Is our 25 man squad on paper good enough to stay up?

[Fox1norfolk]

8 minutes ago, Sampson said:

Last season Maddison and Vardy kept us kicking and screaming up the league and we looked dire without them.

 

This season Vardy looks done so it’s only really Maddison.

 

Next season Maddison won’t be here.

 

Let’s be honest, the last 18 months have been largely shite other than a couple of games in the Conference League but next season scares the shit out of me 

I think there is a great danger of becoming a ‘yo yo ‘ team like Norwich. We cannot compete financially in the Premier league, perhaps the Championship should be are real home. The likes of Newcastle with Arab money and probably more to join that sort of club, means we don’t stand a chance and any decent players we have will move for more money and top flight football. It is a great shame, but the world of sport is not sport anymore , it’s a financial commodity

[BKLFox]

Yes the squad is good enough, but, we need the squad back.

 

[cambridgefox]

1 minute ago, Fox1norfolk said:

I think there is a great danger of becoming a ‘yo yo ‘ team like Norwich. We cannot compete financially in the Premier league, perhaps the Championship should be are real home. The likes of Newcastle with Arab money and probably more to join that sort of club, means we don’t stand a chance and any decent players we have will move for more money and top flight football. It is a great shame, but the world of sport is not sport anymore , it’s a financial commodity

What worries me is we are a s soft as.We go down have this lot got what it takes physically to get back up.

[Fox1norfolk]

1 minute ago, cambridgefox said:

What worries me is we are a s soft as.We go down have this lot got what it takes physically to get back up.

No because there appears to be no strong leaders anymore

[Guest ttfn]

The squad looks poor because probably half a dozen good players have had big drop-offs in form or are always injured.

 

If you’d told me 18 months ago that people would be looking at a squad with these players as uncompetitive I’d have said you were mad:

Ricardo

Justin

Soyuncu

Iheanacho

Barnes

Ndidi

Vardy

Evans

 

That’s 8 players there who 18 months ago were pretty key components of a top 6 side - the first two are always injured, the second two are persona non grata, the third two look like they’ve lost all confidence and the fourth two are old and perhaps their decline is to be expected.

 

The personnel are there, we’re just not getting the most out of them for a variety of reasons.

 

 

[Stadt]

Most bottom half sides would love to have Iheanacho, Daka, Barnes, Maddison, KDH, Praet, Tielemans, Ndidi, Castagne and Faes.

 

We’ve been mismanaged for so long it’s warped what our ‘normal’ is. We’re 16th out of 20th for shots atm. 
 

Villa, Southampton, Wolves, Villa et al don’t have better players they just have competent managers that can muster a par or above attack. We’ve struggled to create under Rodgers for a long term because his plan A stopped working sometime in 2021 and he’s never been able to change it up since.

 

He’s largely gotten away with it because he’s had an incredibly talented squad to work with it. If he’d performed the same way but with a squad of Southampton’s calibre they’d genuinely be on for a sub 20 point season.

 

He gets away with it because the decision makers at the club are either incompetent or don’t care - and the English football media circus seem to love him.

 

Besides the Fulham game, post WC, we’ve pretty much mustered up 8 shots and 2 on target, at best, in every game.

 

If we sacked Rodgers and gave it to Knudsen, Stowell, Sadler, Huth, Cousin Dennis or whoever we’d get more out of the current squad. We’re an incohesive mess.

 

We’re getting Huddersfield 18/19, Norwich 19/20 metrics out of a former top 4 contender squad. Getting rid of Rodgers isn’t the silver bullet but it stops  the free fall.

 

We saw firsthand under Rodgers the difference a new manager can make with the same squad. We were electric under Rodgers post-Puel; fixtures aside, I’m certain we can do the same again - it won’t take a genius just a bloke that gets them organised and enjoying themselves again.

 

It saddens me to see good footballers tarnished through the lens of a shit manager.

[Number 6]

Yes and Yes if we're individually talking about Maddison alone. Madders and Youri going would be a big hole. There's some pretty shit squads in the division though. And teams like Utd have shown how players can improve significantly when well coached/managed.

[Tom12345]

1 hour ago, funkyrobot said:

The squad is VERY reliant on James Maddison. 

Yes indeed but that is because of Brendon’s sideway football. There is no team tactics that work anymore, so we can only rely on individual brilliance to save us.

[Chrysalis]

Answer to #2 from me (no) is based on if we have no manager change.  The manager has wrecked our squad.

 

As an owner of a football club if I felt the manager was making players only hit less than 50% of their potential (which I think is the case now), the solution is a managerial change not spending tens of millions on new players for him to wreck.

Edited 22 January 2023 by Chrysalis

[HybridFox]

On paper means the square root of f*** all in this division

[Dave Fishwick]

squad is good enough on paper but in reality the likes of Tielemans aren't putting 100% in

[filbertway]

Yes. Although the manager would have you believe they'd struggle in the Leicestershire senior league.

[Deeg67]

With a half-decent manager who hasn't checked out and totally lost the players, the squad is good enough to stay up comfortably.  With Rodgers?  Hello, Championship.

[Dan]

Yes and yes. It just needs a manager who isn't actively trying to set fire to the club on the way out that he somehow seems to avoid.

[jayfox26]

8 hours ago, Genesis1 said:

Regardless of weather Tielemans is good or bad, Maddison is here until his contract is finished unless somebody pays us silly money. He'll be here next season and if that means his moral is gone, it won't bother Leicester.

There is no way we risk losing Maddison for free, we simply cannot afford it financially. Selling maddison in the summer, whilst will be damaging, will help us re strengthen the squad. We have to accept he's leaving soon and I'd rather he leave with us getting some money than him leave for nothing. Only way he's here next season is if we somehow get him to sign a new contract, which is highly unlikely. 

[FoxTimmy2]

The fact that we have Danny Ward as a starting no1 speaks volumes... He makes our shit defence even shittier, and I'm confident that he's the player who has cost us most points this season.

[Stadt]

1 hour ago, FoxTimmy2 said:

The fact that we have Danny Ward as a starting no1 speaks volumes... He makes our shit defence even shittier, and I'm confident that he's the player who has cost us most points this season.

The manager could give Iversen a chance. There’s no way he’s worse than Ward

[SkidsFox]

I like the way this board oscillates between "most of our players aren't good enough, or don't try" and "we have a squad full of players that other Premier teams would be jealous of".

[Kilworthfox]

Easily good enough to be the 17th best team in the league. 

 

The issue is how our players are being used, or in some cases not used at all. 

[Nalis]

Yes and Yes. I'd argue our squad on paper is midtable and without Maddison lower midtable.

[filbertway]

The question after 4 years in charge and shaping the club in his own image, really should be "is this squad capable of finishing in the top 6?".

 

Rodgers has lowered standards so much that it now seems perfectly normal to most people that it's a question of, is this squad good enough to not finish in the bottom 3. Absolutely mental

 

[Chrysalis]

Before Faes, Rodgers has been given 8 new defenders since he started hi job with us.  Not to mention the quality he inherited.

 

The last two signings has taken it to 10, the defensive signings have really eaten into our offensive player budget, and shows in my opinion the personel isnt the problem.