Slavia Prague Post match - 2-0

[Stuntman_Mike]

18 minutes ago, Crashtoasted said:

No idea why I checked but we are getting pelted from all angles on socials tonight  deserved after that performance but it’s crazy to see people from all over the world call us shit, we really are moving up as a club.

We deserve all the shit we get.

 

Imagine it was Spurs losing tonight to Slavia and we were through. 

 

Completely different outlook to the same situation. It's all bollocks really ha.

 

 

 

 

 

[trabuch]

18 minutes ago, jayfox26 said:

Yep, other than Hoffenheim and Leverkusen, we are the joke of the Europa league tonight. 

It's the price of success. No one wins everything all the time. Let people laugh at us. I'm not going to beat myself up or Rodgers or the players over this. To be honest I'd far rather we beat Arsenal on Sunday. If we don't, get back to me.

Edited 26 February 2021 by trabuch

[Dan Gliballs]

Don’t know (or care) if this is an unpopular opinion or not, but as much as I don’t like seeing us lose games, I really don’t give a toss we’re out of the competition. Infact, I’m rather relieved.

 

One, It’s not the big daddy European cup, 2, I personally care more about the domestic cup anyway, and 3, I care more about being top four, and challenging for second than either, or more precisely if our league position was likely to suffer a few places come the end of the season due to success in Europe or the FA cup, I’d rather drop the both and cross over the line in the league.

 

Going far in Europe is nice, a domestic trophy is nice, but a top four finish and another crack at the big competition next season is what appeals more, and certainly offers us more leverage for attracting players, and keeping the best ones we have, for me it’s about that bigger picture.

 

Given the current circumstances we have neither the depth nor the legs to continue to challenge on all fronts, I’m at peace with this.

[peterborofox]

Embarrassing performance, embarrassing managerial decisions.

 

Playing two defensive midfielders at home to this opposition is a joke frankly, especially playing Amartey and Albrighton too. Just no attacking intent. 

 

At least in some of our other crap home losses this season we've had a go. Didn't even look bothered tonight. Players need to have a look at themselves too. Believe in their own hype, and think we can just turn up and win these games. 

 

Dog shit, deserve some serious criticism tonight

 

[Bptiger]

What a load of rubbish dished up tonight , the 1st half we played back more than we went forward , getting sick of this going back and sideways all the time . We also paid the price if only having two attacking midfielders in the club , one is injured and the other has played every game and must be nearly burnt out . Failing too buy a midfielder in the last window has now started to bit us in the arse , next we get dumped out of the FA cup and then we will fall out of the top four again , all because we could not bring in another player 

[SixtiesFox]

31 minutes ago, Dan Gliballs said:

Don’t know (or care) if this is an unpopular opinion or not, but as much as I don’t like seeing us lose games, I really don’t give a toss we’re out of the competition. Infact, I’m rather relieved.

 

One, It’s not the big daddy European cup, 2, I personally care more about the domestic cup anyway, and 3, I care more about being top four, and challenging for second than either, or more precisely if our league position was likely to suffer a few places come the end of the season due to success in Europe or the FA cup, I’d rather drop the both and cross over the line in the league.

 

Going far in Europe is nice, a domestic trophy is nice, but a top four finish and another crack at the big competition next season is what appeals more, and certainly offers us more leverage for attracting players, and keeping the best ones we have, for me it’s about that bigger picture.

 

Given the current circumstances we have neither the depth nor the legs to continue to challenge on all fronts, I’m at peace with this.

Spot on!

[Deeg67]

All I know is if Puel had run that lineup out there in this game, he'd have been absolutely flayed around here.

[Bptiger]

27 minutes ago, SixtiesFox said:

Spot on!

It might save our season 

[Guy]

1 hour ago, Deeg67 said:

All I know is if Puel had run that lineup out there in this game, he'd have been absolutely flayed around here.

For sure : Newport away FAC R3 anybody?! 

[Dan LCFC]

5 hours ago, samlcfc1 said:

Not scoring in over 180 mins is criminal 

Genuinely can't remember their keeper making a single save of note.

[The_77]

Really can’t be bothered to read anything about these 180 minutes I watched so I’ll just say, yeah, you all are right. 

[CanadianFan]

6 hours ago, Mythyaar said:

The only positive you can take from that is that Thomas will never turn his back on a football for the remainder of his career.

I hope that is true. Having watched Morgan throw himself in front of many, many shots......blocking most of them, it was a huge disappointment to see Thomas turn his back and make no effort at all to block the shot for the second goal. He is a promising young lad, but he went down in my estimation tonight. Hope he got a good bollocking after the game.

[Sly]

We fought all of last season, to get a place in Europe. That’s the prize for finishing in the top 6. It’s not what we wanted, however it’s still a competition we’ve not participated in for years. 

 

We aspire to be a top 6 club. 
 

Rodgers wants to be a top Manager, yet has never passed the round of 32 in Europe. 

 

We want to attract better players. 
 

Yet, we put out a pitiful performance like that. 

 

The Europa League is worth more money than the FA Cup, has a higher global reach and would further enhance our commercial revenues and global reputation due to the increased exposure. We stood more of a chance of winning the Europa League, than the FA Cup as we’ve not got to beat Manchester City to win it. Manchester United are the best team left in it now, who we’ve also got to beat them in the FA Cup. To treat it with such contempt is frustrating, having progressed so far. I think I’d be less annoyed if we had played a more youthful team in earlier rounds, crashed out and not sustained the injuries to the likes of Justin. 

We don’t have a large points gap like last season to throw away in the league either. With 13 games left , we’re only 3 losses away from dropping out of these top 4 places. With games to go play against Manchester City, Arsenal, West Ham, Manchester United, Chelsea and Tottenham to go, that’s a tough ask.

 

All I can think is that they believe a game a week, will allow them to manage the preparation and squad better. 
 

Every decision is a gamble, I personally thought this was a winnable competition. We’ve saved ourselves potentially 7 games by not trying to get to the final though. 
 

As this seemed to be the only time Under participated in football matches, I’d assume he’s basically finished at the club now. 

Edited 26 February 2021 by Sly

[Royston.]

Watched when i got back from work but turned off at 70 minutes, couldnt bear it.

What a load of bollocks.

 

Need to forget this ever happened and move on.

[Sly]

The lowlights, in case they’d not been pasted. 

[Metal Lover]

We weren't good, but let's face it, we are running on fumes to right now.

 

Focus on the league and crack on.

 

Weird season.

 

 

[Bptiger]

Every one seems to agree we have a very balanced squad , well here’s some facts

defence we have 9 players who can play at the back , we are well covered. 
defensive midfield we have 3 players

attacking midfield or box to box we have 2 

wingers we have 2 that are any good

Centre forwards 2 , one get old the other so so

Number 10 we have 2 one very good the other very poor 

my point is in the 3 areas that create , we are so poor for choice , YOURI has to play every game , madders is injured more than he plays , and with vardy off his game we don’t have any replacements , yet Rodgers says we are strong across the board , well we are NOT . That’s my rant 

[Jazzy_Jeff]

At some point something had to give and if I’m honest I’d of rather it be this.

 

To get to the final there would have been an extra 7 games and with the quality of opposition left and lack of numbers and ability in our squad it was bound to affect our league form.

 

We need to forget it now and put everything into each league game and finish the job.

 

The majority of our competition for top 4 are still in Europe, let’s hope they stay there 

[hejammy]

4 hours ago, Bptiger said:

It might save our season 

It might, but also having continued success is also important mentally. This loss will be in the minds of our players and hopefully confidence is not drained. Often big losses like this could have detrimental effects on the rest of the season. 

[Tom12345]

6 hours ago, Larry_LCFC said:

Absoutely no reason for Ricardo or Tim not to start that game. Brendan does some great things for us but also has this side to him that I absolutely detest. Setting up like we are playing a damage limitation game against Barcelona away. Pathetic approach.

The main problem for this game was that we started with Amartey and Hamza. As a result, their press (which was good) worked, reducing the little space we could work with to get the ball upfield and we could not get the ball upfield effectively.  We could not get it up through CM because Hamza kept passing it backwards, we could not get it up on the right because Amartey didn’t know how to cross the half way line and it was hard for Under to do it all himself there, leaving therefore us trying to squeeze on the left and Evans and Soyuncu trying to play central “creative midfielders” trying to play difficult through balls because our central midfield was disabled. We need an effective CM and wings to stretch their midfield press and get the ball up via different channels. We became too easy to defend because we only had one route on the left and let’s be honest you would rather Tielemans be the one making those long passes Evans and Soy had to make (they had no choice). Tactics meant that we had to rely on our defenders to do the creative stuff instead of our midfielders. To escape their press we needed to have options across the midfield from left to right to create space.

 

By the time Hamza (who was very poor) left and Tielemans went back to his normal role, it was too late because we had to chase the game and Slavia had already seized the midfield. Exactly the same issue when we fell last season in that we could not get the ball upfield because we had an ineffective CM and LB in Chilwell. Rodgers’ team selection played into Slavia’s hands.

 

In short, poor tactics. Nothing to do with player fatigue or injuries. We should be more confident in our abilities against Slavia at home. Instead, as you said, we feared them like they were Barcelona.

Edited 26 February 2021 by Tom12345

[CosbehFox]

7 hours ago, Larry_LCFC said:

Absoutely no reason for Ricardo or Tim not to start that game. Brendan does some great things for us but also has this side to him that I absolutely detest. Setting up like we are playing a damage limitation game against Barcelona away. Pathetic approach.

Was told last night after the match that all three of those regulars were considered an injury risk if we started them. 

[RowlattsFox]

It's difficult but if we play Ricardo or Castagne and they break down again Rodgers is criticised for playing them too much. He should however have made the sub at half time.

 

It was a dream, but we aren't as good as we think we are and we were never going to win this competition IMO. 

 

We are knackered and have no squad depth, the weeks off could be huge for us between now and next season.

 

Disappointing to go out in that way though. 

 

 

[Tom's Pasta]

As soon as I saw the team sheet I really do think the plan was to get to 60 mins at 0-0 then bring on Barnes etc and really push for a winner. And that was Roger's attempt at balancing last night and Sunday's game. Debatable whether that was the right approach but ultimately we've underestimated them and probably overestimated our own ability to create against them and paid the price.

This squad hasn't quite got what it takes to fight full pelt in three competitions. With Justin, Praet, Fofana,  Maddison available maybe it was possible but you're always going to suffer injuries. 

The main thing is this team is always developing and that's all you can ask for.

 

Edited 26 February 2021 by Tom's Pasta

[Milo]

5 hours ago, Deeg67 said:

All I know is if Puel had run that lineup out there in this game, he'd have been absolutely flayed around here.

Two points

 

1. Claude served up that kind of turgid football pretty much every week, not just the odd game. 
 

2. Brendon is getting pelters, and rightly so. 

[harpendenfox]

54 minutes ago, hejammy said:

It might, but also having continued success is also important mentally. This loss will be in the minds of our players and hopefully confidence is not drained. Often big losses like this could have detrimental effects on the rest of the season. 

Every team (except Man City it would seem) has to live with losses. It’s how we react that is important. 4 league games in the next fortnight now. If we can harvest 7 points we will remain on track