Slavia 0-0 LCFC - Post Match Thread

[Fox seen in Norwich]

13 hours ago, ClaphamFox said:

What did he say?!

Burgers weren’t big enough.. and too much ice in the post match coke drink

[RowlattsFox]

What happens if if the Czech Rep suddenly decides to travel ban to UK? Part of me can see that as a tactic to get us to play in a neutral ground 

[Koke]

Ricardo and Castagne must play next week. They will give us a much better attacking potency. Amartey and Thomas did OK, but the other 2 will move us up the pitch 20-30 yards. 

[st albans fox]

17 minutes ago, RowlattsFox said:

What happens if if the Czech Rep suddenly decides to travel ban to UK? Part of me can see that as a tactic to get us to play in a neutral ground 

Do slavia Prague have such influence in Czech govt circles !!

[ALC Fox]

12 hours ago, Alan Frost said:

I liked most of your post -Thought Choudhury did very well I think he's good enough to be valuable as a squad player, glad we've still got him. Barnes had a weaker game but was still our best player up front. Don't think JV minded coming off he's a very mature player these days, anything for the good of the team. I suspect my initial reaction when Vardy had his operation i.e. he had a hernia AND a hip/groin problem was correct. I don't think he should be taking penalties.

 

Only other thing is Ünders natural game is such that tonight was n't a chance , anything less than 45 minutes is not a chance to any player unless they're lucky,and for Ünder his game looks to me based on flair. Those players often need  90 minuters  for what they offer to become apparent. Flair players take risks not all of which will come off so ideally he needs someone following (not a specialist, just the nearest player) to catch any resulting breakdown. Also no one has yet worked out how to get the ball to him correctly, He needs to get the ball with some space around him,not a lot but some. Once he's running he''ll probably keep it until he sees a shirt of the right colour,(see note) Reminds me a bit of John Robertson for Forest although they don't look exactly the same. It took even Taylor/Clough a while to realise what they had. I'm not sure about two things 1) He's certainly not BRs type of player ,maybe even more valuable because of that as long as he's got 9 of them. 2) I'm not 100% sure about him---- but I've watched a lot of him on youtube and I think he is OK (for what my opinion's worth)  altho obviously BR must decide and BR is going to have to be very clever to find a way to almost integrate him into our team. almost would be perfect.

 

The time thing is that 90 minutes and 22 players mean each player probably only has the ball about 2 minutes (think about it -I'm guessing-- the statisticians will know)) and may well only have it 1 minute depending how the match is going and where they are playing. In 45 minutes .....30 seconds. Thats longer than it sounds but I'd certainly like my job auditions to be longer.

I thought most of our guys were a bit off tonight and I was more worried in the first few minutes than against L'pool. Soyuncu, Amartey, Choudhury, Thomas, Evans did just about OK though. 

Note Roy Keane was told by Clough at his first real club "When you get given the ball keep it until you see another guy in a red shirt  and give it to hIm" Keane said he built a pretty good career out of it.He liked shocking people and still does but I think ita about true. It even worked at his next club.

I've liked some of the things Under has shown since he's been here but sometimes I think he might try too hard to impress. He tries to do a lot of it on his own. Especially when he's boxed in. He cuts inside, defender keeping him at arms length and then tries to blast it from 30 yards but it's blocked by the first defender.

 

Compare that to Albrighton, Ricardo, Justin, Castagne and Perez and it's night and day. I know they're different players and some of those play in different positions but the combination play from all of those players is so much better than what Under has shown so far. They recycle the ball better, they give and go, they make runs on the inside and outside and head to the byline, and make good use of the ball involving Tielemans, Maddison and Vardy.

 

I know all of those above are right-footed while Under is left-footed and therefore an inverted winger/wide forward and is therefore a different kind of player. But compare him to Barnes on the left and the contrast is stark again. Barnes combines well with his full-back, receives the ball off Ndidi, plays give-and-gos with Maddison and tries to link up with Vardy when he can. His natural instinct, like Under's, is to cut inside but he's always driving towards goal, trying to advance the ball and break through the opposition's defensive line. I don't often see much evidence of that with Under so far. Again, he's a different player to Barnes, more tricky than powerful, but those neat little touches aren't opening things up for him and giving him space to work like, say, Mahrez used to. (And I know that it's pointless comparing our right-sided players to Mahrez.)

 

Under's first few games were promising but he still doesn't look like he's on the same wavelength as the other players and surely that's honed in training. I know he's not had much opportunity in games so far but all of the other players above just seem to click together more than what Under is doing.

 

He's clearly very talented and I hope things slot into place for him soon, but as he's only on loan time is running out for him.

[urban fox]

Lets hope Vardy doesn't pick up a knock against Villa. Nacho suspended, Perez out for at least two-three weeks we could be seriously short of options up front for the home leg.

Just waiting for all the calls to rest JV on thursday to save him for the Arsenal game along with various suggestions to play Barnes/Under/anyone else as a striker.

[LaCiudad]

6 hours ago, Bptiger said:

I think we will pay a huge price for not securing a backup for youri , as much as it may hurt paying out overs a class midfielder may just got us over the line in the 3 events were still in 

Huge price? We've already got 40 points 

[Dan LCFC]

5 hours ago, justfoxes said:

Never have I seen such a biased ref I thought some of the English refs were bad, that ref was as diabolical as hell yellow for Nacho after being on for less than a minute as Slavia dived with as much as a glance in their direction but Nacho had the grace of a baby hippo in some of his challenges really surprised that idiot didn’t show him a Red Card !

 

Then a clear foul on Ünder and he gives foul to slavia, he was an embarrassment to the sport Hope UEFA watch his performance and deal appropriately but then uefa twisted will probably say he performed at a top Level !

 

Hoping we get a better official on the return leg at the king power who cuts out and punishes Slavias blatant diving & cheating, really hope we beat them soundly at the KP and progress to the next round ?

 

Onwards & Upwards !!

Iheanacho got a yellow card for absolutely no reason (when one yellow away from suspension), meanwhile Maddison gets rugby tackled and that's apparently worth less. One of the most biased performances I've ever seen, barely believable really.

[Countryfox]

Considering the pitch and ref were both crap we didn't do too bad keeping a clean sheet and not getting any more injuries.   We should be able to finish the job when they come here.   Great experience for younger players of what European football can be like.  

[fazzyfox]

1 hour ago, ALC Fox said:

I've liked some of the things Under has shown since he's been here but sometimes I think he might try too hard to impress. He tries to do a lot of it on his own. Especially when he's boxed in. He cuts inside, defender keeping him at arms length and then tries to blast it from 30 yards but it's blocked by the first defender.

 

Compare that to Albrighton, Ricardo, Justin, Castagne and Perez and it's night and day. I know they're different players and some of those play in different positions but the combination play from all of those players is so much better than what Under has shown so far. They recycle the ball better, they give and go, they make runs on the inside and outside and head to the byline, and make good use of the ball involving Tielemans, Maddison and Vardy.

 

I know all of those above are right-footed while Under is left-footed and therefore an inverted winger/wide forward and is therefore a different kind of player. But compare him to Barnes on the left and the contrast is stark again. Barnes combines well with his full-back, receives the ball off Ndidi, plays give-and-gos with Maddison and tries to link up with Vardy when he can. His natural instinct, like Under's, is to cut inside but he's always driving towards goal, trying to advance the ball and break through the opposition's defensive line. I don't often see much evidence of that with Under so far. Again, he's a different player to Barnes, more tricky than powerful, but those neat little touches aren't opening things up for him and giving him space to work like, say, Mahrez used to. (And I know that it's pointless comparing our right-sided players to Mahrez.)

 

Under's first few games were promising but he still doesn't look like he's on the same wavelength as the other players and surely that's honed in training. I know he's not had much opportunity in games so far but all of the other players above just seem to click together more than what Under is doing.

 

He's clearly very talented and I hope things slot into place for him soon, but as he's only on loan time is running out for him.

Agree, the thing I shouted most at him, well the TV,  was "You're trying to do too much". Take the first 70-75% of what he does when he gets the ball, it's very good but then he tries to beat another man or change direction again or shoot and runs into a wall. One day a shot will come off but he needs to mix it up, look at the selfless give and go's that the others do. Madison is accused of taking too many touches but even he at times is happy to play little one touch triangles with Youri and Vardy or Barnes cutting in, on the edge of the box.

It seems to be a decision making thing, I don't know if he's too set in his ways to change but I remember when Gray had a similar heads down greedy approach and sometime later re-appeared in the side having no doubt had things pointed out to him but went too far the other way, passing in goal-scoring situations, it seems it needs to be a natural sub conscious thing that once it gets thought about becomes artificial, the opposite to being instinctive.

Can't even blame the guy in the Kop who shouts "SHOOT!" everytime we get within 40 yards of the goal at the moment!

[UniFox21]

2 hours ago, Koke said:

Ricardo and Castagne must play next week. They will give us a much better attacking potency. Amartey and Thomas did OK, but the other 2 will move us up the pitch 20-30 yards. 

Really obvious how much we lacked the offensive overloads on the wings. Huge aspect of our game just gone. 

[filbertway]

7 minutes ago, UniFox21 said:

Really obvious how much we lacked the offensive overloads on the wings. Huge aspect of our game just gone. 

Thomas and Barnes had some very nice moments on the left to be fair. Amartey and Albrighton though  we may as well have had Huth and Was on the right.

[sacreblueits442]

11 hours ago, MPH said:

 

if we go a goal or two up, I fully trust in Rodgers’ ability to park the bus  . 
 

They have nothing to gain by attacking from the off.. can you imagine the damage Vardy and  Barnes can do if they did?

. that would be a great position to be...but they should have been ahead within the first five minutes with a chance at the back post with a player left unmarked!!!

  We had chances and so did they, just one mistake would find us trying to break down a block  and that is not something we are good at.

  Vardy did not receive much service once again and our play in the second half did not fill me with confidence. 

[MPH]

11 minutes ago, sacreblueits442 said:

. that would be a great position to be...but they should have been ahead within the first five minutes with a chance at the back post with a player left unmarked!!!

  We had chances and so did they, just one mistake would find us trying to break down a block  and that is not something we are good at.

  Vardy did not receive much service once again and our play in the second half did not fill me with confidence. 

obvioulsy we wanted to score, but I think the main focus was to not concede. Any team that takes a lead into the second leg is the new favorite.. They won’t have the same confidence to attack us playing away from home.... just like we didn’t at theirs.. I have confidence that we can use our attacking abilities and mix it with the way Brendan organizes us.

 

I’m confident we’ll win.

[sacreblueits442]

13 hours ago, Alan Frost said:

Agreed except I can't remember what happens for another 0-0. Is it 5 penalties each until someone's irretrieveably ahead and then sudden death. That would give them a third option and us another one.

...you know  I  read that as "until someone's irretrievably dead".

 Perhaps I was just expecting a comment lampooning two 0-0 draws!!!

[FoxFossil]

If its the same ref, then its not going to pens. They will spend the match diving in our box, so dodgy pen to them wins it. Not optimistic at all, just hope I'm horribly wrong.

[Bazly]

The refereeing in that game was really bad. In the midfield they employed blocking tactics having players run into anyone within 5m of the ball and then steering them away from the ball. It happened so often it was clearly an organised tactic, NFL style blocking to free space for their player carrying the ball. I've never seen anything quite like it so its a pretty novel approach and worked, it was never pinged in the whole game. Then we had the rugby tackle on Maddison, it was a bad rugby tackle that in rugby without the arm wrap you'd be yellow carded and off for 10 minutes in the sin bin for doing a dangerous tackle, again in this game nothing more than a foul. 

 

The Prava crowd got away with a lot last night and were allowed to be physical. Strangely though they seemed prone to falling over like a 16lb sledgehammer had just hit them full on. I didn't enjoy the game last night. It wasn't a spectacle and Rodgers doesn't tend to do well in Europe, who could forget the Celtic first team losing to Gibraltar. Using a Suttonism, he should have fielded their reserves.

 

[enmac]

5 hours ago, urban fox said:

Lets hope Vardy doesn't pick up a knock against Villa. Nacho suspended, Perez out for at least two-three weeks we could be seriously short of options up front for the home leg.

Just waiting for all the calls to rest JV on thursday to save him for the Arsenal game along with various suggestions to play Barnes/Under/anyone else as a striker.

Surely won't play JV 90 minutes. Any alternative to Barnes /Under? 

[coolhandfox]

Anyone who think this was a poor result should look at our away record in Europe. 

 

12 European away games we have lost 7, Drawn 2 and won 2 (One of which was against Glenavon F.C.)

[adejo92]

The ref was poor, granted, but we only have ourselves to blame for not coming out of that tie with the advantage. Bar a couple of promising moments, i thought we were very poor.

 

That said, the positive is that we still have a lot left to give, that wasn't a true reflection of our quality. Slavia on the other hand, i think we have seen them at their best.

 

2-0 home win & on to the next round.

[SouthStandUpperTier]

Not scoring an away goal could come back to haunt us. I'd have liked us to have taken a few more risks to get an away goal or two. 1-1 or 2-2 would have had me feeling more confident going into the second leg than 0-0.

[ParkerPen]

Going in to the 2nd leg, If we cant beat that shower straight up we shouldn't be in the competition.

[reynard]

3 hours ago, coolhandfox said:

Anyone who think this was a poor result should look at our away record in Europe. 

 

12 European away games we have lost 7, Drawn 2 and won 2 (One of which was against Glenavon F.C.)

We beat Bruges away and AEK Athens away as well as Glenavon

[coolhandfox]

1 hour ago, reynard said:

We beat Bruges away and AEK Athens away as well as Glenavon

My mistake 3 wins from from 13 away games in Europe.

 

Point still stands.

[Paninistickers]

I think we are at risk here. 

 

A fluke goal for them and we are in major trouble. Plus, all the other brit clubs are as good as through. Youd expect one to drop out and atm we look.most vulnerable