Slow backwards boring football until we're losing

[tickler28]

I don't understand why we are so slow to get started in matches?!? We literally looked today for the first 45 minutes after a couple of attacks like we wanted to squeeze the life out of the match....saw so many backward passes I was beginning to think we were shooting the other way!! 

I get the need to pass it back at times and reset and choose your moments but at times this season we've taken it to the extreme and literally looked bereft of ideas....I'm not sure if its a lack of movement forward....lack of bravery....fear.....etc but I don't buy the fact that the other team are set up so well that we can't find some space....this was Brighton for christ sake.

 

We have to be more positive and look to play forwards more....if we lose high up the pitch so be it....we win it back.....its losing it in our own half that causes us the most issue at the minute. I think its time Brendan told the players to take the handbrake off a bit

[Matt]

It’s nothing new, it genuinely surprises me that people are only just cottoning on to this, it’s been happening in waves, those waves getting more prolonged for quite a while now.

 

Why you’d put yourself under pressure is beyond me, it makes no sense whatsoever.

 

But we’ll keep persisting with the negative style hoping for something other than a negative outcome.

[Oldblueyes]

Great last couple of post, sums up our plight right to the point. We try and play like Barcelona but we are LCFC.

[foxfanazer]

I've always been of the belief that you should impose yourself on teams from the get go. Get at them and give them problems before they do you. Brendan certainly doesn't seem to share that belief. We look sluggish, make ridiculous mistakes and most of the time find ourselves either goals down or under loads of pressure 

[shailen]

It's high risk high reward football. It looks bad when we make mistakes but it allows us to create more space further up the pitch to attack. The key for me is Youri in the whole system, as it's usually him that finds the penetrative pass to break through and this season he just hasn't been on the same level as he was last season, which is why we're not looking so good this season. 

 

He's constantly been giving the ball away in key areas which puts us under loads of pressure. 

[TiffToff88]

9 hours ago, tickler28 said:

I don't understand why we are so slow to get started in matches?!? We literally looked today for the first 45 minutes after a couple of attacks like we wanted to squeeze the life out of the match....saw so many backward passes I was beginning to think we were shooting the other way!! 

I get the need to pass it back at times and reset and choose your moments but at times this season we've taken it to the extreme and literally looked bereft of ideas....I'm not sure if its a lack of movement forward....lack of bravery....fear.....etc but I don't buy the fact that the other team are set up so well that we can't find some space....this was Brighton for christ sake.

 

We have to be more positive and look to play forwards more....if we lose high up the pitch so be it....we win it back.....its losing it in our own half that causes us the most issue at the minute. I think its time Brendan told the players to take the handbrake off a bit

Is your name Ivan Smith by any chance?

 

You're exactly like that old bloke on Facebook. I only ever see posts from you in the match threads when we lose. Never see you have anything positive to say.

 

I know things weren't great yesterday so its right to criticise, but I swear people like you get off on moaning. I bet you loved the 2 games against Arsenal the year we won the league

Edited 20 September 2021 by TiffToff88

[Ricey]

To be fair in the last two matches we have started fast and imposed ourselves. Unfortunately yesterday it only lasted about 15 minutes.

 

The issue for me is how we play once the intensity and tempo inevitably drops. It's ok to have slower periods in the game, but you've still got to be in a position to pounce on opportunities in the match to turn the intensity back on. Whereas once everything slows down we seem incapable of ramping things back up unless we go 2 or 3 down. Once we slip into Puelball we can't shake it off.

 

I don't think it helps that we have too many players that naturally take a lot of touches. Maddison is bad for that, as is Perez and as is Tielemans when he's not at it. Barnes is so often the one to start an attack by being direct and it makes you wonder why Rodgers is so averse to playing another attacking winger on the other side as well. Rather than inverted CAM's cutting inside and then ultimately playing it backwards, wouldn't it be nice to have two dribblers on either wing that can run at defences and make things happen?

[tickler28]

20 minutes ago, TiffToff88 said:

Is your name Ivan Smith by any chance?

 

You're exactly like that old bloke on Facebook. I only ever see posts from you in the match threads when we lose. Never see you have anything positive to say.

 

I know things weren't great yesterday so its right to criticise, but I swear people like you get off on moaning. I bet you loved the 2 games against Arsenal the year we won the league

The positive is that once we took Maddison off and went for it we looked a million times better.....was there anything I missed or less than being negative am I not merely pointing out the truth?

[TiffToff88]

1 minute ago, tickler28 said:

The positive is that once we took Maddison off and went for it we looked a million times better.....was there anything I missed or less than being negative am I not merely pointing out the truth?

You're missing my point. I agreed that it was poor yesterday and deserving of criticism, but my point is that all you ever seem to do is criticise. I never see you comment on here when we win (Unless its to point out what went wrong, despite the fact that we won)

[HighPeakFox]

What does the argument 'we are LCFC' actually mean? I genuinely have no idea. 

[Fox92]

This is what I meant the other day when I referred to Man City and Liverpool, who knock the ball around well but also go long when needed. We don't seem to do that. We just seem to play out of the back, slowly and sometimes fairly badly, until we give the ball away.

[tickler28]

11 minutes ago, TiffToff88 said:

You're missing my point. I agreed that it was poor yesterday and deserving of criticism, but my point is that all you ever seem to do is criticise. I never see you comment on here when we win (Unless its to point out what went wrong, despite the fact that we won)

OK I'll address that....Next time we win ill make a point of posting something positive.

[ThurmastonFox]

Our goal kicks get us back under pressure far too easily. We don’t have the players or mindset to be able to tap it around in the box and do something productive. 
 

Almost every time it’s pass to soyuncu, soyuncu moves forward. Gets pressed by opponent. Turns back. Passes to schmeichel who is either already marked or being put under pressure straight away. The result is either a goal given away or ball hoofed out or to opposition. Against Napoli we kept doing it until we were drawing then went direct with longer kicks and looked more threatening. 
 

Surely it’s not just the fans who see the tippy tappy isn’t working???

[An Away Move]

I’ll say it again. An ageing Vardy playing in the sole striker role is costing us. We offer far more movement and options for players at the back to pass to when he’s playing in a pair with Iheanacho.  

Edited 20 September 2021 by An Away Move

[Flappit]

6 minutes ago, ThurmastonFox said:

Our goal kicks get us back under pressure far too easily. We don’t have the players or mindset to be able to tap it around in the box and do something productive. 
 

Almost every time it’s pass to soyuncu, soyuncu moves forward. Gets pressed by opponent. Turns back. Passes to schmeichel who is either already marked or being put under pressure straight away. The result is either a goal given away or ball hoofed out or to opposition. Against Napoli we kept doing it until we were drawing then went direct with longer kicks and looked more threatening. 
 

Surely it’s not just the fans who see the tippy tappy isn’t working???

By golly, if the opposition have started marking our keeper then they've definitely cottoned on to what an outstanding distributor of the ball he is. We've been rumbled!

[LestaFox92]

He probably had a gameplan going into the game like any good manager would, Brighton like possession and to play football by controlling and taking the energy away from them and the crowd it could have played into our hands with them taking more risks when they do have the ball leaving them open to a counter by us,

however goals change games and they got one early and unfairly two things that can unsettle the best of teams we then give a way a fair but soft goal away at the start of the 2nd which I imagine took the boys a few mins to regroup from and from there on in we absolutely battered them.
 

Also you have to remember our backline has been decimated in terms of consistency and personnel which was a major part of our success in the last 2 seasons defensively we were rock solid now not so much,

personally i think our poor form atm is a combination of a patched up backline and just fitness I really don't think we're firing on all cylinders yet and I think the heavy schedule from last year with the euro's is a massive factor.

[Le Renard]

I for one don't want to go back to Kick 'n' Rush and I don't think we can go back to a counter attacking team against 2/3's of the league, and if most teams sit in deep against us, then you have to have long periods with the ball.  The defense is only passing sideways and backwards because we lack a couple of players that can get in between the lines and into those little pockets of space. Maddison can do this, but his confidence has gone and Perez can do this, but is too inconsistent for it to succeed.  The other option is to play with a couple of wide men, but until recently we only had Barnes, so for me Lookman has to start, then the team can start stretching the opposistion when there is a turnover of the ball.   

[l444ry]

Wouldn't mind it if we actually had a shot once in a while. It all comes across as passing for passing's sake. Where has all the setting traps and pressing gone? Teams have turned our style back on us because we are so predictable and try to be too clever by half. Would like to see Brendan give some of the so called fringe players a crack as they'd have something to prove and bring some passion to the table. Either that or change the system to give Vardy some help.

[KFS]

43 minutes ago, ThurmastonFox said:

Our goal kicks get us back under pressure far too easily. We don’t have the players or mindset to be able to tap it around in the box and do something productive. 
 

Almost every time it’s pass to soyuncu, soyuncu moves forward. Gets pressed by opponent. Turns back. Passes to schmeichel who is either already marked or being put under pressure straight away. The result is either a goal given away or ball hoofed out or to opposition. Against Napoli we kept doing it until we were drawing then went direct with longer kicks and looked more threatening. 
 

Surely it’s not just the fans who see the tippy tappy isn’t working???

Felt yesterday this is actually one of the main reasons we got Vestergaard in. Seems he’a now there to distribute on behalf of Kasper. 

[Fox92]

2 hours ago, An Away Move said:

I’ll say it again. An ageing Vardy playing in the sole striker role is costing us. We offer far more movement and options for players at the back to pass to when he’s playing in a pair with Iheanacho.  

Quite right. Bloke's nearly 35 soon and we've nobody near him. He should be up top with Iheanacho not only for that reason but also they were a great partneship together.

 

Barnes' injury meant Rodgers was forced into playing them together last season. Now Barnes is back he is back in the side and, to be honest, we don't look any more dangerous than we did when Vardy and Iheanacho were up front together.

[Fox92]

1 hour ago, l444ry said:

Wouldn't mind it if we actually had a shot once in a while. It all comes across as passing for passing's sake. Where has all the setting traps and pressing gone? Teams have turned our style back on us because we are so predictable and try to be too clever by half. Would like to see Brendan give some of the so called fringe players a crack as they'd have something to prove and bring some passion to the table. Either that or change the system to give Vardy some help.

Also we let a hell of a lot of opposition shots come at us. I saw the stat the other day, shots faced, I think it was during the Leeds game on Friday night and we're among the highest in the league for shots faced. I think every team we've played so far have looked dangerous when they've come at us. Even Norwich should have converted two of their chances late on and a better side would have.

[Dan]

It's been a problem of ours for years now. It peaked under Puel but it's becoming another theme. That said I can't remember our last good 90 minutes in a league game. 

[sheffield_fox]

Top banter in this thread. Kudos all round. 

[tickler28]

Tonight we may just have mastered the art of playing the most dull, disjointed, backwards unentertaining football I've ever had the misfortune to witness.

[Mythyaar]

On 20/09/2021 at 12:37, Dan LCFC said:

That said I can't remember our last good 90 minutes in a league game. 

West Brom in April, five months ago. We were superb that day though, for the full 90 minutes.