Player Ratings

[Milton Keynes Fox]

Schmeichel 7

Peltier 7

Mills 8

Tunchev 7

Konchesky 8

Gallagher 4

King 5

Abe 3

Danns 7

Nugent 7

Schlupp N/A

Beckford 6

Wellens 6

Dyer 6

[col23]

Right I'm new on here, I've followed leicester for the last 11 years. Not good with computers but there is something thats really bothering me on here, that i must raise. I am a goalkeeper myself and play non league stuff so i always watch keepers closely. I went to the game today and have been to about 20 games this season. In these ratings I am reading about Kasper Schmeichel"s "poor" distribution... This is rubbish! As I said I love studying keepers and have got to say that Schmeichel has the best distribution in the league bar non. Today i counted 29 Schmeichel kicks, 7 out of his hands, the rest on the floor. Now people are saying poor kicking yet out of these 2 went out of play from back passes on a dodgy surface. Now as a keeper you are taught to "hit areas" which Schmeichel did great today. Thats all you can do the rest is up to the strikers, look at the amount of times we gain corners, throw-in, free kicks etc from schmeichels "poor distribution." And the about of times he has put players though on goal! It is very rare that a keeper can do this and poses such an attacking threat and it seems to me that when people are typing their ratings they think back and only remember the 2 (out of 29!!!!) that didn't go according to plan, which is what has prompted me to join and write this. I think this is wrong and looking at it from an extremely negative point of view. It is clear that Nigel tells him to go for the Quick long ball as he gives him a thumbs up after every time and every now and then when you are trying to make pin point passes at such a pace it is inevitable that they don't always come off. I will tell you now in my life time we have not had nor will we have anyone in our goal with distribution to match schmeichels standard. We should be very grateful for that!

Rant over!

[MGLCFC]

Yepp, I'll live with a couple of dodgy kicks per game when everything else is superb about Kasper's game. You can't compare too top class saves in the first half with two poor kicks in the second.

[James.]

Schmeichel 8 - we're lucky to have him

Peltier 7 - our most consistent player?

Mills 7 - some great passes (!) and generally solid

Tunchev 6 - improved as the game went on

Konchesky 7 - committed and quality

Danns 6 - not as impressed as some on here, improved but shit in the first half

Abe 5 - really struggled to impose himself

Gallagher 4 - awful

King 5 - same as Abe

Nugent 6 - hassled and worked hard, little impact though

Beckford 7 - showed signs of class but let himself down too many times

Wellens 7 - changed the energy of the performance and was involved in most of our good play towards the end

Dyer 6 - HOW DID YOU MISS?!?! Made an impact with his width (so to speak)

[LCFC BEAST]

Kasper 7 - Great saves but poor kicking.

Peltier 6 - Solid defending but restricted attacking in the first half.

Mills 9 - Solid play, won everything in the air and commanded the back. Some good passes as well (Surprisingly).

Tunchev 8 - Struggled with the pace of the game at times but shut out everything that got to him.

Konchesky 8 - Consistent again and stopped McCleary very well.

Gallagher 4 - Terrible control, couldn't beat his man and missed a sitter. Set pieces were brilliant as usual though.

Abe 5 - Surprisingly poor performance today. Bad control and was far to deep at times.

King 7 - Silent assassin today. Made defensive and attacking runs ans showed his aggression in tackles.

Danns 8 - Showed passion throughout the game and played hard in all different positions.

Nugent 6 - Looked tired but held the ball up well. Missed a sitter but hit the bar with an unlucky header.

Schlupp N/A - Hope he gets well soon. Shame for the lad.

Beckford 6 - Showed his effort today and showed signs of brilliance. Needs to up his ball control.

Wellens 6 - Showed some creativity when he came on. Read the game well.

Dyer 6 - Beat his man and gave us some with. Rating lowered by a terrible miss.

[Bettsj2]

Kasper 7 - What a great save early on. Wayward kicking, little else to do.

Pelts 6 - Restricted in the first half, supported the attack well in the second.

Konch 7 - Got well stuck in, rarely got beat and played some nice balls into feet.

Mills & Tunch 8 - Both defended really well. Mills with a heroic block after a great KS save. Tunch struggled early in, but got better and better as the game went on.

Gally 4 - Shocking. Bottled tackles and couldn't get his foot on the ball. Wasted a great chance in the first half trying to make it look like a worldy.

Danns 6 - Gave us some energy and enthusiasm, looked decent going forward at times.

Abe 4 - Another who failed to impose himself.

King 6 - most of his work was off the ball, tracking runs or making runs.

Nugent 6 - great anticipation to make his chance where his lob went wide, although it should've gone in. Forced a worldy save from Camp.

Beckford 6 - no-one can question his effort today. Anticipation wasn't great but his confidence slowly is returning.

Wellens 6 - We improved when he came on. Best he's played for a while.

Dyer 5 - pace caused problems but his end product is shit and even though it was on his right for there can be no excuses for missing an open goal from 4 yards, even at pub level.

Wont be for long if he hears any of the calls on Radio Leicester.

[Thracian]

Kasper 7 (Two important saves in the first half when we could easily have gone behind. Seriously off cue with a couple of clearances but that's a minor criticism overall).

Peltier 6 (Improved considerable second half when he offered much better support going forward).

Konchesky 7 (Another good shift. And so close to winning the game with a typically fearsome shot which was deflected past the left-hand post).

Mills 7.5 (One vital block early on which showed great determination and generally played a major part in limiting Forest's chances to scraps after our shaky start.

Tunchev 8 (Made one daft pass across the front of our penalty box which might have been intercepted but was otherwise excellent, feeding the ball clamly to feet whenever possible, reading the game well and marking tightly while conceding very little in the way of free-kicks).

Gally 4.5 (Should have won the game for us with a second half piledriver but committed the cardinal sin of failing to hit the target. Sadly, it was quite a competitive encounter and Gallagher never seems to relish the physical stuff).

Danns 6 (Sometimes seemed to try to do things too quickly for his brain. A daft tackle early on put him under some pressure but I thought he improved second half to pose quite a threat, showing great determination and running power down the right)..

Abe 4.5 (Disappointing. Looked lightweight in the cauldron of action and make any great impact in any phase).

King 7 (Won a stack of timely defensive headers when Forest were at their most dangerous and mostly passed the ball accurately and thoughtfully throughout).

Nugent 7 (Should probably have scored with his lob which passed wide of an open goal but contributed some deft interplay at times and brought one decent save from the home keeper)

Beckford 6 (Still failed to link with his team-mates or get on the scoresheet. Dyer ended the best individual run of the game by beating three men down the left and picking out the perfect pull-back for Beckford only to see the striker spoon his effort high over the bar).

Wellens 6.5 (Perhaps half-hour cameos is the way to get the best from him. Helped us dominate the last period with some thoughtful football).

Dyer 7 (Missed perhaps the best chance of the match from close range but layed on a brilliant chance for Beckford and seriously disturbed the Forest defence as we pressed for the winner in the second half).

Schlupp: Suffered what looked like a serious injury. But what the hell was he doing chasing back so far? I'm all for strikers closing people down when the ball's been lost but racing back into almost into the last third is just ridiculous. I hope it was his idea and something to learn from rather than being a management instruction.

[Bert]

It was Gallaghers poor pass which lead to Schlupp getting injured. As for Beckford's chance that he skied, that chance would never have came if Becks hadn't have chased their defender down, won the ball and back heeled it to Dyer.

[Jackirius]

Danns, Tunch and Peltier I think played very well today, also Konchesky wasn't too bad. Very disappointed with Beckford, but i'm sure there is a thread for that.

[L4EV]

Right I'm new on here, I've followed leicester for the last 11 years. Not good with computers but there is something thats really bothering me on here, that i must raise. I am a goalkeeper myself and play non league stuff so i always watch keepers closely. I went to the game today and have been to about 20 games this season. In these ratings I am reading about Kasper Schmeichel"s "poor" distribution... This is rubbish! As I said I love studying keepers and have got to say that Schmeichel has the best distribution in the league bar non. Today i counted 29 Schmeichel kicks, 7 out of his hands, the rest on the floor. Now people are saying poor kicking yet out of these 2 went out of play from back passes on a dodgy surface. Now as a keeper you are taught to "hit areas" which Schmeichel did great today. Thats all you can do the rest is up to the strikers, look at the amount of times we gain corners, throw-in, free kicks etc from schmeichels "poor distribution." And the about of times he has put players though on goal! It is very rare that a keeper can do this and poses such an attacking threat and it seems to me that when people are typing their ratings they think back and only remember the 2 (out of 29!!!!) that didn't go according to plan, which is what has prompted me to join and write this. I think this is wrong and looking at it from an extremely negative point of view. It is clear that Nigel tells him to go for the Quick long ball as he gives him a thumbs up after every time and every now and then when you are trying to make pin point passes at such a pace it is inevitable that they don't always come off. I will tell you now in my life time we have not had nor will we have anyone in our goal with distribution to match schmeichels standard. We should be very grateful for that!

Rant over!

Schmeichel's kicking has always been inconsistent. I think he likes to hoof it long because he thinks it looks impressive, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. What i'd like to know is does he ever use alternative methods of distribution, e.g. rolling, throwing

[Jimmy]

Tunchev was the pick of the bunch today, if he can keep this form up Sol will return to a nice comfy seat on the subs bench

Schmeichel 7.5

Peltier 6

Mills 8 won everything today

Tunchev 8.5 grew more as the game went on, some understandable confusion early on that he & Mills with calm heads rectified

Koncheskey 6.5

Abe 5.5 put himself about but struggled

King 6.5 good defensviely and battled hard

Danns 7 rightly keeping Wellens out atm another solid performance from him in CM and then on the wing 2nd half

Gally 4 poor today, when he's good he's great when he's bad he's useless

Schlupp n/a hope his optimism on twitter is well placed and its a minor injury

Nugent 6.5

Beckford 6 flashes of ability but no confidence, when he scores he'll go on to get loads for us

Dyer 6 played well but that miss is unforgivable for a professional footballer

Wellens 6 looked like he realises he's playing for his future and fair play to him he upped his game, maybe a sub role is best for him at this stage of his career but we'll see

[col23]

Schmeichel's kicking has always been inconsistent. I think he likes to hoof it long because he thinks it looks impressive, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. What i'd like to know is does he ever use alternative methods of distribution, e.g. rolling, throwing

Again I will disagree with you, it hasn't been inconsistent. Getting 2-3 kicks wrong in a game isn't inconsistent when you take into account the amount of times he kick. And we have a keeper that is capable of starting attacks from what i would call positive distribution.(rather than just a standard run-of-the-mill goal kick) and the reason he tries to go for the long one is not because he thinks it looks good, it is because he is one of the few who can and for the main reason that you can't be offside from a goal kick. Going that long also means that the opposition defenders are heading the ball from much further back thus the second ball will be up for grabs further up the field, this is where you need the midfield to be alive to it. And yes he does trow and roll quite a bit too, but as i said before it is obvious to see that he has been told to use the weapon that he has in his kicks. But what is unique about schmeichel is the variety of kicks he has in his arsenal, he can volley, side volley drill low or high, big hoof, long of the deck short off the deck and his is very accurate and as i said he can only put it in the ares and its up to the strikers to do the rest, cos if they don't move for it then there is not a lot more you can do as a keeper.

[ithuriel]

Having watched Smeichel a fair few times this season he is a very good keeper but does make errors at times in picking the wrong player to kick the ball out to or trying to get the play moving to fast and gifting the ball right back to the opposition.

Sometimes he needs to calm down a little bit but that will come with time and experience.

[Finnegan]

It was Gallaghers poor pass which lead to Schlupp getting injured. As for Beckford's chance that he skied, that chance would never have came if Becks hadn't have chased their defender down, won the ball and back heeled it to Dyer.

[Thracian]

It was Beckford's best involvement and might have ended with a memorable goal - but it didn't. People are clutching at straws just as they've done with Abe and countless other players who've come to :Leicester and been ordinary at best.

The last straw being clutched at is effort. Yes, Beckford has showed more effort under Pearson than Sven and yesterday was one of his better days in that respect.

But for all that he rarely linked with his team-mates, looked featherweight in trying to retain possession, was inconsistent with his control and missed the few chances that came his way - again.

His record as a striker here is appalling but his biggest problem is that when he isn't scoring he doesn't offer much else to the team.

Even Gallagher, frustrating as he is, contributes goals and assists on occasions and he's not a centre-forward.

People can make 100 excuses but the fact remains that we are not getting anywhere near enough goals from our combined central strike force and, in the end, success is all about numbers.

In fact we're not getting enough goals from anywhere. Sometimes we're not creating chances either so I don't ignore that aspect but yesterday had nothing to do with opportunity - it had to do with finishing clinically and neither Beckford nor anyone else managed to do that. Sadly we will achieve nothing with a faltering strike force however you dress it up...and more epecially when there are so few goals from the others either.

And no, i don't blame the players entirely. Scoring goals requires an attitude of mind and that attitude is grown from confidence. And, for the second time this season, we played well enough and had enough chances to win quite comfortably at Forest but didn't. We just don't have the attitude or the ruthlessness.

[Leicester Lass]

It was Beckford's best involvement and might have ended with a memorable goal - but it didn't. People are clutching at straws just as they've done with Abe and countless other players who've come to :Leicester and been ordinary at best.

The last straw being clutched at is effort. Yes, Beckford has showed more effort under Pearson than Sven and yesterday was one of his better days in that respect.

But for all that he rarely linked with his team-mates, looked featherweight in trying to retain possession, was inconsistent with his control and missed the few chances that came his way - again.

You're the first to mention about King's amazing off the ball runs which never get picked out by his team mates. I suggest you take a similar view towards Beckford, countless times he makes runs across the defensive line only for his team mates to look elsewhere and pick out a different pass or have a shot themselves. So when it's King it's everybody elses fault for not passing to him, but when it's Beckford it's his own fault? There isn't much he can do if he's making the runs but not being given the service.

[Finnegan]

You can't really compare Abe and Beckford's situations to be honest. Abe is an important member of the team who may have taken a little while to adjust but whom consistently puts in solid performances that the majority of fans have appreciated over the last nine or so months. He has his critics, sure, but I'm pretty confident that most City fans value his contributions and recognize in him an intelligent footballer who reads and breaks up play well and whom passes, for the most part, pretty crisply. He'll never set the world alight but nobody's really expecting him to.

Beckford's just... ugh. People respond to adversity in different ways, the most common are illustrated nicely by our primary striking pair at the club. This season must have been so frustrating so far for any forward at the club, King and Wellens have been absolutely woeful by their own standards, Danns has offered little alternative and we've not really had any wide players to rely on either to add some craft and vision. Our defensive work has often been solid and steady but going forward we lack any sort of vision or creativity leaving our forwards picking off scraps.

But while Nugent's ran every inch, tracked back looking for the ball, battled and fought for his chances - Beckford's just gotten annoyed with his new team mates and sulked. That's a mark of poor character and, I agree with most of our fans, it isn't really good enough. Especially for what we've paid for him. He needs to pull his ****ing finger out, show a bit of willingness (like he did yesterday, in all fairness) and fight a little witht he rest of them.

However making a scapegoat out of him just isn't in any way productive (unless you're an Andy King apologist looking to divert blame from our attacking midfielders) and it's something almost our entire support is slowly turning to doing. It's just masking the problem and the problem is the fact that our forwards aren't getting any service. You can see it happening again in a few months time, when Sharp's goal-scoring has drastically dropped off, we're not going to be bemoaning the woeful service he gets we're going to be attacking our new boy's confidence because he isn't running enough or finishing enough or winning enough ridiculous long balls pumped to a midget because Matt bloody Mills has no other ideas and no confidence in the three or four in front of him.

Beckford's been crap, yes. But it's not been entirely his fault and people using every opportunity to bring up one misguided quote about feeling pressure are starting to seriously ****ing get on my nerves. Regardless of whether or not you like the lad, he's clearly suffering and his confidence is clearly shot - so why are we jeering him when he's out there? It's not his fault he was bought and it's not his fault he's being picked for the team, when he's out there he's one of us - one of ours - so let's show a bit of willingness to get behind him and support him through it?

Because, for now, whether we like it or not - he's about the best we've got.

[GLC]

You can't really compare Abe and Beckford's situations to be honest. Abe is an important member of the team who may have taken a little while to adjust but whom consistently puts in solid performances that the majority of fans have appreciated over the last nine or so months. He has his critics, sure, but I'm pretty confident that most City fans value his contributions and recognize in him an intelligent footballer who reads and breaks up play well and whom passes, for the most part, pretty crisply. He'll never set the world alight but nobody's really expecting him to.

Beckford's just... ugh. People respond to adversity in different ways, the most common are illustrated nicely by our primary striking pair at the club. This season must have been so frustrating so far for any forward at the club, King and Wellens have been absolutely woeful by their own standards, Danns has offered little alternative and we've not really had any wide players to rely on either to add some craft and vision. Our defensive work has often been solid and steady but going forward we lack any sort of vision or creativity leaving our forwards picking off scraps.

But while Nugent's ran every inch, tracked back looking for the ball, battled and fought for his chances - Beckford's just gotten annoyed with his new team mates and sulked. That's a mark of poor character and, I agree with most of our fans, it isn't really good enough. Especially for what we've paid for him. He needs to pull his ****ing finger out, show a bit of willingness (like he did yesterday, in all fairness) and fight a little witht he rest of them.

However making a scapegoat out of him just isn't in any way productive (unless you're an Andy King apologist looking to divert blame from our attacking midfielders) and it's something almost our entire support is slowly turning to doing. It's just masking the problem and the problem is the fact that our forwards aren't getting any service. You can see it happening again in a few months time, when Sharp's goal-scoring has drastically dropped off, we're not going to be bemoaning the woeful service he gets we're going to be attacking our new boy's confidence because he isn't running enough or finishing enough or winning enough ridiculous long balls pumped to a midget because Matt bloody Mills has no other ideas and no confidence in the three or four in front of him.

Beckford's been crap, yes. But it's not been entirely his fault and people using every opportunity to bring up one misguided quote about feeling pressure are starting to seriously ****ing get on my nerves. Regardless of whether or not you like the lad, he's clearly suffering and his confidence is clearly shot - so why are we jeering him when he's out there? It's not his fault he was bought and it's not his fault he's being picked for the team, when he's out there he's one of us - one of ours - so let's show a bit of willingness to get behind him and support him through it?

Because, for now, whether we like it or not - he's about the best we've got.

Agree with this completely.

Our fans need to realise he's never been a player that comes deep and tracks back! He's an out an out striker and if he's not getting the service he won't score!

[Bettsj2]

Agree with this completely.

Our fans need to realise he's never been a player that comes deep and tracks back! He's an out an out striker and if he's not getting the service he won't score!

Just to add, I dont think he's been particularly negative with his team mates, in fact in another thread, he was critisised for applauding one of them!

[Thracian]

You can't really compare Abe and Beckford's situations to be honest. Abe is an important member of the team who may have taken a little while to adjust but whom consistently puts in solid performances that the majority of fans have appreciated over the last nine or so months. He has his critics, sure, but I'm pretty confident that most City fans value his contributions and recognize in him an intelligent footballer who reads and breaks up play well and whom passes, for the most part, pretty crisply. He'll never set the world alight but nobody's really expecting him to.

Beckford's just... ugh. People respond to adversity in different ways, the most common are illustrated nicely by our primary striking pair at the club. This season must have been so frustrating so far for any forward at the club, King and Wellens have been absolutely woeful by their own standards, Danns has offered little alternative and we've not really had any wide players to rely on either to add some craft and vision. Our defensive work has often been solid and steady but going forward we lack any sort of vision or creativity leaving our forwards picking off scraps.

But while Nugent's ran every inch, tracked back looking for the ball, battled and fought for his chances - Beckford's just gotten annoyed with his new team mates and sulked. That's a mark of poor character and, I agree with most of our fans, it isn't really good enough. Especially for what we've paid for him. He needs to pull his ****ing finger out, show a bit of willingness (like he did yesterday, in all fairness) and fight a little witht he rest of them.

However making a scapegoat out of him just isn't in any way productive (unless you're an Andy King apologist looking to divert blame from our attacking midfielders) and it's something almost our entire support is slowly turning to doing. It's just masking the problem and the problem is the fact that our forwards aren't getting any service. You can see it happening again in a few months time, when Sharp's goal-scoring has drastically dropped off, we're not going to be bemoaning the woeful service he gets we're going to be attacking our new boy's confidence because he isn't running enough or finishing enough or winning enough ridiculous long balls pumped to a midget because Matt bloody Mills has no other ideas and no confidence in the three or four in front of him.

Beckford's been crap, yes. But it's not been entirely his fault and people using every opportunity to bring up one misguided quote about feeling pressure are starting to seriously ****ing get on my nerves. Regardless of whether or not you like the lad, he's clearly suffering and his confidence is clearly shot - so why are we jeering him when he's out there? It's not his fault he was bought and it's not his fault he's being picked for the team, when he's out there he's one of us - one of ours - so let's show a bit of willingness to get behind him and support him through it?

Because, for now, whether we like it or not - he's about the best we've got.

I've said little about picking Beckford or otherwise. My criticism has been almost entirely about people pretending Beckford is playing better than he is. Some of his ratings compared him with other performers are laughable. Liking him or otherwise has nothing to do with it. I was quite excited when he arrived and remain hopeful for the future. But non of that makes me pretend he's playing well.

You seem singularly willing to put Beckford's failings down to lack of service but you don't seem to wonder why perfectly good players might not be creating at their best either.

Yesterday was the first time for weeks we've created a bundle of clear-cut chances so supply was not the issue or the reason why we failed to score yesterday. t was not even a factor.

But generally that's not the case and it's no use deflecting criticism towards King because he's played a much more defensive role in the two games Wellens failed to start and both he and us have been a lot sounder as a result, though not entirely because of King.

But attacking wise we haven't got a clue and that is partly because we're missing some important pieces from the jigsaw rather than because we've got lousy players.

We've known we've been missing those pieces for ages. But, so far, we've done little about it any more than we've brought in an attacking coach.

The real and lasting problem in our club is fear. Fear of failure and fear of not living up to the expectations of our owners, now and previously. That fear needs to be banished and when it goes perhaps with it we'll shed the inhition which stops us attacking with confidence and conviction.

Whether that will ever happen and whether Beckford can be one of those to benefit I really don't know but there's no glossing over what he is at the moment and that is a misfiring striker in a low-confidence team.

Yesterday we repeated an important step towards improving - we put a passing player in the heart of our defence - a player who should have been in the team for weeks. Team-mates all made themselves available because they knew he'd deliver a simple pass. Partly as a consequence we dominated threequarters of the game and left a lot of Forest players running out of steam towards the end of both halves.

But still we failed to win, still we failed to impose ourselves. Those chances weren't missed because the players weren't good enough to take them. They were missed because we're not used to winning and don't want to win enough. We weren't nasty enough mentally. Whether Beckford can be nasty enough remains to be seen...but I've yet to see it.

[Thracian]

You're the first to mention about King's amazing off the ball runs which never get picked out by his team mates. I suggest you take a similar view towards Beckford, countless times he makes runs across the defensive line only for his team mates to look elsewhere and pick out a different pass or have a shot themselves. So when it's King it's everybody elses fault for not passing to him, but when it's Beckford it's his own fault? There isn't much he can do if he's making the runs but not being given the service.

I've mentioned and applauded Beckford's runs on a couple of occasions. they are a feature of his game. I've criticised people for not seeing the runs. On other occasions - and twice directly from Kasper - the runs have been seen, the ball's been delivered and Beckford's failed to control it and take the chance on offer.

Beckford has obvious strengths - notably his intelligent running and his priceless ability to get a shot in quickly and with the minimum of space available.

But his close control is so clumsy, he too-often totally ignores better-placed team-mates or people making an effort to move into space and he has no idea how to hold the ball up, in fact it's laughable how easily he crumbles to the floor or loses possession.

And by the way i don't see King as being an outstanding maker of off-the-ball runs. He occasionally makes a good break that should be picked out but isn't.

Kings strengths are his ability to read the game, to limit the spaces, to pass the ball quickly and accurately and to shoot calmly and effectively when he gets the chance when coming from deep positions. He's also an excellent supplementary header of the ball in defensive situations and rarely gives away daft free-kicks.

[Karljohn]

But his close control is so clumsy, he too-often totally ignores better-placed team-mates or people making an effort to move into space and he has no idea how to hold the ball up, in fact it's laughable how easily he crumbles to the floor or loses possession.

Totally agree, and I have mentioned this on the post match thread, he cannot control a football, doesnt look like he could trap a bag of cement right now.

[wattolcfc]

Thought it was possibly Millsy's best game in a City shirt.. hope he continues to improve. Him and Tunch looked good together. Bring in Bamba as defensive midfielder (big ball winner in the centre), sign Stewart, Kebe, Sharp and a creative midfielder.. then we can push for promotion! BLUE ARMY!

[Guest ttfn]

I've mentioned and applauded Beckford's runs on a couple of occasions. they are a feature of his game. I've criticised people for not seeing the runs. On other occasions - and twice directly from Kasper - the runs have been seen, the ball's been delivered and Beckford's failed to control it and take the chance on offer.

But I think that the "Beckford's off-the-ball movement is great" argument is also a total myth. The times you mention him being picked out are both from Schmeichel's long kicks.

I mentioned a while ago that the reason for this is twofold. Firstly, Schmeichel can see the whole picture. And secondly, Schmeichel has an enormous kick.

Beckford is making the sort of runs that, if we had Xabi Alonso, in the team, would allow him plenty of chances. He is frequently peeling off the back of his marker diagonally opposite from where the ball is. But the chances of any midfielder in the Championship regularly being able to pick him out in those positions are slim-to-none.

He needs to be running the channels ahead of the man in possession. Look at the chance he hit the post with against Posh. He got in between the full-back and centre-half, and Wellens was able to slide a simple 10-yard ball into him. That was a great run. What is not a great run is running 70 yards away in the opposite direction. Even if the ball does reach him, it's harder to control when it's come over from such a distance, and there's more chance for the defenders to get across by the time he's got it under control.

People are saying that Nugent has had the same service and has scored more goals. Whilst this is true to an extent, it does not drill down into the real issue. Nugent has had the same midfield behind him but not the same service. Nugent has squandered several decent chances in recent weeks (unlike Beckford, who to be fair can't have missed more than 4 or 5 decent opportunities since he's been here). However, Nugent is getting into the right positions to get these chances, and making the right runs to receive service from our (admittedly disappointing) central midfield. Beckford is not.

I agree that Beckford hasn't had the midfield behind him to provide him with enough ammunition to be a 20-goal-a-season man. But he never was, and never will be, a good enough footballer to bag 20-a-season at this level, regardless of the service, and I said this the day he signed. His first touch simply isn't good enough, and he isn't getting into enough decent goalscoring positions.

My criticism has been almost entirely about people pretending Beckford is playing better than he is. Some of his ratings compared him with other performers are laughable.

Agree with this completely. Some of the ratings he's got for games in which he's done nothing are ridiculous. It's great that people are willing him to do well, but people are desperately looking for things that aren't there.

The Emperor has no clothes.

[Guest]

surprisingly good marks considering that Forest have no attack and our attackers couldn't put balls in from within the 6 yard box.