Bournemouth 4- Leicester 2 post match thread.

[vanity]

5 hours ago, murphy said:

If you mean being out of position by being too far forward then you really can't blame Ricardo.  He is an attacking full back given licence to bomb forward.  If there is no cover then the centre mids are failing to do their job, it is hardly Ricardo's fault.

Cannot see any way the DMs can be blamed. The problem here was tactical. The high line compressed the space our DMs had to work in, and AFCB's counterattack was not only fast, it was direct, and the passes that ignited their counterattacks came from around the place on the field Ndidi and Mendy were operating in. They were simply left behind, and had no realistic chance to provide cover in many of the instances our defense broke down (both scoring and nonscoring chances, it happened repeatedly). 

 

It is a simple matter of spacing. When you compress the field with a high line, get dispossessed, and allow a quality through-ball for the striker to chase against slower CBs, you eliminate the need to beat levels of a defense. That is why we were successful against teams with much better defenders than we had attacking players in 2015 -- we reduced scoring opportunities to footraces, and defenses at this level are comfortable with systems and organization, not improvisation and chaos.

 

 

[STUHILL]

7 minutes ago, vanity said:

Cannot see any way the DMs can be blamed. The problem here was tactical. The high line compressed the space our DMs had to work in, and AFCB's counterattack was not only fast, it was direct, and the passes that ignited their counterattacks came from around the place on the field Ndidi and Mendy were operating in. They were simply left behind, and had no realistic chance to provide cover in many of the instances our defense broke down (both scoring and nonscoring chances, it happened repeatedly). 

 

It is a simple matter of spacing. When you compress the field with a high line, get dispossessed, and allow a quality through-ball for the striker to chase against slower CBs, you eliminate the need to beat levels of a defense. That is why we were successful against teams with much better defenders than we had attacking players in 2015 -- we reduced scoring opportunities to footraces, and defenses at this level are comfortable with systems and organization, not improvisation and chaos.

 

 

Credit to Howe and Bournemouth. I think they exposed our system very well today. Wait for Pereira and Chilwell to bomb forward, win possession and play quick and direct balls bypassing Mendy and N'didi, and so leaving two slow CB's in Maguire and Morgan exposed to their quick attackers.

 

Far too easy IMO but still credit to Howe, as Bournemouth didn't even have to play that well to knock 4 past us today 

[Smudge]

27 minutes ago, STUHILL said:

Credit to Howe and Bournemouth. I think they exposed our system very well today. Wait for Pereira and Chilwell to bomb forward, win possession and play quick and direct balls bypassing Mendy and N'didi, and so leaving two slow CB's in Maguire and Morgan exposed to their quick attackers.

 

Far too easy IMO but still credit to Howe, as Bournemouth didn't even have to play that well to knock 4 past us today 

Sounds like Waterloo

[Dan LCFC]

Hard to know where to start on that one, lets work from back to front.

 

- Defence. Dear oh dear. It's just utterly shambolic isn't it? I think other than West Ham we are the worst side defensively in this league. That earlier was not a freak. That's 5, 5 and 4 conceded in 3 of our last 5 away games, and two of those were against midtable sides.

 

- Wes Morgan. He will get the flack here, but lets just nip this in the bud. Morgan shouldn't be playing, no doubt about it for me, he's past-it now and seeing him still playing is doing nobody any favours (again the player power rumours worry me as Soyuncu was ready to play this weekend, Puel's words). HOWEVER.....

 

- Maguire. Morgan's become the scapegoat but too many of these are getting away with it for me, Maguire more than anybody - he was an absolute shambles out there today, he's the one who should've been sent off, not Morgan. This isn't a one off with him either. I get we all love him and I get he's a good player but he's a very average defender, lets be totally honest, we need to compensate for that in our system, but we don't.

 

- The midfield. I'm sorry, one swallow doesn't make a summer. Mendy came into the side against Wolves and felt like a new signing after his really decent performance. Since then, he's been ordinary. Nothing too bad, but nothing special either, certainly not worthy of some of the OTT comments made about him. Ndidi as well I thought was abysmal today.

 

- Gray. I've had enough of him now. Albrighton is more productive. It's the same story every single time with him. Absolute utter rubbish yet again. I listened to 606 on the way home and a Bournemouth fan rang up saying it was daft how England overlooked Ryan Fraser and allowed him to go and play for Scotland, I was ready to laugh until I stopped and thought... well, if Gray can make the England squad...

 

- Puel and the system in general. It doesn't work. This 4-2-3-1 needs to go. You cannot get away with a slow pair of centre halves and two full backs who are quite dodgy defensively, playing a high line, against a side with pace like Bournemouth. It's absolute suicide and how many times can Puel get away with making these stupid errors? I get having off days but we've been battered a few times this calendar year. It's early days this season but how many car crash performances can we really afford?

 

I'm not Puel out but I'm not seeing enough progress. I need to see evidence that this is worth persisting with, and performances as indefensible as that, as frequently as that make it hard to buy into, as much as I like some of what he's trying to do.

Edited 16 September 2018 by Dan LCFC

[inckley fox]

Gray and Ghezzal didn't have great games, Vardy huffed and puffed admirably enough but missed his chances. On the other hand Ndidi and Mendy were fine, Maddison decent. Albrighton came on and showed that he deserves a little more faith, at least until someone demonstrates consistently that they deserve to replace him in the line-up.

 

The real story of that game, though, was an appalling defensive performance. None of the four of them could complain if they were dropped. Pereira put in as poor a defensive display as I've seen in a long time, both Maguire and Morgan were over-exposed by the full backs and failed to cope. 

 

I always let out a strange groaning sound when someone mentions 3-5-2, but I can't help feeling that it would enable Puel to play some of the players that he wants to play in the way he'd like to play them.

 

If he has to play four at the back, it can't be with Morgan as one of the CBs, or Pereira on the right. If he persists with that, it'll be the equivalent to Taylor's persistence with Lewis and Marshall, or Levein's with Kisnorbo at CM and De Vries up front, in that he'll lose his job as a consequence of it. Some players (Chilwell, Morgan, Pereira) need more protection, and maybe we can afford to provide it if the wide players in our current 4-5-1/4-2-3-1 aren't offering much, as was the case today. If one of the main advantages of a 4-5-1 variant is that it accommodates Gray / Ghezzal etc., then I'd argue those guys would have to do a little more to justify their selection, especially when we have players severely exposed in defensive positions.

 

I've stuck up for the manager and remain patient with him, but he let us down today. We were out-thought every step of the way and he was slow to react. There were gaping holes in that defence throughout the first half and yet the only thing which broke up that back four was a totally predictable red card. A rudimentary computer programme, or an eight year old, could have handled our game management more effectively than Puel.

[dormelcfc]

This game reminded me very much of our 4-2 win over Manchester City a couple o seasons back and not just because of the score line.

 

It was the sheer tactical naivety from Puel and Guardiola of playing a high line against a pacey counter-attacking outfit. Vardy had a field day that night, as did Fraser. The amount of errors strewn throughout the game from various players e.g. Maguire, Ricardo etc. was also a hugely contributing factor.

 

It will also give Puel some insight into his team that (somehow) he hasn’t seen yet. Morgan is not good enough andGray does not provide enough of an attacking outlet, and the system does no work. It’s no coincidence that after we beat Manchester City, Guardiola binned off the likes of Sagna, Zabaleta, Jesus Navas and Iheanacho. Let’s hope Puel can learn those lessons and go on to be as successful as Guardiola ?

[TeaMen Tom]

They were a bit unlucky but the lack of pace with Morgan and Maguire was exposed. Not sure Pereira is an EPL level RB.  If someone on the roster can't beat out Wes for CB we may see a repeat of last year with this team underachieving.  Nididi, Mendy/Ghezzal/Gray all being no shows didn't help.

[inckley fox]

17 minutes ago, dormelcfc said:

This game reminded me very much of our 4-2 win over Manchester City a couple o seasons back and not just because of the score line.

 

It was the sheer tactical naivety from Puel and Guardiola of playing a high line against a pacey counter-attacking outfit. Vardy had a field day that night, as did Fraser. The amount of errors strewn throughout the game from various players e.g. Maguire, Ricardo etc. was also a hugely contributing factor.

 

It will also give Puel some insight into his team that (somehow) he hasn’t seen yet. Morgan is not good enough andGray does not provide enough of an attacking outlet, and the system does no work. It’s no coincidence that after we beat Manchester City, Guardiola binned off the likes of Sagna, Zabaleta, Jesus Navas and Iheanacho. Let’s hope Puel can learn those lessons and go on to be as successful as Guardiola ?

Sometimes you have that feeling that a result sets the clock ticking. Under Pearson it always seemed to be ticking, save for the bulk of 13/14. Under Puel, maybe we've also had the sensation before. But after today's performance, I find myself looking at those next two fixtures and thinking that he'll need at least two points if he wants to remain in a job. I don't see any benefit in understating how shambolic our defensive performance and shape was today, or how slow the manager was at reacting to a painfully clear set of problems.

 

But most of our great managerial eras have - like the example you gave - come from a moment of adversity. O'Neill needed his loss to Sheffield United in March 1996, Pearson needed his loss to Watford in the Play-Offs. I've heard my Dad and his friends talking about similar moments in the Gillies, Bloomfield, Wallace and Milne years. Of all the managers I've known, the only successful ones to really hit the ground running were Little and Ranieri. Lots of dreadful managers had a wonderful start. So let's hope this can be a turning point for a capable manager.

 

There's always a nagging concern, though. Does he have that force of character you need to turn it around? With O'Neill I knew he had, you could see it in him. With this guy, it'd have to be something well concealed.

[Tielemans63]

7 hours ago, Wymeswold fox said:

I normally agree with you generally, but have to disagree on this one in some ways.

 

The performance when we came back with two despite the sending off, has given me the belief something is still there with regards tp potential/better things to come if we start to better manage the game more effectively especially earlier on.

Had Maddison's shot which deflected off the crossbar went in, our confidence would've likely to shot up and thus we'd be more determined for more, certainly when the game was more competitive then.

Hope you're right Wymesy. I just think the decision to play a high line against one of the paciest attacks in the league with a slow-paced CB pairing was as naive a-decision as any made by Shakey. Maybe I'm being overly negative but I thought the two we scored were largely down to Bournemouth switching off.

 

We've been poor defensively under Puel, I think that's fair to say. The team is screaming out for 3 at the back with Chilwell and Perriera as wing backs and yet he sticks with Perriera at RB despite the fact he looks very uncomfortable in that position and great going forward. Same with Chilwell. He could also compensate for Morgan's lack of pace with an extra CB. Sticking with a system that doesn't work - where have we seen that before?

Edited 16 September 2018 by Paddy.

[chris_lcfc_85]

1 hour ago, Paddy. said:

Hope you're right Wymesy. I just think the decision to play a high line against one of the paciest attacks in the league with a slow-paced CB pairing was as naive a-decision as any made by Shakey. Maybe I'm being overly negative but I thought the two we scored were largely down to Bournemouth switching off.

 

We've been poor defensively under Puel, I think that's fair to say. The team is screaming out for 3 at the back with Chilwell and Perriera as wing backs and yet he sticks with Perriera at RB despite the fact he looks very uncomfortable in that position and great going forward. Same with Chilwell. He could also compensate for Morgan's lack of pace with an extra CB. Sticking with a system that doesn't work - where have we seen that before?

Makes me laugh when I see this. He's quicker than maguire! Jonny Evans is then slower than both of them so don't expect much 

[Tielemans63]

8 minutes ago, chris_lcfc_85 said:

Makes me laugh when I see this. He's quicker than maguire! Jonny Evans is then slower than both of them so don't expect much 

I don't think he is. I think Maguire is slightly quicker. You're probably right about Evans so why not give Soyuncu an opportunity?

 

TBH who is slightly quicker out of Morgan and Maguire is neither here nor there really, the fact is neither are quick so playing four at the back with a high line isn't a good idea. You need someone else in there to compensate. I'm guessing/ hoping Soyuncu was recruited to add some pace to the back line.

[reynard]

I'm not certain where all this dislike of Morgan comes from. Let's get this staright, Morgan is quicker than Maguire who is quicker than Evans. Let's see some of the blame for yesterday's shambles proportionally shared. Maguire was terrible. We have two full backs who can't defend. The back four is screened, and I use that word with caution, by two holding midfielders, who don't seem capable of doing the job efficiently or consistently and who contribute very little going forwards.

Two wingers yesterday basically didn't show up and Vardy looked rusty and we're not playing to his strengths really.

 

I get we're a work in progress but we've spent 100 million to get to this stage and we all think we have a decent squad but sadly we don't seem to have a management team able to get them to play together at this moment with any degree of cohesion.

In this league you can only be a work in progress for a short period of time otherwise you will find yourself in a relegation scrap.

[AlloverthefloorYesNdidi]

Mendy is making Ndidi look poor

[Mr Weller]

Some great tactical points here but what’s clear is that the jury is still very much out on Puel. The idea was that he was building a new philosophy at the club based on possession based football and that this would take time. The problem is that we don’t seem to making much progress and people are becoming impatient.

 

I don’t think the owners are at the stage yet where they might sack Puel as they believe in building a long term philosophy but if that philosophy isn’t working or it isn’t working quickly enough then there does come a point where they have to act. This result is a serious setback for Puel and he’s got to respond decisively or face the consequences. His post match interview suggests he was putting it down to bad luck which was worrying but maybe it was too soon sfter the match and his emotions were too raw for him to know his own mind and a make sober assessment of the situation.

 

We can all play at being football manager but he’s got to do it and it’s really hard which is why most fail. Let’s hope he responds, learns lessons and turns it around.

 

 

Edited 16 September 2018 by Mr Weller

[Tielemans63]

8 minutes ago, reynard said:

I'm not certain where all this dislike of Morgan comes from. Let's get this staright, Morgan is quicker than Maguire who is quicker than Evans. Let's see some of the blame for yesterday's shambles proportionally shared. Maguire was terrible. We have two full backs who can't defend. The back four is screened, and I use that word with caution, by two holding midfielders, who don't seem capable of doing the job efficiently or consistently and who contribute very little going forwards.

Two wingers yesterday basically didn't show up and Vardy looked rusty and we're not playing to his strengths really.

 

I get we're a work in progress but we've spent 100 million to get to this stage and we all think we have a decent squad but sadly we don't seem to have a management team able to get them to play together at this moment with any degree of cohesion.

In this league you can only be a work in progress for a short period of time otherwise you will find yourself in a relegation scrap.

Just for the record, I don't dislike Morgan, quite the opposite! I'm forever defending him but he has been poor at times this season. Maybe it's just my perception but I honestly think he's lost half a yard of pace this season. Last year I'd have said Morgan was quicker than Maguire but not now. Hand on heart, I think Maguire is slightly quicker now....which is a worry.

 

I agree with everything else you've said though and you're right, Maguire was atrocious yesterday as they all were. It was a disastrous team performance.

Edited 16 September 2018 by Paddy.

[chris_lcfc_85]

7 minutes ago, AlloverthefloorYesNdidi said:

Mendy is making Ndidi look poor

This two are just too similar I'm afraid. Silva needs to come in 

[reynard]

Just now, Paddy. said:

Just for the record, I don't dislike Morgan, quite the opposite! I'm forever defending him but he has been poor at times this season. Maybe it's just my perception but I honestly think he's lost half a yard of pace this season. Last year I'd have said Morgan was definitely quicker than Maguire but not now. Hand on heart, I think Maguire is slightly quicker now....which is a worry.

 

I agree with everything else you've said though and you're right, Maguire was atrocious yesterday as they all were. It was a disastrous team performance.

I'm not against criticism of players but there seems to be more than that about Morgan at times on here. Yes he's been at fault for goals but so have others.

[les-tah]

When will the Morgan era end??

 

I still see his player power being the reason for him in the team and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it.

[Tielemans63]

5 hours ago, Dan LCFC said:

Hard to know where to start on that one, lets work from back to front.

 

- Defence. Dear oh dear. It's just utterly shambolic isn't it? I think other than West Ham we are the worst side defensively in this league. That earlier was not a freak. That's 5, 5 and 4 conceded in 3 of our last 5 away games, and two of those were against midtable sides.

 

- Wes Morgan. He will get the flack here, but lets just nip this in the bud. Morgan shouldn't be playing, no doubt about it for me, he's past-it now and seeing him still playing is doing nobody any favours (again the player power rumours worry me as Soyuncu was ready to play this weekend, Puel's words). HOWEVER.....

 

- Maguire. Morgan's become the scapegoat but too many of these are getting away with it for me, Maguire more than anybody - he was an absolute shambles out there today, he's the one who should've been sent off, not Morgan. This isn't a one off with him either. I get we all love him and I get he's a good player but he's a very average defender, lets be totally honest, we need to compensate for that in our system, but we don't.

 

- The midfield. I'm sorry, one swallow doesn't make a summer. Mendy came into the side against Wolves and felt like a new signing after his really decent performance. Since then, he's been ordinary. Nothing too bad, but nothing special either, certainly not worthy of some of the OTT comments made about him. Ndidi as well I thought was abysmal today.

 

- Gray. I've had enough of him now. Albrighton is more productive. It's the same story every single time with him. Absolute utter rubbish yet again. I listened to 606 on the way home and a Bournemouth fan rang up saying it was daft how England overlooked Ryan Fraser and allowed him to go and play for Scotland, I was ready to laugh until I stopped and thought... well, if Gray can make the England squad...

 

- Puel and the system in general. It doesn't work. This 4-2-3-1 needs to go. You cannot get away with a slow pair of centre halves and two full backs who are quite dodgy defensively, playing a high line, against a side with pace like Bournemouth. It's absolute suicide and how many times can Puel get away with making these stupid errors? I get having off days but we've been battered a few times this calendar year. It's early days this season but how many car crash performances can we really afford?

 

I'm not Puel out but I'm not seeing enough progress. I need to see evidence that this is worth persisting with, and performances as indefensible as that, as frequently as that make it hard to buy into, as much as I like some of what he's trying to do.

Totally agree with all of this.

[Buce]

 

We bought three centre-backs in the summer, yet persist with Wes Morgan.

 

I really don't get it.

[chris_lcfc_85]

7 minutes ago, les-tah said:

When will the Morgan era end??

 

I still see his player power being the reason for him in the team and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it.

When other centre backs are up to speed. Jonny Evans was awful against wolves! Morgan came in against Southampton away and he was one of our best performers on the day 

[Matt]

4 minutes ago, les-tah said:

When will the Morgan era end??

 

I still see his player power being the reason for him in the team and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it.

Urgh, not this again.

 

Either way Puel is at fault for that imo.

 

Scenario 1) If there is no player power and Puel is simple picking Morgan due to him being a blue eyed boy - Why?! There were options last season, there are options this season, the defence is a shambles and not just Morgan however he's choosing to do nothing about it.

 

Scenario 2) Player power. Grow some bollocks then. This arguement stands up even less now, last season if there was player power you could argue he had to work with what was there, he couldn't do much about personel. Puel's had a summer now, to sign 'his players' and get rid (I know it's not that simple, but if there were/are bad apples, you do what you need to get rid) of the people causing trouble. He's signed players, we're still a defensive shamble though.

 

[Matt]

2 minutes ago, chris_lcfc_85 said:

When other centre backs are up to speed. Jonny Evans was awful against wolves! Morgan came in against Southampton away and he was one of our best performers on the day 

 

[murphy]

7 hours ago, vanity said:

Cannot see any way the DMs can be blamed. The problem here was tactical. The high line compressed the space our DMs had to work in, and AFCB's counterattack was not only fast, it was direct, and the passes that ignited their counterattacks came from around the place on the field Ndidi and Mendy were operating in. They were simply left behind, and had no realistic chance to provide cover in many of the instances our defense broke down (both scoring and nonscoring chances, it happened repeatedly). 

 

It is a simple matter of spacing. When you compress the field with a high line, get dispossessed, and allow a quality through-ball for the striker to chase against slower CBs, you eliminate the need to beat levels of a defense. That is why we were successful against teams with much better defenders than we had attacking players in 2015 -- we reduced scoring opportunities to footraces, and defenses at this level are comfortable with systems and organization, not improvisation and chaos.

 

 

I agree.  The high line was clearly a tactical instruction which Bournemouth exploited well.

 

My post was in response to those blaming Ricardo for being too far forward.  When this happens, which is another tactical instruction, it is the role of the DMs to provide cover. 

[chris_lcfc_85]

2 minutes ago, Matt said:

 

I think we all know Morgan will not be starting for much longer, he's getting no younger but the simple fact is that defensively he's been no worse than maguire this season yet its constantly Morgan that gets the blame. Evans and soyuncu will get their time so let's hope they perform as well as we all want them to because it won't be Morgans fault if they don't