Mahrez replacements

[foxfan92]

Think we need to get a number of creative outlets, it’s all very nice having a player of Mahrez’s ability on the pitch, he can win you games almost singlehanded when on form, but when he’s not performing at his best or is marked out of a game we’ve looked devoid of ideas at times. I know we have some players who can create chances, and I believe Puel is keen to get us more creative on the pitch, looking at playing attack minded full backs, giving Maguire more licence to push on from the back.

 

We need a forward line that’s able to deliver that killer cross, that perfectly timed through ball, we need to think of ways to make teams afraid of what Vardy can do again. 

 

I would still like that central midfielder that can always manage to find that pass that’s needed but also work tirelessly to help alleviate some of the burden put on Ndidi. We have midfielders who are good at some of the things we need in that midlfield, but they can either pass, but seem too slow, or get stuck in but aren’t able to get us to link up quickly enough so that we look as dangerous on the counter as we did back in 15/16.

 

Then all we need is a winger with an end product but doesn’t need to be quite as flashy as Riyad, oh and maybe another top quality centre back ....

[Turbogre]

On the basis that we keep a hold of our key players, the spine of our team is looking excellent. Schmeichel, Maguire, Ndidi, Vardy. With the added flair players such as Maddison, Gray, Silva, Iheanacho? Maybe the key isn't necessarily "replacing" Mahrez directly but working more flair players into the starting 11 to replicate and improve on the threat that Mahrez gave us. We've tried to replace key players before (Mendy/Kante) and it didn't necessarily work out..

[Ric Flair]

1 minute ago, Turbogre said:

On the basis that we keep a hold of our key players, the spine of our team is looking excellent. Schmeichel, Maguire, Ndidi, Vardy. With the added flair players such as Maddison, Gray, Silva, Iheanacho? Maybe the key isn't necessarily "replacing" Mahrez directly but working more flair players into the starting 11 to replicate and improve on the threat that Mahrez gave us. We've tried to replace key players before (Mendy/Kante) and it didn't necessarily work out..

Last season we needed more " flair " players with Mahrez in the team. Now we don't have Mahrez and have Maddison. We're relying on him to be unreal, Gray to somehow find end product, Silva to cope physically with the PL and start creating and Pereira to be Cafu. Piece of piss lads, chill out.

[That_Dude]

Fulham just signed Schürrle, the Wolves J. Moutinho the fck are we doing?

[Babylon]

2 minutes ago, That_Dude said:

Fulham just signed Schürrle, the Wolves J. Moutinho the fck are we doing?

Schürrle's one bundesliga goal would fill the hole.

[MC Prussian]

5 minutes ago, That_Dude said:

Fulham just signed Schürrle, the Wolves J. Moutinho the fck are we doing?

Moutinho is a beast of a winger.

[Steve Earle]

Is this the Ziyech thread?

 

Asking for a friend. A friend called Roy.

[That_Dude]

1 minute ago, Babylon said:

Schürrle's one bundesliga goal would fill the hole.

Yeah he had a bad season. He's still quality though.

 

Just now, MC Prussian said:

Moutinho is a beast of a winger.

Yeah, smart ass, forgot that we have plenty of creative midfielders. 

[Mehrez]

 

[Tuna]

2 minutes ago, Mehrez said:

 

Look at that twitter account "Transfer News Live" it's an account that started tweeting today and is temporarily restricted due to unusual activity. 

 

Can't find anything on this from Di Marizo online either.

 

Fake News.

[Mehrez]

1 minute ago, Tuna said:

Look at that twitter account "Transfer News Live" it's an account that started tweeting today and is temporarily restricted due to unusual activity. 

 

Can't find anything on this from Di Marizo online either.

 

Fake News.

Boll*cks I’ve been done 

[Blue ROI]

35 minutes ago, Mehrez said:

 

I-can't-believe-it's-not-Mahrez!

[The_77]

54 minutes ago, Mehrez said:

 

Roy is resorting to some pretty drastic measures

[AS78UK]

Even Haten Ben Afra been linked to West Ham now. 

 

Pity Ziyech news is fake. 

[ronnup]

If the report of our last minute bid to get Alireza are true, this is a worry. Prepare for some desperate bids and rejections and ending up with Townsend. 

[Ted Maul]

32 minutes ago, ronnup said:

If the report of our last minute bid to get Alireza are true, this is a worry. Prepare for some desperate bids and rejections and ending up with Townsend. 

It is strange. Why not do a proper job? We've had 2 years to prepare for the sale of Mahrez. Surely we should have a list of top targets, and we should be going after them in good time with suitable bids?

 

It just seems as though we're happy with what we've got, but if something good comes along we'll go for it. Really disappointing if that's the case.

[Babylon]

52 minutes ago, Ted Maul said:

It is strange. Why not do a proper job? We've had 2 years to prepare for the sale of Mahrez. Surely we should have a list of top targets, and we should be going after them in good time with suitable bids?

Do you really think that hasn't been the case? If we did bid for that bloke then it shows we aren't happy with that we've got. The most likely thing is that our main targets have either gone elsewhere, clubs aren't willing to sell them or we won't pay what they want etc.

 

That fella might have been number 5 on the list, we were waiting on a decision from number 4 or they were looking likely, so we've had to react quickly to go for someone further down.

 

We aren't a Man City who can just pin point who they want and snap them up, we're competing with clubs all around Europe. Some far bigger and more glamorous than ourselves. So you can easily miss out on targets quite quickly.

 

The way it's going, we'll probably end up with a stop gap last minute player, just to fill a gap until we re scout or our top targets do become available. Sometimes these things happen, we've seemed to be getting far slicker at transfers as Rudkin gets more experience. So I can't sit here and say it's all his or the clubs fault.

 

That might also explain our reluctance to just accept any offer for Musa, if we're missing out on all of our targets, then we might be forced to give him 6 months to get us through to the next window. Not ideal obviously, but you need to keep all options open.

[Finnegan]

"The most likely thing is that our main targets have either gone elsewhere, clubs aren't willingto sell them or we won't pay what they want etc."

 

@Babylon

 

... So we ****ed up then? All of those things are part of researching a replacement. Any idiot can look at a player and judge his ability, part of a professional recruitment team will be ascertaining the viability of transfers not just their footballing talent. 

 

We know Bailey, Lozano, Brandt and Lemar are about the best young wide midfielders in Europe, it doesn't mean we think we can sign them. 

 

The point about having two years to prepare for Riyad going is a very good one and it DOES look like we were woefully under prepared to replace him. 

 

Don't just argue with people for the sakes of it, he's right. 

[Ric Flair]

1 minute ago, Babylon said:

Do you really think that hasn't been the case? If we did bid for that bloke then it shows we aren't happy with that we've got. The most likely thing is that our main targets have either gone elsewhere, clubs aren't willing to sell them or we won't pay what they want etc.

 

That fella might have been number 5 on the list, we were waiting on a decision from number 4 or they were looking likely, so we've had to react quickly to go for someone further down.

 

We aren't a Man City who can just pin point who they want and snap them up, we're competing with clubs all around Europe. Some far bigger and more glamorous than ourselves. So you can easily miss out on targets quite quickly.

 

The way it's going, we'll probably end up with a stop gap last minute player, just to fill a gap until we re scout or our top targets do become available. Sometimes these things happen, we've seemed to be getting far slicker at transfers as Rudkin gets more experience. So I can't sit here and say it's all his or the clubs fault.

 

That might also explain our reluctance to just accept any offer for Musa, if we're missing out on all of our targets, then we might be forced to give him 6 months to get us through to the next window. Not ideal obviously, but you need to keep all options open.

Elyonoussi was definitely one of our top targets and on the face of it, seems strange we didn't go after him properly when Southampton were in for him but it's been mentioned we did make enquiries and he said he didn't want to come to us. If that was the case you can see how we're sort of meandering through these last few weeks deciding what to do and are trying to get alternatives.

 

Good point on Musa, he's got his haters and to compare him to a modern day winger, he's not quite as graceful but his pace and directness would give us much needed options if we somehow don't get another winger in. We can't go in to the season with just 3 wingers when it's clear Puel wants to stick with 4-2-3-1.

[Ric Flair]

1 minute ago, Finnegan said:

"The most likely thing is that our main targets have either gone elsewhere, clubs aren't willingto sell them or we won't pay what they want etc."

 

@Babylon

 

... So we ****ed up then? All of those things are part of researching a replacement. Any idiot can look at a player and judge his ability, part of a professional recruitment team will be ascertaining the viability of transfers not just their footballing talent. 

 

We know Bailey, Lozano, Brandt and Lemar are about the best young wide midfielders in Europe, it doesn't mean we think we can sign them. 

 

The point about having two years to prepare for Riyad going is a very good one and it DOES look like we were woefully under prepared to replace him. 

 

Don't just argue with people for the sakes of it, he's right. 

 

Although we had much less time to prepare for Kante going it was the same then. We had 2 targets, one being Idrissa Gueye who we deliberated on until Walsh buggered off and quickly got Everton to snap him up. That left us with Mendy and we know what happened there. Thankfully we then fasttracked our scouting of Ndidi and everything fell in to place.

 

I can't help feel we as a club are good at finding rough diamonds, but we don't plan have contingency plans.

[Finnegan]

6 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

Although we had much less time to prepare for Kante going it was the same then. We had 2 targets, one being Idrissa Gueye who we deliberated on until Walsh buggered off and quickly got Everton to snap him up. That left us with Mendy and we know what happened there. Thankfully we then fasttracked our scouting of Ndidi and everything fell in to place.

 

I can't help feel we as a club are good at finding rough diamonds, but we don't plan have contingency plans.

 

We've clearly got one or two scouts bobbing around with an eye for a player. That part I don't disagree with. 

 

But our ability to get a deal done is sporadic and scatter gun, our recruitment of managers is abysmal, our negotiating over Mahrez and the fee we got were embarrassing. 

 

I know it's fashionable to the point of cliché to abuse Rudkin but all of those point towards to the actual recruitment part of the recruitment team (as opposed to finding) and that's his area of alleged expertise (or not, because he's an average PE teacher with delusions of grandeur.)

 

I find it really frustrating that the day to day football business side of the club is so far behind. 

 

I think our owners are very astute commercially but I think, possibly through too much loyalty to people they like, they're very naive in footballing terms. The man should have been replaced with an experienced pro years ago. We treat recruitment like an after thought. 

 

Edited 27 July 2018 by Finnegan

[Grebfromgrebland]

People don't realise yet that we're not that attractive to the players we want to attract.

[Babylon]

15 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

"The most likely thing is that our main targets have either gone elsewhere, clubs aren't willingto sell them or we won't pay what they want etc."

 

@Babylon

 

... So we ****ed up then? All of those things are part of researching a replacement. Any idiot can look at a player and judge his ability, part of a professional recruitment team will be ascertaining the viability of transfers not just their footballing talent. 

 

We know Bailey, Lozano, Brandt and Lemar are about the best young wide midfielders in Europe, it doesn't mean we think we can sign them. 

 

The point about having two years to prepare for Riyad going is a very good one and it DOES look like we were woefully under prepared to replace him. 

 

Don't just argue with people for the sakes of it, he's right. 

 

Yes they are part of recruitment, but they are also all fluid. Asking prices can change, players that were available can become no longer available, other more attractive clubs can come in and take a player you've put two years into wooing. We can't control everything, we aren't a Man city who are incredibly attractive to players and find it easy to knock others out of the water, we're Leicester, whether we like it or not there are dozens of more attractive clubs around Europe, offering things we currently can't... like European football, or rain.

 

And please do pack it in with your "don't argue with people for the sake of it", it's my opinion, if I didn't hold it then I wouldn't say it. I'll be disappointed if we don't get a replacement, but I'm not naive enough to think we control absolutely everything.

[Long Eaton Fox]

If the reports of a last minute bid for Alireza are true then we really have no coherent plan to replace Mahrez at all. Unless of course that we are still talking with our original target whom we do not know of.

[Babylon]

3 minutes ago, Long Eaton Fox said:

If the reports of a last minute bid for Alireza are true then we really have no coherent plan to replace Mahrez at all. Unless of course that we are still talking with our original target whom we do not know of.

Or there was a plan and something screwed it up... for all we know we've been in dialogue about Hazzard or another player for 18 months, then suddenly a club changes it's mind, or another team snaps them up. Or they have an incredible season and the price trebles. We have absolutely no idea.

 

We've been pretty swift at identifying targets and getting them in of late. The Maddison, Evans and Pereira transfers were all talked about months before they happened. So there was clearly dialogue going on and the transfers themselves happened quickly once the window was open. Same for the N'didi transfer, we know that scouting and relationship building was going on for over a year.

 

Do we really think, that the club just decided that they wouldn't bother doing that for the one of the best players we've ever had? They thought, sod all that planning malarky.... lets just wing it this summer.

 

This isn't just blind defence, I've been heavily critical about how we go about things in the past, I'm still massively unconvinced about our management selection process, as finners pointed out above. But I've seen improvements, I just can't believe we'd put long term planning into so many other players and then just not bother in this instance.