Playing style - why the good football but not the finishing?

[CyprusFox]

47 minutes ago, kristianity77 said:

Because apart from Vardy, we have no one who is employed to put the ball in the back of the net.  We literally have zero strikers.  Okazaki is past it, Nacho is actually dreadful and that's all we have.  

 

I believe we have a top 8 defence and midfield, but a relegation front line. Which is shown by the fact that we create quite a lot, but our conversion rate is shocking. 

That's why Puel has to Shoulder the responsibility for his own demise. It was clear to most people on this forum that we were sadly lacking up front. Puel obviously didn't think so as he was "happy with his squad" prior to, and during the January window.

[woddyuk]

16 hours ago, urban.spaceman said:

We have one of the best strikers in the league and a manager who wants a style of play that doesn’t include playing to Vardy’s strengths. Simple as that. 

Vards spent 80mins of yesterday (as a lot of matches) constantly pointing for the ball to go out wide everytime we were in possession. Good as Barnes is coming in he's not likely to score or set up much out there. Obviously him and Tilemans ran themselves into the ground yesterday. Form aside Gray, Nacho, Ghezzal all in the same boat. Not much chance from out wide with minimum 3 players to beat and 40yards to goal. Ghezzal could have had a break In first half and yet put the brakes on and looked behind to see where Ricardo was to pass back to. First ball Shinji half wins and Vards is already off and Shinji passed it forward, first time to him. ?? 

 

Maddison was in Paul Gallagher mode yesterday, corners and free kicks not clearing the first man. Palace even scored from one of our corners. He probably should have come off instead of Tilemans if the Belgian wasn't dead on his feet.

Nacho was the best right back on the pitch for ten minutes and good job he chased back ? or it might have been 6.

 

 

Puels strengths 

Giving young players a chance.

Easy on the eye passing football, when it works. 

His dignity and class after the helicopter tradegy. 

 

 

Puels weaknesses 

Those young players when they have that chance they don't push on and develop further. Gray, Maddison, Nacho Niddi stagnated. Chilwell the exception but he's stalled in recent weeks too). 

 

Lack of perceived charisma. 

 

Inabilty to have a plan B. Just swaps players like for like, not changing the plan. 

 

Not getting the  value of decent cup runs to fans of a club like ours 

 

Inabilty to get the players motivated 

(though they do seem to follow his instructions to the letter going sideways all the time) 

 

Inabilty to coach to be clinical in front of goal (No tippy tappy pass back finishes by Saha yesterday). 

 

Six games without a win.? 

Slide from 7th to 12th since January and in free fall, unable to score and conceding for fun! 

The only thing surprising about his sacking is that Sari wasn't first ? 

 

 

 

[420Hashish]

Anyone noticed that results dropped a bit since Amartey's injury? Perhaps having Ricardo playing a bit higher allowed more attacking threat...

[Gerard]

16 hours ago, Chester Dontlie said:

Re: Vardy.

Never thought I will miss 4-4-2 again after Ranieri's second season. There is no striker in the world who can thrive on his own and supply passes to himself. Before our game I watched Bundesliga game Bayern vs Hertha, in which Lewandowski was exactly as isolated as Vardy, can't remember if he had even one half-chance the whole game, so obviously he couldn't score (it ended 1-0 after DM's header from a corner). It's the same in every team really. When the midfielders aren't supplying balls to the striker you can't expect him to deliver. And when the striker doesn't get any support, he doesn't score a lot. And that's exactly what's happening to Vards. 

 

Stats: 

 

Tournament	Apps	Mins	Goals	Assists	SpG	KeyP	Drb	Fouled	Off	Disp	UnsTch	Rating
Premier League	19(4)	1750	8	3	2	0.8	0.3	0.5	1	0.6	1.4	6.68
FIFA World Cup England	1(3)	157	-	-	0.5	0.5	0.5	0.3	0.3	0.3	1.3	6.17
Int. Friendly England	2(1)	N/A	1	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	-
Total / Average	30	1907	9	3	1.8	0.7	0.3	0.4	0.9	0.5	1.4	6.61

 

That's 2 (TWO) shots per game. If that lack of support happened to Messi or Ronaldo people would get on their back too. And if you expect a striker to convert a 100% or even 50% of his chances, then I'm sorry you are clueless and should play FIFA instead of watching football games, because in real life it just doesn't happen. Both Salah and Lewandowski had conversion rate of 22% last season. Messi had 17,3. Ronaldo 14,6. Kane 15,7. Vardy? 28.6% . 

 

 

 

That was only last season. This season, so far, it's arguably worse. 8 (goals scored) / 2 (shots per game) x 19 (games). That's 21%. SHOCKING!!!!... Yes, he is indeed finished and living his past glories.

 

FFS have a word with yourself people.

 

Simply put, he is doing his best, and failing, in a system that doesn't suit him. And we have no player who could replace him at the moment and be more 'adaptive' to whatever Puel wants us to play (a digression: are there any players who adapted really well to puelball in this team and can be set as exaples? It's a rhetorical question, obviously). The problem is not Vardy's inability to adapt and learn new tricks, but Puel's stubbornness and lack of flexibility.

 

Most of the classic centre forwards like Vardy when journalists ask them what is their preferred set up say they like to play off a second, supporting striker. In a system with two strikers opposing defenders' attention is divided and they can play off each other. There's less pressure. Puel thought he will make offensive midfielders do the striker's duty, but evidently, they can't, so we end up watching Maddison, Gray and co. shooting balls into the stands ... It seems playing with a second striker was never in his plans. I think having Vards as a lone striker is almost as criminal as was getting stuck with two anti-creative DMs for most of the season. Since Puel came I have a feeling he's been stubbornly trying to emulate Guardiola's Barcelona or Man City, or Pochettino's Tottenham, while ignoring individual players' qualities and shortcomings. People keep on saying we need to give him time, another transfer window, because we are 'few signings away' from making things click (I heard this song last season already).

 

Let's face it, we will never have enough players to make it work, we don't have Man City's luxury to swim in world class players and bench the likes of Mahrez (or Vardy). Even Puel's new signings aren't making the system work. How many more new players need to be signed before we come to the conclusion it's the manager's fault. At the beginning of the season we were making fun of Wolves and calling them Wolvalona and other silly names, but it seems they will have the last laugh. Either they have better players, or maybe, just maybe, their manager has more clue than ours.

 

Speaking of the defensive side is like opening Pandora's box. We are absolute mess, one of the easiest teams to score against on the counter, always give away an early goal (and then have to chase the result). And Puel was supposed to be the 'safety first', defensive-minded manager  

 

As for Maguire. Like with Vardy, Puel is playing to his weaknesses instead of his strengths. England got to 4th place in the World Cup with this lad in defence... but Maguire was always playing in a three. 3-5-2 could be the answer for him and Vardy. But yeah, he's shit/overrated. Let's get rid in the summer. We can always rely on Wes to fill in, can't we. 

 

I won't even start about the midfield.

 

What a fantastic post, take a bow son. 

[Dan LCFC]

I think it's a total myth that we play good football.

 

There is a big misconception amongst fans that having more possession and shots means you play better football.

 

There is also a big misconception that playing direct or using physicality in any way is a negative.

 

I mean a lot of it is personal preference and what you want to see, but there is quite literally nothing wrong with crossing a ball into the box for a 6'4 striker to head in, or to play through to hold-up play to bring others into it in my eyes. I'm not saying this is necessarily how I would set up, but if the tactics work then what honestly is the problem?

 

We knocked the ball about better under Puel than most managers I can remember, but the truth is we did it a lot of the time I felt without any real success. Leicester having more possession against Palace is not a sign that we are dominating the game - Palace know they can set up and set defensive traps for us while we have the ball because we aren't actually that good at creating clear cut chances from it.

 

Why would Palace open themselves up and let Leicester have space to use the attacking weapons we have when you can camp in and wait for the inevitable **** up? Especially when you've got players like Zaha in your side who are brilliant for counter attacking.

 

I appreciate yesterday that the first goal was a bit of a freak and absolutely rotten luck (though no more luck involved than Ndidi's v West Ham for example) but ultimately, for 14 shots and over two-thirds of the possession, what did Guaita actually have to do?

 

Having a shot from 25 yards isn't a chance. It just isn't.

 

The problem as well is that when we go 1-0 down so frequently, we are forced to then leave even further gaps in for us to be picked off, and the opposition have even less reason to commit bodies forward.

 

Vardy hasn't had a good season by his standards, but I think given our style of play what has happened with him this season is a lot more likely than what happened last year. Vardy getting 20 goals in our team last season was quite frankly unbelievable.

 

It isn't a co-incidence that Palace always beat us, and in many cases hammer us. They are the model of the kind of side that you have to be to beat Leicester - well organised and with pace on the break, and if any fanbase should know about the benefits of this kind of football it's us.

 

That we've become exactly the kind of team that we would've gobbled up three years ago saddens me, and poses the question... how much truly have we progressed?

 

For me, we have totally abandoned a philosophy which brought us the most successful season in our history all because we bodged up a couple of transfer windows and lost our direction. I feel like we have been beaten by the Glenn Hoddles, the footballing snobs of this world. That disappoints me, and for what?

 

We needed to tweak the way we played, not totally rip it up.

[Dan LCFC]

Puel's problem as well is that he didn't have the players for the football he wants. You've got to model it somewhat around what you have at the club currently and tweak it as you go along. He tried to change too much too soon and we've ended up as a bit of a nothing side in all honesty.