Southampton Home post match, 1-2 loss.

[Corky]

First home match (well, overall match) for six weeks after a combination of transport, timings, illness and not going to aways anymore and what a complete waste of time it was. That first half is right up (or down) there with the worst 45 minutes of football I've seen for a long time- simple passes going astray, dreadful first touches and two appalling goals to concede with one soft header on target and bugger all else.

 

The game was done then. No way were our limited, ponderous team going to create enough to get two goals at least against a packed defence.

 

Absolutely rotten. Home games are a real chore and it isn't going to change under this manager.

[AS78UK]

Wow, what a reaction to a game I didn't think we played to badly in. Their second goal after having a player sent off killed it for us, as we aren't a team that can break down a team set out to play defensively. We had some good chances, and I still cant believe the Morgan shot didn't go in. 

 

But actually cant blame Puel, he went out with a strong lineup and made some changes to try and break them down but we lack a Mahrez esque player that can score out of nothing.

 

Gutted we lost but it just wasn't our day today. 

[DerbyshireFox]

The first half was dire. You have to question the desire of some of the players. They should have come out with hurt pride after last week, instead they came out like they’d just got out of bed. I said it last week, as a player you have to look inside yourself sometimes and dig deep. Too many of them are happy to shirk the responsibility at home for whatever reason - be it youthful naïveté or complacency. The passing was very poor today, and whatever your view on the manager, he cannot legislate for the mistakes that led to the goals. Second half was always an uphill battle but we never looked like getting a second. I could understand Ghezzal coming on - another ‘creative’ player to try and unpick the defence, and fair play to Southampton they defended well under pressure without us really testing McCarthy. Not a good day today. Knowing us we’ll get a result at Molineux next week!! 

[hejammy]

2 minutes ago, AS78UK said:

Wow, what a reaction to a game I didn't think we played to badly in. Their second goal after having a player sent off killed it for us, as we aren't a team that can break down a team set out to play defensively. We had some good chances, and I still cant believe the Morgan shot didn't go in. 

 

But actually cant blame Puel, he went out with a strong lineup and made some changes to try and break them down but we lack a Mahrez esque player that can score out of nothing.

 

Gutted we lost but it just wasn't our day today. 

Come seriously you can't be saying this with a straight face? The first 45 was one of the worst halves of football I've witnessed. We were worse than dire! Rookie mistakes, unable to make simple passes, unable to control the ball, no movement, just simply awful. The first half is where we lost the game. After they went 2 goals up it was only going to be one result. They defend with 10 men in their box against a team who couldnt create against league 2 opposition! 

[Dan LCFC]

4 hours ago, Costock_Fox said:

For those of you watching on a stream at least you didn’t have to sit through 90 minutes of the absolute moron who sits near me shouting “Pass, Run, Kick it, Cross it” wherever someone did exactly that. The best of the lot, and bloody wait for this people, when we had a throw was..... “Throw it” ahhh cheers Pep, I was going to head the Cnut back into play. 

That thread has got to re-open for **** sake. It was amazing.

[foxinsocks]

Where was paul ....and his horn?

I knew his absense was a bad omen.  I paid for a ticket and that should include a horn. I like pauls horn.  If paul is unavailable then surely we can have a substitute horn player?

Fans are superstitious 

[Ric Flair]

How do you even begin to offer any excuses for defeats to a injury stricken Southanpton, also had a few suspensions and although have picked up form are the pits of a team. Then you've got Cardiff who are complete anti-football and yet we wouldn't have scored against them if we'd played through until New Years Day.

 

We have seen this before, it took a late deflected fluke to break down a ten man West Ham team for well over an hour, and then vs Burnley who were on an appalling run at the time co ceding ahit loads of goals and had many injury problems and we drew another blank.

 

It's almost as if teams defending deep have become sort sort of footballing juggernaut. I genuinely think a huge glitch has been found in this team and we're like a fcukin beetle stuck on it's back. Nothing computes when we have to play against teams like this. It shouldn't be that difficult to wear teams down, certainly not how badly we are doing. 

 

I'm at a loss, it's some of the most soul destroying football I've ever had the misfortune of watching. If this is some sort of supposed long term success story then I'm fcukin Mia Khalifa.

[Guest ttfn]

The first half an hour was absolutely appalling, I don’t think I’ve seen us pass the ball that poorly ever before, let alone under Puel. There must have been 8-10 misplaced 5 yard passes before we finally managed a couple of tame efforts on goal towards the end of the half. Schmeichel, Mendy and Ricardo in particular absolutely stunk the place out. 

 

The second half was a more extreme version of what we were all expecting. I have certainly never seen a half of football where one side has 90% possession before.

 

Once again the lack of movement in forward positions was a serious problem. We may as well have had Richard III up front for all the movement Vardy was offering. It’s a tough job when up against 3 centre backs but he was repeatedly in the wrong place, and when the ball did come to him he invariably lost it. The lack of support runs from the 4 (!) attacking midfield players we had on by the end was really unacceptable - the only ones breaking the lines were Ndidi (for his goal) and Choudhury a couple of times. 

 

Maddison’s decision making is just dreadful. To be fair to him there is far too much responsibility on his shoulders in situations like this - hopefully the recall of Barnes will give us another dimension because Gray is absolutely no threat whatsoever.

 

Only Choudhury and Wes come out of that with any credit whatsoever. As I said earlier in this thread, we’ve got too many thick players in this team and it’s costing us. Ricardo seems like an intelligent player, Choudhury has a bit to learn but appears to at least understand the basics of pass-and-move but beyond that we’ve got a squad full of players without the ability to create solutions for themselves on the pitch.

 

Clearly there’s a coaching problem there insofar as this is a recurring issue. But to have four attacking midfield players and 2 attacking full backs on the pitch and still be lumping crosses into Vardy to create the square root of nothing smacks of a lack of imagination from the personnel on the pitch as much as anything else. 

 

I agree with others that given that we were clearly incapable of fashioning a chance through passing the balk through the middle of the pitch, sticking Maguire up front would have been something at least resembling a solution for the last 20 minutes or so. 

[Ric Flair]

6 minutes ago, AS78UK said:

Wow, what a reaction to a game I didn't think we played to badly in. Their second goal after having a player sent off killed it for us, as we aren't a team that can break down a team set out to play defensively. We had some good chances, and I still cant believe the Morgan shot didn't go in. 

 

But actually cant blame Puel, he went out with a strong lineup and made some changes to try and break them down but we lack a Mahrez esque player that can score out of nothing.

 

Gutted we lost but it just wasn't our day today. 

What were these good chances you speak of? Bar Morgans effort and Ndidi's scuffed goal, there wasnt a single other clear cut chance.

[Lcfccon]

The wins against City and Chelsea have pretty much become irrelevant it feels, had we pushed on, beat Cardiff and Southampton it would feel like progress! But now I don’t know what it feels like 

[Stevosevic]

7 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

What were these good chances you speak of? Bar Morgans effort and Ndidi's scuffed goal, there wasnt a single other clear cut chance.

We literally didn't have a shot until the 27th minute. 

 

The first half was atrocious. The second half as bad considering we were against 10 men.

[teblin]

9 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

What were these good chances you speak of? Bar Morgans effort and Ndidi's scuffed goal, there wasnt a single other clear cut chance.

Maguire had 2 decent chances with his head.

 

But it was woeful.

[Fox 4 Life]

7 minutes ago, Lcfccon said:

The wins against City and Chelsea have pretty much become irrelevant it feels, had we pushed on, beat Cardiff and Southampton it would feel like progress! But now I don’t know what it feels like 

If you look back the Chelsea one was very lucky, we had one chance and took it. They should have scored at least 3 but didn't. Man city was much better but that was only once Maddison went central. I honestly cant get my head around why Puel plays him out of position and wonders why we have zero creativity.

 

There is NO excuse for setting up with 3 holding midfielders at home against Southampton.

Edited 12 January 2019 by Fox 4 Life

[Marshall Cockney Fox]

Maddison

Ndidi

Barnes

Ricardo

Gray

Chilwell

Choudhury

Maguire

 

Omg lads, let's take a breath and ponder why it doesn't always click and we appear a bit naive. We are a long-term project in its infancy. Puel won't be around long, but the next man in will be bloody lucky to inherit the potential above.

 

 

[ian_marshall]

25 minutes ago, ttfn said:

The first half an hour was absolutely appalling, I don’t think I’ve seen us pass the ball that poorly ever before, let alone under Puel. There must have been 8-10 misplaced 5 yard passes before we finally managed a couple of tame efforts on goal towards the end of the half. Schmeichel, Mendy and Ricardo in particular absolutely stunk the place out. 

 

The second half was a more extreme version of what we were all expecting. I have certainly never seen a half of football where one side has 90% possession before.

 

Once again the lack of movement in forward positions was a serious problem. We may as well have had Richard III up front for all the movement Vardy was offering. It’s a tough job when up against 3 centre backs but he was repeatedly in the wrong place, and when the ball did come to him he invariably lost it. The lack of support runs from the 4 (!) attacking midfield players we had on by the end was really unacceptable - the only ones breaking the lines were Ndidi (for his goal) and Choudhury a couple of times. 

 

Maddison’s decision making is just dreadful. To be fair to him there is far too much responsibility on his shoulders in situations like this - hopefully the recall of Barnes will give us another dimension because Gray is absolutely no threat whatsoever.

 

Only Choudhury and Wes come out of that with any credit whatsoever. As I said earlier in this thread, we’ve got too many thick players in this team and it’s costing us. Ricardo seems like an intelligent player, Choudhury has a bit to learn but appears to at least understand the basics of pass-and-move but beyond that we’ve got a squad full of players without the ability to create solutions for themselves on the pitch.

 

Clearly there’s a coaching problem there insofar as this is a recurring issue. But to have four attacking midfield players and 2 attacking full backs on the pitch and still be lumping crosses into Vardy to create the square root of nothing smacks of a lack of imagination from the personnel on the pitch as much as anything else. 

 

I agree with others that given that we were clearly incapable of fashioning a chance through passing the balk through the middle of the pitch, sticking Maguire up front would have been something at least resembling a solution for the last 20 minutes or so. 

Agree with this. For all of their technical ability, we must have some of the least intelligent player's in this league and that is remarkable considering how dim the average footballer tends to be. 

 

Maddison, Chillwell, and Gray somehow make Jeff Schlupp look like the footballing equivalent of Albert Einstein. No wonder they're all best mates, they're clearly all on the same wave length. 

 

People rightly or wrongly will criticise Puel for not coaching these guy's to make better decisions, but ultimately if they're not capable of absorbing the information or processing what they've been taught in a real game situation what hope does he have.

Edited 12 January 2019 by ian_marshall

[Dames]

The biggest theme of losses/draws against teams like this is the amount of people saying things like ‘that was one of the worst halves of football ive seen in a long time etc’.

 

Even people who defend Puel say similar things before defending him.

 

The question is how many more times do we have to tolerate these consistent ‘worst halves of football’ ever?

[Costock_Fox]

31 minutes ago, Dan LCFC said:

That thread has got to re-open for **** sake. It was amazing.

Has it closed? Fuming.

[StriderHiryu]

1 hour ago, Hammo said:

I base my opinions on evidence, not on agendas, favouritism or bias. I am neither Puel in nor Puel out, but for whatever reason - be it his tactical inflexibility or lack of charisma/motivational acumen, or perhaps something else - there is s fundamental flaw in his and his team's ability to beat sides below us in the table at home. And there is nothing, absolutely nothing, to suggest that he is anywhere near fixing it. Is that stubbornness on his part (I have yet to hear him acknowledge it to be an issue in any interview) or just rank bad management?

 

Just look at all the results in this category over the past 12 months. It's staggering. And if he can't fix it any time soon, and certainly by the end of the season, he can have no complaints about being sacked.

I agree with you, as the evidence is there for all to see! However, I think if we finish top 10 he won't be sacked and I think that would be OK. He will argue that he needs another few transfer windows to fix the issue, and I think the club will continue to back him because I think that would be acceptable to the owners whilst we go through this transition period and after the recent tragedy. I do think they would this time prioritise attacking players if it's the case.

 

He does need to get something going though! Super frustrating watching the same story every week. We have to all hope that Barnes is the missing piece, because otherwise I think we know how the rest of the season pans out.

 

The thing is though that even if he ends up going, it will likely be Rogers that comes in and we will see the same style of football. (Rogers played 4-2-3-1 against Rangers for example). Of course the difference is that a different manager might be a better coach on the attacking side of things. Or even worse! It remains to be seen.

 

Hence I say get behind the players and club. Regardless of who is in charge this is the path we are going down. We are all fans of LCFC! These are growing pains we are enduring, but come on guys, in the entire history of the Premier League, we haven't even been involved for most of it. We are there now and are essentially in the early stages of creating a brand new team. It's going to take time!

[Costock_Fox]

17 minutes ago, Marshall Cockney Fox said:

Maddison

Ndidi

Barnes

Ricardo

Gray

Chilwell

Choudhury

Maguire

 

Omg lads, let's take a breath and ponder why it doesn't always click and we appear a bit naive. We are a long-term project in its infancy. Puel won't be around long, but the next man in will be bloody lucky to inherit the potential above.

 

 

Or, we will sell 1/2 of them and buy Musa MKII because we haven’t taken advantage of a position of strength.

 

That said, I think we have to accept that Puel will be here till a 2/3 weeks before the end of the season at the earliest and behind the scenes it’s probably just a ‘see the season out and find out feet’ period.

[Corky]

14 minutes ago, Dames said:

The biggest theme of losses/draws against teams like this is the amount of people saying things like ‘that was one of the worst halves of football ive seen in a long time etc’.

 

Even people who defend Puel say similar things before defending him.

 

The question is how many more times do we have to tolerate these consistent ‘worst halves of football’ ever?

We are a team that badly needs to score first. Under Puel, we have only failed to win two games at home in which we've scored first (Man United and Swansea last season). Scoring first seems to ease the pressure on the players and, to be honest, we haven't looked like throwing away leads at home this season. Unfortunately, we don't have it often enough.

[Dickov22]

52 minutes ago, AS78UK said:

Wow, what a reaction to a game I didn't think we played to badly in. Their second goal after having a player sent off killed it for us, as we aren't a team that can break down a team set out to play defensively. We had some good chances, and I still cant believe the Morgan shot didn't go in. 

 

But actually cant blame Puel, he went out with a strong lineup and made some changes to try and break them down but we lack a Mahrez esque player that can score out of nothing.

 

Gutted we lost but it just wasn't our day today. 

?

[Dames]

7 minutes ago, Corky said:

We are a team that badly needs to score first. Under Puel, we have only failed to win two games at home in which we've scored first (Man United and Swansea last season). Scoring first seems to ease the pressure on the players and, to be honest, we haven't looked like throwing away leads at home this season. Unfortunately, we don't have it often enough.

I agree. The biggest problem is that Puel sets us up to contain and react. So often he lets the other team settle into a rhythm whilst we are patiently waiting for an opening or a mistake. 

 

We are so much better when we are proactive and we should be taking the game to any side that comes to the KP at the very least but the manager is too stubborn to alter his approach. 

[Johnthefoxrayner]

5 hours ago, Blue'nWhiteFox said:

Winning against Manchester City, Everton and Chelsea, losing to Cardiff, Newport and Southampton... Something wrong with the player's motivation and concentration?

You can't blame Puel for today, we have enough quality to beat 10 men but the players didn't seem up for it 

[Lcfccon]

1 minute ago, Johnthefoxrayner said:

You can't blame Puel for today, we have enough quality to beat 10 men but the players didn't seem up for it 

But it’s the way they are being set up, we have a great squad albeit a few odd ones out, but it’s a good young squad. I just don’t think he’s the man to take us any further. Thank you for the music 

[hejammy]

2 minutes ago, Johnthefoxrayner said:

You can't blame Puel for today, we have enough quality to beat 10 men but the players didn't seem up for it 

I'm not a Puel out or in, however he has to take some blame for today. First of all playing 3 defensive central midfielders and then also motivation for the players. Saying that Leicester city belong 7th or below and show no ambition possibly gives the players very little optimism. That being said the players are on a huge amount of money and that and pride should be their motivation.