Sins of our fathers

[Captain...]

1 hour ago, SouthStandUpperTier said:

Maybe we should have stuck with 4-3-3, but playing the same style against Cardiff as against Chelsea and Man City is unrealistic, nigh on impossible.

It would have been a different game obviously but the intensity was there from the start when we played 433 and the attacking intent was pretty clear too. We did more than just sit off them we looked to win the ball and play it forwards. 

 

Of course we could have played 433 and still lost, but after 2 successful games of starting out 433 the players all seemed clearer in their roles and would have been full of confidence to go back to the drab 4231 with a predictable outcome is frustrating.

Edited 30 December 2018 by Captain...

[Ted Maul]

Said before the season that we were a quality winger short of being a good side, and it's proving to be the case. 

 

I love Albrighton, he's a good player but he's not one to conjure up a moment of magic when we're struggling to get going. Gray is improving (slower than I'd like, admittedly) but he's still young and inconsistent. Ghezzal is still adapting but it's clear he'll never be one of the first names on the team sheet. 

 

If we had someone who could come up with a moment of magic out of nowhere and turn games like yesterday's, we'd probably have a few more points. We improved other areas we needed to in the summer but never replaced Mahrez- I'm hoping we've got something up our sleeve in January. 

[Fox92]

It's tough because people keep, rightly, saying "we need to get players in" but we can't get in without getting rid. It's a fine line. Puel didn't buy Inheacho/Okazaki etc the only thing he did do wrong was get rid of two target men, and I've personally said all along Slimani should get another chance, but then again people were slating Slimani so Puel got rid. 

 

Real life isn't football manager. We've also go to consider FFP and while that may be stupid because we could be way off it (I don't know) we have bought £50m worth of players without getting cash for any.

[Stoopid]

If Maddison knew how to take a PK, we'd almost certainly have won yesterday. Cardiff's heads would have dropped and I'm sure we'd have seen the game out.

Not even sure why he took it - his previous effort in the Man City shoot out  hardly inspired confidence...

It's not Puel's fault he's so crap at spot kicks after all.

[katieakita]

Forget the magical season there is a reason it was a 5000-1 shot, we are in a better place at Xmas than our season in the PL with Pearson, the 2nd season with Claudio and last season under Puel when someone wanting out last Jan caused the wheels to fall off somewhat. We are nowhere near a finished article and trying to replace players like Kante and Mahrez is easier said than done. Not sure how many £35/40 million pound strikers are out there wanting to play 2nd fiddle to Vardy. Take a step back and look what we are up against, you have 6 teams all thinking they have a God given right to be in the top 4 3 out of the 6 have changed managers in the last 6 months. They happily spend £30/£40 million plus big wages on players to keep them up there. We offer a dream they offer CL football so we have to look elsewhere and nurture talent. To challenge the top 6 will take some doing and what we need is consistency which is what we are lacking and why we are where we are. Start of this season we invested in the best young talent in the Championship and despite still not fully up to PL speed (and penalty taking) things look very promising. Next season we do not have to go and pick up the best young player in the Championship as we already have him nor do we have to pick up one of the best young central defenders in Europe as we have him as well. Everybody wanted Nacho and Silva yet it has not worked out, everybody wanted Ulloa and Slimani gone yet now blame the Manager for letting them go. Everybody was calling for a RB last Jan yet we waited not sure anybody thinks Ricardo was not worth the wait, will be interesting to see what happens in Jan  

[The Doctor]

48 minutes ago, Captain... said:

Therein lies the frustration that we have dropped points against all of them this season.

But that's football. Do you not reckon Man City and Chelsea don't think they should have lost to a midtable side (or in Man City's case, 2 midtable sides) this week? Or Man Utd losing at Brighton and West Ham this season? Results you wouldn't predict  on paper happen regularly, that's just how the sport is.

[fuchsntf]

15 minutes ago, katieakita said:

Forget the magical season there is a reason it was a 5000-1 shot, we are in a better place at Xmas than our season in the PL with Pearson, the 2nd season with Claudio and last season under Puel when someone wanting out last Jan caused the wheels to fall off somewhat. We are nowhere near a finished article and trying to replace players like Kante and Mahrez is easier said than done. Not sure how many £35/40 million pound strikers are out there wanting to play 2nd fiddle to Vardy. Take a step back and look what we are up against, you have 6 teams all thinking they have a God given right to be in the top 4 3 out of the 6 have changed managers in the last 6 months. They happily spend £30/£40 million plus big wages on players to keep them up there. We offer a dream they offer CL football so we have to look elsewhere and nurture talent. To challenge the top 6 will take some doing and what we need is consistency which is what we are lacking and why we are where we are. Start of this season we invested in the best young talent in the Championship and despite still not fully up to PL speed (and penalty taking) things look very promising. Next season we do not have to go and pick up the best young player in the Championship as we already have him nor do we have to pick up one of the best young central defenders in Europe as we have him as well. Everybody wanted Nacho and Silva yet it has not worked out, everybody wanted Ulloa and Slimani gone yet now blame the Manager for letting them go. Everybody was calling for a RB last Jan yet we waited not sure anybody thinks Ricardo was not worth the wait, will be interesting to see what happens in Jan  

Good and worthy read..!!

[Farrington fox]

Ok, so what might the boy Barnes add next season. And how would he be accommodated with Maddison playing a similar if not the same role?

[Dorkingfox]

15 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

But that's football. Do you not reckon Man City and Chelsea don't think they should have lost to a midtable side (or in Man City's case, 2 midtable sides) this week? Or Man Utd losing at Brighton and West Ham this season? Results you wouldn't predict  on paper happen regularly, that's just how the sport is.

That is football, but watching the turgid games against Fulham, Palace, Cardiff and Brighton is not

[Captain...]

45 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

But that's football. Do you not reckon Man City and Chelsea don't think they should have lost to a midtable side (or in Man City's case, 2 midtable sides) this week? Or Man Utd losing at Brighton and West Ham this season? Results you wouldn't predict  on paper happen regularly, that's just how the sport is.

Of course it happens, but Mourinho lost his job due to those defeats. It’s not like we battered those teams and deserved to win, we have been unlucky in some of those games and lucky in some of our victories. The problem is we don’t seem to be getting any better against the weaker sides and if anything our results are getting worse. Since September we have only won 1 game against the current bottom half, Cardiff away, which was an exceptional game. Wins against Watford, Man City and Chelsea are hiding our deficiencies against poor opposition. Deficiencies we’ve had for a year, and ones we don’t look like fixing any time soon. Getting back to the thread title, this isn’t down to recruitment. We have talented players with limitations that are being set up in a way that is too easy to defend against. If a team turns up with a defensive mindset we’re easily nullified and we don’t have a world class genius like Mahrez any more to conjure something from nothing and we can’t just buy one.

[Cadno'r Cymoedd]

1 hour ago, katieakita said:

Forget the magical season there is a reason it was a 5000-1 shot, we are in a better place at Xmas than our season in the PL with Pearson, the 2nd season with Claudio and last season under Puel when someone wanting out last Jan caused the wheels to fall off somewhat. We are nowhere near a finished article and trying to replace players like Kante and Mahrez is easier said than done. Not sure how many £35/40 million pound strikers are out there wanting to play 2nd fiddle to Vardy. Take a step back and look what we are up against, you have 6 teams all thinking they have a God given right to be in the top 4 3 out of the 6 have changed managers in the last 6 months. They happily spend £30/£40 million plus big wages on players to keep them up there. We offer a dream they offer CL football so we have to look elsewhere and nurture talent. To challenge the top 6 will take some doing and what we need is consistency which is what we are lacking and why we are where we are. Start of this season we invested in the best young talent in the Championship and despite still not fully up to PL speed (and penalty taking) things look very promising. Next season we do not have to go and pick up the best young player in the Championship as we already have him nor do we have to pick up one of the best young central defenders in Europe as we have him as well. Everybody wanted Nacho and Silva yet it has not worked out, everybody wanted Ulloa and Slimani gone yet now blame the Manager for letting them go. Everybody was calling for a RB last Jan yet we waited not sure anybody thinks Ricardo was not worth the wait, will be interesting to see what happens in Jan  

Very good post indeed. My only caveat is that Puel needs to be braver in his selections and formations now we appear to have excellent options defensively. We certainly need some attacking creativity and one or two judicious signings should sort that provided the set up is right. 

Edited 30 December 2018 by Cadno'r Cymoedd

[The Doctor]

1 hour ago, Dorkingfox said:

That is football, but watching the turgid games against Fulham, Palace, Cardiff and Brighton is not

Well no, that's exactly what football is. You want entertaining football every week, play FIFA.

 

1 hour ago, Captain... said:

Of course it happens, but Mourinho lost his job due to those defeats. It’s not like we battered those teams and deserved to win, we have been unlucky in some of those games and lucky in some of our victories. The problem is we don’t seem to be getting any better against the weaker sides and if anything our results are getting worse. Since September we have only won 1 game against the current bottom half, Cardiff away, which was an exceptional game. Wins against Watford, Man City and Chelsea are hiding our deficiencies against poor opposition. 

But thats typical of every side outside the top 6. Look at the current form table:

https://www.soccerstats.com/formtable.asp?league=england

 

Last six games: Everton have only won 1; Bournemouth, Palace, Watford, Brighton, Southampton, us - all only won 2. The only 2 outside of the top six in reasonable form are West Ham and Wolves; the former took 5 games to get their first point and had a run of one win in 6 games during October/November, the latter had 5 defeats and a draw in the six games before that. Our squad isn't that good, why should we expect to somehow be different to the rest of the midtable sides?

 

[Dorkingfox]

43 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

Well no, that's exactly what football is. You want entertaining football every week, play FIFA.

 

But thats typical of every side outside the top 6. Look at the current form table:

https://www.soccerstats.com/formtable.asp?league=england

 

Last six games: Everton have only won 1; Bournemouth, Palace, Watford, Brighton, Southampton, us - all only won 2. The only 2 outside of the top six in reasonable form are West Ham and Wolves; the former took 5 games to get their first point and had a run of one win in 6 games during October/November, the latter had 5 defeats and a draw in the six games before that. Our squad isn't that good, why should we expect to somehow be different to the rest of the midtable sides?

 

FIFA entertaining??? Football should be entertaining, else what is the point of watching it? Being a Leicester supporter (first game in 1966), you do not expect to win every week, but you do expect a team with the quality we have (may not be top 6) to try to beat the opposition, Peat's team were not even as boring as some of the matches this season.

Leicester were flat and disappointing, they kept trying to play offensive style football, that then left the defense wide open for a counter attack,  the strategy, the that won us the league, they used it against us. The passing football we adopted  didn't work in breaking down a high defensive line, same as the games against Palace, Fulham and Brighton and these are not even mid table teams. We probably need to get a target man, if Puel wants to play this way, we also need to be able to change during the game. In the Cardiff game Vardy was really exposed, but he still went for every lost cause, he desperately needs support. We have the funds to be better than the rest of the mid table sides.

 

[The Doctor]

15 minutes ago, Dorkingfox said:

FIFA entertaining??? Football should be entertaining, else what is the point of watching it? Being a Leicester supporter (first game in 1966), you do not expect to win every week, but you do expect a team with the quality we have (may not be top 6) to try to beat the opposition, Peat's team were not even as boring as some of the matches this season.

Leicester were flat and disappointing, they kept trying to play offensive style football, that then left the defense wide open for a counter attack,  the strategy, the that won us the league, they used it against us. The passing football we adopted  didn't work in breaking down a high defensive line, same as the games against Palace, Fulham and Brighton and these are not even mid table teams. We probably need to get a target man, if Puel wants to play this way, we also need to be able to change during the game. In the Cardiff game Vardy was really exposed, but he still went for every lost cause, he desperately needs support. We have the funds to be better than the rest of the mid table sides.

 

FIFA the video game. That's where you'll find end to end action every game, that simply doesn't happen in real life, and if you've been going 50 years you should know that by now.

 

Right, so we've got the funds to be better than Everton (spent in excess of 250m across the last three windows) and West Ham (127m in across the last 3 windows) do we? Bear in mind across the last three windows we've spent 164m. Not that far ahead of West Ham and well behind Everton. 

[Dorkingfox]

54 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

FIFA the video game. That's where you'll find end to end action every game, that simply doesn't happen in real life, and if you've been going 50 years you should know that by now.

 

Right, so we've got the funds to be better than Everton (spent in excess of 250m across the last three windows) and West Ham (127m in across the last 3 windows) do we? Bear in mind across the last three windows we've spent 164m. Not that far ahead of West Ham and well behind Everton. 

What is the obsession with video games? In real life every game is different, if it was all boring no one would go, we do expect as fans some form of entertainment value, as football is supposed to be entertaining. No expects end to end stuff in every game, but we do expect the 14th richest club to have some vision and they do, new training ground, good level of under 18 & 23 teams but we need some short term fixes as well, else the current better players may want to move on if it looks like we have no ambition. Football is not like it was 10 or 20 years ago and fans expect to be entertained in the real world, else they will move away from football. We are not bothered if other teams spend more money and fail, we are only interested in our own team and it needs to be entertaining to bring in the new fans. England had the same problem, it was boring to watch, so people stopped watching it, it is getting better, but is far from exciting.

[The Doctor]

24 minutes ago, Dorkingfox said:

What is the obsession with video games? In real life every game is different, if it was all boring no one would go, we do expect as fans some form of entertainment value, as football is supposed to be entertaining. No expects end to end stuff in every game, but we do expect the 14th richest club to have some vision and they do, new training ground, good level of under 18 & 23 teams but we need some short term fixes as well, else the current better players may want to move on if it looks like we have no ambition. Football is not like it was 10 or 20 years ago and fans expect to be entertained in the real world, else they will move away from football. We are not bothered if other teams spend more money and fail, we are only interested in our own team and it needs to be entertaining to bring in the new fans. England had the same problem, it was boring to watch, so people stopped watching it, it is getting better, but is far from exciting.

What do you mean what's the obsession? I'm quite clearly saying if you expect football to be entertaining every week you're better off playing a video game, because that's not how it works in reality. Do I go hoping for entertainment? Obviously, but I'm not naive enough to think I'm entitled to it because "ah paid ma money", something a number of our fans need to learn. Some times matches will be boring, it's not a common occurrence so grow up and accept it when it happens.

[fuchsntf]

47 minutes ago, Dorkingfox said:

That is football, but watching the turgid games against Fulham, Palace, Cardiff and Brighton is not

I think it's unfair...they were avg -faire  games that just didn't go our way,but far from turgid....if we had  converted our chances,some more points,

would of been on the table...whats ruining some posters weekends...is expectation of entitlement...our players over 6-10 games against such teams over 2 growing seasons,were simply not good enough,it's football!!!   But today s generation young and old...are really hyped up to go on the firey-blame trail!!

Cardiff yesterday hurt,no festive spring in the step a good selected team(many pre-game-posters said so)...

tradition wise, over my 65yrs normal service resumed!!!!    Like all contenders for that top 5-7 placing....great surprising wins,then a collection of

missed opportunities..........My suprise,is that some fans laughingly expect football to be different,at our top half level!!!!!

 

oh yes !!!??! I am crazy,I am the forums yoda....!!!   But some of you have really lost it..............gone down the cranky trail... And

and just turn on decreasing circles on one uninspiring ,consistent  crusade  AGAINST .........Puel our manager...

Expecting him to change the normal twists and turns in football,while coaxing these present players,with their limited  skills,through a heavy laden

and  difficult needed redevelopement.....

 

[whoareyaaa]

6 hours ago, Ted Maul said:

Said before the season that we were a quality winger short of being a good side, and it's proving to be the case. 

 

I love Albrighton, he's a good player but he's not one to conjure up a moment of magic when we're struggling to get going. Gray is improving (slower than I'd like, admittedly) but he's still young and inconsistent. Ghezzal is still adapting but it's clear he'll never be one of the first names on the team sheet. 

 

If we had someone who could come up with a moment of magic out of nowhere and turn games like yesterday's, we'd probably have a few more points. We improved other areas we needed to in the summer but never replaced Mahrez- I'm hoping we've got something up our sleeve in January. 

We have although he doesn't start games regularly enough to see it.. you have already mentioned his name in your post and it's not Gray or Albrighton.

[Anglodanglo]

On 29/12/2018 at 20:23, coolhandfox said:

Slim, talented but supposedly a poor influence on the dressing room

 

 

 

Not heard about this. Curious to know in what way if you can elaborate please? 

[coolhandfox]

1 minute ago, Anglodanglo said:

Not heard about this. Curious to know in what way if you can elaborate please? 

Only from what I've heard on here from supposed ITK.

[Dorkingfox]

18 hours ago, The Doctor said:

What do you mean what's the obsession? I'm quite clearly saying if you expect football to be entertaining every week you're better off playing a video game, because that's not how it works in reality. Do I go hoping for entertainment? Obviously, but I'm not naive enough to think I'm entitled to it because "ah paid ma money", something a number of our fans need to learn. Some times matches will be boring, it's not a common occurrence so grow up and accept it when it happens.

Grow up!!!! how arrogant are you!

 

[The Doctor]

Just now, Dorkingfox said:

Grow up!!!! how arrogant are you!

 

Given nothing I've said has related to my own importance or abilities, arrogance isn't a question here. But, let's return to the point - the occasional tedious draw or dull defeat is part and parcel of football, particularly of being a midtable side and is something our fans need to learn to accept.

[That_Dude]

On 30/12/2018 at 13:39, katieakita said:

Forget the magical season there is a reason it was a 5000-1 shot, we are in a better place at Xmas than our season in the PL with Pearson, the 2nd season with Claudio and last season under Puel when someone wanting out last Jan caused the wheels to fall off somewhat. We are nowhere near a finished article and trying to replace players like Kante and Mahrez is easier said than done. Not sure how many £35/40 million pound strikers are out there wanting to play 2nd fiddle to Vardy. Take a step back and look what we are up against, you have 6 teams all thinking they have a God given right to be in the top 4 3 out of the 6 have changed managers in the last 6 months. They happily spend £30/£40 million plus big wages on players to keep them up there. We offer a dream they offer CL football so we have to look elsewhere and nurture talent. To challenge the top 6 will take some doing and what we need is consistency which is what we are lacking and why we are where we are. Start of this season we invested in the best young talent in the Championship and despite still not fully up to PL speed (and penalty taking) things look very promising. Next season we do not have to go and pick up the best young player in the Championship as we already have him nor do we have to pick up one of the best young central defenders in Europe as we have him as well. Everybody wanted Nacho and Silva yet it has not worked out, everybody wanted Ulloa and Slimani gone yet now blame the Manager for letting them go. Everybody was calling for a RB last Jan yet we waited not sure anybody thinks Ricardo was not worth the wait, will be interesting to see what happens in Jan  

Good post and you really hit the nail on its head right there. People are crying for a quality striker as an alternative to Vardy and at the same time, would go bonkers if he was dropped. There is no striker in this price region who would come here just to warm the bench and pray for Vardy having a poor run.

[yorkie1999]

On 29/12/2018 at 20:31, David Hankey said:

Football is all about scoring goals. Score goals and you'll win games, it's not rocket science. Our problem is we lack firepower and rely too much one one player.

The end

[Dorkingfox]

16 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

Given nothing I've said has related to my own importance or abilities, arrogance isn't a question here. But, let's return to the point - the occasional tedious draw or dull defeat is part and parcel of football, particularly of being a midtable side and is something our fans need to learn to accept.

I'll give you that, but what I was saying is the football fan is changing, the younger/newer fans, they are expecting more for their money and expect quicker results in terms of achievements and because they are now supporting a much wealthier club, they expect the club to spend money to buy success. How long will they stay around watching the turgid games likes those against Fulham, Palace and Brighton, probably not long? If the games become better like those against Man City then whether we like it or not the fan base will increase.