Choudhury

[hejammy]

5 hours ago, thereeldeel said:

Posted this earlier. Anyone who wants to say he was no good today is clearly a hater. Leicester have struggled over the past few weeks. He’s come in with zero match fitness and you can tell he got tired. But what he did was cause problems for palace. After he came off they conceded 2z The hassling foils more attacks then you realise. If you’re expecting him to come in and be perfect all round player lower your expectations, he doesn’t get any game time. It’s clear there’s some real haters on here talking out their miserable backsides. 

 

5 hours ago, Bptiger said:

Ur kidding u have to be , the bloke runs around like a chook with its head cut off , his passing and ball control is Sunday league standard at best 

Case and point. I think some people just do not get football. He was put on to be the destroyer and not the creator. Youri, Lookman and Barnes we're there to be the creators, Youri and Barnes we're awful but the hate is pointed at Hamza even though out of the 3 he did his job the best. I wonder why? 

[FoxesWalk]

He was our best midfielder yesterday, and with Ndidi out he will probably keep his place.  Does look a bit short of fitness, but I guess that isn’t too surprising given he hasn’t played a competitive game for some time.

[Scotch]

6 minutes ago, hejammy said:

 

Case and point. I think some people just do not get football. He was put on to be the destroyer and not the creator. Youri, Lookman and Barnes we're there to be the creators, Youri and Barnes we're awful but the hate is pointed at Hamza even though out of the 3 he did his job the best. I wonder why? 

No one said he had to be the creator. Just keep the ball, which on my recollection he failed to do on numerous occasions. Winning the ball back is pointless if your just going to hand it right back over. 

[FoxesWalk]

1 minute ago, Scotch said:

No one said he had to be the creator. Just keep the ball, which on my recollection he failed to do on numerous occasions. Winning the ball back is pointless if your just going to hand it right back over. 

He was far from the only player doing this, our pass accuracy as a team was abysmal in the first half, Youri was dire, as were Barnes and Bertrand. Almost half of our passes went to Palace, who did press very well tbf. 
 

The only one from Hamza that stood out to me was when he tried a blind pass to Castagne who had moved out of his position and up the pitch, so it just went out for a throw. Whether he is not used to the system/positioning because he doesn’t play often, or if there was poor communication, it’s not a difficult thing to fix. 

[volpeazzurro]

4 minutes ago, hejammy said:

 

Case and point. I think some people just do not get football. He was put on to be the destroyer and not the creator. Youri, Lookman and Barnes we're there to be the creators, Youri and Barnes we're awful but the hate is pointed at Hamza even though out of the 3 he did his job the best. I wonder why? 

Absolutely agree. Many times yesterday did he get in their faces, didn't always get the ball, but nevertheless their move would break down because of the disruption. Compare that with Tielemans who, bar a couple of really good passes did not a lot. Tielemans for all his promises gets away with murder at times because he's a fans favourite. If he's not fully protected however he can be very ineffectual and expensive in giving the ball away, but it's written off because 'he must have been trying something special '. Every team needs a destroyer, they don't look pretty or cultured and they are very often unsung hero's. Every very successful team usually has one. It's been a long time since Choudhury has been on a Premiership pitch for that length of time and I thought he did exceptionally well when compared with many of the players around him. 

[volpeazzurro]

7 minutes ago, Scotch said:

No one said he had to be the creator. Just keep the ball, which on my recollection he failed to do on numerous occasions. Winning the ball back is pointless if your just going to hand it right back over. 

He wasn't the most guilty party of that yesterday. Many of them were doing the same thing including Tielemans who does it on a regular basis but it's always assumed he was trying something special and he's regularly forgiven and it's never mentioned. There's a lot of bias for and against certain players in fairness. Choudhury was better than many of them yesterday. Giving the ball away and not clearing it properly was probably responsible for both of our conceded goals yesterday, neither of which was down to him.

[Scotch]

5 minutes ago, FoxesWalk said:

He was far from the only player doing this, our pass accuracy as a team was abysmal in the first half, Youri was dire, as were Barnes and Bertrand. Almost half of our passes went to Palace, who did press very well tbf. 
 

The only one from Hamza that stood out to me was when he tried a blind pass to Castagne who had moved out of his position and up the pitch, so it just went out for a throw. Whether he is not used to the system/positioning because he doesn’t play often, or if there was poor communication, it’s not a difficult thing to fix. 

I remember that one but the more concerning ones for me (I remember two suslch instances in the first half) were he was stripped of the ball in our final third. Just straight outmuscled near our box. 

 

[Scotch]

2 minutes ago, volpeazzurro said:

He wasn't the most guilty party of that yesterday. Many of them were doing the same thing including Tielemans who does it on a regular basis but it's always assumed he was trying something special and he's regularly forgiven and it's never mentioned. There's a lot of bias for and against certain players in fairness. Choudhury was better than many of them yesterday. Giving the ball away and not clearing it properly was probably responsible for both of our conceded goals yesterday, neither of which was down to him.

Like I alluded to in a post directed to another poster, it's all about where you lose position. Generally, Youri loses it a little further up the field which he obviously shouldn't be doing on a regular basis but when you lose it deeper it not ONLY breaks up our attack but puts us under instant threat. 

[coolhandfox]

Great engine, but poor footballer.

 

 

[hejammy]

3 minutes ago, Scotch said:

Like I alluded to in a post directed to another poster, it's all about where you lose position. Generally, Youri loses it a little further up the field which he obviously shouldn't be doing on a regular basis but when you lose it deeper it not ONLY breaks up our attack but puts us under instant threat. 

You mention the 1 or maybe 2 instances when that happened. For the most part as the @volpeazzurro alluded to, he got in their faces and broke down a lot of their attacks. He ran his socks off. Like I said. Barnes was far worse at his job yesterday but how comes the Hamza thread is hot and the Barnes thread has people saying 'ah well he's just got back from injury, he'll be fine after the break' etc etc. Don't have a favourite, every player should be treated the same. 

[volpeazzurro]

6 minutes ago, Scotch said:

Like I alluded to in a post directed to another poster, it's all about where you lose position. Generally, Youri loses it a little further up the field which he obviously shouldn't be doing on a regular basis but when you lose it deeper it not ONLY breaks up our attack but puts us under instant threat. 

That's a fair point but I don't think Choudhury put us in danger as much as many others yesterday yet was more industrious than most. If you do more, you can also make more mistakes. 

[TrickyTrevLeftPeg]

He Played well yesterday. A Defensive midfielder is about breaking up play and disrupting attacks. 

 

Choudhury did that and was physical enough for the battle yesterday.

 

His passing may not be the greatest but half the time he won the ball back, passed it to Tielemans who gave it away everytime.

[An Sionnach]

According to some , there are no decent players, only the great and the shit. Hamza is no great player but he definitely is not shit. He can be pretty good sometimes as well. His distribution is not great but neither is Ndidi's a lot of the time. What he is ,is tough and durable , almost never injured , and he gets stuck in and competes. We have been left with no Mendy , so Hamza plays but I want Soumaré in there as well to give us a physical core , the lack of which has been one of our biggest faults.

[Le Renard]

I don't get the negativity that Hamza gets on here!  His job is to keep it simple and break up play, which he did quite well yesterday, yes he will lose the ball, but so do others in the team, who don't seem to get the same level of grief.   As for him being a bomb scare and a red card waiting to happen, he's only been sent off once for us and that was quite harsh, Söyüncü is more of a liability than Hamza. 

[Scotch]

27 minutes ago, hejammy said:

You mention the 1 or maybe 2 instances when that happened. For the most part as the @volpeazzurro alluded to, he got in their faces and broke down a lot of their attacks. He ran his socks off. Like I said. Barnes was far worse at his job yesterday but how comes the Hamza thread is hot and the Barnes thread has people saying 'ah well he's just got back from injury, he'll be fine after the break' etc etc. Don't have a favourite, every player should be treated the same. 

Because Barnes has built up good will with large runs of consistent and good performances, Hamza hasn't. Ofcourse you can argue that Hamza hasn't had the chance to given that he's not had a consistent run in the team but that's another differance between the two. Barnes played his way to a regular first team spot, Hamza never has. 

[OntarioFox]

We suffered the moment he came off yesterday. You can complain about his positional naivety all you like, and Soumare had a decent game, but our positioning as a unit completely fell apart without him snapping at heels. He starts while Wilf's out for me. Genuinely thought he had a brilliant first half.

Edited 4 October 2021 by OntarioFox

[drumbeat]

I love that there are so many different opinions. How can people see polar opposites in the same player?   I don't know what to make of that in all seriousness. You've got to leave it as simply a difference in opinion.

 

I thought he played well for the most part, considering he's not played a game in a while. His self-control always concerns me as he's prone to the rash tackle, but he kept it in check against Palace. He does tend to switch off which, again, could be due to lack of game time. All said and done though, he does the job of understudy well enough.

 

There was a moment yesterday when he played a pass into touch. I think he intended it for Castagne. His response was to laugh and try to share a joke. Palace took the throw and Hamza was out of position - pay attention lad, as my maths teacher once told me. He was still on the training ground.

.

 

[Webbo]

When people say we suffered when he came off, we were suffering before he came off. 

[Finnegan]

1 hour ago, hejammy said:

Case and point. I think some people just do not get football.

 

I find this quite ironic really given that most of the people showering unwavering praise on Hamza are just seduced by the fact he ran around a lot and are either unwilling or unable to look at the consequences of that. 

 

Credit where its due: he gave his absolute everything yesterday and had one of his better games for City. If everyone had played with the desire and the effort that Hamza did, we'd have played much better as a team. 

 

But playing him in a two man midfield with two very attack minded wide midfielders and a "10" that isn't exactly Okazaki in the defensive work rate department was extremely reckless of Rodgers and we paid for it. 

 

With the exception of two very accurate counters, one coming completely out of nowhere (Nacho's goal) we were dominated for near a full 90 minutes by a team objectively worse than us on paper. 

 

A big part of this was the fact that Youri Tielemans (who admittedly is in slightly off form atm) spent most of the game playing as a 1 vs a 3. He was completely over run in the middle and forced to sit and play deeper and deeper as the game went on because Hamza was off the leash. 

 

The work Choudhury was doing looks great superficially, it's eye catching to see a player charging off all over the place all blood and thunder. But what's less immediately perceptible but just as important is all the holes you leave behind you when you play like that (particularly when the whole team isn't doing it.)

 

Palace had his number all game long. They just passed it around him and then advanced the play in to the space he left behind. And it's not like Youri has blistering pace to cover. 

 

As much as I don't like to shovel on the criticism because, at the end of the day, Hamza gave it his all and someone's best effort is really the best we can demand of them. I mean when I say that if everyone matched his enthusiasm we'd claw ourselves out of this funk far more easily. 

 

But if we're going to do that, he can't be on the pitch. Not unless he's part of an otherwise structured 3 man midfield in which he's the wild card. The beauty of Ngolo Kante is that he knows when to do the crazy mad press but he also knows when to sit in the pocket in front of the centre backs and wait to pick the ball off. Hamza has never really learned to not just charge wildly after it and the times he DOES hold position he's frequently in the wrong place. 

 

And I'm definitely not a hater, I really like Choudhury, I've not wanted a Leicester player to succeed this much in years. Of all of our academy graduates to make the first team he's got the most cult hero potential and a lot of that is because of his work rate and aggression. But sadly he's never really developed much more other than that. 

[volpeazzurro]

44 minutes ago, Scotch said:

Because Barnes has built up good will with large runs of consistent and good performances, Hamza hasn't. Ofcourse you can argue that Hamza hasn't had the chance to given that he's not had a consistent run in the team but that's another differance between the two. Barnes played his way to a regular first team spot, Hamza never has. 

In one of those positions there was no competition, in the other, international players already in situ. One position was infinitely easier to 'play his way into' than the other therefore that's quite a flawed argument in fairness. 

[CosbehFox]

1 hour ago, volpeazzurro said:

That's a fair point but I don't think Choudhury put us in danger as much as many others yesterday yet was more industrious than most. If you do more, you can also make more mistakes. 

There was one part where he lost the ball on the edge of the box being outmuscled. Something we’ve seen before costing us goals. 
 

Yesterday I felt he would do one good thing followed by a poor thing. Inconsistent really 

[tickler28]

Looks like a dreadful decision to omit Mendy from our Europa League and Premier League squads....expect to see him start vs Brighton in the Carabao Cup....plus I'd bring Dennis back right now and have him in our starting XI given half a chance 

[volpeazzurro]

3 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

I find this quite ironic really given that most of the people showering unwavering praise on Hamza are just seduced by the fact he ran around a lot and are either unwilling or unable to look at the consequences of that. 

 

Credit where its due: he gave his absolute everything yesterday and had one of his better games for City. If everyone had played with the desire and the effort that Hamza did, we'd have played much better as a team. 

 

But playing him in a two man midfield with two very attack minded wide midfielders and a "10" that isn't exactly Okazaki in the defensive work rate department was extremely reckless of Rodgers and we paid for it. 

 

With the exception of two very accurate counters, one coming completely out of nowhere (Nacho's goal) we were dominated for near a full 90 minutes by a team objectively worse than us on paper. 

 

A big part of this was the fact that Youri Tielemans (who admittedly is in slightly off form atm) spent most of the game playing as a 1 vs a 3. He was completely over run in the middle and forced to sit and play deeper and deeper as the game went on because Hamza was off the leash. 

 

The work Choudhury was doing looks great superficially, it's eye catching to see a player charging off all over the place all blood and thunder. But what's less immediately perceptible but just as important is all the holes you leave behind you when you play like that (particularly when the whole team isn't doing it.)

 

Palace had his number all game long. They just passed it around him and then advanced the play in to the space he left behind. And it's not like Youri has blistering pace to cover. 

 

As much as I don't like to shovel on the criticism because, at the end of the day, Hamza gave it his all and someone's best effort is really the best we can demand of them. I mean when I say that if everyone matched his enthusiasm we'd claw ourselves out of this funk far more easily. 

 

But if we're going to do that, he can't be on the pitch. Not unless he's part of an otherwise structured 3 man midfield in which he's the wild card. The beauty of Ngolo Kante is that he knows when to do the crazy mad press but he also knows when to sit in the pocket in front of the centre backs and wait to pick the ball off. Hamza has never really learned to not just charge wildly after it and the times he DOES hold position he's frequently in the wrong place. 

 

And I'm definitely not a hater, I really like Choudhury, I've not wanted a Leicester player to succeed this much in years. Of all of our academy graduates to make the first team he's got the most cult hero potential and a lot of that is because of his work rate and aggression. But sadly he's never really developed much more other than that. 

In which case,  you do start to wonder how much appropriate coaching actually gets done at that multimillion pounds training facility other than side to side passing drills. Some of our players are clearly following orders and therefore Choudhury was possibly doing exactly the same. I do absolutely agree with you however, with Barnes and Lookman together with Vardy and Iheanacho, a midfield of just Tielemans and Choudhury was always going to be under pressure, particularly when they've got a suspect defence behind them. Rodgers just never seems to get it quite right does he.

[foxfan92]

3 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

There was one part where he lost the ball on the edge of the box being outmuscled. Something we’ve seen before costing us goals. 
 

Yesterday I felt he would do one good thing followed by a poor thing. Inconsistent really 

First game back, hoping his decision making will improve if he gets a run of games now.

 

I must admit I seemed to alternate between saying "Well done Hamza" and swearing at him a lot yesterday, but he did do a fairly good job at breaking up their play and you could see him really trying to put in a shift; ( although he looked a little unfit and very tired by halftime - which again should improve with more matches).

 

If he shows an improvement each game in the areas he was lacking yesterday, as he becomes more match fit, then he might prove a useful Ndidi replacement which Wilf is injured, however I was under the impression Soumare was bought to cover both Ndidi and Tielmans if either needed a rest or were injured... I know he didn't play brilliantly in the game before last, but he also needs match time to adjust to the Premier League. 

[Pliskin]

Out of possession he did fine, and when he came off we conceded the game and lost the midfield battle. 
 

In possession he struggles, potentially, we may need to either switch to a back 3, or play Soumare in there to offer a bit more support in terms of passing.