The "do they mean us?" thread pt 2

[The Horse's Mouth]

Miracle was the title win,, this is nowhere near a miracle quality recruitment and a thriving youth setup has got us here

[MarriedaLeicesterGirl]

1 hour ago, ScouseFox said:

not that comparable when you actually look at the fixtures though. they came back from the international break and had city, arsenal, united and chelsea in their next 7 or 8 games, so they'd basically played nobody good in the first 12. we've done the opposite and got 12 games in and played everyone in the top half. can't see us taking 1 point from our next 5 games like they did. 

 

they also completely gave up after the new year, they won 4 games in the last 4 months of the season. 

Reminds me of our opening fixtures in 2017....I would feel sorry for Shakey if I didn't say "WTF are you doing???" at least once a game during his tenure that season, beginning with bringing Nacho on that first Arsenal game.

[Corky]

1 minute ago, MarriedaLeicesterGirl said:

Reminds me of our opening fixtures in 2017....I would feel sorry for Shakey if I didn't say "WTF are you doing???" at least once a game during his tenure that season, beginning with bringing Nacho on that first Arsenal game.

Shakespeare's problem wasn't those games, it was the poor performances at Huddersfield and Bournemouth and the quite appalling home draw with West Brom where we looked absolutely clueless and close to defeat against a team who didn't seem to want to exit their own half.

[Dahnsouff]

 

 

Sherwood - Dick Bsicuit

 

[Mark 'expert' Lawrenson]

1 minute ago, Corky said:

Shakespeare's problem wasn't those games, it was the poor performances at Huddersfield and Bournemouth and the quite appalling home draw with West Brom where we looked absolutely clueless and close to defeat against a team who didn't seem to want to exit their own half.

Some coaches are just made to be assistants, I’d put Shakey in that bracket, and that’s not a criticism of him it’s just that he made a great assistant for both Pearson and Ranieri and never really was manager material.

[urban.spaceman]

47 minutes ago, LC/FC said:

Speaking of levels, it's maddening how our own levels have jumped so far in the last 5 years.

We bought Ulloa for 8 million and all went nuts at the price paid at the time by us. 

Then we overspent a lot, including then jumping 29 million for Slimani which for us, was almost as bad as Akinibadbuy for the amount spent and now we're spending 20-30-40 million on players here there and everywhere.

It's amazing when you think about it, our record transfer fee for Akinbiyi stood at £5m for 14 years until we beat it by £3m with Ulloa. 

 

That coincided with our promotion to the Premier League which instantly boosted our budget, but we still didn't overspend - our scouting was once again excellent and we got Fuchs for free, Huth for £3m, Okazaki for £7m and Kante for £5.6m. In the two windows combined we spent under a third of what Newcastle did; we won the league and they got relegated.

 

The 2016 window was a disaster as we all know, but at least we had properly earned the extra money to blow away rather than wasting precious resources, like Newcastle did above and like so many others regularly do. We earned £93m (which was the 5th highest despite winning the damn thing) but spent £65m on absolute trash and still earning £25m on Kante's sale.

 

That's when we started to learn from our mistakes. That was our crucial moment, right there. 16/17 was a write off domestically BUT, we had sort of earned it. 

 

The 2017 window was *almost* bad but again, we'd earned a hell of a lot form the Champions League (£73m - more than the actual winners!!) to allow ourselves to make those mistakes and not 'overspend'. We made a £37m profit on Drinkwater and spent just £17m on Harry Maguire, (who we'd make a profit of £68m on just 2 years later - minus Hull's cut).  We showed our nerve in standing our ground over Mahrez in the January too.

 

2018 comes around and we spend around £60m on Maddison, Ricardo, Soyuncu and Evans - that's more or less what we sold Mahrez for in the same window. 

 

Our transfer market dealings aren't without disasters BUT we learn from them and know exactly how to get a bargain. I'd argue now that what we're spending on players is the 'going rate', or below, in the current market - especially when you look at West Ham and Newcastle spaffing £45m each on Haller and Joelinton respectively, and our £1m non-league 32 year old is outscoring and out-assisting them COMBINED.

 

We really are the KINGS when it comes to the transfer market.

[Dahnsouff]

1 minute ago, urban.spaceman said:

It's amazing when you think about it, our record transfer fee for Akinbiyi stood at £5m for 14 years until we beat it by £3m with Ulloa. 

 

That coincided with our promotion to the Premier League which instantly boosted our budget, but we still didn't overspend - our scouting was once again excellent and we got Fuchs for free, Huth for £3m, Okazaki for £7m and Kante for £5.6m. In the two windows combined we spent under a third of what Newcastle did; we won the league and they got relegated.

 

Oooof. Right in the plums. No mercy!  

[Suzie the Fox]

3 hours ago, HighPeakFox said:

What he said IS NOT offensive. Taking offence is a choice, and it's healthier not to bother. 

He is still a complete twat though. 

[HighPeakFox]

28 minutes ago, Suzie the Fox said:

He is still a complete twat though. 

Not complete - some bits are missing... 

[egg_fried_rice]

https://www.espn.com/soccer/blog-the-match/story/3985126/leicester-couldnt-win-the-premier-league-againcould-they

 

Leicester couldn't win the Premier League again, could they?

 

 

There must have been a few times, during the intervening years, when Jamie Vardy has wondered if he made a mistake in turning down a move to Arsenal, as he did back in the summer of 2016. If there were, though, we can safely assume he does not consider it anymore, especially after he played a key role in Leicester's 2-0 win over the Gunners.

 

For the second time in four days, Arsenal manager Unai Emery stood by the side of a football pitch, soaking wet, and watched his team put in a dispiriting performance in driving rain. On Wednesday against Vitoria Guimaraes, there was the familiar concession of a lead that led to a disappointing draw. Three days later, they were simply being beaten by a superior team.

 

Because Leicester were not just better at the King Power Stadium; they were miles better. Almost embarrassingly better. Indeed, so much better were they in what amounted to an eighth win in 10 Premier League games, which means they spend Saturday night in second place, that you start to think about it ...

 

They couldn't do it again, could they?

 

The 2015-16 season still feels slightly unreal, so unlikely was Leicester's title win under Claudio Ranieri. That is mainly because it was not the result of careful planning and logical thinking, more an implausible confluence of events involving individual brilliance, traditional forces having off-seasons and no little luck, all of which resulted in a miracle.

 

This feels different. This feels like a manager with a broader vision, a longer-term plan, about which, of course, he will not be shy of telling you. But while it is always easy to mock Brendan Rodgers' sense of self-regard, that does not mean he is necessarily wrong, even if he is playing down the chances of a title challenge at this stage.

 

"We're not really thinking about that," Rodgers said, when asked if Leicester could be thought of as title challengers. "We're thinking about developing the team and making them better. That's been the focus since I first came in.

 

"Our job over the years I'm here is to hopefully be that [a top-four team] and if we can bring European football here that would be great. It's a huge credit to the players, because they've adapted to how I've asked them to work."

 

Objectively, Leicester are within a shout of challenging for the title. Liverpool or Manchester City -- or both -- will drop points when the sides meet at Anfield on Sunday, while Rodgers' men also have a friendly set of fixtures coming up.

 

After the international break, Leicester face Brighton, Everton, Watford, Aston Villa and Norwich. By the time they play City and Liverpool either side of Christmas, they could easily have another 15 points in the bank, which would put them in touch with the best teams in the country, going into the New Year.

 

"I suppose we've thrown a hand grenade right into the middle of them all [the established top-four teams]," Rodgers said. "Our job is to improve and be better, bring consistency to our game. It's 12 games in, we're working very well but we've just got to keep going until it's about 10 games to go and we can assess where we are then."

The transformation of a team, which was trudging toward irrelevance last season under Claude Puel, has been remarkable. Rodgers has basically the same set of players as when he took charge at the end of February; indeed, 10 of the 11 starters against Arsenal -- Ayoze Perez was the exception -- were in the squad for his first game in charge, against Watford.

 

Rodgers has improved every aspect of this Leicester team, tightening the defence despite losing £80 million worth of Harry Maguire in the summer, making the midfield more efficient with a sterling trio of Wilfred Ndidi, Youri Tielemans and James Maddison, and refocusing Vardy's game to help make him the league's top scorer, which is remarkable given the former England striker looked to be on the way out under Puel.

 

This team is full of players about whom you instinctively think, "Arsenal should probably have signed him": Beyond the near miss with Vardy, Tielemans, Maddison, Ricardo Pereira and Jonny Evans also fit the bill. Heck, maybe the manager himself falls into that category. Would they be as good at the Emirates, though?

 

While Arsenal are floundering for ideas, grasping to find something that works, Leicester have a consistent approach and are excelling with its implementation. On the most basic level, Rodgers has made sure his team is greater than the sum of their parts, while the opposite is true of Emery's outfit.

As if to emphasise the undeniable and obvious quality gap, Rodgers spoke about Arsenal after the game as if they were plucky upstarts that had no greater ambition than to nick a result, stopping just shot of calling them brave.

 

"I think the only other time they have played that system [five at the back with two defensive midfielders] is in the Europa League final," he said. "They're a big, big threat on counter-attacks, so we had to manage that today."

 

Rodgers' rhetoric is no false sense of superiority. Leicester are nine points clear of Arsenal and look every inch of being worth it. Ranieri's 2015-16 champions will always be the club's greatest and most glorious, but in objective terms this team might be better.

 

Does that mean they will also win the title? As implausible as it might seem, maybe. Just maybe.

 

[Mickyblueeyes]

4 hours ago, HighPeakFox said:

Not stopping debate, I'm taking issue with the taking of offence at a silly old man. 

But it’s a Leicester City forum where comments (incorrectly) have been made about Leicester - people are simply picking up on some of those points and naturally, where they are wrong, will speak up. Merson has a platform on national telly and football is quite a passionate hobby, a past time, a release - it has emotion attached to it. If someone doesn’t like what others say about their club, let them air it out. I don’t understand what the issue is. It’s fair game to comment on incorrect statements on a forum designed for that sort of thing, no ? 

[HighPeakFox]

8 minutes ago, Mickyblueeyes said:

But it’s a Leicester City forum where comments (incorrectly) have been made about Leicester - people are simply picking up on some of those points and naturally, where they are wrong, will speak up. Merson has a platform on national telly and football is quite a passionate hobby, a past time, a release - it has emotion attached to it. If someone doesn’t like what others say about their club, let them air it out. I don’t understand what the issue is. It’s fair game to comment on incorrect statements on a forum designed for that sort of thing, no ? 

Yes, people can comment at will. And I will take the piss if they spill over into 'taking offence', when it's all so very unimportant, in the greater scheme of things. 

[Mark 'expert' Lawrenson]

Football pundits have and always will talk a load of 💩 at times, it’s slightly irritating but also very amusing when they make grand statements that end up completely wrong, Alan Brazil said around Christmas time that Crystal Palace (I think) would finish above us the season we won the league, around the same time Garth Crooks said it was “just a bit of fun” when we went top of the league, Merson is somewhat of a court jester, mildly amusing at times, Arsenal through and through and just a little bit thick.

[Fox42]

6 hours ago, Facecloth said:

Great post.

 

I remember after we won the league, a Liverpool fan called 606 and declared that Leicesters success showed the Liverpool needed to go out and spend £150m plus to compete. I thought no, it proves the exact opposite, that it's almost irrelevant how much you spend if you just throw money at any half decent player and have no plan or structure. A free transfer can add much more to the team than a £20m signing. 

I mean, don’t just look at our success to prove your point but also look at Chelsea and how they’re performing after their transfer ban!

[Shmokeee]

14 minutes ago, Fox42 said:

I mean, don’t just look at our success to prove your point but also look at Chelsea and how they’re performing after their transfer ban!

I know, it must be a right grind with 52 players out on loan. How do they cope??

[KingsX]

20 minutes ago, Mark 'expert' Lawrenson said:

 just a little bit thick.

 

That's one way to put it.

 

[Facecloth]

48 minutes ago, Fox42 said:

I mean, don’t just look at our success to prove your point but also look at Chelsea and how they’re performing after their transfer ban!

Well transfer ban that included signing Kovocic for £30m and the addition of Pulisic for the first time after signing for £60m, but fair point.

[Woof]

Some good observations in the last few pages and in that context I'd like to comment on the regular discussions I see (not just here!) about which players from another team would get in our team (and vice versa).

 

Rodgers has developed this team to play in a certain way and the plan is to continue to develop that.  We have a team where all the parts fit together, where the team spirit is fantastic and where everyone works for everyone one else.  The plan is for future recruitment to add players that fit into this template.  This is surely the best way to go for a club - it is not just about the relative merits of players as individuals or what they are worth.  The 15/16 team was built like that and so was O'Neill's - teams that punched above their weight.  Every team in the PL has talented players and many games are decided by small margins.  Having the right structure and team spirit gives you that extra few % towards succeeding.

 

I wouldn't swap any of them 

[dayday]

6 hours ago, Finnegan said:

 

Much like Kammy, he's clearly employed more for entertainment value than because anyone really trusts his opinion. 

To be fair to Kammy, I quite like him and he’s quite informative on goals on Sunday

[Heathrow fox]

10 minutes ago, dayday said:

To be fair to Kammy, I quite like him and he’s quite informative on goals on Sunday

Wouldn’t miss anyone of the studio guests and their monitors.Much rather just have Jeff and the vide-printer,with occasional side pitch comments from Kammy,Dickie and the girls.

[Babylon]

28 minutes ago, dayday said:

To be fair to Kammy, I quite like him and he’s quite informative on goals on Sunday

That programme is horrendous.

[easilee]

Soz if already posted.

Really enjoyed this one.....Can you imagine the destruction of teams if the final selection ever was  ? !!!!

 

 

 

Edited 11 November 2019 by easilee

[ScouseFox]

 

 

and they look to hit teams on the counter attack with jamie vardys pace 

 

[HybridFox]

Take a step back and doesn't it just feel surreal we're here again.

 

It would never happen again they said, we'd never be in the Champions League again they said, all our players would go they said, the world wouldn't love us again they said.

 

We shall not be moved 

[HighPeakFox]

I had the same numb disbelief at the 0-9 that I had the night the title was won...I dunno how it will end, but it feels as special in its own way.