Home Form. Not great reading.

[Xen]

I've had a ticket for every home game this season, including the cups. I've had to miss 3 of those games and give my ticket away. All 3 of those have been victories. (Man City, Watford and Huddersfield).

 

So, sorry everyone, it seems to be my fault. You can lay off Puel now, I'll just give my tickets away to fmily for the rest of the season and we'll win every game...

 

 

More seriously, we've had dreadful results at home and Puel obviously has to take some blame, but it's individual errors which seem to be costing us the most. Vardy has been anything but clinical this season (could've won yesterday if he was), Mendy/Schmeichel conspired to concede two against Southampton, Maddison missing successive penalties etc. etc..

 

Puel has - recently - been setting us up decently and for 80% of matches we've been positive and created plenty of chances. It falls down to the players to take those chances, though, and they're letting him down on that front.

 

If it continues to be this poor Puel will lose his job. I'm hoping it doesn't come to that. Tielemans could be the first step to improving our quality of chances and potentially bag a few as well...

[MC Prussian]

Reminiscent of last season, and Puel's season at Southampton.

 

I'd like to see some progress results-wise, not just having people banging on about "oh, look - he's giving so many young players a chance".

That's great - but what are our goals for the rest of the season? Just play along, hoping for the odd win here or there? Would we be happy with "just surviving"?

 

I'd like to know what our ambitions are. Fouled out in both cup competitions, and seemingly not interested again in pushing for 7th spot.

Quo vadis?

[Soar Fox]

Pretty similar to his time at Southampton in the 2016/17 season. 

 

Southampton home form. 17 goals, 6 wins, 6 draws, 7 losses. 

 

Southampton away form. 24 goals 6 wins, 4 draws, 9 losses. 

[CosbehFox]

Hmmm I can find counter argument to both of those. The select choice of a twelve month period doesn't read well. The period between Puel's appointment and February 2018 was W5 D2 L2. That makes Puel's overall home record W10 D8 L10. 

 

For balance, since winning the title - our league home record before Puel was W11, D4, L7. 

 

The point about having lost six home games isn't that surprising when you consider we've played 7 of the current top 10 at home. 

 

All it tells us is that rather than being 'shit' or 'crap', it's pretty par for the course. 

 

 

 

[coolhandfox]

Simple Puel, passive, staying in the game way of playing is more suited to playing away from home.

 

He has yet to come up with a system that works at home, we are simply to passive, allowing the away team to settle and get into the game. 

 

We are forever giving the ball away in poor areas, or making individual mistakes.

 

Just get on the front foot, show a little bit of passion and get the fan behind you.

 

Ndidi and Mendy are dreadful on the ball, resulting in slow play, we generally end up probing for a opening, before ending up going wide and crossing it for their CB to head it away.

 

We need a forward who is decent in the air.

[The Doctor]

19 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

It's got zip all to do with 2016 mate. The fact is our home form is relegation fodder and if we start to slip up away from home then we will be in serious trouble. This isn't just a small window of results being measured against either, it is a whole calendar year and it is seemingly getting worse. We have taken the lead at home twice all season, how can you defend that? I think we are negative as a fan base, it's always been the case when we aren't performing. I can remember very toxic times pre this era in the PL, so it's got piss all to do with what we experienced during the recent good times. But it probably should have something to do with it, if we can't win more than a quarter of our home games given the finances and resources we have available then we might as well pack it in. If you can tolerate that, then fair play to you.

 

I will say it again, if our away form slips then we are relegation material. Our away form is seemingly quite good because we are still only even remotely dangerous on the counter attack. Puel has had 16 months to try and change this and has taken us further away from correcting it. To play a different way, you need the players to do so and yet he hasn't either brought the necessary ones in or he's decided not to use them. I don't get the game plan with him, I really don't.

I'm not defending the home form, I'm pointing out where the problem is, and it's that our fans are entitled brats. If I were a city player I'd be much happier playing away at the moment, and that's what we're seeing. Its not a coincidence that we're miles better away from home and pulling out form that would have us challenging Europe if we could replicate it at home. It's infuriating we can't, but ask yourself, would you feel comfortable and be able to do your best work if you had to do it with the atmosphere players are exposed to at home? 

[MC Prussian]

4 minutes ago, coolhandfox said:

Simple Puel, passive, staying in the game way of playing is more suited to playing away from home.

 

He has yet to come up with a system that works at home, we are simply to passive, allowing the away team to settle and get into the game. 

 

We are forever giving the ball away in poor areas, or making individual mistakes.

 

Just get on the front foot, show a little bit of passion and get the fan behind you.

 

Ndidi and Mendy are dreadful on the ball, resulting in slow play, we generally end up probing for a opening, before ending up going wide and crossing it for their CB to head it away.

 

We need a forward who is decent in the air.

Either that or use a style of play that suits our current setup - no use in pumping long balls forward to Vardy as the sole striker.

Pass it on the ground, exploit the spaces, create spaces.

[MC Prussian]

Just now, The Doctor said:

I'm not defending the home form, I'm pointing out where the problem is, and it's that our fans are entitled brats. If I were a city player I'd be much happier playing away at the moment, and that's what we're seeing. Its not a coincidence that we're miles better away from home and pulling out form that would have us challenging Europe if we could replicate it at home. It's infuriating we can't, but ask yourself, would you feel comfortable and be able to do your best work if you had to do it with the atmosphere players are exposed to at home? 

I think you're being somewhat condescending towards a majority of LCFC fans. No need to call them names, really. You don't know them. This is only adding fuel to the fire.

My guess is there's only a minority of supporters that are as entitled as you describe them.

Most fans are decent and understanding, despite the irrational behaviour during matches. But patience has its limits.

 

And we're not "miles better away from home". We've only won and drawn one game more on the road than at the KP.

 

Some fans may form part of the problem, but it's equally clear that some players as well as the manager aren't helping things at the moment. It's only so long you can feed off the Manchester City and Chelsea results.

 

At present, we come across as a club without any clear ambition, with no clear goal, just drifting along as the season slowly, but steadily comes to a closure.

And then next season? Groundhog Day all over again?

I wouldn't want to put up with that for much longer.

[Babylon]

3 minutes ago, MC Prussian said:

At present, we come across as a club without any clear ambition, with no clear goal, just drifting along as the season slowly, but steadily comes to a closure.

And then next season? Groundhog Day all over again?

I wouldn't want to put up with that for much longer.

Do you read the end and start of season programmes? Or listen to Puel discuss what the club is trying to do? They might not have set out a manifesto of what they want to achieve, but there is enough there to read between the lines.

[StriderHiryu]

Grim reading indeed, and if away form followed suit we'd be in real trouble.

 

Our problem isn't against the bigger teams as despite the result yesterday we matched Man United evenly. But as we all know it's against the smaller teams where we struggle far too much. After the Spurs game, the next set of games will probably define Puel's future at Leicester: 

 

Crystal Palace H

Brighton H

Watford A

Fulham H

Burnley A

Bournemouth H

Huddersfield A

Newcastle H

West Ham A

 

Given our current home form you couldn't say any one of those games is a banker. 

 

We'll have to wait and see what happens! If we don't perform too well in these Puel will be replaced in the summer and won't be able to have much argument against it. But if he can turn it around and get us moving up the table then he'll deserve the summer to continue to work on his plan. The club brought in Tielemans for him, so even if that's only a loan signing they couldn't have done much more to get him a high quality player in a position that could do with improvement. 

 

 

[lgfualol]

Simple really. No big man striker at home = no points. Little undroppable Vardy that relies on space and doesn't get any space = No goals from our main threat. 

 

That and the morgue of a stadium, until a player with low confidence and form comes on of course.

 

 

[The Doctor]

1 minute ago, MC Prussian said:

I think you're being somewhat condescending towards a majority of LCFC fans. No need to call them names, really. You don't know them. This is only adding fuel to the fire.

My guess is there's only a minority of supporters that are as entitled as you describe them.

Most fans are decent and understanding, despite the irrational behaviour during matches. But patience has its limits.

 

And we're not "miles better away from home". We've only won and drawn one game more on the road than at the KP

 

Some fans may form part of the problem, but it's equally clear that some players as well as the manager aren't helping things at the moment. It's only so long you can feed off the Manchester City and Chelsea results.

 

At present, we come across as a club without any clear ambition, with no clear goal, just drifting along as the season slowly, but steadily comes to a closure.

And then next season? Groundhog Day all over again?

I wouldn't want to put up with that for much longer.

5th in the away form table begs to differ. Our away form is very good, if we could match that at home we'd be laughing and looking at ruffling Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea's feathers in the battle for European qualification. Which is what makes the home form even more infuriating. To have us posting good form away, Puel obviously knows what he's doing, but can't get it firing here, and I don't doubt the toxic atmosphere that makes playing away more appealing is having an impact. 

 

As for the fans being decent, there's masses of boos for the team leaving the pitch having narrowly lost to Manchester United, having arguably had the marginally better chances and really stopped them from playing that much. Booing home defeats to relegation candidates I get, narrow defeats to sides who can reasonably have much loftier ambitions than ours, I don't. Not to mention the chorus of boos for subs (Ghezzal yesterday) and a players first mistake (again, Ghezzal yesterday when he got caught in possession). It's utterly toxic now, and I honestly wouldn't blame any player who wanted to leave to get away from it. 

[Dan]

Utterly beyond appalling home form. This was a thing for him at Southampton too.

 

You will have more success with good home form than good away simply because it's what the fans are turning up to watch. Home games are in a real vicious cycle for us at the minute. Awful atmosphere and usually poor football as well.

 

Even of those won at home...

 

Arsenal - It's good to beat Arsenal but they were abysmal on the road last year and had lost 7 on the bounce away going into that.

Wolves - Good result, but nobody who watched that game can pretend we weren't fortunate.

Huddersfield - Comfortable win in the end against a poor side.

Watford - Good win. No complaints.

Man City - Excellent win. Puel's best result.

 

If he'd won even 3/4 more home games I don't think he'd be under any pressure at all. I just hate knowing this month we have Palace and Brighton come here and I expect probably a point from the two.

[MC Prussian]

15 minutes ago, Babylon said:

Do you read the end and start of season programmes? Or listen to Puel discuss what the club is trying to do? They might not have set out a manifesto of what they want to achieve, but there is enough there to read between the lines.

So we're sacrificing sportive success (progressing in cup competitions, winning league matches, aiming for 7th spot) for the sake of adding more and more players under the age of 25?

Great, because I don't read it that way when both Puel and Top (or Vichai, bless his soul) come up with their wishy-washy programme contributions. You know how hard it is to say something new every two weeks or so with a comment? In the end, it all becomes one big regurgitation.

You admit it yourself - it's usually so generic, it leaves a lot of room for interpretation.

 

I'm all for creating a healthy basis for the future, but you've got to couple this with winning performances also.

 

I mean, should we finish below 13th or even near the relegation spots, then looking back at where we once were (7th) makes the progress of youth players a bittersweet affair.

The football on show isn't truly the best, we can and ought to do better.

 

The upcoming Crystal Palace and Brighton games are perfect opportunities to get back to where we could be, and I do hope we take these chances. The manager and the players need to sway the home fans' opinion back in their favour by winning at the KP, otherwise we're looking at the start of a very disappointing season.

[chapero82]

1 hour ago, Babylon said:

If it doesn't improve before the end of the season he'll be gone, we all know it and he probably knows it as well.

I can see why you have so many reps, always talking so much sense

[chapero82]

28 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

I'm not defending the home form, I'm pointing out where the problem is, and it's that our fans are entitled brats. If I were a city player I'd be much happier playing away at the moment, and that's what we're seeing. Its not a coincidence that we're miles better away from home and pulling out form that would have us challenging Europe if we could replicate it at home. It's infuriating we can't, but ask yourself, would you feel comfortable and be able to do your best work if you had to do it with the atmosphere players are exposed to at home? 

So now it’s the fans fault? Puel fans have taken it to another level  

[cityfanlee23]

Can't help but think we wouldn't be talking about all of this if our forwards could actually finish a chance and our defenders could actually defend in the first 20 mins... 

[Nalis]

1 hour ago, EnderbyFox said:

There are definite parallels with his tenure at Southampton. I remember when we appointed him their fans said how poor they were at St Mary's. 

 

That being said I still don't see the point in sacking him until the summer. 

Agreed, and at least they got a cup final out of it.

[yorkie1999]

There always seems to be a good atmosphere at the beginning of matches, everyone's clapping the team and cheering when their names are called out, so it's obvious that it's the events on the pitch that are creating a bad atmosphere and not a bad atmosphere that's causing the team not to play well. 

[MC Prussian]

14 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

5th in the away form table begs to differ. Our away form is very good, if we could match that at home we'd be laughing and looking at ruffling Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea's feathers in the battle for European qualification. Which is what makes the home form even more infuriating. To have us posting good form away, Puel obviously knows what he's doing, but can't get it firing here, and I don't doubt the toxic atmosphere that makes playing away more appealing is having an impact. 

 

As for the fans being decent, there's masses of boos for the team leaving the pitch having narrowly lost to Manchester United, having arguably had the marginally better chances and really stopped them from playing that much. Booing home defeats to relegation candidates I get, narrow defeats to sides who can reasonably have much loftier ambitions than ours, I don't. Not to mention the chorus of boos for subs (Ghezzal yesterday) and a players first mistake (again, Ghezzal yesterday when he got caught in possession). It's utterly toxic now, and I honestly wouldn't blame any player who wanted to leave to get away from it. 

We're 7th in the away form table, with Watford catching up. And Arsenal, West Ham and Crystal Palace not far off. Arsenal and West Ham have also had one game less on the road so far.

https://www.premierleague.com/tables?co=1&se=210&ha=A

 

At present and on the basis of our current form in the past five matches, we're looking at a finish in the region between 13th and 15th.

[cityfanlee23]

Just now, chapero82 said:

So now it’s the fans fault? Puel fans have taken it to another level  

I'm not going to blame it on the fans but make no mistake, our fan base is an embarrassment most of the time.

One of the worst fanbases in the league when its not going our way. 

During the prem season I couldn't have been prouder, that unfortunately has gone to everyone's head. We were a better fanbase when being relegated from the championship to league 1. 

 

It's a mixture of things, puel being relatively stubborn it seems, defenders constantly making stupid mistakes that have nothing to do with formations or tactics but their own inability to think quickly, 

Forwards missing clear cut chances game after game after game. 

[SheppyFox]

Very poor.

[chapero82]

3 minutes ago, cityfanlee23 said:

I'm not going to blame it on the fans but make no mistake, our fan base is an embarrassment most of the time.

One of the worst fanbases in the league when its not going our way. 

During the prem season I couldn't have been prouder, that unfortunately has gone to everyone's head. We were a better fanbase when being relegated from the championship to league 1. 

 

It's a mixture of things, puel being relatively stubborn it seems, defenders constantly making stupid mistakes that have nothing to do with formations or tactics but their own inability to think quickly, 

Forwards missing clear cut chances game after game after game. 

The fans don’t like Puel’s decision makings that’s the problem! 

 

What is is there to get excited about? To get the droid jumping you need to instill hope and let fans dream!

 

saying in interviews Wolves are better equipped doesn’t help matters!

 

and the crazy starting line ups and subs doesn’t help!

 

At times we haven’t had a shot on target until the 70th minute, how are you supposed to get excited over that? 

[North Leeds Fox]

Think we have been struggling for creativity from deep when we have played at home. It's as much about our players being suited to the counter attack rather than possession football and other teams in the prem being more adept at sitting back and hitting us on the break. To remedy this, we have brought Barnes back who I believe will open up more space by constantly running at defenders and tielemans who is capable to dictate our attacking play from deep or around the box. These two will undoubtedly help our home form.

 

No team is going to have the right amount of creativity when our centre midfield are full of defensively minded players, our reserve strikers are small and lacking in confidence and when every home game our main creative player in maddison is hooked after 60/70 mins. 

[Wolfox]

Did anyone read the boing thread?

 

 2+2 = The shit some fans deserve