Leicester's Identity

[BenTheFox]

What I would say is that this time last year we were the envy of every club in English football bar 3 or 4. Now we are in a position where most of us (myself included) want to sack a manager after three league games into the season and are worrying about getting relegated. It's scary how quickly things have turned. 

Edited 24 August 2022 by BenTheFox

[coolhandfox]

10 minutes ago, BenTheFox said:

What I would say is that this time last year we were the envy of envy of club in English football bar 3 or 4. Now we are in a position where most of us (myself included) want to sack a manager after three league games into the season and are worrying about getting relegated. It's scary how quickly things have turned. 

Which mean they can turn back just as quickly.

[yorkie1999]

There's only one style of play that counts and that's scoring at least as many goals as the other team, the rest is all bullshit.

[Lambert09]

3 hours ago, pmcla26 said:

 

 

It's our pronouns that I'm bothered about. 

sh*t, Sh*te, Sh*tter 

[Captain...]

Our identity seems to be that of a possession based team, Man City lite if you will. The problem is we are trying to play the same football as the big boys. Every team outside of the big 6 has a plan to stop teams like Man City, sit deep, frustrate and slow the game down. It is not very effective against Man City as they have superstar players in every position, but it is effective against us, not only do we not have superstar players we have a couple of weak links and one weak link makes possession fall apart. Amartey is obviously out of his depth, Ndidi is a good defensive midfielder but his passing is poor at times. Perez and Nacho are others that if you pressure then you will more often than not regain possession. We won the league by playing to our players' strengths. We are now like we did under Puel highlighting good players' weaknesses with possession based football.

[HoustonFox]

3 hours ago, StanSP said:

It's all the rage these days choosing what your identity is! 

I don’t think people choose. It’s just giving them the choice to voice who they truly are without judgement (unless they are a forest fan) 

[HoustonFox]

2 hours ago, The_77 said:

I don’t think we can underestimate the loss our dynamic, attacking fullback play. We lost a lot of pace not having players like Chilwell and Ricardo in the lineup, and Justin hasn’t been able to cover ground like he used to before his injury. 

Plus we just pass it sideways and backwards in the middle, even if the fullbacks show for it 

[filbertway]

Play worse than the opposition and usually fluke a result. We've been Man U lite for 2 good seasons now

[BigMicky]

3 hours ago, foxy boxing said:

Identity is more than just a playing style!. Good teams should be able to adapt and play different ways depending on a number of factors.  Rodgers clearly prefers possession  based while the fans prefer and are more used to counter attacking football.  It's good to have possession as along as your team has the ball the opposition can't hurt you with it!. Its also good to attack fast and direct as soon as you have the ball so the opposition don't have time to prepare their defence. We need a team that can have many options and ways to beat the opposition and not just one single way. 

Finally someone who gets it. The amount of folk screaming at players over the years when we are leading and in possession of the ball to 'get forward'.  Why?  We have the ball,  they need it back........ 

[Daggers]

4 hours ago, themightyfin said:

 

Boring 😴 

Yep, that’s what I reckon Rodgers’ side’s identity is too. 

[ronnup]

I dint think Clubs really do have an identity, the playing style shifts and changes from manager to manager and things are so transient , I think they have periods of time where they manage to forge an identity and these usually coincide with success. 

[boots60]

Football is a simple game made complicated by tacticians.

You need defenders who can defend against attacking opposition 

You need midfielders who can win the ball & create chances for attackers.

You need attackers who can score goals.

To state the obvious, in 2015-2016 we had all of the above.

It really is that simple.

[Grebfromgrebland]

Working class Tories 

[VLC86]

33 minutes ago, boots60 said:

Football is a simple game made complicated by tacticians.

You need defenders who can defend against attacking opposition 

You need midfielders who can win the ball & create chances for attackers.

You need attackers who can score goals.

To state the obvious, in 2015-2016 we had all of the above.

It really is that simple.

Give it Boots60 till the end of the season

[Mike Oxlong]

4 hours ago, SecretPro said:

What are our pronouns?

shit, shite, shites 

[Mike Oxlong]

We could do the opposite of Forest Green and grab the Don’t Give A Shit About The Planet mantle. Fly to all games including Forest away, diesel tractors only to cut the grass and ban all vegetables on the catering side 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, ronnup said:

I dint think Clubs really do have an identity, the playing style shifts and changes from manager to manager and things are so transient , I think they have periods of time where they manage to forge an identity and these usually coincide with success. 

Hence the importance of a good director of football to ensure that signings and managerial appointments are guided by long-term thinking and a set of underlying principles. Otherwise, you risk ending up in a situation where each appointment is made purely as a reaction to the previous one, you bounce between playing styles without ever really committing to one, and the players you brought in for big money and big wages to suit one manager are rendered useless when the next comes in.

[Chrysalis]

Sticking to one style means predictable and a manager should be the one to decide not the board, I have wondered if possession based is on the owners wishes.

[Royston.]

5 hours ago, coolhandfox said:

Which mean they can turn back just as quickly.

Will be a greater miracle than 2015/16

[smudgerfox]

13 hours ago, Captain... said:

Our identity seems to be that of a possession based team, Man City lite if you will. The problem is we are trying to play the same football as the big boys. Every team outside of the big 6 has a plan to stop teams like Man City, sit deep, frustrate and slow the game down. It is not very effective against Man City as they have superstar players in every position, but it is effective against us, not only do we not have superstar players we have a couple of weak links and one weak link makes possession fall apart. Amartey is obviously out of his depth, Ndidi is a good defensive midfielder but his passing is poor at times. Perez and Nacho are others that if you pressure then you will more often than not regain possession. We won the league by playing to our players' strengths. We are now like we did under Puel highlighting good players' weaknesses with possession based football.

I do think a big part of the Brendan problem is a lack of pragmatism - making maximum use of the players he has - instead trying to be sub Man City - probably in the mistaken belief he’s a candidate to succeed Pep. What makes Man City Man City is the quality of player they have and the depth of that quality in the squad. With that playing strength - the formation and playing style is barely relevant.

So Brendan is scornful of Ihenacho for instance, because his stats for ball retention are poor, even though the guy’s goals and assists could have made the last couple of seasons more successful. Our centre backs are asked to play in a style which simply doesn’t suit them - high line, front foot (ie committing themselves early) which is difficult enough for high quality defenders, almost impossible for the kind of mediocrities (Fofana apart) which wash up on our shores. It’s perhaps best typified by Brendan preferring a formation 4-2-3-1) which requires two fast, box to box wingers, despite only having one in the squad. 
 

When you watch the likes of Brighton, Fulham, Brentford, Palace  - the overall underlying quality of their individual players is no better than ours - but they are more comfortable and more thrilling because the playing style is chosen to suit their players and not imposed on them regardless, as it is at Leicester. 

 

[volpeazzurro]

15 hours ago, Matt said:

I used to hate all this identity and “it’s the [insert name of club] way” bollocks, never believed in it.

 

That’s because I didn’t realise it until it gone.

 

We’ve gone down the one size fits all, “pretty”, “sexy”, “attractive” football route, the board, powers that be and a majority of fans brainwashed in this insipid, boring and negative way of possession football, “the way the game should be played”. Do me a favour.

 

As I’ve said many times, it’s not an issue exclusive to us there’s only a handful of teams who don’t play this way, it’s an issue with football - the whole game stinks and is in a bad way in terms of excitement and entertainment.

 

That doesn’t mean it’s right we follow suit.

 

We lost our identity of being up for a fight, fast, dynamic, pouncing on any mistake to play this slow, exciting football club to become a ponderous, mistake laden, camping infront of your own 18 yard box tipping and tapping it from left to right borefest of a club. Disgusting.

 

We used to be hard to beat, teams would know it'd be a tough game for them, never knowing when to give up, we've gone to be easy to beat, a soft underbelly, we must be one of the easiest teams in the league to play against, we do half (if not more) of the work for the opposition.

 

How anyone enjoys or gets behind it is beyond me.

 

Atleast it’s sustainable though, right?

 

Very well put Matt. I too think we were quite distinctive, even when we lost quite a few of our best players after 2016. It seemed like any new players were welcomed into the camp and almost indoctrinated! For the players, from the outside and from what you heard, it seemed a great place to go every day, there seemed to be a closeness, a pleasure to go to work!

 

For me, one of the reasons we finished 5th those two seasons running was because the players 'reverted to type' and came out of the blocks fast and fighting. It was like a bunch of school kids pleased to see each other again after the summer holidays 🤣.

 

Accepting there were injuries, as things progressed each year, Rodgers appeared to put a dampener on things as he slowly kicked the spirit out of them each time. Remember how he castigated them after going 3 nil up at half time against West Brom? We beat Southampton 9 nil yet to anyone else who thought on the return match he'd field the same side and tactics and let Southampton do the worrying, he tweaked it quoting a fear of some imagined pace they had. He even changed Evans and Soyuncu's pairing positions round to accommodate it he said,  yet we had one of the best defensive records in the league at that time. Yes, Evans and Soyuncu, playing with confidence, no Fofana, Armarty, Vestergaard, Ndidi or a 3 man defence. Then against a Norwich side, who couldn't score a goal let alone buy a win, it was all change of shape and cautious. Instead of releasing the exciting Leicester at them that were winning plaudits, we started this serious philosopher's slow possession passing game. Consequently, for two years running, it was only our starts and individual players moments of skill that dragged us down to 5th imo and not Rodgers brilliance.

 

Unfortunately  Rodgers got the praise for the start of each season by the media who seemed to miss the dire malaise and uncertainty he caused halfway through each one. I think he'll be the same wherever he goes. 

 

Is the old Leicester spirit within the camp dead? I honestly don't know. I like to think Vardy could help instill it again? Maddison seems to have some fight in him now and is leading by example and KDH is a battler. Sadly I also think there was more than meets the eye to Schmeichel leaving and I think Rodgers is linked with that in some way.

 

I think Rodgers is a maleficent influence on the team in more than one way and has to be got rid of ASAP. I don't know whether it's too late and whether he'll take the old spirit of Leicester City with him.

Edited 25 August 2022 by volpeazzurro

[Balj]

I think the Club needs to see a therapist - we are clearly going through an existential malaise that's transferring to us fans and the players....

 

I loved the front foot, counter-attacking style we had but it can't be recreated with BR (as its not his philosophy) and lets be frank we don't have the defensive solidity to absorb pressure nor the pace we once had (JV included) to play that way.  We're left trying to execute BR possession based football without the quality to create chances - I don't know the stats but we must be one of the lowest chances created teams in the league whilst conceding the most.  Most of our time in possession is pretty pointless tbh.

 

I'm not sure how we move on this season given FFP constraints, the wantaways and the players we are stuck with on long/expensive contracts.  I genuinely have concerns for this season and hope we finish mid-table whilst having a plan for next season and beyond sorting the squad and backroom out in the meantime.  I've not been part of the BR out chorus but the start to this season has been pretty dispiriting - the Brentford and Southampton goals we conceded were no surprise to anyone who was there.

 

I was having a good morning until I came across this thread!!!

[Supergray22]

18 hours ago, CalH said:

 

Surely we don’t have to have only one style of play? There needs to be flexibility too.
 

We want to see attacking play and the team scoring goals, playing as a team, for the team. Can we not set out to win every football match, whoever the opposition are?

 

In the great escape season the fans didn’t lose heart because we saw the team trying so hard and there was a feeling we were unlucky at times. 

UntiL that time , if ever, that we can afford to actively go out and recruit the players and management to suit a particular style we do need to have flexibility to adapt to what we have. If we are winning then that will keep most fans happy. Over time styles and tactics change and adapt. Team spirit, courage and football intelligence have marked out our greatest achievements and that can underpin our identity on and off the pitch. 
 

‘Appealing, cerebral and of average size, the fox is a close relative of both the wolf and dog personalities and displays the typical canine qualities of loyalty, passion and creativity.’

[josh_baskin]

A team that gets results, even if that means we are void of identity.