Roma (A) - Post Match

[jmono84]

Just listening to the post match radio Leicester and its the start of the game where Matt Piper says the players have to play like gladiators tonight 😂😂😂

 

He couldn’t have gotten further away from gladiators!

[Tommy Fresh]

Feyenoord managed to go away to an intimidating atmosphere against Marseille and held on to the advantage they gave themselves in the first leg. 

[goose2010]

17 minutes ago, Tommy Fresh said:

Feyenoord managed to go away to an intimidating atmosphere against Marseille and held on to the advantage they gave themselves in the first leg. 

The atmosphere wasn't the issue. Roma were just more physically, better organised, better drilled and can defend their 18 yard back like their lives depended on it. They did it in the first leg as well. Happy to let us have the ball 50 yards from goal but as soon is it was 25 yards they were all over us.  

 

We weren't good enough but Roma's performance was a defensive masterclass. If we could learn from how they defended we would be such a better team. 

[Getin]

The morning after time for some measured reflection. Roma got their tactics spot on exposing City’s frailty whilst exploiting the ref with their true continental style of play (rolling around on the floor) As for City they carried on with the performances they have delivered for most of the season -slow possession based, lacking any drive or tactical awareness to breakdown dogged defences. 2 soft on target shots late on in a game so important as this is just abject.

[HybridFox]

Rested most of the team at the weekend as well. Should have been fresh and up for this

[Les-TA-Jon]

Hugely disappointing. In the wider context of that match, that performance wasn't particularly acceptable.

 

It's perfectly fine to lose a match. To lose a European semi. To lose to a club like Roma and a manager like Mourinho. But you've got to go down fighting. Roma keeper had 2 saves to make over 180 mins.

 

Rogersball is like an inverse of Ranieriball. We have all of the ball but do nothing with it. Lost count the amount of times we had the ball in and around their box and refused to try and get it in there.

 

We've become so easy to beat too. All the opposition needs to do is

• Let Leicester have the ball
• score your inevitable counter/set-piece/leicester mistake
• wait for the final whistle

We'd have lost to Burnley last night playing like that

 

Given we sorta chucked away european qualification in the league, with the season hinging on last night, you'd expect a big performance at least.

[Tommy Fresh]

43 minutes ago, goose2010 said:

The atmosphere wasn't the issue. Roma were just more physically, better organised, better drilled and can defend their 18 yard back like their lives depended on it. They did it in the first leg as well. Happy to let us have the ball 50 yards from goal but as soon is it was 25 yards they were all over us.  

 

We weren't good enough but Roma's performance was a defensive masterclass. If we could learn from how they defended we would be such a better team. 

I'm on about other posters saying it was a factor, influencing the ref etc

[Ricey]

I just wanted to see us give it a good go, but it feels like we were hamstrung by the system in the first half and then by our total and utter inability to attack with purpose and speed.

 

Roma are not a great team. They are more than beatable but over the course of 120 minutes we didn't really test Patricio once and only scored through an own goal. 65% possession in both matches but a total of 4 shots on target is an embarrassment.

[Chelmofox]

People are emotional. Forgetting that we are at the tail end of european tournament where there are fine margins (1 header). People want us to batter everyone, all the time. But at this level, it doesn't work like that. It's taken England's top teams many years to gain experience to progress to European finals at this level. Man City have eye watering budgets,and it still eludes them.

 

I'm exceptionally disappointed, and frustrated some of our guys didn't show how good they can be. But i don't think any of them have experience at this level. Its KDH's breakthrough season, and it was never likely he could be expected to cut through Roma defence like butter. Roma were simply better organised and their game plan worked - end of. However, they didn't batter us and they had to work hard for it. Nobody should make the assumption it was somehow easy for them. A bit of luck on our side, or a moment of quality from us that was missing, could have changed the game quite quickly. That was why the refereeing was so frustrating - as it just nudged the fine margins more in Roma's favour. That's not an excuse - it's a frustration.  

 

I do worry where we go from here though. I can't help thinking that players like Maddison want this next year and those who think they should be knocking on the door of an England call up are more likely to get it playing elsewhere. 

[ParkerPen]

sorry I'm not having this fine margins argument or the ref was crap (he was). We were crap, end of.

 

[Chelmofox]

Just now, ParkerPen said:

sorry I'm not having this fine margins argument or the ref was crap (he was). We were crap, end of.

 

The tie was one from 1 header. Yesterday there were 6 shots on target all game (4 Roma, 2 for us). How the fek is that not fine margins? 

[hejammy]

The problem is the team are too scared to lose possession of the ball. It seems possession is the be all and end all. Numerous times we got close to their box and we ended up passing it all the way back. I understand this if you are trying to make the defenders come out to create space but their defenders were clearly not coming out and also we were doing this because we had no options. Our off the ball running is awful which leads to no options. When Nacho came on he gave options but Barnes and Vardy do not have a plan B. When there's no space in behind defenders it's been proven time and time again that Vardy is ineffective. Barnes just seems to want to run into defenders or kick the ball away. Youri rarely gets into the box which leaves KDH who yesterday was just shooting at any given opportunity. Usually its madders with the ball who is trying to pass it off to someone in the box but time and time again he was left with no options and had to either pass it backwards or lose possession. Absolutely zero movement from our forward players. You see this more evidently on throw ins from the final third. Just little or no options, no one wants the ball and often just pointing to one another. 

[LcFc_Smiv]

We conceded from another set piece

We lacked intent and intensity

We looked to have no clear plan or idea on how to break them down

 

Continuing themes stretching back to our league performance towards the end of last season.

[tsintskaro]

11 minutes ago, jamesp26 said:

The tie was one from 1 header. Yesterday there were 6 shots on target all game (4 Roma, 2 for us). How the fek is that not fine margins? 

terrible take 

[LcFc_Smiv]

The same group of players have shown that they can compete at the top end of the league in previous seasons, it's the changes of style and the managers manner of trying to see out games that have cost us. He's a nearly man, and he's shown as much in his time here. Don't get me wrong two 5th place finishes are outstanding but not when you look at the context of where we had been and how we played in the season. The FA cup was an unbelievable achievement and I hold nothing against him for that but we showed in that run what we are capable of, so why does he persist with this style that doesn't suit us. We are an attacking team, yet we recycle the ball sidewards and backwards so much. Our team has shown how deadly we can be when we get the ball forward with pace, yet now we create an opening only to recycle it sidewards and backwards allowing opposition to get back in position and regroup and the whole thing starts again. It's frustrating and frankly mind numbing to watch us try and walk it over the line.

[Chelmofox]

3 minutes ago, tsintskaro said:

terrible take 

That's your opinion. I don't disagree with most of what people said about where we were disappointing, but im not going to throw my toys out of the pram and call everyone bottlers etc. I just take issue with the fact the people think we should be battering Roma, and nor do i think that Roma had this easy.

[Twitcher]

24 minutes ago, Ricey said:

I just wanted to see us give it a good go, but it feels like we were hamstrung by the system in the first half and then by our total and utter inability to attack with purpose and speed.

 

Roma are not a great team. They are more than beatable but over the course of 120 minutes we didn't really test Patricio once and only scored through an own goal. 65% possession in both matches but a total of 4 shots on target is an embarrassment.

Yes and that flies in the face of Rodger's "control the ball you control the game" comment. We had 63% possession but at no point were in control of that game. They had 37% but looked far more dangerous when they attacked.

Ironically we won the league where we didn't control a lot of games.

You don't win games keeping possession in your own half, or passing to each other outside the opposition's penalty box. You need to find a formula to score goals.

[purpleronnie]

1 minute ago, jamesp26 said:

That's your opinion. I don't disagree with most of what people said about where we were disappointing, but im not going to throw my toys out of the pram and call everyone bottlers etc. I just take issue with the fact the people think we should be battering Roma, and nor do i think that Roma had this easy.

Thing is Roma did what they had to do then did the usual Mourinho thing, no question in my mind if they needed to win 3-0 they would've..  We offer so little up front i really do fear for us next season, the only silver lining is that the quality of most of the premier league is pretty poor.

[String fellow]

It feels like the club as a whole is fading away inexorably from being one of the strongest non-big-six clubs in the country to (possibly) not even the strongest club in the East Midlands, assuming Forest go up. If I were Top, I'd be extremely dissatified with my manager and his current tactics. They say that Rome wasn't built in a day, but right now it seems as if Rome was just another wrecking-ball blow to the unbuilding of City over many days! 

[smudgerfox]

That was the way we have played for well over a season. Certainly the whole of this season and the back end of last. At the end of last season the conclusion for our withering away was blamed on not having a deep enough squad. That was addressed in the summer. Most of us said this was the best squad that has ever started a season for LCFC.

 

Then we lost Forfana and Evans and the poor standard was blamed on injuries - despite the deeper squad mentioned above. 
 

Now we have a more or less full squad to choose from and apparently  we need a squad refresh to improve. 
 

Throughout the problems have remained the same and have very little to do with fatigue or injuries: 

 

1 failure to defend set pieces ;

2 failure to capitalise on our own corners and free kicks (except when Maddison can take a direct shot);

3 failure to turn possession into goalscoriing chances;

4 failure of Tielemans to affect the key matches;

5 lack of on pitch leadership/weak on pitch psychology.
 

The number of games where the above have not been factors in  

the last calendar year or so can be counted on one hand. More recently in the games v Rennes and PSV but in the league we’re   long  gone…the manager needs to address these issues…

Edited 6 May 2022 by smudgerfox

[Twitcher]

If you were to graph the club's progress since we won the league, it would be interesting to see whether it shows a club still competing outside of the big top 6, or a club in gradual decline.

I was never in the camp that expected us to replace one of the top 6 on a permanent basis. I suppose the progress line was always going to fall away from winning the league. However, a fifth place, followed by a fifth place and an FA Cup sees the line go back up, and now a European semi-final followed by a 9thish finish, but where we've seen the likes of Arsenal, West Ham and Wolves put stronger teams together. If there was a formula where you could add to the mix the Premier League title, the FA Cup, league positions, european competition, cup runs in the FA Cup and Carabao Cup, I wonder where our line would be; static, or showing a downward trend? If you could then map that against all the other clubs outside of the top 6 who have been in the Premier League since we won it, would we be 7th? 7th but the line is declining, whereas West Ham 8th but the line is showing an upward trend. You'd need some kind of Duckworth Lewis formula 🙂

Edit - for now we'd probably still be in the top 6, but I guess I'm thinking if you tracked it over the next 5/10 years, it would be interesting to see.

I'm just conscious there's those for and against Rodgers, but I wonder if we are static and therefore doing okay, or declining.  

Edited 6 May 2022 by Twitcher

[Kierzz]

It's such a shame we've virtually lost Praet.

 

He would be perfect in this 433 system as one of the box-box midfielders. He's so underated and would have been much better in the final third than KDH last night.

[The Year Of The Fox]

Anyone seen the video of the bloke on bike shouting at our fans about Francesco Totti? Who then crashes into the back of a stationary car?

 

Crying 🤣🤣

[NasPb]

11 minutes ago, The Year Of The Fox said:

Anyone seen the video of the bloke on bike shouting at our fans about Francesco Totti? Who then crashes into the back of a stationary car?

 

Crying 🤣🤣

Post it! 

[blurryface]

5 minutes ago, NasPb said:

Post it! 

 

Incredible