So what’s the answer?

[MPH]

Read a lot of people on here talking how this tactic was wrong, this formation was wrong, etc, etc..

 

what would you do differently?

 

 

what would you try that Rodgers hasn’t already tried? 

[Leicester_Loyal]

Not play two DMs vs. Brighton.

 

Whether or not he tried I don't know, but I'd have definitely signed a winger in January.

 

I'd never play Maddison out wide on the wing either, I never feel like it's worked (it may have done at some point, I just can't remember)

 

I'd like us to try more long balls down the channels too, especially from our own half, I don't feel like we do that enough anymore, especially when we've got Vardy up top.

Edited 7 July 2020 by Leicester_Loyal

[Stadt]

I don't think we have the personnel to consistently play with just two players in the centre of midfield, for all his improvement on the ball Ndidi is a bit awkward with it still and Tielemans can't move well enough either. I'm hoping we can grind out enough results to get a CL place and we put this season behind us. Seems like a daft sentiment but 2020 has been wretched for us, ideally everybody comes back well rested, we add to the squad, don't lose any key players and use the boost of the new training ground to hit the ground running next season.

[Nicolo Barella]

Only thing I would have done differently against Arsenal maybe would be playing Fuchs over Bennett in the back 3, but Bennett was somewhat useful defensively. Honestly I think some different options are required in the transfer market.

[Bayfox]

Not playing the inverted LB. I mean playing albrighton as a wing back on the correct side is one thing. But putting him in that position on his weaker foot is another.

 

Leaving us 2 against 3 in the middle of the park, when one of the 2 is youri (runs in treacle) Tielemans its not a surprise we needed kasper to keep us in the game.

 

Last night specifically I didnt think the 3 at the back helped us at all. All 3 seemed a little unsure positional. And I'm convinced having fuchs over bennett would have been better for communication purposes.

 

But as mentioned above 2 holding midfielders at home is the crime that should never have been repeated.

[Aus Fox]

Judging by the prematch thread nothing. 
This post by our very own Nostradamus @kingfox was the exact line up down to Barnes coming on in the 60th Minute.

22 people likes or agreed with it, many others had similar in the pre match thread. 
It’s all well and good chatting about what could have been done differently afterwards, but pregame most have us would have picked the exact same line up.

 

[Charl91]

We were 3 of our first XI out, and our strength in depth is poor.

 

I don't think we could have done anything much differently vs. Arsenal, even with the benefit of hindsight.

 

If we don't get CL, it's because of all the other games we've fuched up, not the Arsenal one.

[Pliskin]

6 hours ago, Stadt said:

I don't think we have the personnel to consistently play with just two players in the centre of midfield, for all his improvement on the ball Ndidi is a bit awkward with it still and Tielemans can't move well enough either. I'm hoping we can grind out enough results to get a CL place and we put this season behind us. Seems like a daft sentiment but 2020 has been wretched for us, ideally everybody comes back well rested, we add to the squad, don't lose any key players and use the boost of the new training ground to hit the ground running next season.

100% this. 
 

There’s still a case of rusty tools for Brendan, and the back up options aren’t ideal either. Praet probably should start more, but then you could argue you have to play a three in midfield to allow N’didi to just get on with his game. Maddison is always going to be an issue too, not in a bad way, but where you you play him when you want to change the formation, because he naturally drifts centrally when he can. 
 

We’ve just got to try and do what with can with this season, like you say 2020 was been a horrible year for us, it’s highly unlikely we will finish in a CL place, we need to somehow be mathematically confirmed by the Spurs game, as beating them will be a big ask, United is out of the question. 

[shailen]

I said in the arsenal pre match thread that 3-5-2 does not suit us, especially without Ricardo and Chilwell and especially against Arsenal who played Wolves brilliantly and nullified their attack. We have decent options out wide and we should use them for our creativity. 

 

I think people think the formation switch was the reason for the win against Palace but for me in the first half we caused them all kinds of problems, but Vardy was a little short on confidence and provided very little movement when we got into dangerous areas, which was highlighted on MOTD after. 

[Fox92]

1 hour ago, Aus Fox said:

Judging by the prematch thread nothing. 
This post by our very own Nostradamus @kingfox was the exact line up down to Barnes coming on in the 60th Minute.

22 people likes or agreed with it, many others had similar in the pre match thread. 
It’s all well and good chatting about what could have been done differently afterwards, but pregame most have us would have picked the exact same line up.

 

Just shows that a forum full of football fans don't know more than a professional football manager. Who would have guessed?

 

To quote Brian Clough "Players lose you games, not tactics. There's so much crap talked about tactics by people who barely know how to win at dominoes". Sums it up for me.

 

It's all good and well for a discussion but none of us know more than Brendan Rodgers do we.

Edited 8 July 2020 by Fox92

[filbertway]

2 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

Just shows that a forum full of football fans don't know more than a professional football manager. Who would have guessed?

 

To quote Brian Clough "Players lose you games, not tactics. There's so much crap talked about tactics by people who barely know how to win at dominoes". Sums it up for me.

Wait...what's your point here? The manager basically did that..

[Fox92]

5 minutes ago, filbertway said:

Wait...what's your point here? The manager basically did that..

We have a thread of people saying they'd have done this and that differently.

 

Aus points out that KingFox posted the same formation as Rodgers went on to play last night, with a number of people agreeing with him. This makes the point that these people are wrong which is correct. I think that's the point Aus is making.

 

To me it just highlights that people sat on the internet don't know any more than Rodgers. 22 people agreed with that formation set out by KingFox which Rodgers played anyway and now them people will probably say Rodgers got it wrong.

 

edit: Think I made a point there. Or I might have lost myself. 

Edited 8 July 2020 by Fox92

[kyleolly]

I think the problem is there’s only four games left and we haven’t got a settled side or formation. Our defence has gone to pot, early on in the season it was guaranteed we’d be solid at the back we barely conceded. So we need to go back to a 4-1-4-1 with a deep lying defence and Cags not rushing up to try and get the ball when he has no chance Of retrieving it. Wilf needs to sheid the defence a lot better than he has done in recent games. Midfield need to up the tempo pass forward as much as possible and Vardy needs to continue to put the ball in the back of the net simple.

[David Hankey]

We're 2 players short of being a great team and I don't mean without Maddison or Chilwell. We're not clinical enough in the last third. We create chances, that's not a problem but turning them into goals is. 

[Steve Earle]

i think in stoppage time the lack of creativity was obvious.

 

Brendan was possibly looking for Lallana warming up...

[Lesterlad]

Probably slightly off topic but I would not have had James on the bench. He is so passed it now he is lower then championship level I’m sad to say. With 9 subs being allowed surely there is room for at least one youngster in there?  We had 4 central midfielders on bench last night. We didn’t need that many 

[Webbo]

To read some people's opinions on this forum, all the manager has to do is pick the right tactic, right player and we'll win every game. You have to remember that the other side want to win too. Every tactic will be met with a counter tactic. Some you win some you lose. 

[l444ry]

Get a hard earned draw away from home at one of the current form teams and with three top players missing. Just a shame there is another team on the pitch making things difficult. Just saying. 

[Chrysalis]

My only real qualm was the last 10 mins after we scored, we seemed to give up.

 

If we played the same formation as watford we would have lost.

 

The error in this case is to put ourselves in a position where this game mattered.

Edited 8 July 2020 by Chrysalis

[Guest An Sionnach]

At the best of times taking four points against Arsenal is something to be pleased about. The tactics were correct and maybe Pereira and Chilwell as wing backs would have strengthened the midfield but you have to cope and we got out of it with a point.If we play with three strikers that is a bit risky so maybe Praet for Perez would have been better in this match.

[snoopy87]

He was right to stick with the same formation, wrong with the personnel in it. Albrighton should have been at RWB, Fuchs on the left, and when Fuchs does tire JJ on in his place. Arsenal had so much joy down our left it was scary. The amount of times Soyuncu got dragged out to the left flank because Kevin had gone walkabouts was ridiculous. Yes Fuchs would've been up against Saka, but he wouldn't have left that much space for him to run around in.

 

How BR didn't see that was a massive area of concern was worrying. Its the same old thing of if plan A doesn't work, do more plan A. Said right from the start to my mates, he's a good manager, but I worry he'll vanish up his own backside and try to be too clever at times and then stick with it until it works.

[Gazza M]

Suffering massively for not improving the squad in Jan. Our plan A was sussed and we needed if nothing else a wide man. Would have taken Bennett as the CB cover in the short term, which we got. 

 

The 3-5-2 I dont mind as we are getting more people in the opposition penalty area. I would continue with it for now. 

[Strokes]

16 minutes ago, Webbo said:

To read some people's opinions on this forum, all the manager has to do is pick the right tactic, right player and we'll win every game. You have to remember that the other side want to win too. Every tactic will be met with a counter tactic. Some you win some you lose. 

Exactly,

We didn’t hit the ground running since the restart but I genuinely thought we played ok last night large patches.

If Kelechi’s goal stood, which I’ve seen them given, we would have been waxing lyrical about the performance. It’s tight margins at the top end of football, we controlled possession but didn’t take enough chances to win.

[daddylonglegs]

Get through this season and invest heavily.

 

Europa League can still attract a higher quality of player than we have now.

 

We're sitting on £75-100m of player if we Sell Chilwell (£60m~), as well as offloading Mendy (£5m~), Gray (£10m~). Throw it all at a winger and invest a high PL finish into the rest of the squad. We've got 3 really tidy central midfielders in Youri, Maddison & Praet, but they've got no one to pass to half the time. If we're to insist on continuing to square peg/round hole Vardy in this system, we need some world class players out wide so that the defence has something else to think about.

 

I don't mind the way we play - but its not massively dissimilar to how we played under Puel. Then Youri comes in and suddenly something looks a bit different. This team needs that injection again of a genuine threat on the wing who can offer some support.   

 

Something I continue to forget is that regardless of if you think this is evidence of us not having a plan B... our best player has been missing for some time. Ricardo is (IMO) the best right back in the league and frightens the life out of opposition players. Losing his outlet has been like playing with 10 men sometimes, which is harsh on Justin because he's a good defender, but he just can't replicate Ricardo's ability going forward.

Smart investment with a similar tactic and we could challenge for top 6 again next year, as well as having a push In the EL!

[Strokes]

2 minutes ago, daddylonglegs said:

Get through this season and invest heavily.

 

Europa League can still attract a higher quality of player than we have now.

 

We're sitting on £75-100m of player if we Sell Chilwell (£60m~), as well as offloading Mendy (£5m~), Gray (£10m~). Throw it all at a winger and invest a high PL finish into the rest of the squad. We've got 3 really tidy central midfielders in Youri, Maddison & Praet, but they've got no one to pass to half the time. If we're to insist on continuing to square peg/round hole Vardy in this system, we need some world class players out wide so that the defence has something else to think about.

 

I don't mind the way we play - but its not massively dissimilar to how we played under Puel. Then Youri comes in and suddenly something looks a bit different. This team needs that injection again of a genuine threat on the wing who can offer some support.   

 

Something I continue to forget is that regardless of if you think this is evidence of us not having a plan B... our best player has been missing for some time. Ricardo is (IMO) the best right back in the league and frightens the life out of opposition players. Losing his outlet has been like playing with 10 men sometimes, which is harsh on Justin because he's a good defender, but he just can't replicate Ricardo's ability going forward.

Smart investment with a similar tactic and we could challenge for top 6 again next year, as well as having a push In the EL!

Throw it all at a winger, no replacement for Chilwell or mendy then?

Edited 8 July 2020 by Strokes