A small team

[Guest An Sionnach]

This team is going to have to keep the ball on the ground ,only two players over 6 foot .With Harry gone as well very little threat from corners . You can guarantee that the opposition are going to exploit that starting with Wolves.

[Cameron Davidson]

Benkovic is 6ft 4, so he hay help a touch when fit, but I agree. 

However how many did Harry score direct with his head from free kicks and corners? A prize for the correct answer.... 

 

[UniFox21]

2 minutes ago, An Sionnach said:

This team is going to have to keep the ball on the ground ,only two players over 6 foot .With Harry gone as well very little threat from corners . You can guarantee that the opposition are going to exploit that starting with Wolves.

We have four players 6ft and over if Wilf starts. 

 

The corner quality is just as important as height, and a lot of our players such as Vardy have quite a spring on them.

 

Defensively, we position ourselves correctly and we should be fine. We've never particularly been a tall, powerful team.

[Tielemans63]

1 minute ago, Cameron Davidson said:

Benkovic is 6ft 4, so he hay help a touch when fit, but I agree. 

However how many did Harry score direct with his head from free kicks and corners? A prize for the correct answer.... 

 

He was pretty good at defending them though which was his primary responsibility.

[Cameron Davidson]

Just now, Paddy. said:

He was pretty good at defending them though which was his primary responsibility.

Sorry, I mis-read the post, I thought he meant threat going forward. Yes you are right, it will leave us vulnerable to things at the back. Where's Huth when you need him??

 

[ealingfox]

This is where we will miss Maguire quite a bit more than many realise.

[Tielemans63]

1 minute ago, Cameron Davidson said:

Sorry, I mis-read the post, I thought he meant threat going forward. Yes you are right, it will leave us vulnerable to things at the back. Where's Huth when you need him??

 

Fair play. For what it's worth, I agree with you about the attack!

[OntarioFox]

10 minutes ago, Cameron Davidson said:

Benkovic is 6ft 4, so he hay help a touch when fit, but I agree. 

However how many did Harry score direct with his head from free kicks and corners? A prize for the correct answer.... 

 

Fair point, his niche was sneaking in at the back post to either head it back across to team-mates or tap it in - case in point the late equaliser against Man Utd. It's a string to our bow we're going to miss, but hopefully the same can be coached into Evans and Caglar.

Heck, I'll be honest - that Quarter Final goal against Sweden is the only time I can actually remember him scoring a headed goal.

[Tielemans63]

1 minute ago, ealingfox said:

This is where we will miss Maguire quite a bit more than many realise.

Totally agree EF. Would rep this but run out. Seems to be a lot of fans who seem to think that the transition will be seamless and that Harry isn't a big loss. He's a huge loss imho, sometimes it's not about a guy being in red-hot form, its about the team missing a guy who everyone had confidence in and who was a huge part of our defensive organisation. Harry was always one of the first names on the team sheet and you're going to miss a player like that- no question. I'm amazed by how dismissive some people are of both his quality and his importance to LCFC.

[Raw Dykes]

5 minutes ago, UniFox21 said:

We have four players 6ft and over if Wilf starts. 

 

The corner quality is just as important as height, and a lot of our players such as Vardy have quite a spring on them.

 

Defensively, we position ourselves correctly and we should be fine. We've never particularly been a tall, powerful team.

We were under O'Neill, and I think we were under Adams, as well. Scowcroft and Benjamin on the wings!

 

To OP: We are a small team, and we probably aren't going to be the best on set-pieces. That's not the be-all-and-end-all, though. We're becoming a pretty fast-paced, technical side, capable of dominating midfield and outpassing the opponents. What we might lack in height, we will more than make up for in other areas.

[st albans fox]

4 minutes ago, OntarioFox said:

Fair point, his niche was sneaking in at the back post to either head it back across to team-mates or tap it in - case in point the late equaliser against Man Utd. It's a string to our bow we're going to miss, but hopefully the same can be coached into Evans and Caglar.

Heck, I'll be honest - that Quarter Final goal against Sweden is the only time I can actually remember him scoring a headed goal.

Newcastle 

brighton

 

prob another somewhere  

[urban.spaceman]

Leister without mcguire is rugby club 

[Guest]

We've needed to play it on the floor for seasons. Maybe this will force us to do so.

 

I've been really impressed with Maddison's corners this pre-season but defending corners has always been a problem for us.

 

Having said that I bet we concede more from penalties than we do from corners this season.

 

I just hope that Kasper stays on his line for penalties and waits until they've been hit before diving and gets off his line for corners.

[Pliskin]

Correct positioning can avoid conceding needlessly from set plays, height obviously helps but it is not a necessity. One of our biggest issues under Puel was how we marked up at set plays, we conceded some pretty poor goals even with Harry in the side, We appeared better at defending once Rodgers came in, and I would not suggest this was primarily down to Maguire, it was more to do with subtle changes to the way we defended set plays. There's no need to start panicking about things like this, we will be fine. 

 

Plus conceding headed goals from open play usually derives from a breakdown of play elsewhere on the pitch, I cant recall Maguire having to complete any last gasp headed clearances. We're clearly working on a style, and so far it is easy to see it will be a more practical possession based approach, with high pressing off the ball. 

[Ric Flair]

24 minutes ago, An Sionnach said:

This team is going to have to keep the ball on the ground ,only two players over 6 foot .With Harry gone as well very little threat from corners . You can guarantee that the opposition are going to exploit that starting with Wolves.

Soyuncu is 6ft 1 so how have we suddenly lost more height?

[Analysethis]

Barcelona had a team of midgets who couldnt head the ball and even had midfielders playing in defence like Mascherano. Man City have a team and none of them look like ball winners whilst there defenders looked so ropey at times that Kompany, there oldest defender was wheeled out ahead of players like John Stones.

 

The point is football isnt the game it was where every team had a big number 9. In fact, hardly anyone has that old school number 9 so in open play I dont think we need to worry. As for set pieces, a lot of clearances occur with good positioning and even being able to time your jump. Ben Chilwell is the best example of this as he wins so many balls in the air for someone of his height and thats why Kasper is constantly kicking the ball in his direction if he is near the half way line as he usually is first to flick the ball forward.

 

Anyway, we will enjoy 80% possession every game now with all these no 10s we have so the oppo wont get a chance to get free-kicks and corners LOL

[Stuntman_Mike]

It's gonna be a long season with no height in the side.

[Raw Dykes]

6 minutes ago, Paddy. said:

Totally agree EF. Would rep this but run out. Seems to be a lot of fans who seem to think that the transition will be seamless and that Harry isn't a big loss. He's a huge loss imho, sometimes it's not about a guy being in red-hot form, its about the team missing a guy who everyone had confidence in and who was a huge part of our defensive organisation. Harry was always one of the first names on the team sheet and you're going to miss a player like that- no question. I'm amazed by how dismissive some people are of both his quality and his importance to LCFC.

He's a good player, no doubt, but he wasn't on his best form last season. I can't find the stats now, but maybe someone else here can. We performed better last season when he wasn't in the team. I think both by goals scored and goals conceded.

 

I'm not going to pretend him leaving isn't a loss. It is. I just don't think it's that big a deal. We've planned ahead for it by buying two young full international CBs. We will see if either is ready to step up. We keep writing Morgan off, but every season he demonstrates he's still got what it takes. In the case of neither CS nor FB being ready to be relied on regularly, I wouldn't be surprised to see Wes steady the ship until January.

[UniFox21]

13 minutes ago, Raw Dykes said:

We were under O'Neill, and I think we were under Adams, as well. Scowcroft and Benjamin on the wings!

 

To OP: We are a small team, and we probably aren't going to be the best on set-pieces. That's not the be-all-and-end-all, though. We're becoming a pretty fast-paced, technical side, capable of dominating midfield and outpassing the opponents. What we might lack in height, we will more than make up for in other areas.

Those were a bit before I can remember watching, so you'll have to forgive me for missing that out 

 

 

[Guest An Sionnach]

You can win with a small team if you are Barcelona or Man City but usually size matters.

[Raw Dykes]

1 minute ago, UniFox21 said:

Those were a bit before I can remember watching, so you'll have to forgive me for missing that out 

Ah, right. We were a pretty physical side under O'Neill, with 3 big centre-halves and Heskey up front. Under Adams, we had tall wingers who we would lump the ball up to so they could cross to Deano.

[Stadt]

We won the league with a midfield pairing that were 5’10 and 5’6. 

[UniFox21]

2 minutes ago, An Sionnach said:

You can win with a small team if you are Barcelona or Man City but usually size matters.

But it's not like our entire team is 5ft nothing, majority are heights where they can and do challenge for crosses.

 

And it's not like the prem is full of stoke and Burnley esque teams either.

[OntarioFox]

19 minutes ago, urban.spaceman said:

Leister without mcguire is rugby club 

But Macgier will Win the hair at Man Untd 

[Billy Big Balls]

5 minutes ago, Stadt said:

We won the league with a midfield pairing that were 5’10 and 5’6. 

Almost the whole team were short too. I think only Huth, Morgan, Fuchs and Schmeichel were above 6 foot. Now we have Soyuncu/Benkovic, Evans, Ndidi and Schmeichel above 6 foot. Add to that Perez and Vardy are reasonable headers of the ball, Dennis Praet is 5'11 although very lightweight. I think we'll be absolutely fine, especially if Benkovic breaks into the team.