neil Lennon, Muzzy Izzet,  Mark Draper, Andy Peake, even Alan Birchenall.  The answer is no.

Trouble is none of them are available.

[Kinowe Soorie]

We need to give Shakey some time and more of his own signings before we start to panic too much. I would like us to raise the tempo though, Vardy's high pace pressing seems to have ceased. 

Even so, I wasn't expecting anything from Arsenal or the Man U matches.

[suffolk fox]

2 hours ago, Kinowe Soorie said:

We need to give Shakey some time and more of his own signings before we start to panick too much. I would like us to raise the tempo though, Vardy's high pace pressing seems to have ceased. 

Even so, I wasn't expecting anything from Arsenal or the Man U matches.

A lot of posters on this site seem to accept this as the given thing.  With an attitude like this we will never again finish in the top six.  Yes, there are some big money spinning sides in the premier league so when we play Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, Liverpool its ok to lose coz we never expected owt anyway?

 

We won the league by playing fast, direct, counter attacking  football that the so called bigger teams couldn't handle.  We can play like that again if the shackles are taken off and we are allowed to attack with just more than Vardy isolated in attack?  Why, again do  we pull everyone back for corners?  Schmeichel gets the ball we have no outlet to release one of our faster players.  We use to leave Mahrez and Vardy up spread wide on each wing.  This, created confusion for the opposition and they always had to leave three men back to counteract this.

 

Burnley went to  Wembley yesterday against one of the supposed big six came away with a 1 1  draw.  Even they didn't sit back and expect the inevitable.  We are Leicester City we use to have a proud tradition of beating the bigger teams can we go back to that.

[Trav Le Bleu]

Why? What happened yesterday?

[HighPeakFox]

2 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

Why? What happened yesterday?

I got my car back, it was a nasty surprise finding it had been locked up near the ground!

 

[ZeGuy]

16 hours ago, suffolk fox said:

you cant genuinely be serious?  Again, we lost impetus after the substitutions unlike Utd with theirs.  Taking off Albrighton and Okasaki was a mistake  Yes, Okazaki falls over a lot but he defends valiantly from the front.  Why take Albrighton off?  King is poor at premier league level and his passing sideways and backwards doesn't contribute anything.  Again Shakespeare showed his inexperience with the substitutions.  We appeared to be holding them well and they were beginning to run out of ideas but like at Arsenal our substitutions were ill timed and not necessary.  I am beginning to think it is written in Okazakis contract he cannot play more than 70 minutes in any game.

Shakey's subs weren't bad at all.

 

Okazaki should never ever have played this game as he predictably offered very little forward while having 0 impact defensively and Albrighton was anonymous for once. Okazaki should simply not start against any team of the big six.

 

The midfield was complety steam rolled and another midfielder was needed. We were unluck to have the others CM either injured or not fully fit, hence King who did okay.

 

Gray instantly made the difference on the left even if his end product was garbage. We looked miles better forward when he came on. Only Slim should have come sooner as he did more in 15 minutes than Okazaki in 70.

 

As for the goals you can't expect defending for 90 minutes against this lot and not concede. Not with that midfield and our back 4 (bar Maguire who had Lukaku in his pocket).

 

[Cadno'r Cymoedd]

11 hours ago, HighPeakFox said:

Can I just remind everyone who and what we were up against yesterday? Had we gone gung-ho, it would have failed badly. 

It failed. Badly or not, it was still failure to get anything. We could quite easily have lost 4 or 5 nil. Let's be honest. Missed penalty, Mata's disallowed effort, Kasper's excellent save from Mata, Pogba chances first half etc. Had Mata's been allowed to stand like Fellaini's, we would have had to attack much earlier to get anything and could have unravelled. 

[ZeGuy]

1 hour ago, suffolk fox said:

A lot of posters on this site seem to accept this as the given thing.  With an attitude like this we will never again finish in the top six.  Yes, there are some big money spinning sides in the premier league so when we play Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, Liverpool its ok to lose coz we never expected owt anyway?

 

We won the league by playing fast, direct, counter attacking  football that the so called bigger teams couldn't handle.  We can play like that again if the shackles are taken off and we are allowed to attack with just more than Vardy isolated in attack?  Why, again do  we pull everyone back for corners?  Schmeichel gets the ball we have no outlet to release one of our faster players.  We use to leave Mahrez and Vardy up spread wide on each wing.  This, created confusion for the opposition and they always had to leave three men back to counteract this.

 

Burnley went to  Wembley yesterday against one of the supposed big six came away with a 1 1  draw.  Even they didn't sit back and expect the inevitable.  We are Leicester City we use to have a proud tradition of beating the bigger teams can we go back to that.

You can forget the top six. That won't happen again before a long, long time.

 

They're absolutely out of reach. Just look at their teams, their bench and how much they spend. The difference in quality is just too big to seriously think we'd be able to compete with them.

 

Regularly finishing in the top 10 with an incursion in the top 8 from time to time is a more realistic aim. If we somehow manage to Keep our best players, that is.

 

And please stop rehashing the "we won the league", one-off with the best midfielder in the world litterally working for two. With the current midfield there is just simply no way we'd get any positive result against a big team away in a 4-4-2 system.

[ZeGuy]

11 hours ago, HighPeakFox said:

Can I just remind everyone who and what we were up against yesterday? Had we gone gung-ho, it would have failed badly. 

And? A loss is a loss. Wether you lose 5-1 or 1-0 you'd still get 0 points. Can't accept going there with "a damage imitation" mindset and just play to save the face.

 

If the loss is guaranteed why not try something diefferent? Why stick to a system that has been proven as ineffective?

[CosbehFox]

15 minutes ago, Cadno'r Cymoedd said:

It failed. Badly or not, it was still failure to get anything. We could quite easily have lost 4 or 5 nil. Let's be honest. Missed penalty, Mata's disallowed effort, Kasper's excellent save from Mata, Pogba chances first half etc. Had Mata's been allowed to stand like Fellaini's, we would have had to attack much earlier to get anything and could have unravelled. 

On the same basis, we worked ourselves into three or four good openings and with the right decisions made, we'd have scored. 

 

The encouraging thing for me was the spirit and workrate between the players which was sadly missing at last years visit to Old Trafford.

[Cadno'r Cymoedd]

7 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

On the same basis, we worked ourselves into three or four good openings and with the right decisions made, we'd have scored. 

 

The encouraging thing for me was the spirit and workrate between the players which was sadly missing at last years visit to Old Trafford.

The Gray/Mahrez chance came at a crucial time and could well have affected the outcome although we could have been at least 3 down by then. King's chance would have been nothing more than consolation at that time. I agree the spirit and work rate (less so) was there but I felt we should have been more positive especially positioning wise (we started deep and got deeper mostly) - we invited them on without having the same counterattack potency of two seasons back, and lost the challenges in midfield. Yes, we were outnumbered but the 5050s went their way. 

[CosbehFox]

10 minutes ago, Cadno'r Cymoedd said:

The Gray/Mahrez chance came at a crucial time and could well have affected the outcome although we could have been at least 3 down by then. King's chance would have been nothing more than consolation at that time. I agree the spirit and work rate (less so) was there but I felt we should have been more positive especially positioning wise (we started deep and got deeper mostly) - we invited them on without having the same counterattack potency of two seasons back, and lost the challenges in midfield. Yes, we were outnumbered but the 5050s went their way. 

It wasn't only that Gray/Mahrez chance. Okazaki should have squared to Mahrez late on the first half. 

 

In terms of Leicester playing at Old Trafford it wasn't the worst by any means. Particularly given the faux outrage here. 

[Cadno'r Cymoedd]

2 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

It wasn't only that Gray/Mahrez chance. Okazaki should have squared to Mahrez late on the first half. 

 

In terms of Leicester playing at Old Trafford it wasn't the worst by any means. Particularly given the faux outrage here. 

I don't think it's faux outrage in many/most cases, to be honest. It's a feeling of profound disappointment that we could have given ourselves a better fighting chance of coming away with something with a more positive set up and arguably mindset from the off, and with the perceived acceptance of a plucky display. 

[Foxaholic ME]

On 8/27/2017 at 09:32, Vacamion said:

 

Us winning the league was a bad thing.

 

Not for us, for us it was obviously utterly fantastic and it will be forever treasured.

 

But it made big clubs who traditionally spend a lot on players spend even more, because throwing money at the league is their answer.

 

I had no expectations of away points at Arsenal or Manchester United, but we showed a lot more guts and challenge in both games than we did last year, so I remain on the optimistic bus.

 

No expectation at Arsenal  how they played at  Liverpool likely to be in a relegation battle

 

[Webbo]

4 minutes ago, Cadno'r Cymoedd said:

I don't think it's faux outrage in many/most cases, to be honest. It's a feeling of profound disappointment that we could have given ourselves a better fighting chance of coming away with something with a more positive set up and arguably mindset from the off, and with the perceived acceptance of a plucky display. 

Or we could have ended up losing 8-0 and then everyone would have said it was madness to go to Old Trafford with a gung ho attitude.

[Cadno'r Cymoedd]

Who's talking about a gung-ho attitude? I am not. We could have easily have lost 4 or 5 nil with the mindset we took there as it was, with missed penalties and disallowed efforts etc. as I said in an earlier post. It didn't need a gung-ho attitude but a slightly more positive one by pressing a bit higher and getting really stuck in. We seemed to be a bit in awe and gave too much respect. I know you and I disagreed on this before in another thread. ?