Holloway: We've Got To Stick Together

[Thracian]

Let's think about today:

a) No initial determination to get in their faces. Hayles put a ball across the six yard box after three minutes and no-one got into the box to supply a finishing touch. And we were generally slow to support in numbers from the back or from midfield).

b) We started with far too defensive an outlook. Why Clapham, who has never scored/made a goal should replace Mattock after his excellent contribution last week I don't know. It reduced our creative potential for no gain that I saw.

c) Our free kicks and corners were abyssmal. Have we had a single decent dead ball kick since Shush!'s departure. There's no threat at all now. Today's deliveries were mostly floated leaving defenders plenty of time to decide how to deal with them. Ridiculous.

d) No-one ever attacked the near post. It's been a fault of ours all season.

e) Much of our passing was pathetic. Even when we forged a chance we ignored the simple 10-yard ball and hit the ball 25 yards to no-one thus spoiling the opportunities.

f) We won so few of the second balls. Why is Weso continuing to sit on the bench while Holloway sacrifices our status with his blinkered belief in experience?).

g) Our distribution from defence was primary school. It is THE cardinal sin to give possession away cheaply but we did it constantly.

h) We never moved back and forwards as a team, particularly from back to front. Hull must have known it was a holiday the time they got on the ball.

i) How many strikes on goal did we have? None? One?

We simply never supported in numbers and never threatened from other things like free-kicks and corners. You cannot win without shooting.

j) Our lack of pace both individually and as a team coupled with our lack of genuine width played into Hull's hands.

[Daggers]

Let's think about today:

Let's not - it depresses me.

Let's think about nudey ladies instead.

[ibbosuk]

<Holloway: We've Got To Stick Together

Posted on: Sat 22 Mar 2008

Ian Holloway sent out a message to the club's supporters following Leicester's 2-0 defeat to Hull at the Walkers Stadium on Saturday.

A massive 30,374 fans turned up on the day - easily City's biggest crowd of the season to date.

But goals from Dean Marney and substitute Caleb Folan would send the Blue Army home disappointed.

Holloway said: "I hope and pray that you, the supporters, never fall out of love with Leicester - and I don't think you ever will. We have had some terrible times and that was awful today.

"But these lads need you. You were unbelievable today - I have to say that.

"Some days you come up against teams that are simply better than you. Today, Hull were better than us and that hurts. We take one step forward and then one step back, but that was as far backwards as I ever want to be because I didn't enjoy that at all.

"When Hendo made that fantastic save from the penalty you nearly ripped the roof off. But we didn't kick on from that on the pitch. They then scored a second and that has murdered us.

"I understand how you all feel and we now need to do something about it when we come up against S****horpe next week.

"I think we have let down one of the best crowds I have ever seen today. I would say that only one or two of my players played as well as they can. They were unrecognisable to the team that played last Saturday. I saw us make wrong choices and I saw us play the wrong pass. We lost the ball in key areas and I saw very good players look unbelievably average.

"That's very difficult to take when you are playing in front of such a big crowd who are totally behind you. All you want to do is please them but we haven't done that today.

"We knew that we were up against a half decent side in a good run of form, but I felt that we had turned the corner last week. We have looked confident and upbeat all week but we didn't create what we needed to on the day.

"I think that too many of the players are thinking about the wrong things. How many times did I see my midfield players look hurried and lose the ball? Last week they had all the time in the world and they looked composed.

"At the end of the game some of you were singing 'what a load of rubbish' and that is exactly what I felt. It's difficult to fathom. Confidence drains away so quickly with this group - it is quite amazing.

"But we have got to stick together. We need you again against S****horpe next week and I am sure, with your help, we can get out of this mess that we are in."

Kinda sounds he's begging for his job... Pathetic

[Scow]

I couldn't give a shit if we beat WBA 4-1. For a start, they were down to 10 men. Secondly, why play effectively a 4-5-1 at home against fuc king Hull? I bet Hull were thinking: 'Come on lads, they've got Hayles, Howard and Fryatt upront, let's sit deep!'.

Twat.

[FilboFox]

Hopefully next week it'll be Iain Dowie's, or at least in the hands of a manager who knows what he's doing.

Holloway has long passed his sell-by date...

Iain Dowie... GREAT!

PLEASE, Ollie isn't doing that bad when you look at it. You are just using him as a scapegoat for the RUBBISH that the PLAYERS are giving. Ollie sets out the right kind of tactics and chooses a pretty good team BUT the players just aren't performing! BLAME THEM, NOT OLLIE!!!! He can only do so much...

[clazkel]

I think he should've started with 2 upfront from the start of the game, and at half time when he changed things, he should've put Fryatt upfront with Howard and kept Hayles on the left. Fryatt isn't any good on the wing, playing on the right one half and left the other. Then he takes Fryatt off for DJ and put Hayles back on the wing. What is it with Holloway not playing Hume and Fryatt upfront? I think he is ruining great players in Hume and Fryatt by playing them on the wing. Hayles played really well on the wing in the first half so he should've stayed there. Thats what frustrates me as i don't understand some of the tactics and substitutions sometimes

I also thought the atmosphere and support from the crowd was very poor today. I know there wasn't much to shout about but we should be getting behind the team from before kick off as the support from the crowd can really help the team and they need all the help they can get at the minute. After being at WestBrom last week, the atmosphere was great, i thought with 30,000 fans the atmosphere would be great today but it wasn't!

[Kurrif]

I,ll admit to not being sure about Ollie but still think that this club desperately needs stability and therefore we have to stick with him and hope he comes good eventually. It took Moyles up here in scouseland at least two seasons before Everton looked anything but shite. ( Werent we linked with Moyles just before we got Peter Taylor!!!!!).

Anyhow what will really piss me off is that when/ if ( and I still hope to god its if) we get relegated we will then get all the shite from this bunch of crap syaing they want out because the club "doesnt match their ambitions", I hope Ollie and Mandie find a way of making this bunch suffer the way they make us suffer week in week out.

The reality is that we just have to batten down the hatches and expect the worse, anything we claw out will then be a bonus. Yes Ollie seems to be tactictly naieve and I wish he would spend less time on punditry and columns but given that the options for replacing him probably means Dowie or worse I dont think we have any choice but to stick.

(I,m new here so havent worked out all this fancy signature stuff yet, give me time!)

[Vo Rogue]

And he admits he has players in midfield that dont know what they were doing while he has players on the bench he doesnt play that are desperate to play for City. Sack Ollie now. Before we're doomed and he pisses off.

[Mack]

Are we using Pritt Stick or No Nails for this exersize?

[MPH]

Sign frazier campbell at the end of the season. he looked dangerous every time he got the ball...

[Father Ted]

Let's think about today:

a) No initial determination to get in their faces. Hayles put a ball across the six yard box after three minutes and no-one got into the box to supply a finishing touch. And we were generally slow to support in numbers from the back or from midfield).

b) We started with far too defensive an outlook. Why Clapham, who has never scored/made a goal should replace Mattock after his excellent contribution last week I don't know. It reduced our creative potential for no gain that I saw.

c) Our free kicks and corners were abyssmal. Have we had a single decent dead ball kick since Shush!'s departure. There's no threat at all now. Today's deliveries were mostly floated leaving defenders plenty of time to decide how to deal with them. Ridiculous.

d) No-one ever attacked the near post. It's been a fault of ours all season.

e) Much of our passing was pathetic. Even when we forged a chance we ignored the simple 10-yard ball and hit the ball 25 yards to no-one thus spoiling the opportunities.

f) We won so few of the second balls. Why is Weso continuing to sit on the bench while Holloway sacrifices our status with his blinkered belief in experience?).

g) Our distribution from defence was primary school. It is THE cardinal sin to give possession away cheaply but we did it constantly.

h) We never moved back and forwards as a team, particularly from back to front. Hull must have known it was a holiday the time they got on the ball.

i) How many strikes on goal did we have? None? One?

We simply never supported in numbers and never threatened from other things like free-kicks and corners. You cannot win without shooting.

j) Our lack of pace both individually and as a team coupled with our lack of genuine width played into Hull's hands.

I agree with everything there but c) the most. Everytime we go back post to Howard (who can't head), Mcauley or Stearman, how on earth are we meant to score from these situations if its the same thing over and over again?

[Thracian]

Tactically Holloway seems to be clueless.

He named a line-up that suggested he'd go 4-3-3 but with one instead of two wing-backs then totally conceded the initiative by playing 4-5-1.

For Hull's big but not particularly mobile defenders Easter Saturday must have seemed like a holiday they weren't expecting.

I would love to hear Holloway try to explain his approach and exactly why, as early as the first three minutes, we failed to have men in the box for a tap in.

Even when we fell behind Holloway was far too slow to react and did too little too late anyway. Where was the leadership when we needed it?

In case the club itself have refused to look at the table Leicester City need to win games, not simply avoid losing them, a tactic which far too often fails to work anyway because, basically, we're not reliable enough as we've shown time and again.

Indeed it is hard to think of a club that fails to learn from its own mistakes more than Leicester.

All we get is endless empty words but no on-the-pitch progress that anyone can recognise and certainly there's no change of philosophy.

Look at Newcastle. Kevin Keegan might have done a MON and failed to get a win for ages. But he stuck to his belief in attacking football, finally got his win and there's no doubt his team are starting to look well worth watching and will be moving forward in every way from now on. Even in similar circumstances to City's he persevered with what he knew he wished to achieve in the end.

We, by comparison, remain utterly bland and featureless in our approach. Our team carries no more fear for opponents than it did under Kelly and Levein.

Bottom line is we don't represent anything, neither a team committed to attack nor a resolute George Graham-type defensive outfit.

Even new signings Etuhu and Hendrie looked to be getting the Leicester blues yesterday. Etuhu never ran at anyone with any pace and his final ball was Sylla-like. Hendrie meanwhile looked overburdened and frustrated by the shortage of creative passing options.

Stearman excepted there was so little movement around him we were like a team with constipation. Put plainly we didn't ask nearly enough questions and it was so soul-destroying to watch.

Get Taggart/Beaglehole in before it's too late even if Holloway has to move upstairs.

And get Shush! and Gradel back too if possible. And others who can make things happen.

How many times does Mandaric need telling before he gets the message. We need some sodding goals and that means having people in the team who can create/deliver goals.

How will Jamie Clapham and a 4-5-1 system achieve that?

We'll do none of the above of course. We'll plod on with Dad's Experienced Army. How appropriate the initials of that spells DEA, just one letter away from DEAD.

Our centre-backs will still be allowed to pump the ball aimlessly forward, our left flank will continue to offer sod all, our strikers will continue to be short of support and our right flank will continue failing to offer a final pass from anyone but full-back Stearman.

Nothing like carrying a handicap or five when your Championship survival depends on it.

[Head Honcho]

Tactically Holloway seems to be clueless.

He named a line-up that suggested he'd go 4-3-3 but with one instead of two wing-backs then totally conceded the initiative by playing 4-5-1.

For Hull's big but not particularly mobile defenders Easter Saturday must have seemed like a holiday they weren't expecting.

I would love to hear Holloway try to explain his approach and exactly why, as early as the first three minutes, we failed to have men in the box for a tap in.

Even when we fell behind Holloway was far too slow to react and did too little too late anyway. Where was the leadership when we needed it?

In case the club itself have refused to look at the table Leicester City need to win games, not simply avoid losing them, a tactic which far too often fails to work anyway because, basically, we're not reliable enough as we've shown time and again.

Indeed it is hard to think of a club that fails to learn from its own mistakes more than Leicester.

All we get is endless empty words but no on-the-pitch progress that anyone can recognise and certainly there's no change of philosophy.

Look at Newcastle. Kevin Keegan might have done a MON and failed to get a win for ages. But he stuck to his belief in attacking football, finally got his win and there's no doubt his team are starting to look well worth watching and will be moving forward in every way from now on. Even in similar circumstances to City's he persevered with what he knew he wished to achieve in the end.

We, by comparison, remain utterly bland and featureless in our approach. Our team carries no more fear for opponents than it did under Kelly and Levein.

Bottom line is we don't represent anything, neither a team committed to attack nor a resolute George Graham-type defensive outfit.

Even new signings Etuhu and Hendrie looked to be getting the Leicester blues yesterday. Etuhu never ran at anyone with any pace and his final ball was Sylla-like. Hendrie meanwhile looked overburdened and frustrated by the shortage of creative passing options.

Stearman excepted there was so little movement around him we were like a team with constipation. Put plainly we didn't ask nearly enough questions and it was so soul-destroying to watch.

Get Taggart/Beaglehole in before it's too late even if Holloway has to move upstairs.

And get Shush! and Gradel back too if possible. And others who can make things happen.

How many times does Mandaric need telling before he gets the message. We need some sodding goals and that means having people in the team who can create/deliver goals.

How will Jamie Clapham and a 4-5-1 system achieve that?

We'll do none of the above of course. We'll plod on with Dad's Experienced Army. How appropriate the initials of that spells DEA, just one letter away from DEAD.

Our centre-backs will still be allowed to pump the ball aimlessly forward, our left flank will continue to offer sod all, our strikers will continue to be short of support and our right flank will continue failing to offer a final pass from anyone but full-back Stearman.

Nothing like carrying a handicap or five when your Championship survival depends on it.

...........but listening to Holloway you'd think it was the players' fault!

Do you think that's how he sent them out or did they just go out and play where they wanted?

He was blaming everyone on RL yesterday but himself.

[Thracian]

...........but listening to Holloway you'd think it was the players' fault!

Do you think that's how he sent them out or did they just go out and play where they wanted?

He was blaming everyone on RL yesterday but himself.

Nothing new in that yet the truth is when things go right in football it's down to the players and when they go wrong it's down to the manager. And rightly so.

If any player was failing to follow instructions there's an easy answer for a manager.

[p.po40]

This is Ollie`s team, he has been very unlucky in the transfer market with Hayles etc.

i would like him to fall on his sword and go back to Bristol Rovers!!

[Thracian]

This is Ollie`s team, he has been very unlucky in the transfer market with Hayles etc.

i would like him to fall on his sword and go back to Bristol Rovers!!

THe way we're going at home, he'd miss!

[DB11]

He means stick by him so he don't get sacked

[reynard]

I,ll admit to not being sure about Ollie but still think that this club desperately needs stability and therefore we have to stick with him and hope he comes good eventually. It took Moyles up here in scouseland at least two seasons before Everton looked anything but shite. ( Werent we linked with Moyles just before we got Peter Taylor!!!!!).

Anyhow what will really piss me off is that when/ if ( and I still hope to god its if) we get relegated we will then get all the shite from this bunch of crap syaing they want out because the club "doesnt match their ambitions", I hope Ollie and Mandie find a way of making this bunch suffer the way they make us suffer week in week out.

if we get relegated then I suspect the first who will want out of the door will be Mandaric as soon as he can get some of his money back.

[reynard]

Iain Dowie... GREAT!

PLEASE, Ollie isn't doing that bad when you look at it. You are just using him as a scapegoat for the RUBBISH that the PLAYERS are giving. Ollie sets out the right kind of tactics and chooses a pretty good team BUT the players just aren't performing! BLAME THEM, NOT OLLIE!!!! He can only do so much...

Isn't doing that badly??

your expectations are somewhat lower than mine but his record here is awful. These are mainly his players, brought to the club by him, selected by him, motivated? by him and trained? by him. At the moment he is looking clueless.

[Raj]

Has he ran out of excuses now???

Really,ive had enough of his quotes,his funny quirks and his face on TV!!!

He'll be in tears soon and proclaiming his love for Leicester...Oh he's done the latter alreday hasnt he????

BORING!!!!!

[ASH17LCFC]

Has he ran out of excuses now???

Really,ive had enough of his quotes,his funny quirks and his face on TV!!!

He'll be in tears soon and proclaiming his love for Leicester...Oh he's done the latter alreday hasnt he????

BORING!!!!!

He is a media tart nothing else, even when we won at WBA. He still had to try and get a laugh out of it by saying he had them listen to a cd his sister gave him

[Raj]

He is a media tart nothing else, even when we won at WBA. He still had to try and get a laugh out of it by saying he had them listen to a cd his sister gave him

Should have got the fcukers to listen to the CD yday then!!!

[Sniffer-Clarke]

Isn't doing that badly??

your expectations are somewhat lower than mine but his record here is awful. These are mainly his players, brought to the club by him, selected by him, motivated? by him and trained? by him. At the moment he is looking clueless.

Hi reynard. I have spoke to this gezzer before [ filbofox ] he keeps telling me that ollie is doing ok thats why we are 3rd from bottom and only on goal difference. I think this gezzer will laugh his bolllocks off if we get relegated.If holloway had been at any of the top 4 teams with the record he has got a city he would have GONE by now.

Milan has got to make a MAJOR decision in the next week or 10 days hes either got to stick holloway and possibly get us relegated or get someone in until the end of the season and ask the fans next time if they can recommend a top manager to come in in the summer.Because selecting managers is not his strongest point.

[Thracian]

Hi reynard. I have spoke to this gezzer before [ filbofox ] he keeps telling me that ollie is doing ok thats why we are 3rd from bottom and only on goal difference. I think this gezzer will laugh his bolllocks off if we get relegated.If holloway had been at any of the top 4 teams with the record he has got a city he would have GONE by now.

Milan has got to make a MAJOR decision in the next week or 10 days hes either got to stick holloway and possibly get us relegated or get someone in until the end of the season and ask the fans next time if they can recommend a top manager to come in in the summer.Because selecting managers is not his strongest point.

If he'd taken some advice and gone for Paul Ince, or even Simon Grayson which was another suggestion, we might have been competing at the other end of the table.