Leicester v West Ham- Pre Match Thread

[reynard]

14 minutes ago, GingerrrFox said:

Anyone backing Vardy in this can **** off quite simply.

 

No player is bigger than the team or indeed the club itself. Vardy by his own standards has been piss poor this season. People can talk bollocks about him being marginalised and not playing to his strengths - it’s all hot air. The basics of effort and determination have been lacking all season.

 

No player is untouchable. His **** Mrs liking tweets asking for Puel out, him making sly Instagram posts and then speaking out to John Percy are all actions of a man who cares more about himself than the team. Quite frankly it stinks of “who the **** does the manager think he is dropping me?”. He needs to look in the mirror. As an example, he barely played in the World Cup as he said himself and missed pre-season, yet when he got his three match ban, rather than staying to work hard in training and get sharp. He swanned off to Disneyland Paris, get your priorities right. 

 

There is alot in what you say but a manager needs to be able to manage his star players and Vardy is, whatever you say, one of our best players. His 15-20 goals he can and probably will score could easily be the difference between relegation and staying in the league. We have no other player who is going to score that many.

If Puel can't or won't find a way to utilise all his best assets then some of the blame must lie with him as well. Good managers recognise the skills and assets their workforce have. They try to utilise them in the way that is best for their team's overall perfomance until they leave and/or they replace them with people more in tune with the direction you want to go. It is what ultimately distinguishes good managers from poor ones. As far as strikers go we/Puel or whoever is responsible haven't done this.

Maybe you have inside info about his effort and I'm not in that position but blame hardly ever lies simply with one party in these sort of situations.

Managers need, these days, to be able to deal, with all the social media stuff, player's egos, agents demands etc etc.

Respect is a two way thing.

Edited 27 October 2018 by reynard

[Fox92]

37 minutes ago, Old Fox said:

Albert - spot on!

However the way we are being set up to play is frustrating the life out of him and he is one of several who are becoming more and vociferous in the lack of flexibility in CP.

All of his claims around changing the system, bringing youth in and referring to his past records in Europe is becoming tiresome for the players when it is abundantly clear he has tactically made us worse by demanding complete possession football which has blunted any threat from our best threat.

Fans backing this imo should be careful what they wish for because 16 or 17 sides in the prem would die for a Vardy and his piece by piece breaking up of our title wining squad reminds me of a certain P Taylor - we needed to evolve but utilise the qualities and build on them - don't just destroy them!

Personally hope he goes quickly before the window as he is not all be appears to me and we have gone backwards in the past 18 months - so so frustrating!!

 What.

 

So as long as we've got Vardy we've got to play one style? Says more about the player than any manager we hire.

 

"Fans backing this should be careful what they wish for"? Fans wanting yet another manager sacked should be careful what they wish for because in 5 years time when we're finishing 17th in the Championship again, 12th in the Premier League will be a dream. You can't keep sacking managers when you're an average club.

 

How have we gone backwards? Puel came in when we were in the bottom three and finished 9th. In fact, Puel is the first manager since O'Neill to not have us in a relegation battle in this league. We've gone backwards within the last 18 months because we didn't retain the title. Overall, this is our 5th season back in the PL and we are currently 12th.

Edited 27 October 2018 by Fox92

[Guest MattP]

I've got a bad feeling about today - wouldn' surprise me if it was very similar to the same fixture last season. 

[lgfualol]

Mendy has been fine. Ndidi is the bombscare these days.

[st albans fox]

7 minutes ago, GingerrrFox said:

Anyone backing Vardy in this can **** off quite simply.

 

No player is bigger than the team or indeed the club itself. Vardy by his own standards has been piss poor this season. People can talk bollocks about him being marginalised and not playing to his strengths - it’s all hot air. The basics of effort and determination have been lacking all season.

 

No player is untouchable. His **** Mrs liking tweets asking for Puel out, him making sly Instagram posts and then speaking out to John Percy are all actions of a man who cares more about himself than the team. Quite frankly it stinks of “who the **** does the manager think he is dropping me?”. He needs to look in the mirror. As an example, he barely played in the World Cup as he said himself and missed pre-season, yet when he got his three match ban, rather than staying to work hard in training and get sharp. He swanned off to Disneyland Paris, get your priorities right. 

 

Context - week one of his ban, he went away with his family. He had a short break at the end of the World Cup and had also picked up an injury. It was good for all sides. the club and the player knew that he wouldn’t be up to speed for quite a time ...... maybe not until now, once the international break had given him time for some intensive training with most of his team mates away. 

 

I agree that washing your dirty clothes in public isn’t good for us. clearly the owners and directors didn’t give him a new deal for the manager to drop him ...... ( not in a game which we need to win against decent opposition). I think this reveals something deeper at the club.  

 

it it was obviousl in game prep Wednesday that we might play without him ...... his insta posts saying he would be fine for Saturday and again yesterday publically reveal his view on the matter.  the manager needs to be in control of the situation ..... Puel isn’t ,,,,,, if he wants to drop Vardy then he has to do it with the players understanding and appreciation for the reasons, however much he may be unhappy about it. 

[Hanan96]

4 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

 What.

 

So as long as we've got Vardy we've got to play one style? Says more about the player than any manager we hire.

 

"Fans backing this should be careful what they wish for"? Fans wanting yet another manager sacked should be careful what they wish for because in 5 years time when we're finishing 17th in the Championship again, 12th in the Premier League will be a dream. You can't keep sacking managers when you're an average club.

 

How have we gone backwards? Puel came in when we were in the bottom three and finished 9th. In fact, Puel is the first manager since MON to not have us in a relegation battle in this league. We've gone backwards within the last 18 months because we didn't retain the title. Overall, this is our 5th season back in the PL and we are currently 12th.

Great Post. Btw what is MON? 

[StanSP]

1 minute ago, Hanan96 said:

Great Post. Btw what is MON? 

Martin O'Neill.

[Fox92]

Just now, Hanan96 said:

Great Post. Btw what is MON? 

Martin O'Neill. I'll edit that.

[Kasey Keller]

I'll be lumping on a Wham win ?? 5/2 currently 

[Fosse93]

1 minute ago, Kasey Keller said:

I'll be lumping on a Wham win ?? 5/2 currently 

Up the city!

[Tuna]

Looks like the walls are closing in on Claude. Endless reports of him being on the verge of the sack; press being briefed about Vardy being dropped/unhappy. 

 

Massive gamble dropping your best striker in what looks like a crunch game. Yes, Vardy was useless against Arsenal but I've not got a lot of confidence In the prospect of Shinji, Kelechi or Gray playing up front. Reminds me of when Gullitt dropped Shearer and ended up getting sacked.

 

I'm very worried about this game, it has the feel of the Palace/West Ham home game from last season where we did not show up and were turned over.

 

 

[GingerrrFox]

3 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

That’s just too simplistic imo. Probably why you’ve got 4 likes already.

A strong manager would surely take one of the club’s best ever strikers and still our best striker, get him under his wing and get him performing. Evolution not revolution is generally more effective. Even contemplating dropping Vardy, and playing the likes of Ghezzal, Mendy and Amartey appears crazy. As I said, IF this is the way Puel is going, it better work.

 

3 minutes ago, reynard said:

There is alot in what you say but a manager needs to be able to manage his star players and Vardy is, whatever you say, one of our best players. His 15-20 goals he can and probably will score could easily be the difference between relegation and staying in the league. We have no other player who is going to score that many.

If Puel can't or won't find a way to utilise all his best assets then some of the blame must lie with him as well. Good managers recognise the skills and assets their workforce have. They try to utilise them in the way that is best for their team's overall perfomance until they leave and/or they replace them with people more in tune with the direction you want to go. It is what ultimately distinguishes good managers from poor ones. As far as strikers go we/Puel or whoever is responsible haven't done this.

Maybe you have inside info about his effort and I'm not in that position but blame hardly ever lies simply with one party in these sort of situations.

Managers need, these days, to be able to deal, with all the social media stuff, player's egos, agents demands etc etc.

Respect is a two way thing.

Puel has quite clearly tried evolution and not revolution. Yes he has removed Simpson, King and Fuchs from the side however Kasper, Morgan and Vardy have all been trusted to help the young players around them as we build for the future.

 

Morgan has been given the opportunity this season to keep his place in the side and unfortunately his performances have proved he’s quite clearly past it and Soyuncu/Benkovic are the future. 

 

Kasper is Kasper - he is a very, very good goalkeeper for our club. He goes through phases of inconsistency and making the odd gaffe but he’s up there with Pickford as the best goal keeper outside the “Top 6” clubs. 

 

Vardy has been given every opportunity this season to carry on as the clubs starting number 9, but he’s been woeful. Monday night was criminal. With how badly he was struggling he should have made Puel aware before he had removed Maddison and Iheanacho from the fray. Not let the manager find out after he’s jogged off down the tunnel 10 minutes early. Iheanacho is a number 9, we’ve asked him to adapt and play around Vardy as he is/was the main man but no one has a divine right to keep their place in the side. Iheanacho deserves a chance at this point to stake his claim as our top striker.

 

A new striker in either January or the summer is on the shopping list, Vardy has two choices, rise to the challenge and prove he’s the man or spend the next 4 years on the bench unless someone else wants to pay an ageing 31 year old £100k+ plus a week who by most fans opinion can only play one style of football. 

[Tringfox]

3 minutes ago, Kasey Keller said:

I'll be lumping on a Wham win ?? 5/2 currently 

Why would you do that? I could give you a horse to back at that price instead of backing against your own team!

[Ian S]

44 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

This is no excuse.

 

"Southampton/Huddersfield were a poor side" yet if we lose to Liverpool/Man Utd then we weren't/aren't "good enough". 

 

The man can't win.

That is just the problem, that man can't win ,well not often enough as his record shows this year.And if he does not improve quickly he is history.

[Lionator]

14 minutes ago, lgfualol said:

Mendy has been fine. Ndidi is the bombscare these days.

Ever since he's been here he's been undroppable yet I think he's needed dropping for some time, just so we can get a reaction out of him. 

[whoareyaaa]

the word 'one style of football' really irritates me change the bastard system then

[st albans fox]

This seems to have become so confrontational ....... Percy reporting it means the player has leaked it so he certainly isn’t happy about it. Couple that with his insta posts about being ready to play and you have a fairly public manager v player stand off. 

 

puel could have played it differently and taken the approach that he wanted Vardy to play against soton on Tuesday and again next sat at Cardiff, thus making today better to have a game off, especially given he had been suffering with a dodgy stomach. the player may not have liked it but he may have accepted it. i would bet a large sum of money that if puel was even thinking this way, he hasn’t communicated it to the player.   The public message that Vardy hadn’t been able to train properly this week would have saved any ‘player dropped’ headlines which aren’t pleasant for any professional with an ego. 

 

Now we we have a situation where a poor result today will be bloody ugly in the stadium ..........   and it surely could have been avoided - I don’t subscribe to sacking the manager (that might be changing) but I do subscribe to him not being in control of the message, both internally and externally. 

[Ian S]

23 minutes ago, lgfualol said:

Our best threat got Ranieri and Shakespeare the sack because it didnt work anymore. You cant rely on counter attacks forever, especially with our defence and no Kante. The only teams that defend for 90 minutrs and rely on counter attacks are at the bottom of the table.

 

With or without Puel we had to become more of a team that can control games with possession. If Vardy had such a problem he shouldnt have signed a 4 year deal while Puel was in charge.

He signed a 4 year contract because he knows as we all do that Puel won't be here very long.

Control possession, don't make me laugh.Did you see the 2nd half stats on Monday? I would hate to see them when we were not trying to control possession.

 

[UniFox21]

We're all assuming Claude has and will drop Vardy. What if this is just a "leak" to get to West Ham? 

[HighPeakFox]

1 minute ago, Ian S said:

He signed a 4 year contract because he knows as we all do that Puel won't be here very long.

Do we? Ok then. Thanks for speaking for all of us.

[Ian S]

Just now, HighPeakFox said:

Do we? Ok then. Thanks for speaking for all of us.

My pleasure.

[TheUltimateWinner]

Player power strikes again, only this time we have a manager who won't be dictated to. I really hope this turns out well, if not, we'll be back to square one again! 

[Guest ttfn]

3 minutes ago, Ian S said:

He signed a 4 year contract because he knows as we all do that Puel won't be here very long.

Control possession, don't make me laugh.Did you see the 2nd half stats on Monday? I would hate to see them when we were not trying to control possession.

 

Absolutely criminal that we couldn’t control the game away from home against a side which has spent 22 years developing a possession-based game.

 

Should be dominating the ball against their midfield of 2 £30 million players and a World Cup winning number 10.

[Corky]

Regardless of who the manager is, these things shouldn't be leaked. He should have the ability to select his team and the players discuss the issue in private.

 

Going to the press isn't the right way to do it at all.

[Grebfromgrebland]

I think we need to chill out Vardy has been lacking recently and it will be interesting to see how this motivates him going forward. 

 

If he's throwing his toys out of the pram for being dropped after not playing well and getting himself sent off then all the more reason to out him in his place. 

 

If a player is dropped they should try harder not go sulking at the first opportunity.

 

Hopefully we win and Puel is vindicated. To win without Morgan and Vardy in the team will be great news for Leicester City!