Marti Cifuentes appointed new manager

[Dan]

3 hours ago, Gamble92 said:

Love how I was reading literally post after post talking about double relegation in the summer and now it's likely the same users who are saying we should walk the league. 

 

I think most of us could see we'd still do well if we could get players like Winks on side. Stuff like that isn't easy to do either. 

 

There were some abysmal performances early on with Enzo but we got through them. We haven't done it to quite that win rate, but there's nothing I've seen to suggest we can't go on and have a similar season now. 

Both of these takes are a bit silly if true. I've seen maybe the odd hyperbolic reactionary "we'll go down again" but never thought anyone 'really' thought this was likely. Equally poor judgement if people think this squad is anywhere close to the 2023/24 levels which quite honestly could've broken the record if not for that late drop off. This side is missing basically five of the best players of that side.

[Dan]

3 hours ago, kingfox said:

Since my last post on the topic of pressing, nothing much has changed. According to Opta, we’ve gone from 24th to 23rd for pressing sequences and 20th to 21st for PPDA. 

 

Maybe it’s down to a personnel thing or Cifuentes has decided to do things differently tactically, but as I mentioned in my post a few weeks ago, our pressing statistics are pretty much identical to what QPR were producing under Cifuentes. 
 

We’ve certainly not been as intense as we were against Fiorentina, which is probably the thing that has disappointed me the most with Marti’s reign so far.

Hard to imagine we'd be this bad for it under say Danny Rohl. One thing I'll say for Fiorentina though is they were dire, well behind us in preseason scheduling and they've made their worst start in about 50 years in the league too so I'm not sure it was a great barometer. That being said we definitely haven't taken the same approach, it's dropped back into pretty laboured stuff.

[HoustonFox]

Thanks all, confirmed my suspicions on pressing and apols for missing posts a while back. I’m not on here as much as I’d like. 
 

I know it was early days for fiorentina but I doubt their B Team are much worse than some of the lower end champ teams. Also pressing is a mindset and tactical mentality. 
 

Just find it odd that we dominate opponents but unlike other teams, we don’t harry the opposition when we lose it near their half… 

 

 

[StriderHiryu]

18 hours ago, HoustonFox said:

I’m firmly on the Marti train but have a question: what happened to our pressing? During preseason, and vs Fiorentina in particular, we seemed to have a coordinated full front line high press but now it seems to have gone away and back to cooper/RvN levels of just one dude pressing and then others leaving a pass on.
 

With the fact that we have the lion’s share of possession, play most games in the opposition half and want to overcome the low block, why aren’t we doing this some more? @StriderHiryu or others, anyone care to share your thoughts on this? 

Next week on the Blue Tinted Glasses tactics show, we are going to talk about the various tweaks Marti has made during the season.

 

The change you are refering to was a direct result of the one league loss we had this season against Preston. Both goals and multiple more chances came from a turnover leaving the high line ruthlessly exposed. Predominantly Vestergaard, but Thomas, Faes and Soumare hardly covered themselves in glory either.

 

The Championship itself has changed since last time we were here, with more teams going man for man themselves, which also makes a high press a lot riskier.

 

Consider the following:

• The Championship is a 46 game season
• We were restricted to just 3 signings, all 3 were loans
• Our defensive options include Vestergaard, Thomas, Faes and Kristiansen
• We sold Kasey McAteer
• Ricardo is ageing and Hamza lacks refinement (penalty vs Huddersfield for example)
• Our CDM options include Soumare and Skipp

Would you play a high pressing system with such a squad? 

 

On paper if you could get Okoli and Nelson into the team, and Skipp and Soumare (possibly Page) were capable of being Henderson / Milner style shuttlers, you could get it to work. But when these players have been given a chance, they have not taken it. Maybe if you line up with Winks, Ramsey, JJ, Ricardo, Faes you could do it, but you need a deep squad to continue to press, which I don't think we have.

 

 

 

^ Here's the difference in pitch posiitons between Preston and Charlton games. Notice also how in this game Skipp and Soumare acted as double pivots too. Marti decided to not have the team play as high and had more players back on transition. That will stifle the attack, but it also protects the defensive line too.

 

 

 

Here was part one of the season review so far. In the second half of the show we look at the starting 11 and show some stats. It's hard to argue that Vestergaard and Winks haven't been among our best players this season, hence the stylistic change from Marti. 

 

 

Edited 8 October 2025 by StriderHiryu

[kingfox]

11 hours ago, Dan said:

Hard to imagine we'd be this bad for it under say Danny Rohl. One thing I'll say for Fiorentina though is they were dire, well behind us in preseason scheduling and they've made their worst start in about 50 years in the league too so I'm not sure it was a great barometer. That being said we definitely haven't taken the same approach, it's dropped back into pretty laboured stuff.

I think it comes down to personnel, especially with Ayew starting and the certain options we have in central midfield. Central midfielders are so important in high pressing intense systems, all you need to do is look at Bournemouth under Iraola as the prime example, they are currently the masters of it. 
 

The signing of Jordan James has clearly added a bit more engine to our midfield, but of course he’s had Harry Winks alongside him who is known for his midfield controlling rather than defensive work. 
 

@StriderHiryu what’s our average positions been like since the Winks & James combo against Wrexham and Swansea? 
 

A chunk of our fanbase may not like it, but this squad is more suited to be possession based and control games, which also shows up in our statistics so far. We rank 2nd for 10+ pass sequences and 1st for build up attacks. 
 

Our issue is, who on earth is going to be on the end of our build up play? 

[StriderHiryu]

44 minutes ago, kingfox said:

I think it comes down to personnel, especially with Ayew starting and the certain options we have in central midfield. Central midfielders are so important in high pressing intense systems, all you need to do is look at Bournemouth under Iraola as the prime example, they are currently the masters of it. 
 

The signing of Jordan James has clearly added a bit more engine to our midfield, but of course he’s had Harry Winks alongside him who is known for his midfield controlling rather than defensive work. 
 

@StriderHiryu what’s our average positions been like since the Winks & James combo against Wrexham and Swansea? 
 

A chunk of our fanbase may not like it, but this squad is more suited to be possession based and control games, which also shows up in our statistics so far. We rank 2nd for 10+ pass sequences and 1st for build up attacks. 
 

Our issue is, who on earth is going to be on the end of our build up play? 

You'll have to tune into next week's show to find out! 

 

Against Swansea, JJ was on average the furthest player forward. In general the team has been playing a bit higher up, but it depends on the opposition as Wrexham parked the bus. 

[kingfox]

24 minutes ago, StriderHiryu said:

In general the team has been playing a bit higher up

Glad you’ve pointed this out, because since the Wrexham and Swansea games, we’ve rocketed from 20th to 9th in the high turnovers statistic, I guess this is a tweak he’s made because of the inclusion of players like James & Daka. 

[Gamble92]

What worries me about this philosophy, similar with Enzo's, is just how many big chances we still concede despite the theory being if you keep it more you'll limit them significant and create enough to win. 

 

At the minute we are relying on individuals pulling off something that isn't sustainable long term. 

 

I don't think he will be happy with everything overall so far. 

[Stadt]

I just watched the extended highlights back, watching with a clear head does change your perspective a bit.

 

A few thoughts:

- Jordan James is great. Shades of a young Gerrard about him 

 

- We pressed pretty well (and higher than on first watch) but Swansea were terrible at playing out - had they gone longer to bypass the press and forced Vestergaard to try and deal with Vipotnik (sp) they might have had more joy through fouls/second balls and then isolating him.

 

- Our set piece deliveries were poor but Swansea just failed to adequately clear the first contact and were abysmal at the second. Both James and vestergaard's goals came from set piece deliveries that broke down via the left.

 

- Ramsey added more movement and fluency to our attack when he was on, with him and James there's more forward runs which stretched the defence. I'm not overly enamoured with Cifuentes but we've yet to see 90 minutes with 11 players playing in their best position

 

- Encouraging the wingers to shoot so often breaks down our promising attacks down too often, it's worked out with Fatawu scoring some belters but it's not sustainable. We have the hint worst xG per shot in the league because we're letting fly from stupid positions and we're not creating any high value tap ins, cut backs, rebounds.

[FoxesTalker]

The start to the season hasn't been overly convincing, but to be 3rd in the league at this stage with only one defeat is more than reasonable, and it's a better start than many of us feared it would be after last season. Marti is doing a decent job and it's nice to feel connected with a manager again.

[DezFox]

On 09/10/2025 at 10:55, FoxesTalker said:

The start to the season hasn't been overly convincing, but to be 3rd in the league at this stage with only one defeat is more than reasonable, and it's a better start than many of us feared it would be after last season. Marti is doing a decent job and it's nice to feel connected with a manager again.

I agree with this, only problem for me and it’s a big one is not playing Nelson or even giving him a chance. It’s extremely short sighted and an infuriating red flag. 

[Dahnsouff]

24 minutes ago, DezFox said:

I agree with this, only problem for me and it’s a big one is not playing Nelson or even giving him a chance. It’s extremely short sighted and an infuriating red flag. 

But that is loaded with assumptions, and condemning someone on the back of assumptions is unreasonable. 

[MonarchFox]

32 minutes ago, DezFox said:

I agree with this, only problem for me and it’s a big one is not playing Nelson or even giving him a chance. It’s extremely short sighted and an infuriating red flag. 

He had a chance in the cup match and didn't take it.  Probably knocked him back a bit

[DezFox]

11 minutes ago, MonarchFox said:

He had a chance in the cup match and didn't take it.  Probably knocked him back a bit

Hate this argument. Sorry forgot all our other centre backs have been faultless 😂😂 

[DezFox]

24 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

But that is loaded with assumptions, and condemning someone on the back of assumptions is unreasonable. 

Yeah I think he is the future though although of course that is an assumption . We know what can level of performance  can be achieve with other options. At least we would know by now, instead we wonder, while watching other centre backs look dodgy. Jannick exlcuded. 

Edited 10 October 2025 by DezFox

[Noahfence]

25 minutes ago, MonarchFox said:

He had a chance in the cup match and didn't take it.  Probably knocked him back a bit

I’d be pretty disappointed if Marti has dumped him from the squad just because of that 

[Dahnsouff]

30 minutes ago, DezFox said:

Yeah I think he is the future though although of course that is an assumption . We know what can level of performance  can be achieve with other options. At least we would know by now, instead we wonder, while watching other centre backs look dodgy. Jannick exlcuded. 

I 100% would like to give him more chances than he has had, cannot imagine why we haven’t seen him more, although could guess and it’s nothing to do with his performance either this or last season.

[Fox on the Rox]

1 hour ago, Dahnsouff said:

I 100% would like to give him more chances than he has had, cannot imagine why we haven’t seen him more, although could guess and it’s nothing to do with his performance either this or last season.

What's your guess?

[Dahnsouff]

1 hour ago, Fox on the Rox said:

What's your guess?

Two things

1. CBs operate more like a pair than anywhere else on the pitch, and we are windy disrupting it
2. We actually are not holding him back historically, in terms of Leicester  (injury notwithstanding) as we seem naturally risk averse with promoting CBs

[LCFCJohn]

4 hours ago, Dahnsouff said:

But that is loaded with assumptions, and condemning someone on the back of assumptions is unreasonable. 

Likewise, it’s ok to discuss the manager and highlight one thing that is a concern, particularly if the review is otherwise very reasonable and positive.

[Dahnsouff]

9 minutes ago, LCFCJohn said:

Likewise, it’s ok to discuss the manager and highlight one thing that is a concern, particularly if the review is otherwise very reasonable and positive.

Not sure I said to the contrary, and speculation is what a forum is basically fuelled by, and as we can't know, we have no choice but to.......speculate.

[LCFCJohn]

11 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

Not sure I said to the contrary, and speculation is what a forum is basically fuelled by, and as we can't know, we have no choice but to.......speculate.

Yeah I realise you hadn’t said that as such.

 

The Nelson thing has become quite big naturally. Many people (like myself), like Marti and what he brings but don’t like this one thing. Given we don’t know details, we can’t exactly give him a pass on it and it does go down as a question mark. But that’s not a problem as it’s part of the discussion and someone isn’t always going to be perfect in every way.

 

And as you say, forums are about that. So I was just picking up on not shutting down comments that question that aspect.

 

Apart from the rare oddball after a bad result, nobody is questioning his job. If anything, he does put more pressure on himself in respect of seasonal goals

with that particular selection issue as it is short term thinking and with short term thinking, is the need for results (promotion).

[Dahnsouff]

19 minutes ago, LCFCJohn said:

Yeah I realise you hadn’t said that as such.

 

The Nelson thing has become quite big naturally. Many people (like myself), like Marti and what he brings but don’t like this one thing. Given we don’t know details, we can’t exactly give him a pass on it and it does go down as a question mark. But that’s not a problem as it’s part of the discussion and someone isn’t always going to be perfect in every way.

 

And as you say, forums are about that. So I was just picking up on not shutting down comments that question that aspect.

 

Apart from the rare oddball after a bad result, nobody is questioning his job. If anything, he does put more pressure on himself in respect of seasonal goals

with that particular selection issue as it is short term thinking and with short term thinking, is the need for results (promotion).

Fully understand, to me it all comes down to if you default to suspicion and distrust when not presented with all the facts or not.
We don’t have all the facts, so I checked on when young CBs break through, and he is not a wildly different schedule to most, especially when you consider his injury.

However we are in the Championship, he has been here and did well, so not sure the situations are quite comparable, but it is possible to see a potential why.

The alternatives are that he is either not good enough or Marti’s an asshole, neither option is particularly pleasant!

[Ric Flair]

We're at risk of failing to utilise a massively valuable future asset in Nelson, thats the bottom line. Even putting his obvious skill set aside, where he's got everything you'd want out of a modern defender in a possession based team, it's an illogical decision.

 

Another strong season at this level in a promotion chasing team and there's a high likelihood he signs a new deal and we've protected a £30-40m valued player. Not doing so, whilst persevering with two defenders with no future at a higher level, just seems all round poor thinking. There's a growing chance that Nelson leaves here on the cheap, as he won't want to commit his long term future here and yet we've rejected bids last summer from Premier League clubs. Such a strange impasse.

[TJB-fox]

On 10/10/2025 at 20:08, Ric Flair said:

We're at risk of failing to utilise a massively valuable future asset in Nelson, thats the bottom line. Even putting his obvious skill set aside, where he's got everything you'd want out of a modern defender in a possession based team, it's an illogical decision.

 

Another strong season at this level in a promotion chasing team and there's a high likelihood he signs a new deal and we've protected a £30-40m valued player. Not doing so, whilst persevering with two defenders with no future at a higher level, just seems all round poor thinking. There's a growing chance that Nelson leaves here on the cheap, as he won't want to commit his long term future here and yet we've rejected bids last summer from Premier League clubs. Such a strange impasse.

Just me playing devils advocate but has anyone seen enough from him to suggest he’ll be a 40mil pound player?