Late goals.

[StriderHiryu]

3 hours ago, goose2010 said:

He doesn't trust his bench. And let's be honest would you ? Last night there was no one on that bench that deserved to play because they were in form. No one where you would say oh it's harsh he has been left out. 

 

Hopefully a few will step in at the weekend and impress because currently I would only trust our starting 11. 

That could be an issue and maybe he would be more willing to change with more depth. But I feel we let Ipswich back into the game because our high press lost its effectiveness. Praet, Yunus, Vardy could / should have been used earlier IMO. Ipswich used many subs and one got the equaliser. 
 

Cardiff I meant the game where Casadei got the late winner. Was that away? They scored a wonder strike but after going 1 up I felt we sat on it rather than looking to finish the game. 

 

3 hours ago, Tommy Fresh said:

We didn't sit on a lead and concede late on at home to Cardiff. 

Edited 23 January 2024 by StriderHiryu

[Tommy Fresh]

17 minutes ago, StriderHiryu said:

That could be an issue and maybe he would be more willing to change with more depth. But I feel we let Ipswich back into the game because our high press lost its effectiveness. Praet, Yunus, Vardy could / should have been used earlier IMO. Ipswich used many subs and one got the equaliser. 
 

Cardiff I meant the game where Casadei got the late winner. Was that away? They scored a wonder strike but after going 1 up I felt we sat on it rather than looking to finish the game. 

 

They bagged a worldie right before half time about 10 minutes after we scored the opener, wouldn't say we particularly sat on it or invited pressure, not a whole lot could of been done.

[Dan]

13 hours ago, The_77 said:

It’s a big chunk but we also score plenty of late goals. 
https://www.soccerstats.com/table.asp?league=england2&tid=j

We’re the only side in the division to have a positive goal difference in every 10-minute segment.
 

Tonight stunk, we had plenty of opportunities to kill the game but let it slip out of our hands. We’ve mismanaged and been unlucky late in a few games but we haven’t capitulated. 
 

There are so many fans who can’t let themselves be happy or enjoy anything anymore and need to make this more of an issue than it really is. 

Pretty much what I thought really - the highest proportion of overall goals by a mile at a glance. 8 goals conceded in the last 10 minutes out of 22 overall is a massive proportion.

[Paninistickers]

8 minutes ago, Dan LCFC said:

Pretty much what I thought really - the highest proportion of overall goals by a mile at a glance. 8 goals conceded in the last 10 minutes out of 22 overall is a massive proportion.

It's a shocking stat. Even games where we've been cruising, Huddersfield / Rotherham / Millwall x 2 / Brum let alone the Ipswich, west Brom and Sheffield Wednesday debacles....we've looked nervous at the end. 

 

To me it's been obvious since very early on that opponents are happy to be losing by 1 or even 2 goals against us up until the last 15 and then they go for it. I'd do the same if I was them. I've banged on for a while that being better isn't good enough. You have to beat them too. Man City rarely have this problem, they keep going right until the end and almost always finish teams off. 

[Parafox]

17 hours ago, STUHILL said:

Combination of things, including a stubborn Enzo in managing in game tactics and (not!) making substitutions, as well as players lacking quality in the final third, and most worryingly, an increasing mentality to try hold onto leads in the 2nd half, as opposed to what we were doing earlier in the season and exhausting teams with our passing, and scoring many late goals in the 2nd half to finish off games with relative ease.

 

I can see a fear creeping in of not wanting to lose and throw away our huge points lead in the table. Constantly hearing that we are walking this league and have a Premier League squad who shouldn't be here etc, on top of being relentlessly chased by teams below, can take its toll. That is why I think Top really needs to get us TWO quality signings in this window and we need to treat this period as a bit of a reset and a mentality switch so that we can get our swagger back and try to dominate and exhaust teams with our superior players and style. 

 

Everything at the moment feels a bit wishy washy and meh, and I can't help feel that is because Enzo seems a little too nice and OK with our poor performances, and that mentality has started creeping into the players. I'd like to see more aggression, some nastiness and real arrogance to dominate and humiliate teams. It won't always work, but I can't help think that tonight was a perfect opportunity to bully Ipswich, similar to what Leeds did to them, and we just didn't even try. We got our goal and just let them play their ways back into the game the moment the 2nd half kicked off. 

 

We must find some aggression, arrogance and swagger, if we are to maintain this gap to Southampton and Ipswich.  

7 points is not huge. Not in this league and not by the way we've been playing.

[Dan]

10 hours ago, Sunbury Fox said:

Obviously we're going to let in the odd late goal but in the table above it is interesting to see that only 4 teams have conceded more than us in the last 10 minutes of games. Moreover, all of the goals we've conceded in that period have come in the last 13 games, which is a worrying trend given that we didn't concede a single goal in minutes 80-90 in the first 15 games. I had thought that our possession based game was all about wearing teams down so how is this happening so often now?

I think we were a bit lucky in the good run and a bit unlucky in the bad run. But it is getting quite ridiculous how many we're letting in late now. It's a real red flag.

[Chrysalis]

In the last game it was very simple for me, we decided to play for a 1-0 and as a result invited pressure on to ourselves for much of the second half, once that realisation set in I felt conceding was inevitable.

 

Enzo has openly stated he doesnt like expansive play he calls it "chaos".  He likes "control".  I dont think doing easy passes back and then getting pressed for it is control, but thats what our manager thinks, and just have to hope he learns from it because make no mistake if we play like this in the EPL we will get punished week after week, every game at minimum will be at Ipswich/Cov/Leeds level.

 

In terms of the other games, Ipswich away, and others I cant remember enough about those games now to have a proper opinion to post, but I will say this.  I have seen on this forum many times, where we have people blaming individual defenders.  As an example we invite pressure due to bad shape and strategy, opposing team gets ball past midfielders, and the defender last on the line takes the blame ignoring everything that happened before it, I do feel those who cant recognise the management of the game is the problem instead of individual players are analysing it wrong.

 

My view also is if the team is going to sit on a 1-0, then at the very least allow counter attacks.  That wasnt even allowed in the second half, Vardy won the ball about 2/3 up the pitch a really promising position, passed it and ran forward expecting it to be returned to him, and when he got forward he looked back and it was back with one of our defenders.  This in my opinion is totally unacceptable play, and I was actually angry when this happened to be frank.

 

There is obviously a degree of fragility within the team, but thats very easy to solve, "dont sit on one goal leads"!!!!!

 

It feels like we will get a run of dodgy results, Enzo will then concede on his control to allow us to play expansive for a few games again to build up points, and then revert back to control and we drop points again, rinse repeat for rest of season.

 

Another observation under Enzo we tend to be poor or good for an entire half, for that reason we probably better off not winning at half time as then we more likely to play with freedom for the entire second half and win the game.

 

I believe on more than one occasion someone has posted a theory the reason we not playing with intensity for full 90 mins is the squad ultimately still has lingering fitness issues, trying to win games in first gear, only playing well for one half etc.

Edited 23 January 2024 by Chrysalis

[Les-TA-Jon]

Some extra details/stats

• We've dropped points in 7 games this season.
• 5 of those are the result of late goals (76 mins onwards). 
• We've conceded 9 late goals, which occurred in 7 matches. 5 of those games had dropped points: Middlesbrough A, Sheffield A, Ipswich A, Coventry A, Ipswich H
• Those 5 games all occurred in the previous 13 fixtures
• For a total of 12 points dropped to late goals, out of 18 total points dropped across the season

Benchmarking across the Top 4:

 

• So joint highest for points dropped to late goals
• Highest for games with late dropped points
• It can be a bit misleading though to say 'Leicester have dropped points in 7 games and 5 of those are due to late goals', because that also means we've generally played well in large portions of most matches - having dropped points to non-late goals only 2 times all season. Ipswich have done it 9 times; Leeds and Southampton 8 each. 

If we're going to talk about Late Goals Conceded and Late Points Dropped then we also need to recognise Late Goals Scored and Late Points Gained:

 

• Most late goals scored
• Most points gained from late goals

 

 

 

[Manley Farrington-Brown]

1 hour ago, Les-TA-Jon said:

We've conceded 9 late goals, which occurred in 7 matches. 5 of those games had dropped points: Middlesbrough A, Sheffield A, Ipswich A, Coventry A, Ipswich H

So as both Ipswich goals were due to deflected shots from distance, and at Coventry we were down to ten men, we've dropped points due to late proper goals in normal circumstances precisely twice!

 

Mr Glass half full, I am.

[Matt]

Inviting pressure upon ourselves? Playing so deep in the last 20 defending a 1-0 lead - if we’d gone any further back on Monday we’d have been back on Filbert Street? Lack of control? Stupidity?

 

Edited 25 January 2024 by Matt

[Matt]

Another late goal.

 

Thankfully on this occasion it didn't come from us sitting back, soaking up pressure or a mistake and it didn't count for much, but it still goes down on the stats.

[SystonFox]

It shouldn’t have been allowed. Blatant handball that their player controls the ball with his hand. Would’ve been disallowed by VARZ the prem

[Chrysalis]

On 24/01/2024 at 15:08, Les-TA-Jon said:

Some extra details/stats

• We've dropped points in 7 games this season.
• 5 of those are the result of late goals (76 mins onwards). 
• We've conceded 9 late goals, which occurred in 7 matches. 5 of those games had dropped points: Middlesbrough A, Sheffield A, Ipswich A, Coventry A, Ipswich H
• Those 5 games all occurred in the previous 13 fixtures
• For a total of 12 points dropped to late goals, out of 18 total points dropped across the season

Benchmarking across the Top 4:

 

• So joint highest for points dropped to late goals
• Highest for games with late dropped points
• It can be a bit misleading though to say 'Leicester have dropped points in 7 games and 5 of those are due to late goals', because that also means we've generally played well in large portions of most matches - having dropped points to non-late goals only 2 times all season. Ipswich have done it 9 times; Leeds and Southampton 8 each. 

If we're going to talk about Late Goals Conceded and Late Points Dropped then we also need to recognise Late Goals Scored and Late Points Gained:

 

• Most late goals scored
• Most points gained from late goals

 

 

 

Problem is developing patterns, which is why looking at a whole season is flawed.

 

Early season I think we went for a while conceding no goals at all after 70 mins, which started to make me super confident when we hit that point in a game that other team was no threat.  We also scored late goals.  However in more recent games it feels like its flip flopped.  Second half of games is still better than first when the first half isnt great, but there is a definite pattern forming now on late goals been conceded.  ultimately though if we sitting on a decent lead, it doesnt matter, its been made into an issue with trying to sit on 1-0s.  It happened against swansea but didnt matter given we were 3-0 up, who cares if its 3-0 or 3-1.

[Les-TA-Jon]

8 hours ago, Chrysalis said:

Problem is developing patterns, which is why looking at a whole season is flawed.

 

Early season I think we went for a while conceding no goals at all after 70 mins, which started to make me super confident when we hit that point in a game that other team was no threat.  We also scored late goals.  However in more recent games it feels like its flip flopped.  Second half of games is still better than first when the first half isnt great, but there is a definite pattern forming now on late goals been conceded.  ultimately though if we sitting on a decent lead, it doesnt matter, its been made into an issue with trying to sit on 1-0s.  It happened against swansea but didnt matter given we were 3-0 up, who cares if its 3-0 or 3-1.

I wouldn't say it was flawed per se, just that it depends what you're looking at / looking for. 

 

If you're looking for overall perspective and impact then whole season, if you're looking for patterns, then shorter periods of games. 

 

Either way, I literally said in the post

8 hours ago, Chrysalis said:

• We've conceded 9 late goals, which occurred in 7 matches. 5 of those games had dropped points: Middlesbrough A, Sheffield A, Ipswich A, Coventry A, Ipswich H
• Those 5 games all occurred in the previous 13 fixtures

And now, after last night, it's 6 late goals in the previous 14 fixtures. 

[Matt]

Feel I need to put a disclaimer in that this isn't me saying 'told you so', as i've said a couple of times last night's game was the most exciting and enjoyable game of the season, if not in years imo until the last 15 minutes and I take no pleasure whatsoever in having to discuss late goals again but here we are, its a massive elephant in the room, needs discussing, needs noting and needs fixing asap.

 

Edited 24 February 2024 by Matt