FT LCFC 2 - 2 Stevenage

[Sunbury Fox]

Taken in isolation, the quality of our performance yesterday was not "sh1t" - we were much the better team in reality. However, the team's overall record this season colours the perception of the performance and makes people, understandably, far less tolerant of failing to win. Had we been top going into this match and played exactly the same way, most people would have said, "Not sure how we didn't win that game but these things happen." But in reality Martin and the players haven't build up enough credit to get away with anything less than comprehensive wins at the moment. 

Edited 20 hours ago by Sunbury Fox

[Grumpy Git]

A performance that was w**k

[Pliskin]

1 hour ago, LCFCJohn said:

They can only see the individual game in front of them and have no understanding of context or critical thinking.

 

They see possession and shots and think ‘that’s a good performance, we were unlucky’.

 

But there is no understanding as to how much in wages we pay out compared to others in the league. And the argument that because we are unhappy with being midtable in L1 with 5-4-4 so far means we think we are still in the CL is just a daft daft take from them.

Things very true. 
 

The chap who sat next to me was like it, he couldn’t even pronounce half of our players names, always used to call Mahrez Mirez….. couldn’t tell you the first thing about any other team, knew who the England players were, but that was about it, the type of chap who would just scream “gerrit forrard” and clap balls smashed into nowhere shouting “that’s Berra”……

 

Theres followers of Leicester, and then football fans……. That’s not to sound pig headed, it’s just a fact every club will have them, just go because their ‘old man’ went every weekend…… the chap next to me was a follower of Leicester, he couldn’t tell you the first thing about football, had zero critical thinking and it as clear he had no tactical awareness….. I think by and large, this is the type of fan who seems to have descended on mass at the KP this season, occupying the seats left by a lot of long term fans who have simply had enough….

 

I only follow one form of LCFC related third party material now and that’s @Ric Flairand co…. Probably because I’m a miserable bastard, but I can’t abide blind optimism when it’s clearly not warranted.

[James and his giant peach]

4 hours ago, LCFCJohn said:

You really don’t expect more than what we are seeing this season given that Souttar, O’Hora, Okoli and Thomas alone will earn more probably any other squad in this league combined?

Fvck me wish I'd never commented. I'm not thick, I know that drawing at home to Stevenage is rubbish and by and large this season has been dire but there are signs of progress at least in the last few weeks. We played well yesterday, defending let us down like it has all  season but we should have won comfortably, shouldn't have lost at Luton and if that was the case we are probably where Luton are now 4th only a couple of points of top 2. The signs are promising if we can keep this level of performance up but Bradford and Huddersfield will be tough games. 

[FoxinNotts]

Having had time to reflect, it wasn't a shite performance, by any means. The goals we conceded were very poor. 
 

Riis needs to be scoring one of his chances. 

 

O'Hora needs dropping for Kanga.

 

Burns and Chaplin need to be starting the next two cup games, along with Bristic. These three need to perform and impress.

 

My question is are we improving?

 

I actually think the answer is a tentative yes!

 

I think we've gone from 'one step fwd and two steps back' to 'one step forward and one step back'. A small upturn and a slow burner, indeed.

 

RM isn't going anywhere fast, so we have to get behind them and hope for a faster upward curve.

[Blueman1967]

I was talking to two of their fans before the game; it is a small club, down to their youngsters already in the season, with the keeper playing for England U21, and they were hoping for a draw; they were impressed with the ground, two genuine football fans.

[LVFox]

The problem isn’t so much the performances as a whole - it’s that you can guarentee at least 2 of McCarthy, Okoli, O’Hora or Thomas will **** up in every match

[murphy]

4 hours ago, Raj said:

Which half decent manager is coming to league one Leicester to make the difference?

 

As he said weve been sh1t since Enzo.

 

Name the manager.

You don't think any half decent managers have managed in league 1?  

 

I'm not taking about some tactical wizard, just someone else ho can organise a defence against third division opponents and can attack with intent rather than obsess about possession?  An average manager.

 

You think that is too much to ask?

 

I think that a big club at its lowest ebb is an attractive proposition for a lot of managers.  Especially with the wages we pay.  An easy promotion for the CV, but simply relieving Martin of his duties would improve us no end.  His tactics are costing us points.

 

 

[The Doctor]

having seen the second goal back, I can't believe Okoli isn't getting more of a panning. Literally just stands there waiting for the ball to come to him, letting the striker run across him to get the shot away. Sort of defending you expect from an under 10s side

[TSFox]

4 hours ago, LCFCJohn said:

You really don’t seem to appreciate that across football, and sports in general, there is and should be, a huge correlation between finances spent and output. 
 

We went ahead in little over a minute and the fans are up for it, so what is the excuse for what follows week after week? You are making out like fans are being negative from the start!

 

And I disagree that most of these players are poor league 1 players. We have some absolute wasters, many brought this summer, but any other manager would get a lot more out of them. The whole mentality of the owner and his cronies, the culture around the club and respectively, fans who accept it, are what has caused the decline to the lowest point in this season and the first time we will spent consecutive seasons below the second tier.

The beauty of football (and many other sports) is that - the correlation between wages & success.

 

What you don’t seem to appreciate is that if you put someone useless on massive wages - they’re still useless. 

[TSFox]

1 hour ago, FoxinNotts said:

Having had time to reflect, it wasn't a shite performance, by any means. The goals we conceded were very poor. 
 

Riis needs to be scoring one of his chances. 

 

O'Hora needs dropping for Kanga.

 

Burns and Chaplin need to be starting the next two cup games, along with Bristic. These three need to perform and impress.

 

My question is are we improving?

 

I actually think the answer is a tentative yes!

 

I think we've gone from 'one step fwd and two steps back' to 'one step forward and one step back'. A small upturn and a slow burner, indeed.

 

RM isn't going anywhere fast, so we have to get behind them and hope for a faster upward curve.

This is basically what I said and I got attacked! 

[Angus Scott]

I'm convinced Martin makes subs to give others a game & try to justify the signings he's made. 

 

That's all well & good if it is going to improve the team or at worse keep it at the existing level,. but week after week our subs weaken the team.  There was no need for any changes yesterday we were doing fine but to take off our most creative player & a midfielder who is always likely to get you a goal was just sheer incompetence, especially to replace them with a duo who can barely run.

 

Just imagine if we'd had Tommy Neale & Riley Carr coming on instead

[Chelmofox]

Massively conflicted about this game. I predict a draw before hand, and @Pliskin you cannot deny you posted that Stevenage would completely bully us. 

 

We were by far the best team out there by a significant margin. The usual suspect (Alves, Braybrooke, Page, Doyle, Riis) were giving it everything - even Thomas was good. Alves worked his socks off, and Braybrooke the stand out player on the pitch. Souttar was largely solid. This should have been a straightforward win. Riis hits the post and has 2 decent saves off him. 

 

We were let down by the experienced players yet again. McCarthy has been better recently but was at fault for the first and slow as anything getting down to the 2nd. Okoli garbage yet again, bumping into McCarthy and getting nutmegged for the 2nd. Chaplin, Burns and Smallbone offering nothing compare to the younger players.  Chaplin and Burns are now MASSIVE concerns, as they are keeping some decent talent out of the side.

 

Defending for the first was shocking between Souttar / Okoli  and McCarthy. Interesting that in his interview Russell blames the younger players not offering enough experience.

[Chelmofox]

57 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

having seen the second goal back, I can't believe Okoli isn't getting more of a panning. Literally just stands there waiting for the ball to come to him, letting the striker run across him to get the shot away. Sort of defending you expect from an under 10s side

He also gets nutmegged.

[Pliskin]

6 minutes ago, Chelmofox said:

Massively conflicted about this game. I predict a draw before hand, and @Pliskin you cannot deny you posted that Stevenage would completely bully us. 

 

We were by far the best team out there by a significant margin. The usual suspect (Alves, Braybrooke, Page, Doyle, Riis) were giving it everything - even Thomas was good. Alves worked his socks off, and Braybrooke the stand out player on the pitch. Souttar was largely solid. This should have been a straightforward win. Riis hits the post and has 2 decent saves off him. 

 

We were let down by the experienced players yet again. McCarthy has been better recently but was at fault for the first and slow as anything getting down to the 2nd. Okoli garbage yet again, bumping into McCarthy and getting nutmegged for the 2nd. Chaplin, Burns and Smallbone offering nothing compare to the younger players.  Chaplin and Burns are now MASSIVE concerns, as they are keeping some decent talent out of the side.

 

Defending for the first was shocking between Souttar / Okoli  and McCarthy. Interesting that in his interview Russell blames the younger players not offering enough experience.

I won’t deny it, I genuinely thought they would, but, what’s worse, they didn’t and we still didn’t beat them. 
 

Russell Martin can’t set a team up, he can’t get them defensively organised, all of his teams have been the same….. we will always score goals, but we can’t keep them out. 
 

His style of play encourages mistakes…. But, when we get into these wide spaces, rather than attack we **** about with it, and lose it….. that can’t be considered good play, we got into so many good positions, I mean, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Thomas was probably one of the better players, he got into dangerous areas, got his head up played a dangerous ball, and we then proceeded to piss around with it…… 

 

It was just another example for me of how ineffective Martin is. 

[LCFCJohn]

3 hours ago, James and his giant peach said:

Fvck me wish I'd never commented. I'm not thick, I know that drawing at home to Stevenage is rubbish and by and large this season has been dire but there are signs of progress at least in the last few weeks. We played well yesterday, defending let us down like it has all  season but we should have won comfortably, shouldn't have lost at Luton and if that was the case we are probably where Luton are now 4th only a couple of points of top 2. The signs are promising if we can keep this level of performance up but Bradford and Huddersfield will be tough games. 

My issue is that any criticism of performances and results just draws the ‘we’re not still in the Champions League you know’ argument from some. There’s a complete world between that and where we are now and this is not good enough.

 

Regarding the game yesterday, my problem with it is, week after week its ’should have won but for defensive mistakes’. If that happens every now and then, yeah, that’s football and it happens to all teams sometimes. When it’s every week, you have to say it’s not misfortune or just unlucky. It’s ingrained with the culture of the club, the style and the mentality and until we can turn that around, we will be struggling in midtable or worse of whatever division you drop us into.

 

For what it’s worth, I don’t think we are doing badly at the other end. We are creating chances. Yeah the conversion rate could be higher but we are at least scoring. I sympathise with the attacking players, Riis, Alves, Braybrooke etc as their efforts are regularly in vain whilst the systemic issues remain with how we defend. I don’t even think it’s necessarily always personnel as it goes back to the Rodgers days at least. Even the Maresca season we looked prone to defensive weakness.

 

Just feels like style over substance which on the eye, presents the feeling of dominating and being unlucky. But how many of the opposition we have faced haven’t been quite comfortable in managing us?

[Philkeavo]

20 hours ago, Pliskin said:

 

The fact that some fans are failing to see how this is an utter failure to this point is staggering, they’re either ostriches, or don’t know alot about football. 

This. I find it astonishing the number of people who somehow find encouragement in a 2-2 draw at home to Stevenage and others that remark ‘we’re only x number of points off the playoffs’. I find it mind-blowing. 

[CosbehFox]

3 hours ago, TSFox said:

The beauty of football (and many other sports) is that - the correlation between wages & success.

 

What you don’t seem to appreciate is that if you put someone useless on massive wages - they’re still useless. 

But it does matters

 

In the research football statistical book Soccernomics, they found that 90% of league finishing positions could be explained by wage bill. They did this studying 15+ years of data across the English pyramid 

[TSFox]

3 hours ago, CosbehFox said:

But it does matters

 

In the research football statistical book Soccernomics, they found that 90% of league finishing positions could be explained by wage bill. They did this studying 15+ years of data across the English pyramid 

Well Done. You read a book.

 

In 2016 - Leicester won the premier league. They didn't have the biggest wage bill.

 

Football happens.

 

The league table doesn't often lie - but according to your amazing book - it does 10% of the time. In a one-off game - the team with the bigger wage bill doesn't always win. Football fans of clubs with a massive wage bill should support the team - not just expect success.

 

 

[The Year Of The Fox]

8 minutes ago, TSFox said:

Well Done. You read a book.

 

In 2016 - Leicester won the premier league. They didn't have the biggest wage bill.

 

Football happens.

 

The league table doesn't often lie - but according to your amazing book - it does 10% of the time. In a one-off game - the team with the bigger wage bill doesn't always win. Football fans of clubs with a massive wage bill should support the team - not just expect success.

 

 

Do you call this success?

[CosbehFox]

13 minutes ago, TSFox said:

Well Done. You read a book.

 

In 2016 - Leicester won the premier league. They didn't have the biggest wage bill.

 

Football happens.

 

The league table doesn't often lie - but according to your amazing book - it does 10% of the time. In a one-off game - the team with the bigger wage bill doesn't always win. Football fans of clubs with a massive wage bill should support the team - not just expect success.

 

 

Save the silly tone for a healthier debate.
 

‘football happened’ for the first time in a generation. The other 30 seasons plus of the Premier League went to type of big wage bill, win trophies. 
 

That people’s opinion that Leicester as the biggest wage bill, largest resource and widest pull to players should be in the top two is backed by statistical data. 
 

League 1 in the last two seasons proved this when Birmingham, Wrexham and Cardiff took three of the four promotion places with the biggest budgets. 
 

Hence the expectation. In the own clubs words or as near as, a 90 points target was set. To do that we’ve got get 71 points out of a possible 99. 
 

The expectation has been set by the club and even the two of the three most powerful men at the club given their recent interviews on Radio Leicester where one of them spoke about getting back in the Premier League. 
 

What underlines all this, is regardless of this or any ownership going forward, staying in League 1 for another season is a financial nightmare and the consequences are huge. The chances of points deductions going forward significantly increased and the implications on the livelyhood of many connected to LCFC on the line. 
 

 

Edited 10 hours ago by CosbehFox

[orangecity23]

4 minutes ago, TSFox said:

Well Done. You read a book.

 

In 2016 - Leicester won the premier league. They didn't have the biggest wage bill.

 

Football happens.

 

The league table doesn't often lie - but according to your amazing book - it does 10% of the time. In a one-off game - the team with the bigger wage bill doesn't always win. Football fans of clubs with a massive wage bill should support the team - not just expect success.

 

 

This isn't a one off game though. It keeps happening again and again. Oxford, Peterborough and Burton have all beat us at home this season. These aren't outliers, and a bit of ladbacking(TM) doesn't fix that kind of thing. It's a consequence of poor management, flawed tactics, and a club where losing and poor performance permeates every element of the off the field structure, from the absent owner downwards and embodied most of all by the "high performance environment" Rudkin who has overseen a complete dismantling of the football operation.

 

The fan atmosphere stems from those failures, it's been worn down by watching years of sustained failure, lack of change off the field. People try to support the team, but when there are setbacks, they know the team will crumble under pressure, because they've watched it happen repeatedly for several years now. All the clapping in the world can't fix that.