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Realjimbo

Not good under pressure?

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We all know the phrase "big match players" Liverpool and the other City have it in spades but do we?

I can't help wondering if our lads freeze when the pressure is applied and for me the next four games will be telling.

Burnley and West Ham in the league, Villa and Brentford in the Cup comps-

we must win them all!

After these it's Chelsea at the KP, we can't go into this one cool.

Our players were second best against saints, this can't become even a one in four occurance or top four will vanish in weeks.

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wouldn't say so, no. 

 

before we got outclassed by city and liverpool, our bigger games this season were probably united away, arsenal and spurs at home and the everton cup quarter final. we won one from a goal down, won one with a completely dominant display and managed to pick ourselves up after conceding a last minute equaliser to win a penalty shootout. 

 

it's not to do with pressure of "big games" or "big moments". we just weren't very good yesterday. 

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It’s the second half of the season, and all our opponents will now know how to play us, negate us, and put pressure on us.

 

It’s been obvious in recent games, that we appear to be very one dimensional and without another way of playing, when we are high pressed for the ball.

 

Playing the ball between the goalkeeper and back four, and inviting pressure on, is now becoming a weakness at the back rather than a strength to build and go forward. We have been found out by teams, who press us knowing we will give the ball away in our half more often.

 

The manager needs to have a Plan B in games that aren’t working out for us. He has been great when Plan A has imposed us on games, but I can see no evidence of a Plan B at all.
 

In-game changes to the team and formations don’t properly change the plan, it’s the same slowed-up play for: the back possession game all the time. It was lunacy yesterday I; the last ten minutes plus injury time, watching us d#ck about with it in our defensive third playing the ball four, five, six times slowly when what we needed was something quicker and slicker to give us a chance to get the ball in the attacking third for most of the rest of the game.

 

Irs down to the manager to know this, ensure the players know this and have plans to wrest games back our way, rather then playing games out the same way all the time,and not winning.

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We aren't good under pressure, that's been proven several times this season:

- Man U away. They were (and are) terrible, but we barely showed up.

- Man City away. They played really well, but we hardly showed up.

- Liverpool home. Battered by a great team, but we didn't lay a glove on them.

- Villa home (cup). We played well here I thought, but 1-1 was not the result we were after.

- Southampton home. Not a high pressure match pre-game, but during the match they pressed us and got into our faces and put us off our stride.

 

But there's no need to panic yet. We have a young team and right now they don't have the experience to adapt to these situations. How many people at the start of the season seriously thought we would crack top 4? Top 6 seemed doable with a good run, but top 4 AND semi finals of the cup is way better than expected. We've been outperforming expectations for a while I would say. Now it's starting to catch up with us a bit and teams are figuring us out. but we can adapt again and make the necessary changes. Players like Tielemans, Maddison, Ndidi, Hamza, Chilwell, Soyuncu need to get used to playing high pressure games regularly to adapt and currently they haven't, or when they have they haven't been the main men for the team in question, e.g. when Youri is with Belgium they look to DeBruyne and Hazard instead of him. They will get there, but it takes time.

 

We are no way as good as we were earlier in the season but we can still put it right. Let's get behind the team and manager because we are still having a fantastic season that could yet reap many rewards!

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2 hours ago, Realjimbo said:

We all know the phrase "big match players" Liverpool and the other City have it in spades but do we?

I can't help wondering if our lads freeze when the pressure is applied and for me the next four games will be telling.

Burnley and West Ham in the league, Villa and Brentford in the Cup comps-

we must win them all!

After these it's Chelsea at the KP, we can't go into this one cool.

Our players were second best against saints, this can't become even a one in four occurance or top four will vanish in weeks.

You have a point, i said to me mate after the villa cup game, out of the 3  big games we had over Christmas man city, liverpool, and villa, We bottled them all, and i can honestly seeing us bottling it against  a packed out villa park under the flood lights, sorry to be a pessimist, it just seems to be where were at (at the minute)

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In all honesty, it’s more us looking legging after a hard run of games. 
 

I’m pretty sure we’ll be okay next Sunday against Burnley and we’ll have a much happier forum next Sunday evening.

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7 hours ago, Realjimbo said:

We all know the phrase "big match players" Liverpool and the other City have it in spades but do we?

I can't help wondering if our lads freeze when the pressure is applied and for me the next four games will be telling.

Burnley and West Ham in the league, Villa and Brentford in the Cup comps-

we must win them all!

After these it's Chelsea at the KP, we can't go into this one cool.

Our players were second best against saints, this can't become even a one in four occurance or top four will vanish in weeks.

If seems to me..its the many fans fans on this forum that cant  take this new hights style of  pressure....!!!

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If you think before the Man City game we were tipped to be in a title race and we were getting all the plaudits. That fully crumbled after playing Man City and Liverpool. I think our players are suffering from a loss of confidence and belief after these two games. 

 

I don't see it being anything else. When you're on a winning run, you are more brave in possession and you take more calculated risks and confidence means you demand the ball and get into more dangerous positions. Against Southampton most the players looked scared of the ball, didn't provide many options, etc. We need to get our confidence back and we'll be fine. 

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Some really great points there that gave me more food for thought.... Maybe its cos I've been a foxes fan since the days of  Stringfellow, Cross and Shilton and have got used to disappointment!!

(I know that 2015/16 was just a dream)

But I'll still support my team no matter what-- I was that man who dragged my wife to Yeovil on a cold winters night!

just hope we don't bottle it now.

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7 hours ago, shailen said:

If you think before the Man City game we were tipped to be in a title race and we were getting all the plaudits. That fully crumbled after playing Man City and Liverpool. I think our players are suffering from a loss of confidence and belief after these two games. 

 

I don't see it being anything else. When you're on a winning run, you are more brave in possession and you take more calculated risks and confidence means you demand the ball and get into more dangerous positions. Against Southampton most the players looked scared of the ball, didn't provide many options, etc. We need to get our confidence back and we'll be fine. 

This is the best general analysis I’ve seen.

well said Shailen! Reminds me of that scene in the movie Top Gun (Bare with me). At the beginning when one of the elite pilots (Cougar) gets rattled by an enemy plane when it catches him off guard. Pilots call it ‘losing the edge’.

it happens to the best - especially when their operating at such high levels mentally and physically that confidence is peaking. The moment a pilot or even an athlete is caught unaware they can be beaten and that exposes a certain vulnerability. In Leicester’s case we were riding high and a combination of tiredness & lack of mental preparation allowed city and Liverpool to really hurt us. This damaged confidence and made our players doubt them selves. It’s a dangerous cocktail that will destroy our season if not fixed. It’s an extreme scenario but it could happen and that is what we as fans all fear. BR has now a major job on his hands to get them all back to where they were before the wobble. COYF Let’s get our edge back! 👊🏾

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There is something in this and I think it comes from the manager unfortunately.

 

OK against Southampton we were tired and they were obviously well up for it and we couldn't handle them, but I look at the Utd game where in the lead up, Brendan was going on about what a fantastic club Utd are and how Old Trafford is always a difficult place to go, blah, blah, blah.  At the time, Utd were TERRIBLE and were there to be got at, but the tactics and the formation that we were sent out with were like we were setting up for a damage limitation exercise.  It should have been Utd setting up like that. The same can be said for the Man City and Liverpool games, we looked an absolute shell of the team we had been.  In all three of those games we completely failed to impose our game on them and I'm pretty sure that their fans will point to the games with us as amongst the easiest they've had. Those tactics come from the manager.

 

Villa will be a huge test.  It's a two legged game and Villa did what an away team needs to do in the first leg.  By us getting the equaliser in that game, it means that Villa shouldn't park the bus, so I expect it to be a much more open game which will suit us.

 

I do sometimes wonder about the players too.  I am starting to detect a degree of cockiness amongst some of them, an over-confidence I suppose.  These are really young guys, dripping with cash, playing for a brilliant team right at the top end of one of the toughest leagues around with all the media attention that it brings.  I still think there is another level of maturity in them, and when we get there, we'll be even better.

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Something else I noticed that relates to our style of playing out from the back. The majority of the games where we’ve been flying high and imposing our game on others watch the body language of Evans. It’s almost like telepathic between him and the midfield. The games that we have lost and looked lost Evans is holding onto the balk much longer. Plus he’s now starting to use his arms to wave and signal to the midfield to respond to him so he can make a pass. It’s very bizarre! It’s certainly not good as it gives the whole game away and invites trouble. I hope I no longer have too see that body language as it gives me the shivers.

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I think it's at least partially tactical. I don't see for example how Ndidi is supposed to hold the midfield by himself against Liverpool and Man City. Feels like Rodgers took the slightly wrong lesson from Man U - he stopped treating the opposing teams with respect in terms of lineup, which worked and in some ways is important, but there's a certain point where one has to be more pragmatic.

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I think we are not good enough yet whilst under a full pitch press playing the ball out from the back. We are getting there but we are work in progress. Without the spacial awareness of Tielemans dropping back and without Ndidi we looked poor. Also the lack of off the ball movement from the midfield has made our one touch passing simply not happen as players hold on to the ball with no one/two touch outlet which takes the pace out of our possession and causes players holding on to invite pressure or be dispossessed - maybe there’s a bit of tiredness creeping in but it means we don’t have decent movement and flow in possession until well into the second half when the opposing team are knackered.

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6 hours ago, nnfox said:

There is something in this and I think it comes from the manager unfortunately.

 

OK against Southampton we were tired and they were obviously well up for it and we couldn't handle them, but I look at the Utd game where in the lead up, Brendan was going on about what a fantastic club Utd are and how Old Trafford is always a difficult place to go, blah, blah, blah.  At the time, Utd were TERRIBLE and were there to be got at, but the tactics and the formation that we were sent out with were like we were setting up for a damage limitation exercise.  It should have been Utd setting up like that. The same can be said for the Man City and Liverpool games, we looked an absolute shell of the team we had been.  In all three of those games we completely failed to impose our game on them and I'm pretty sure that their fans will point to the games with us as amongst the easiest they've had. Those tactics come from the manager.

 

Villa will be a huge test.  It's a two legged game and Villa did what an away team needs to do in the first leg.  By us getting the equaliser in that game, it means that Villa shouldn't park the bus, so I expect it to be a much more open game which will suit us.

 

Ido s ometimes wonder about the players too.  I am starting to detect a degree of cockiness amongst some of them, an over-confidence I suppose.  These are really young guys, dripping with cash, playing for a brilliant team right at the top end of one of the toughest leagues around with all the media attention that it brings.  I still think there is another level of maturity in them, and when we get there, we'll be even better.

Agree...at Man U, Ferguson and Keane  would soon let the young players know what was expected of them if they let their levels drop..time for the hairdryer BR ? 

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