State of the squad and rest of the season, an opinion.

[Chrysalis]

This is about the state of the squad in terms of quality overall, in particurlar the midfield.

What I have been observing the entire season, and figured out last season in a lower division is the squad is lacking quality.  This has been a factor in why I have defended certain players and the previous manager.

 

The general observation from watching us play, is in most games man for man the players lack individual quality, over hit passes, under hit passes, needing too much time to think, inaccurate passes and so on.  The Brentford game highlighted this a lot, they were passing and dribbling passed us with little problems, when we tried the same against them with a couple of exceptions we didnt have the quality to do it.  This is ultimately why I have persisted with the view point we need to play ugly to win games.

 

Something of interest a week back, I was speaking to another Leicester supporter on reddit about the first goal conceded against Forest, like many people he was convinced it was JJ's fault, when I told him Ricardo lost possession he was adamant it never happened, this went backwards and forwards until he told me to watch the highlights to prove his point, and it clicked, lots of people are relying on highlights to look for mistakes.  Of course highlights show a tiny snapshot of the actual game and are overly focused on goal mouth action.  As expected the highlights didn't show the Ricardo loss of possession hence him claiming it never happened.

 

When we talk about things like defenders it is important to understand what is going on in other areas of the pitch and action away from the goal, if your midfield is being over run and the ball spends large portions of the game in your own third, you can expect to concede goals in most of these matches, it would require some extraordinary levels of defending to keep a clean sheet in such circumstances.  I do repeatedly say my view point defending is a team game, you defend from the front, something we are very bad at.  So logically if the midfield is being over run game after game because it lacks quality, then the defenders will be up against it.  Fans seem to ignore the amount of clearances made or other aspects of play and just concentrate on what happens the few seconds around when a goal is conceded, it seems its like a mission for people to look for an individual to blame, maybe it helps them hide from their mind the squad overall is not good enough, or its just how they have always seen the game of football.

 

JJ who I have repeatedly defended, I will maintain is a very good player, again evident in the Brentford game most of our forward movement happened on his side of the pitch with him supporting the forward play, but this gets ignored game after game, and people will just look for him when we concede a goal.  People wonder why he gets picked, its because managers see the bigger picture, they know there is more to a game of football than the moments around a goal.

I think right now you could put prime Roberto Carlos in our defense and he would look like a fool when we concede goals with fans calling for him to be dropped.

Of course managers play a part, the best managers can get a squad to over achieve. and we did a win a premier league title with a squad that on paper should have been nowhere near it, a lot of that was some outstanding play in counter attacking for pure efficiency in scoring goals, but also great organised defensive play as a unit.  Some managers also shine in certain situations and not others, we see some managers really need to be spoilt with players to shine, whilst others shine with a poor squad but then stumble after they start to be backed.

 

This season unless the club changes its spending policy, Ruud will have to over achieve to keep us up,  He is starting off with a slender 1 point advantage.  On paper and based on what I am seeing on the pitch we are definitely relegation material.  He is going to have to figure out ways we can overcome the lack of quality, whilst utilising our best players to the maximum.  I will back him as I did Cooper, like Cooper he is taking over a team in a very bad situation due to poor financial and squad management from the club owner and his sidekick the DoF.  I can already see from many posts Ruud is expected to perform miracles, I hope when reality comes to bear people will not turn on him, but instead apply pressure on the upper levels of the club to fix the problems in that area.  As fundamentally if we dont sort that out, we never going to become a settled top half EPL team again.

[Matt]

Oh....so now we question the players, realise and accept they're not good enough.

 

Wonder how that happened.

 

Edited 30 November 2024 by Matt

[KFS]

Things that need to stop immediately:

 

- Trying to attack down the right

- Wout Faes anywhere near the squad

- Treating Ayew like anything other than a super sub

- Ndidi passing the ball further than 5 yards

- Mavididi and Facu running into people constantly

- Benching Vestergaard

- The Soumare ‘experiment’

 

Stop ****ing about and making the same mistakes we did last time we were up here. Get tactics and an identity back that stops all of the above. We’ve wasted four months because Rudkin wanted a yes man 

 

[Mickyblueeyes]

All I’ve seen this season is a bit of pluckyness but generally a team not good enough. Today and the last 4/5 have been performances of team that will be relegated 

[CrazyKopCorner]

We simply have few premier league quality players …… got rid of Cooper who was shite but the root cause is these players are fuching atrocious 

[Cropwellfox]

And to think the plan was / is to sign a goalkeeper in January 🤦‍♂️🤣

[winteriscoming]

I get conflicted with the squad. 
There’s a part of me that thinks we’ll be fine and stop up. But the other part of me thinks this is a quality championship side not premiership. 
How many of our players get into an any other premiership team? Possibly 3. 
Mads, Bounatte and Mavidi maybe. 
1 of those isn’t even a permanent player. 
A lot of this side were premier league quality a few seasons ago - Vardy, Justin, Ndidi and Ricardo. Age and injuries are catching up on them. 
Imo who we can get quality in January will be vital. Quality over quantity is definitely needed. 

[Lambert09]

Today reality hit that we are the worst team in the division. I think ruud has to work wonders to turn us around. 

[Steve_Guppy_Left_Foot]

Unfortunately we are abysmal.

[Dan]

Realised today we're down. You've got no hope with this squad.

[Spudulike]

1 hour ago, Matt said:

Oh....so now we question the players, realise and accept they're not good enough.

 

Wonder how that happened.

 

They might not be good enough but that doesn't excuse the attitude and laziness that we are seeing. Going down fighting is the absolute minimum requirement. 

[Dan]

3 minutes ago, Lambert09 said:

Today reality hit that we are the worst team in the division. I think ruud has to work wonders to turn us around. 

I would honestly go that far - I think we're worse than Southampton, a side we finished comfortably ahead of last season.

[Matt]

Just now, Spudulike said:

They might not be good enough but that doesn't excuse the attitude and laziness that we are seeing. Going down fighting is the absolute minimum requirement. 

That wasn't the point I was making.

[Tielemans63]

Just now, Dan LCFC said:

Realised today we're down. You've got no hope with this squad.

I completely agree. This team is significantly worse than the one that went down in 22/23. Thinking back to 2014/15, that team was losing but staying in games and showing some fight - this team have got nothing. It's a really poor squad.

[Free Falling Foxes]

Plenty saying we need to get players in during Jan but I can't see it making much difference.

Finances suggest we wont get more than 2 or 3 plus, not too much quality is available in that window.

We'll also be lucky to off load many (any?) existing players because, a) they're crap and b) the ridiculous wages they're on mean they'll have no inclination to leave anyway.

I cannot see us avoiding the drop back to the Championship, as a squad we are too far gone.

[Cropwellfox]

Just now, Dan LCFC said:

I would honestly go that far - I think we're worse than Southampton, a side we finished comfortably ahead of last season.

Agree, thought they looked pretty decent last night, just as Ipswich did last weekend. We’ve got absolutely nothing about us at all at present. Damage will be done in December. 

[Parafox]

Unfortunately, finances comes into any decision the board makes.

 

If you're "well off" you shop at Waitrose or M&S and get better quality and choice.

 

If you're a bit strapped, you go to The Company Shop where you have to accept whatever is available, because that's all you can afford. 

 

 

Edited 30 November 2024 by Parafox

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Dan LCFC said:

Realised today we're down. You've got no hope with this squad.

I'm not convinced of that just yet. Everton managed 40 points last year after having 8 deducted with a group of players that I don't think is noticeably better than ours, though admittedly Branthwaite and Tarkowski are a level above any centre back we can call on. Ruud has a job on his hands for sure and it's not a good squad by any means but it shouldn't need to be to finish above three of Ipswich, Southampton, Everton, Wolves and Palace.

[splinterdream]

get nelson back, get Souttar back, get cannon back, we need all hands available, faes thinks hes undroppable, do not play justin there again, give it hamza, do not start ayew again, i'd happily consider playing ndidi in defense over faes. imagine seeing cannon and vardy and facundo upfront.

we really have screwed this up so far, absolutely no planning before games

[Unabomber]

When we went ahead today and top was giving ruud a wry smile like yeah boy you hit the jackpot here. Then he saw the reality 

[Ross 'LCFC' Turner]

Is this the most dislikable squad ever? A handful of them aside, I hate the majority 

[RowlattsFox]

Don't think I've ever seen a squad with such unwarranted arrogance. 

 

[whoareyaaa]

1 hour ago, Chrysalis said:

This is about the state of the squad in terms of quality overall, in particurlar the midfield.

What I have been observing the entire season, and figured out last season in a lower division is the squad is lacking quality.  This has been a factor in why I have defended certain players and the previous manager.

 

The general observation from watching us play, is in most games man for man the players lack individual quality, over hit passes, under hit passes, needing too much time to think, inaccurate passes and so on.  The Brentford game highlighted this a lot, they were passing and dribbling passed us with little problems, when we tried the same against them with a couple of exceptions we didnt have the quality to do it.  This is ultimately why I have persisted with the view point we need to play ugly to win games.

 

Something of interest a week back, I was speaking to another Leicester supporter on reddit about the first goal conceded against Forest, like many people he was convinced it was JJ's fault, when I told him Ricardo lost possession he was adamant it never happened, this went backwards and forwards until he told me to watch the highlights to prove his point, and it clicked, lots of people are relying on highlights to look for mistakes.  Of course highlights show a tiny snapshot of the actual game and are overly focused on goal mouth action.  As expected the highlights didn't show the Ricardo loss of possession hence him claiming it never happened.

 

When we talk about things like defenders it is important to understand what is going on in other areas of the pitch and action away from the goal, if your midfield is being over run and the ball spends large portions of the game in your own third, you can expect to concede goals in most of these matches, it would require some extraordinary levels of defending to keep a clean sheet in such circumstances.  I do repeatedly say my view point defending is a team game, you defend from the front, something we are very bad at.  So logically if the midfield is being over run game after game because it lacks quality, then the defenders will be up against it.  Fans seem to ignore the amount of clearances made or other aspects of play and just concentrate on what happens the few seconds around when a goal is conceded, it seems its like a mission for people to look for an individual to blame, maybe it helps them hide from their mind the squad overall is not good enough, or its just how they have always seen the game of football.

 

JJ who I have repeatedly defended, I will maintain is a very good player, again evident in the Brentford game most of our forward movement happened on his side of the pitch with him supporting the forward play, but this gets ignored game after game, and people will just look for him when we concede a goal.  People wonder why he gets picked, its because managers see the bigger picture, they know there is more to a game of football than the moments around a goal.

I think right now you could put prime Roberto Carlos in our defense and he would look like a fool when we concede goals with fans calling for him to be dropped.

Of course managers play a part, the best managers can get a squad to over achieve. and we did a win a premier league title with a squad that on paper should have been nowhere near it, a lot of that was some outstanding play in counter attacking for pure efficiency in scoring goals, but also great organised defensive play as a unit.  Some managers also shine in certain situations and not others, we see some managers really need to be spoilt with players to shine, whilst others shine with a poor squad but then stumble after they start to be backed.

 

This season unless the club changes its spending policy, Ruud will have to over achieve to keep us up,  He is starting off with a slender 1 point advantage.  On paper and based on what I am seeing on the pitch we are definitely relegation material.  He is going to have to figure out ways we can overcome the lack of quality, whilst utilising our best players to the maximum.  I will back him as I did Cooper, like Cooper he is taking over a team in a very bad situation due to poor financial and squad management from the club owner and his sidekick the DoF.  I can already see from many posts Ruud is expected to perform miracles, I hope when reality comes to bear people will not turn on him, but instead apply pressure on the upper levels of the club to fix the problems in that area.  As fundamentally if we dont sort that out, we never going to become a settled top half EPL team again.

Thanks James 

[RowlattsFox]

Full backs, centre backs, midfield, striker...where do you ****ing start?

[Gazza M]

Left back and CB in Jan plus Nelson integrated back in. Another striker also.