Comparing this season to 2014/15 Great Escape

[martyn]

1 hour ago, bovril said:

To be fair we were absolutely awful at times from September - January. Couldn't defend or score, like now. Improved after that but still took time to start picking up points. Without Huth we would've gone down.

 

But yes, most of the components were there for the great escape, we just needed to find that missing piece of the jigsaw and stumble on a winning formula. That's not the case now. We are several pieces short. 

 

What a run that was though. Maybe my favourite period supporting Leicester, even more so than winning the league. What a time to be alive.

Totally agree. There is a lot of revisionism about that season about how unlucky we were, I remember us being absolutely awful for a 4/5 months period.

 

The main difference really is the character of the squad. I don't see enough players in this crop to pull us out of the mire.

[pkonline]

That season we lost games we shouldn't., and played well. We also had players like Vardy and Mahrez that we knew could get us points. This team I think we've been lucky and could actually be on fewer points! And sadly I cannot see any player in our squad that can change games.

We'll go down and I suspect with one of our lowest point totals.

[Phube]

2 hours ago, foxfanazer said:

 

 

Prime Vardy> 38 year old Vardy

 

The list could go on

Prime Vardy - 5 goals (all season)

 

38 yo Vardy - 6 in 19 games. 
 

And let’s not forget Peason was ‘sacked’ during the campaign as well! 

[Mickyblueeyes]

23 minutes ago, pkonline said:

That season we lost games we shouldn't., and played well. We also had players like Vardy and Mahrez that we knew could get us points. This team I think we've been lucky and could actually be on fewer points! And sadly I cannot see any player in our squad that can change games.

We'll go down and I suspect with one of our lowest point totals.

I don’t know if agree with this. 
 

in 2014/15, Vardy got 5 goals - most at the start and end. Mahrez was tricky but no where near Mahrez if 15/16. Very similar to Bilal this year. 
 

Huth came in Jan. Albrighton couldn’t get in the team until the end. We were atrocious and lacking match winners for large parts

[Phube]

1 minute ago, Mickyblueeyes said:

I don’t know if agree with this. 
 

in 2014/15, Vardy got 5 goals - most at the start and end. Mahrez was tricky but no where near Mahrez if 15/16. Very similar to Bilal this year. 
 

Huth came in Jan. Albrighton couldn’t get in the team until the end. We were atrocious and lacking match winners for large parts

Jinx! 
 

People keep saying Huth saved us, but we were still crap until the last 9 games.

 

Nine games from the what finally happened, that I wanted for the whole season, He finally put Albrighton in the team! 

[Leicesterpool]

2014-15 we had better players and put in good performance despite the loses. This time round we have terrible players and weak performances

[foxfanazer]

8 minutes ago, Phube said:

Prime Vardy - 5 goals (all season)

 

38 yo Vardy - 6 in 19 games. 
 

And let’s not forget Peason was ‘sacked’ during the campaign as well! 

Fair point. Still think that side has way more about them personally 

[davieG]

The only thing relating to that season is to quote Pearson 

 

To LCFC - Are you an Ostrich

 

They just don’t see what the fans see same with last relegation 

[tickler28]

6 minutes ago, foxfanazer said:

Fair point. Still think that side has way more about them personally 

That's because of what they did towards the end of the season. I'd argue that our current XI if it could include Ndidi, Fattawu, Ricardo and Mads would wipe the floor with them. We all look back romantically at that season because of what unfolded towards the end....this season's end hasn't been written yet.

[Lionator]

48 minutes ago, martyn said:

Totally agree. There is a lot of revisionism about that season about how unlucky we were, I remember us being absolutely awful for a 4/5 months period.

 

The main difference really is the character of the squad. I don't see enough players in this crop to pull us out of the mire.

I don’t think it is revisionism. There was a huge sense of injustice at the time. We were coming out of games against good teams losing 0-1, 1-2 having completely ran toe to toe with them and their PL quality shining through. In the end a number of things got us through but the great escape wasn’t random, we just needed the stars to align and they did. 

[martyn]

13 minutes ago, Lionator said:

I don’t think it is revisionism. There was a huge sense of injustice at the time. We were coming out of games against good teams losing 0-1, 1-2 having completely ran toe to toe with them and their PL quality shining through. In the end a number of things got us through but the great escape wasn’t random, we just needed the stars to align and they did. 

Agree to disagree. I think the only game we lost where I thought we were unfortunate was against Spurs at home on Boxing Day where we battered them.

 

Aside from that we were largely very very poor in the middle part of the season.

Edited 16 January by martyn

[bovril]

27 minutes ago, Lionator said:

There was a huge sense of injustice at the time. 

Not sure about that. I remember the forum being quite split, maybe like 40/60, between people who felt we were a bit unlucky and those who thought we were deservedly bottom. And I think it depended very much on how big a fan one was of Pearson. From Newcastle away up to and including West Ham away, we looked absolutely clueless. And Pearson didn't seem to know his best team or tactics. 

[bovril]

2 hours ago, kushiro said:

 

F*** Me! York finished bottom? I never knew that. Makes it even more freaky.

Yep, and they've never been back.

 

Wolsey, who's probably buried somewhere underneath Abbey Park, is of course most closely associated with Ipswich. Meet you there tomorrow morning with a shovel? 

[Thefox81]

Wont hit 20pts

[Trav Le Bleu]

4 hours ago, StanSP said:

I'm hoping in not being revisionist but that team seemed to have a lot more resolve about them? Don't think anyone predicted the Great Escape but perhaps there was more belief? 

 

There's more to the issues on the pitch this season than there were back then. The whole club seems in a rot now beyond on-field problems. Which gives me no faith at all that we'll come out of it barring relegation. 

That season we lost a lot of games by one goal, just silly moments and we showed what we could do early in the season against Man Utd. There was very much the feeling that it was just kinks needed ironing out.

 

This feels more like we need to send the whole team to the dry cleaners.

[Sunbury Fox]

There is definitely a lot of revisionism going on about 14/15. I remember people completely writing us off after a dismal 0-0 draw at home to Hull, which I think was just a couple of games before the West Ham home game that triggered the great escape. 

 

Either way,  looking at our remaining fixtures this season it is hard to see where the points are coming from to save us, unless the points total required is unprecedentedly low.

 

We have 8 home games left, 4 of which are against Liverpool, Arsenal, Newcastle and an improving Man U. Hard to see any points from those 4. The remaining 4 games are Fulham, Brentford, Ipswich and Southampton, all of which we have to win, given our tragic away form. Even in the unlikely event we manage that, then that would leave us on 26 points, meaning we are probably going to need a couple of away wins.

 

Our remaining away games are against Tottenham, Everton, West Ham, Chelsea, Man City, Brighton, Wolves, Forest and Bournemouth. Of those, the only realistic opportunities for wins are Everton and Wolves. Then we could look to get something from West Ham and maybe Brighton, who may be marooned in mid table by the time we play them. 

 

So, all in all, we probably have 6-8 good opportunities for points until the end of the season. Based on historical points totals needed for survival, even 8 wins from those games might only just be enough. That said, Forest would have stayed up with only 28 points last season, so if a similarly low total is needed to survive this season, we might only need 4 wins and 2 draws. 

 

 

[Wymsey]

As painful as it sounds - if Vichai was still here, am pretty confident the club would be in a better position this season; both on and off the pitch.

[Bilo]

5 hours ago, martyn said:

Totally agree. There is a lot of revisionism about that season about how unlucky we were, I remember us being absolutely awful for a 4/5 months period.

 

The main difference really is the character of the squad. I don't see enough players in this crop to pull us out of the mire.

We were absolutely repellent from November through to March. That 5-3 win against Manchester United was in September, and we didn't win against until after Christmas. 

[splinterdream]

I seem to remember Pearson wouldn’t play Albrighton for some reason, even though it was obvious he would make us better, remember walking to the game and that’s what everyone was saying 

[Winstonthedog]

7 hours ago, Bilo said:

Not a chance.

 

We didn't lose a single game by more than two that season and everyone could see the fight the players had. We were honking some weeks, granted, but there were games in which we were desperately unfortunate. 

 

What got us out of it was characters. King, Cambiasso, Vardy, Schmeichel and Nugent. Where are those big personalities in our squad now? 

Spot on .... I don't see anyone with any desire to fight for their premiership lives ... but I see plenty coasting along and taking the big wage and looking to move on as soon as possible... there are definitely no characters or leaders 

[surrifox]

7 hours ago, tickler28 said:

I dunno in that season I remember being just as disillusioned and pi$$ed off with the players and manager when things were bleak

Yes I agree . I think we lost 1-0 to West Brom in an abject inept performance and I couldn’t see us ever winning again 

[Bilo]

18 minutes ago, surrifox said:

Yes I agree . I think we lost 1-0 to West Brom in an abject inept performance and I couldn’t see us ever winning again 

1-0 defeat at home to Stoke was pretty minging. As was the goalless draw with Hull, which looked for all the world like a midtable League One match. Atrocious game and both sides looked absolutely doomed.

[Leicesterpool]

2 hours ago, Wymsey said:

As painful as it sounds - if Vichai was still here, am pretty confident the club would be in a better position this season; both on and off the pitch.

Most certainly, we'd have never got relegated in 2023 and doubt we would have ever been in any sort of relegation scrap.

[String fellow]

1 hour ago, Bilo said:

We were absolutely repellent from November through to March. That 5-3 win against Manchester United was in September, and we didn't win against until after Christmas. 

After that amazing 5-3 win, we got just 2pts. from the next 39pts. available.

But despite that, we never went 3 home games in a row without scoring, unlike now, and 6 of the 11 defeats were by a single goal margin and the rest were by two goal margins.

So on that basis, the current run of results, if it continues, could be worse than that 'absolutely repellent' run, even though we're one position higher in the PL than at that time. 

[Matt]

Atleast that team was a likeable bunch.

 

Full of personalities, a written off, hard working group who you always felt gave 100%.

 

You always felt we were in a game. Even *that* Man Utd game, even at 3-1 down I remember think "we're still in this". Yeah we came back to draw against Brighton after going 2-0 down the other week but last night I knew from the first kick of the second half we were going to lose, when we inventively went 1-0 down it was all but confirmed and time to go.

 

Edited 16 January by Matt