James Maddison

[UPinCarolina]

9 hours ago, Col city fan said:

What a lot of nonsense!

If I get this right you are saying that, if Rodgers goes on to great things with Leicester, it will down to Puel, (despite the fact that we were dropping down the league like a stone towards the latter days of Puel’s tenure)?

Does the managerial ability of the current manager not matter then?

Amazingly, you’ve got 5 likes for this post.

Unfortunately, no - you didn't get it right.

Puel was brought in to re-shape the squad, implement something other than the stale system he inherited, and to attempt to lay groundwork for the next evolution of the club. If he left the place better than he found it, then it's a credit to him. If the next manager struggles with the pieces he left in place, then it's a detriment and not a credit to his work.

Amazingly, you've managed to find the most obtuse possible way of interpreting my post 

Edit: To be clear, I'm not defending Puel's record on the pitch - it was middling, sadly - nor am I taking any personal issue with @Col city fan

Edited 17 April 2019 by UPinCarolina

[Col city fan]

4 hours ago, UPinCarolina said:

Unfortunately, no - you didn't get it right.

Puel was brought in to re-shape the squad, implement something other than the stale system he inherited, and to attempt to lay groundwork for the next evolution of the club. If he left the place better than he found it, then it's a credit to him. If the next manager struggles with the pieces he left in place, then it's a detriment and not a credit to his work.

Amazingly, you've managed to find the most obtuse possible way of interpreting my post 

Edit: To be clear, I'm not defending Puel's record on the pitch - it was middling, sadly - nor am I taking any personal issue with @Col city fan

Very pleasant post and I apologise if I came over as being obtuse.

I getcha but I believe there’s a strong argument to say that Puel didn’t do an awful lot of good for the club and that we had started to go backwards once more.

Sure, he stabilised us at a time of instability and we can thank him for that. He also brought through Chilwell.

But we also saw many good young players starting to decline. Maddison was not playing well, Ndidi had gone right off, God knows what had happened to Maguire, Iheanacho couldn’t hit the proverbial barn door, Gray continued to be well, Gray , showing little glimpses of improvement but nothing much to write home about.

We were watching dour, somewhat confusing football, and we crashed out of the cup to Newport.

In the league, we had taken a downward trajectory.

I don’t buy this thing about Rodgers building on Puel’s legacy. What legacy exactly? 

Theres an argument to say that Rodgers has had to come in and sweep up the mess that Puel had started to leave.

I will not remember Puel as our manager with any real fondness tbh. What I will remember is feeling relief when Top decided enough was enough.

[knitro]

1 hour ago, Col city fan said:

I getcha but I believe there’s a strong argument to say that Puel didn’t do an awful lot of good for the club and that we had started to go backwards once more.

I think we're all waiting for you to make this strong argument, because you haven't yet. 

[Col city fan]

18 minutes ago, knitro said:

I think we're all waiting for you to make this strong argument, because you haven't yet. 

It’s made above. If you disagree then that’s your opinion.

Mine is that we were going backwards under Puel, not forward

If Rodgers now goes on to improve how we play and our league position, it’ll be down to him, not Puel.

I know some people look back fondly on Puel’s tenure. Personally I don’t.

Edited 17 April 2019 by Col city fan

[knitro]

32 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

It’s made above

I don't think I'd call that collection of selective memory, loose conjecture and bad faith opinion 'strong' at all. 

 

Did he take us backward see us fall into the relegation zone, like we did with Ranieri and  Shakey? Oh wait no, he stabilized our position as mid-table in consecutive seasons despite all the inherited problems he faced. I'll give you this, Puel didn't win the league in either season. I suppose that is backwards from our peak, so please pillory him on that fact accordingly. 

 

Did he sign Ahmed Musa and Islam Slimani for record transfers? Like many of his detractors you lump previous administration's errors onto him. Claude didn't bring in Nacho or Gray, Claude didn't extend Ulloa, James, King, Simpson, etc. He had much more limited operating budget and had to manage a squad of whom a clear 1/3 of had no business being paid what they're paid. Claude did a lot of dirty work managing this transition and yet still somehow he brought in Maddison and Ricardo, who are probably two of the best players to ever wear the Leicester shirt. I know, why don't you go ahead and hang him for bringing in Ghezzal, a good attitude squad player, who despite the 'warm welcome' he's received from this fan base for having the gall to be not Riyad Mahrez has been a consummate professional. When you go bargain hunting they aren't all gold, and he's been far from a bust. I'm excited to see what Benkovic and Soyuncu can do with regular minutes. 

 

You're right, Claude asked Ndidi to step up and do more, and he didn't rise to the challenge. It's almost as if he recognized that and sought out Tielemans to address this.

 

Quote

We were watching dour, somewhat confusing football, and we crashed out of the cup to Newport.

Well I'm sorry you are confused by the sport, but I don't really see us playing significantly different than we did with Puel - results have changed of course, but I'd attribute most of that to the quality of our opponents dropping and we have Barnes and Tielemans now which allows us to move to a single pivot (something we did in Claude's last game in charge vs Palace).  Also, for the millionth time, the Newport lineup should have had no problem beating a L2 side, that's on the players entirely (if they can't why are on they on the team at all?). 

 

Your 'argument' against Puel is weirdly personal and not borne out by reality. Rodgers recognized that a lot of the hard work was done already to transition this squad into a contender, and he's able to take the reins on a team heading the right direction to be a real threat to the top of the table - that's why he jumped from Scotland before the season ended - we were the best opportunity available and anyone with a sporting brain could recognize that. 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Col city fan said:

I don’t buy this thing about Rodgers building on Puel’s legacy. What legacy exactly?

I think another way of putting that would be to say that Rodgers' job is slightly easier than it otherwise might have been because he's inherited a squad that's younger and more accustomed to playing a possession style than when Puel first arrived. There's obviously still a lot of work to do but the attacking fullbacks and first team full of young, promising players, for example, are consequences of Puel's time here. If Rodgers had taken control of a squad where Simpson and Fuchs were still first choice at fullbacks, with no Maddison, no Tielemans etc., he'd have had much more work ahead of him than he already does. You can make a lot of criticisms of Puel's time here but I'd say 100% that as a team we were in a better place when he finished than when he arrived.

 

As @UPinCarolina said, he laid the groundwork but had obviously done as much as he could and getting rid of him was the right choice. Now Rodgers has the opportunity to finish the job and make us a really competitive, exciting team, and I hope he can do it.

 

[Col city fan]

17 minutes ago, knitro said:

I don't think I'd call that collection of selective memory, loose conjecture and bad faith opinion 'strong' at all. 

 

Did he take us backward see us fall into the relegation zone, like we did with Ranieri and  Shakey? Oh wait no, he stabilized our position as mid-table in consecutive seasons despite all the inherited problems he faced. I'll give you this, Puel didn't win the league in either season. I suppose that is backwards from our peak, so please pillory him on that fact accordingly. 

 

Did he sign Ahmed Musa and Islam Slimani for record transfers? Like many of his detractors you lump previous administration's errors onto him. Claude didn't bring in Nacho or Gray, Claude didn't extend Ulloa, James, King, Simpson, etc. He had much more limited operating budget and had to manage a squad of whom a clear 1/3 of had no business being paid what they're paid. Claude did a lot of dirty work managing this transition and yet still somehow he brought in Maddison and Ricardo, who are probably two of the best players to ever wear the Leicester shirt. I know, why don't you go ahead and hang him for bringing in Ghezzal, a good attitude squad player, who despite the 'warm welcome' he's received from this fan base for having the gall to be not Riyad Mahrez has been a consummate professional. When you go bargain hunting they aren't all gold, and he's been far from a bust. I'm excited to see what Benkovic and Soyuncu can do with regular minutes. 

 

You're right, Claude asked Ndidi to step up and do more, and he didn't rise to the challenge. It's almost as if he recognized that and sought out Tielemans to address this.

 

Well I'm sorry you are confused by the sport, but I don't really see us playing significantly different than we did with Puel - results have changed of course, but I'd attribute most of that to the quality of our opponents dropping and we have Barnes and Tielemans now which allows us to move to a single pivot (something we did in Claude's last game in charge vs Palace).  Also, for the millionth time, the Newport lineup should have had no problem beating a L2 side, that's on the players entirely (if they can't why are on they on the team at all?). 

 

Your 'argument' against Puel is weirdly personal and not borne out by reality. Rodgers recognized that a lot of the hard work was done already to transition this squad into a contender, and he's able to take the reins on a team heading the right direction to be a real threat to the top of the table - that's why he jumped from Scotland before the season ended - we were the best opportunity available and anyone with a sporting brain could recognize that. 

I can only reiterate what I said

Anybody watching could see that we were going backwards, not forwards, were dropping like a stone down the table, were playing players clearly devoid of confidence and looked like a side who might have been dragged down into a relegation scrap.

The fans were bored, we were losing at home to drab teams in drab games, which culminated in our own fans booing our own team and Top deciding enough was enough.

Again, I’m glad because I felt it was obviously the right thing to do. Apart from last weekend, we’ve seen a resurgence in Vardy, we are now talking again about Maddison orchestrating our forward play and Ndidi, particularly, has stepped up once more.

I believe that Puel has pretty much lost the faith of his players and, undoubtedly, the bulk of the fans. Hence he was sacked.

If there were clear signs of progression, he obviously wouldn’t have been.

You talk of Ghezzal... again it’s no coincidence in my mind that he doesn’t appear to be featuring under Rodgers (unless he’s injured.. I don’t know) when he was pretty much ever present under Puel’s latter days. 

It’s all opinion and I won’t belittle yours.

But I don’t agree with you.

[knitro]

5 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

Anybody watching could see that we were going backwards, not forwards, were dropping like a stone down the table,

Wild exaggeration. 

 

Quote

were playing players clearly devoid of confidence and looked like a side who might have been dragged down into a relegation scrap

Wild conjecture.

 

Quote

The fans were bored, we were losing at home to drab teams in drab games, which culminated in our own fans booing our own team and Top deciding enough was enough.

To be honest this is the worst part about Puel's departure - caving to a mob. This is frankly hard to accept for many, but gate receipts aren't really critical to operation so much as league position, which league you're in, and so on. The fans being bored should be very low on the decision-making criteria for ownership, especially over the short term (which is what 8-10 games is), part of what was needed to be done at this club was going to be painful. An analogy that might work is it was like turning around a large boat - okay we are no longer going in the wrong direction but until we're back on course we're not going the right direction either. Things take time, and the overly-loud impatient heckler's veto of booing fans was frankly embarrassing and I hate that they conceded to the group booing our players. 

Quote

I believe that Puel has pretty much lost the faith of his players and, undoubtedly, the bulk of the fans.

More wild conjecture. I say that because you are starting with conclusions and willing to get there no matter how shaky the foundation. His most recent interview doesn't support it in the least, though i'm sure you read that most of the players reached out to him directly as a lie or something. Or are we suppose to be team Danny Simpson for being sunsetted out of the squad? Interpreting boo birds as the bulk of fans (vs the loudest) is another part of your shaky foundation to make your point, but I digress. 

 

You don't have to agree but at a certain point it's okay to admit, hey I got this one wrong and maybe his tenure wasn't the abject disaster I'm pretending it was. The vitriol you view the Puel era with isn't very circumspect and I hope with greater distance from the emotions around things like the 4-1 lost to CP you'll see it as such. 

 

 

[shailen]

Anyone else sees him in the Eden hazard mould. He has that quick swivel in him, very good on the ball. Maybe he can't yet dribble like Hazard but he's the closest player I've seen to him in the premier league.

[HybridFox]

Played quite well today showing a different side to his game.

 

Was a lot more combative and challenging to win the ball back in midfield which was good.

 

I just wish sometimes though when he doesn't get a decision, he would just get back to his feet and play to the ref's whistle. Couple of occasions today where he sat there raising arms to the officials while we had men scrambling back to defend a counter attack.

 

It's naive but he's only young so will come with experience.

[Harry96]

Should’ve played in albrighton but can see why he went for the shot

[WigstonWanderer]

Improving with every match now

[CosbehFox]

Personally thought he got caught way too many times on the ball 

[Clever Fox]

He's a great talent but he needs to understand that it's a team game. At times he chooses the wrong option because he goes for glory.  That will come as he gains further experience.

I'm sure BR will have a word with him also.

 

Great to have him here though.

[st albans fox]

8 hours ago, shailen said:

Anyone else sees him in the Eden hazard mould. He has that quick swivel in him, very good on the ball. Maybe he can't yet dribble like Hazard but he's the closest player I've seen to him in the premier league.

Doesn’t have the pace over five/ten yards  to be compared - he will be a pretty good player with some Brendan coaching. Hopefully he stays with us for a renewal or two 

[Clever Fox]

5 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

Personally thought he got caught way too many times on the ball 

He did, but I think that was down to man city closing in on him quickly plus we wern't breaking as quickly

Probably due to our tactics for the game.

[J.Lisemore]

Fantastic player who we know makes the wrong decision every now and again - it’ll come with age and experience, plenty of time. 

[fuchsntf]

Getting back,by talking about Madison...

I said I myself won't make any prejudgement before EOS...(ok 1 game to go)..

I am sure Tielemans/Rodgers presence has helped him...but wow we have got a gem here.  This is his  first season in the PL....I won't do any comparisons but Madders,plus Riccardo are IMO the 2 best finds,Attributes we have made in 10 season's,when looking at our forward on the front foot style of Play...

Both have made big strides,and quickly found a deep discipline to their game.

The hotheadiness irraticness seemed to of already gone,there has been an improvement on their tackling,but it's their movement,passing and decision making while going forward,that have made the team an exciting prospect,probably already at this stage in their PL careers,achieving and delivering an higher potential than expected...Both are turning out to be my 2 favourite players.

[jammie82uk]

He was “trending” on twitter last night 

 

[RowlattsFox]

He was excellent first half, close control was brilliant. Still a bit wasted on the left but I can tell why he has moved there in recent games.

[StriderHiryu]

9 hours ago, shailen said:

Anyone else sees him in the Eden hazard mould. He has that quick swivel in him, very good on the ball. Maybe he can't yet dribble like Hazard but he's the closest player I've seen to him in the premier league.

Hazard is probably the second best dribbler in the world after Messi as well as being fast and and direct, so I don't think Maddison is that type of player. For me if there was someone Maddison's recent performances remind me of it's Isco at Real Madrid who also has a fantastic ability to twist and turn his way out of pressure to create space for himself. Also just like Maddison, his end product is sometimes not as good as the twisting and turning that got him that space in the first place! Isco is still class of course, though it's likely he will be sold be Real Madrid close season, probably due to his inconsistency.

 

Since Rodgers came into the team, I think Maddison has probably been our most improved player. He has the energy to last the whole game now, puts in a real shift trying to win the ball back and is making a lot more happen. Having Tielemans next to him has helped him for sure, but last night as in quite a few games recently, I think he's out performed Tielemans.

[Babylon]

On 17/04/2019 at 17:56, Col city fan said:

I don’t buy this thing about Rodgers building on Puel’s legacy. What legacy exactly? 

Theres an argument to say that Rodgers has had to come in and sweep up the mess that Puel had started to leave.

Did you hear many people singing our praises in terms of ability and how much potential and young talent we had the year and a bit prior to Puel or at the start of his reign? The only thing people would have discussed then was us being on a downwards trajectory with an ageing squad. 

 

Puel and the club decided on a strategy of young and passing football that set us on the path we are now on. Do you think Rodgers would have been interested in coming here if we still had the likes of Simpson, Fuchs, Okazaki, King plodding along into their mid 30's, unable to keep the ball and play possession football.

 

People will say "oh any manager would have replaced them". Well Shakespeare didn't, plenty of other managers also favour signing old heads as it's usually an easy out for them. Stay comfortable, don't take risks etc. We took risks on signing and playing so much young talent around the 21 mark, so much so we've a mile ahead of anyone else in terms of minutes given to younger players. 

 

Did he have enough about him to get to the "next level" that people always go on about. No, he didn't show enough for anyone to think that. But the platform has been put in place (by him and the club), a platform that made us an exciting proposition. So much so that we're talked of as potential top 6 contenders now, thanks in part to Rodgers of course, but also that squad he's been handed.

[Koke]

Excellent player. Just 2 things I wish he would work on.

 

1. Pass it more instead of going for glory all the time. When Maguire went on that run, if Maddison had squared to Albrighton we might have scored. 

 

2. Stay on your feet nore pls. I know you get fouled a lot but sometimes you go down so easily. Hazard gets fouled more than you but he's not as theatrical as you.

 

Other than that, brilliant player.

Edited 7 May 2019 by Koke

[Koke]

14 minutes ago, Babylon said:

Did you hear many people singing our praises in terms of ability and how much potential and young talent we had the year and a bit prior to Puel or at the start of his reign? The only thing people would have discussed then was us being on a downwards trajectory with an ageing squad. 

 

Puel and the club decided on a strategy of young and passing football that set us on the path we are now on. Do you think Rodgers would have been interested in coming here if we still had the likes of Simpson, Fuchs, Okazaki, King plodding along into their mid 30's, unable to keep the ball and play possession football.

 

People will say "oh any manager would have replaced them". Well Shakespeare didn't, plenty of other managers also favour signing old heads as it's usually an easy out for them. Stay comfortable, don't take risks etc. We took risks on signing and playing so much young talent around the 21 mark, so much so we've a mile ahead of anyone else in terms of minutes given to younger players. 

 

Did he have enough about him to get to the "next level" that people always go on about. No, he didn't show enough for anyone to think that. But the platform has been put in place (by him and the club), a platform that made us an exciting proposition. So much so that we're talked of as potential top 6 contenders now, thanks in part to Rodgers of course, but also that squad he's been handed.

 

You're wasting your breath mate. No matter how much we repeat the same things people will still act like Puel is Peter Taylor 2,0.

[woddyuk]

Maddison is a good player and has potential to be a great great player. 

 

Pluses :

Decent taking free kicks. 

Wins free kicks, (drawing them is fine but please cut out Bamford style diving) 

Technically gifted. 

Work rate (usually) 

What he did for Sophie. 

Can pick a pass when he gets his head up. 

 

Negatives to work on. 

Needs to play to whistle. It's frustrating as hell If decisions dont go his way he spends to long on the floor or waving arms about. In the meantime the opposition are now 20yards away with the ball. 

Heading and tackling are piss poor especially tackling. He will end up breaking his own leg or get booked for jumping turned back into opponents. 

Dont expect him to be in Kantes league but tacking his way out of a wet paper bag would be a start.