City 1-2 Saints Post Match

[weller54]

It's a sign!

It's a sign!!..

Storm Brendan to hit the UK tomorrow!

.... hopefully most forceful at the training ground.

[MC Prussian]

This got mentioned in the match thread:

 

Why did Evans and Söyüncü swap sides as centre-backs? Seemed somehow odd.

[sacreblueits442]

11 minutes ago, SouthStandUpperTier said:

BR seems willing to change formations, but I don't believe he will ever compromise his style. Yesterday we were having real problems trying to play through their press with the short passing game, yet never really adapted our tactics. Is Rodgers too proud to have the defenders clip a long ball into the forward players? I'm not saying hoof it, but surely going a bit more direct just a few times would make the opposition drop off a bit.

.. I believe Rodgers mentioned the option of the ball being played in the inside forward channel but we did not take the opportunity! 

 If he is aware of this, why would you not instruct your players to do so. 

  Watching the Villa game I felt there was an option to release Ricardo by a ball over the top where there were plenty of space to run into but Ricardo gave no indication he wanted to make that run or tried to move the opposiing player closing him down, around or giving him something to think about. It was playing by numbers passing for passing sake, no urgency or movement within the midfield or upfront. 

  The team has plateaued and their training needs to be shaken up, made lighter or with some kind of new approach to doing the basics. 

  This has now become psychological, I think the constant repetition of intense training is having an effect on performance, like Spurs, they had had enough of the intensity of their training, and something had to give! 

[foxinsocks]

They played a high line - but were were the balls over thee top to stop this? WE have to mix it up - again - as pee the post above (now below):

18 minutes ago, sacreblueits442 said:

...

 If he is aware of this, why would you not instruct your players to do so. 

 

[leicesterseddon]

Let’s be honest this one had ‘tits up’ written all over it. 
 

The positive slant on it is that the players were tired after so many games (although some, such as Vardy haven’t actually played that much recently).

 

The negative way of looking at is is that we’re over halfway through the season and teams have worked us out. 
 

Difficult to know what to do really, I was pretty happy with the team & formation.

 

[whoareyaaa]

Should have started with Kelchi up top change the style a bit 

[oxtonfox]

17 hours ago, kingfox said:

Just got back, that performance was disgusting.

 

Ndidi was a huge miss.

Our wingers were yet again terrible.

The defence made too many sloppy errors.

 

I put most of the blame on Rodgers though for that appalling team selection.

 

Perez has been playing well in a front two but let's stick him out wide again, he doesn't look comfortable as a winger, too weak and gives the ball away. Barnes should be nowhere near the starting 11, he did absolutely nothing again today. Dropping Tielemans was the right decision but Chilwell should have been dropped too, another abysmal performance from him.

 

If it wasn't for Kasper and the crossbar, Southampton could have had about five.

 

 

I put the blame for this at Rodgers door. I think he instinctively believes there are only 12/13 of the squad who he’ll trust to start a game. These players have not had to work or perform to retain their shirts recently and the others feel they’re not part of the core group. e.g Iheanacho, Gray, Hamza. They rarely get starts and only when there’s an injury to key players e,g. Vardy, Ndidi. This is my hypothesis as to why the Press that was successful doesn’t work now either as the core players are knackered. We were always 1 or 2 injuries away from a performance like against Norwich or Southampton recently. 

 

[whoareyaaa]

Think we missed Youri as well, Preat and Hamza don't have the ability Youri has on the attack and defence plus it allows the opposition more space as they won't close down the former two as much compared to Youri

[whoareyaaa]

10 minutes ago, oxtonfox said:

I put the blame for this at Rodgers door. I think he instinctively believes there are only 12/13 of the squad who he’ll trust to start a game. These players have not had to work or perform to retain their shirts recently and the others feel they’re not part of the core group. e.g Iheanacho, Gray, Hamza. They rarely get starts and only when there’s an injury to key players e,g. Vardy, Ndidi. This is my hypothesis as to why the Press that was successful doesn’t work now either as the core players are knackered. We were always 1 or 2 injuries away from a performance like against Norwich or Southampton recently. 

 

Good points I think Nacho and Gray deserve a proper run in the team 

[Danny Clender]

Just another theory, don't worry I'll come to slagging off Chilwell later.

 

Up until the Man City game we'd been "allegedly" flying under the radar, but after that game I think we became detected and are now flying above the radar and everyone can see us now, we've got Missile Lock, but Goose isn't dead yet. 

I wonder if this added dimension has added to a sense of pressure from the team and management?

This was about the time in 2016 when Claudio came into his own. 

 

Like I say, it's just a theory, as in reality, the West Ham and Newcastle results were amazing and bought us right back on track, we lose to Southampton and we're back to comparing the situation to after the Liverpool game, which is a little unfair.

Essentially, we're still right on track, but we are playing without the cohesion we enjoyed for the majority of the first half season games. 

We're allowed a little bit of a wobble, surely?

 

Yesterday though did highlight many of the issues needed to finish in the top 4.

 

Here we go, Chilwell cannot consistently give possession away like that, it's been poor all season and his overall commitment, bar one run through the midfield, looks laboured. I think he should be allowed to sort out his woes on the pitch and if he can't sort it out from there, then it's time to act, but not just yet.

 

Maddison needs to beef up, every time he's "muscled" off the ball he's looking for the ref before he's hit the deck, it's too predictable and that's why I felt the ref yesterday chose to make an example of him. Possession was lost because too many Leicester player stopped waiting for the ref to award a free-kick. 

 

I've held off, but am starting to agree about Perez's position, he stutters too much when on the ball on the wing and loses it easily when pressed. 

 

And the biggest for issue for me, Ndidi is out. 

 

I can't see how transfer speculation has affected Chilwell and Maddison, Rodgers has been so clear about the position on transfers out. Take us out the Cups and with a lower league position, then maybe, but not from where we are now.

I just think it's inexperience on their behalf. 

 

Burnley definitely needs a new look or else it's 3 Golden Envelopes time. 

[MANFACE]

This has started since the Norwich game, I'm afraid.

[Matt_Lcfc]

Everyone is very quick to point to how poor we were - which I agree with.

However, give some Southampton some credit, apart from Liverpool, they were the best team to come to the KP for a long, long time. 
They didn’t play anti-football, but instead played at a fast tempo and completely nullified any threat that we had. 
Only blessing is that they didn’t get 4/5, forget it, move on as the next few games are crucial and the lads need your support.

[Reg Vardy]

6 minutes ago, MANFACE said:

This has started since the Norwich game, I'm afraid.

Yup lost 3 in 8 two of which were against the best teams in the country......shit run.....

[StanSP]

1 hour ago, MC Prussian said:

This got mentioned in the match thread:

 

Why did Evans and Söyüncü swap sides as centre-backs? Seemed somehow odd.

To cater for Ings I think but not sure it worked... 

[Alf Bentley]

I appreciate that various factors probably contributed to us being outplayed yesterday (players out of form, players who had been in form having a bad day (Choudhury, Soyuncu), Ndidi missing, fatigue, lack of vigour etc.), BUT.....

 

The 2 teams that have comprehensively outplayed us at home have been Liverpool and Southampton. What did they have in common?

They both pressed us high and aggressively, disrupting the potential for us to deploy our passing/possession game.

 

We need to be able to deal with that approach from opponents and/or to switch to alternative playing styles.

 

We do still have our counter-attacking option - and did seem to be trying to use that more than usual. Indeed, during the first half, that was about the only time we were any threat - on the counter-attack.

We started coming into the game a bit more after the hour, when Southampton were possibly tiring a little - we did manage a few decent passing moves, though nowhere near as many as usual.

 

I'm not sure what the alternative options need to be, but we need alternatives. Not every team will have the right players or system to press like Liverpool or Southampton did.

But any manager worth their salt who sees how we struggled against consistently aggressive high pressing in those matches will consider using that against us, if they have the personnel.... 

[PaddyS]

41 minutes ago, whoareyaaa said:

Should have started with Kelchi up top change the style a bit 

I think it's time for this now. Nacho's our best threat going forward at the mo and is offering way more than some

of the others. Give him and Vardy a run of games together. And Gray too as someone else has said.

 

Freshen it up a bit and play to our current strengths ie Nacho and Vardy. 

[TonyN11]

3 hours ago, norwichfox said:

This is true, sadly/...not expecting a Wembley trip on current form.

Maybe the EFL Trophy?

[Pliskin]

1 hour ago, oxtonfox said:

I put the blame for this at Rodgers door. I think he instinctively believes there are only 12/13 of the squad who he’ll trust to start a game. These players have not had to work or perform to retain their shirts recently and the others feel they’re not part of the core group. e.g Iheanacho, Gray, Hamza. They rarely get starts and only when there’s an injury to key players e,g. Vardy, Ndidi. This is my hypothesis as to why the Press that was successful doesn’t work now either as the core players are knackered. We were always 1 or 2 injuries away from a performance like against Norwich or Southampton recently. 

 

Rodgers hasn’t pissed me off throughout his tenure thus far, however, I am extremely puzzled as to why Albrighton isn’t getting a chance, I might sound like a 15 year old fan boy, but he’s the type of player where you know what you’re going to get. He was that one guy besides Mahrez who instinctively gets the ball to Vardy, early. I don’t know for how much longer I can see Barnes stand with his back to goal in advance positions for.....

[Flappit]

The problem with playing 2 up front (out and out strikers) is that you get them marked too easily. One of the main ways to counter a high press (that teams are learning to use against us) is to have the 10 drop into space near the centre circle whilst one of the central midfielders pushes up the pitch and wide. The central defender marking the 10 will almost certainly fail to come out that far leaving space for the 10 to receive the ball and turn, with the whole team then moving up the pitch as a unit. This, I feel, is why you're increasingly seeing an irate Soyuncu and Chilwell and Ricardo are becoming less effective: the movement ahead of them is not what it needs to be, so there is no space for the ball and they end up having to play ever more risky passes or risk being tackled near to their own goal.

 

If a team is pressing us high and wide, there WILL be space in the middle, but if the midfielders stay central and passive, they, too, are easily pressed as they receive the ball and either have to try a risky spin and beat their marker or just dab the ball back to a defender again. By this point the wide lines are normally cut off for our fullbacks to pass into and they simply have to stop and go backwards. Movement is a confidence thing. If you start to feel pressure, you tend to play less riskily and stick to what is basic and average, but easily defended against. We have lost our creative confidence and movement, so the passing options are now limited and it simply makes us easy to defend against. Earlier in the season the amount of movement we had was tremendous and it ran teams ragged trying to find where to attack the ball as there were so many passing options. Now other teams have worked out that by isolating the passing options from the fullbacks particularly, they can defend the space and allow proper pressure on the ball when we have it. 

 

When teams don't press us (Aston Villa in the cup last week), the only way through the parked bus is smart, fast passing and quick movement. Again, we're not confident enough to do that at the moment so we  play a bit scared and just pass, pass, pass, pass in lines across the pitch. It then makes it incredibly hard for Maddison or Tielemans to find a killer pass through as there is no space being created. If Southampton tried that tactic against Man City or Liverpool they'd have been ripped to pieces with fast passing and movement. We're currently playing scared and not moving, so it worked against us. I can't help but feel that the way the crowd is getting on the players' backs at every slight mistake will make them even more nervous and less likely to play with freedom and confidence. Barnes, Chilwell, Maddison and Tielemans are young players who need to feel good and confident to perform at their best. Instead they are being shouted at from start to end of the match and it really is not helping. OK, discuss it in private and have your say, it's a free world. But please don't boo and criticise our players from the crowd, it creates an ugly and tense atmosphere and prevents them doing what they actually are good at.

[lgfualol]

1 hour ago, Danny Clender said:

Just another theory, don't worry I'll come to slagging off Chilwell later.

 

Up until the Man City game we'd been "allegedly" flying under the radar, but after that game I think we became detected and are now flying above the radar and everyone can see us now, we've got Missile Lock, but Goose isn't dead yet. 

I wonder if this added dimension has added to a sense of pressure from the team and management?

This was about the time in 2016 when Claudio came into his own. 

This is something I was thinking about. Before it was all "top 4? Haha we are just enjoying out football, we'll see what happens" from the team. Then we got crushed by Man City and Liverpool, and it feels now like "oh **** we are going to bottle it" and our performances have gone to shit.

[reynard]

This is the first crisis, and I use that word advisedly, to hit Ridgers since he came here. Yesterday was both a terrible perfomance by us and a very good one by Southampton. For me the following appear fairly obvious.

 

1 We're not anyhwere near as good without Ndidi as with him and we don't have a replacement.

2 Hamza is a long way off being ready to play the holding midfield role. He made a lot of mistakes yesterday.

3 Perez is simply poor when playing wide and too easily shaken off the ball.

4 Chilwell is badly off form, looks shot of confidence and gave the ball away I don't know how many times yesterday. Perhaps bring in Fuchs for the next game?

5 Barnes is offering absolutely zero at the moment. Looks nervous and confidence shot to pieces

6 We have become soft and too nice to play against. Not one of our midfield yesterday showed they could actually tackle. We need to learn the dark arts of the game like Man City and Liverpool.

7 Corners. We have such little physical prescense that they have largely becoma a waste of time for us.

 

The next 2 league games are massive. With the February we have coming up it is quite conceivable we will drop out of the top 4 by the end of that month and if we do I don't think we have the players to get us back into it. They look like they have run out of ideas and energy.

 

[Col city fan]

11 minutes ago, reynard said:

This is the first crisis, and I use that word advisedly, to hit Ridgers since he came here. Yesterday was both a terrible perfomance by us and a very good one by Southampton. For me the following appear fairly obvious.

 

1 We're not anyhwere near as good without Ndidi as with him and we don't have a replacement.

2 Hamza is a long way off being ready to play the holding midfield role. He made a lot of mistakes yesterday.

3 Perez is simply poor when playing wide and too easily shaken off the ball.

4 Chilwell is badly off form, looks shot of confidence and gave the ball away I don't know how many times yesterday. Perhaps bring in Fuchs for the next game?

5 Barnes is offering absolutely zero at the moment. Looks nervous and confidence shot to pieces

6 We have become soft and too nice to play against. Not one of our midfield yesterday showed they could actually tackle. We need to learn the dark arts of the game like Man City and Liverpool.

7 Corners. We have such little physical prescense that they have largely becoma a waste of time for us.

 

The next 2 league games are massive. With the February we have coming up it is quite conceivable we will drop out of the top 4 by the end of that month and if we do I don't think we have the players to get us back into it. They look like they have run out of ideas and energy.

 

I agree with every one of your 7 points

Absolutely spot on 

I’d also add I think the opposition have found us out to some extent. They’ve learnt for example they are going to get far more success putting Chilwell under pressure than Ricardo

Edited 12 January 2020 by Col city fan

[Corky]

Deserved defeat, they were much better and looked like a team in form. We missed Ndidi badly, several players were off the pace and teams will usually look better if you give them the ball all the time, as we did.

 

I don't think it is a crisis but we look much more comfortable away from home at the moment and need a good home result again soon.

[Ian S]

19 hours ago, dooflip said:

Fed up of this sht.

been like it for what seems like months now.

 

we went from being one of the best sides in the league to not turning up. The effort just isn’t there.

 

we don’t press. There’s no urgency. We have no ideas going forward. No passion. I’m ashamed of our team and have been since Everton/Watford at home sort of time. We’ve been awful since that.

 

something needs to change.
 

would be considering accepting big bids for most of the squad at the moment with how pathetic they’ve been. Cash in while we can.

WUM or alternatively you are now the clear leader in the most stupid and idiotic post of the season and there has been some competition.If you really are a Leicester fan which I very much doubt  I would wager you are one of the prats who actually booed at the final whistle.

[volpeazzurro]

2 hours ago, StanSP said:

To cater for Ings I think but not sure it worked... 

Yes I thought that also but, if we haven't done it before for strikers that are arguably better than Ings, why start now? Is it a sign that Rodgers is overthinking everything? Some of his tactics, formations and team selections, notwithstanding fatigue and frequency of games have at times been quite bizarre at first glance.

 

Our teamwork, aggression and pressing game appears to have stopped. At times it seems to have been replaced by a meaningless passing style in our own half with no pace or off the ball movement reminiscent of the sort of play Puel was criticised for only possibly worse. Lest we forget, around this time last year we'd beaten Man City and Chelsea and drawn against Liverpool with arguably a poorer team. At least the tactics employed, though not pretty, were more discernable.

 

Rodgers has to take some of the blame for some poor decision making that has led to some poor performances and perhaps even the loss of confidence in some of our younger players. Is he overthinking the opposition and making things too complex rather than letting the team play more naturally in their own more confident style?