Monaco Post Match Thread 0 - 3

[DanSimp89]

Obviously bakayogo has been brought in as a view to alter konch's position (or get rid of )also now with schlupp able to play there. The young lads including (schlupp) dont seem to get enough game time for me. Pearson should have more faith in the young lads. Instead of replacing them with average players. The new formation with the full backs pushing forward is positive but when sitting the back four still look all over the shop. We need another consistent CB to accompny wesley.

[chris_lcfc_85]

I'm also struggling to see the criticism of whitbread today, hardly put a foot wrong apart from 1 bad pass and was up against a lot of quality. Did a good job. Moore looked tidy too

[The Year Of The Fox]

I know people will say 'it's just a friendly', but we did not look anywhere near ready there. Lack of appetite and clearly no idea of who or what system we're gonna play. 

I agree but perhaps they were withholding themselves with only 7 days til the start. I hope so anyway

[The Year Of The Fox]

Thought we were very disappointing to be honest. We're going to struggle for goals this season, not one of the strikers offered any kind of attacking threat.

We'll be OK. Without sounding arrogant there's not a lot many defences can do about the prowess of Nugent and Woods strikers instinct. Sure the lack of pre season goals may be a little worrying but I'm not reading too much into it.

 

Vardy had a couple of poor touches when if they'd been decent he'd have had a chance. He just needs confidence. We know Waggy can do the bizz too given enough game time.

[Legend_in_blue]

What exactly has Pearson said to his players in order to function effectively as a unit in a 352 formation?

We're treated to the knowledge that all the players were wearing GPS tracking equipment. Well, if this is the case, downloading and then analysing that bucketload of trash should take all of 10 seconds max.

GPS or no GPS, that just wasn't a good enough or a convincing enough display imo.

Regardless of the opposition, regardless of the nature of this game, I saw very little to convince me otherwise that a) we know what system we're playing and how we're playing it or b) we are any closer to understanding who we should be playing and where.

I'm worried for the start of this season. We appear to be disjointed, lacking any urgency on or off the ball, verging on clueless.

Needs sorting. In one week? Extremely difficult task.

2/1...

[Foxes1]

I'm also struggling to see the criticism of whitbread today, hardly put a foot wrong apart from 1 bad pass and was up against a lot of quality. Did a good job. Moore looked tidy too

The reason he was criticised today was that LCFC fans always have to have a scapegoat and at the minute that player is Whitbread, its been the same down the years.If Wood doesn't score in the first 2 league games it will be him.

[bluesbrothers]

I honestly can't fathom the criticism of Whitbread. I understand Wellens is gone and folks now need a new scapegoat for everything that goes wrong, but he was by no means the complete disaster today everybody makes him out to be. His distribution is pants, granted, but I honestly think him and Morgan worked well to neutralise what was a pretty strong threat.

If anything, St. Ledger was the culprit for most of their chances today, but people will forgive him, because he's, like, well an Ireland international and shit.

As for Danns, what do you expect against a possession football side, having gone 4-4-2? Put him in a five-man midfield where he gets more freedom then report back before counting your eggs.

I'd say the whole 2nd half performance was quite lame. First half, we looked great on the counter attack.

[Fox92]

Massive overreaction about Whitbread! His distribution was solid today, positioning was good and always made sure to track his man. Can't fault him at all today, was hoping he would have stayed on instead of SSL.

He was wrong side of his man from one of the free kicks.

[GingerrrFox]

Here's the rating system - Immense/Good/Average/Poor/Shit

Kasper - Good

SSL - Average

Morgan - Good

Whitbread - Good (pains me to say as usually he's shit and I slate him)

RDL - Good

Moore - Good

Gallagher - Poor

Schlupp - Average

Bakayogo - Cant judge off 15 minutes

Konchesky - Poor

Danns - Shit

Marshall - Good

Knockaert - Poor

Dyer - Shit

King - Poor

Drinkwater - Poor

James - Immense

Wood - Shit

Waghorn - Average

Vardy - Poor

[Blue will]

Pro footballers should be capable of playing different for formations, it's not hard

Hope we can get it sorted for next Saturday

[MrBojangles]

What a positive bunch we are. Sounds like we all watched a different game with every player on the pitch somewhere between 'useless' and 'not bad actually'. I think there are plenty of reasons to think we'll do surprisingly well this season for what it's worth

[The Year Of The Fox]

What was the attendance today? I did watch the game (on TV) and Polish beers at 5.6% for £1 a can have prevented me from paying too much attention to the game !

 

I thought though at times the crowd/atmosphere was fairly good, in that I didn't expect to hear us at all yet I did quite often. Fair play to those who went and sang

[Kitchandro]

Our biggest problems today if you ignore the 3 goals conceded against a obviously superior side were our final ball into the box and set pieces so many of which landed straight in the goal keeper's hands.

 

The same problems we've had for some time.

 

I had to laugh when the inevitable happened - we got a corner and straight away Hinchcliffe started talking about how good we are at setpieces.

 

It's getting beyond silly now, I expect a lack of research from TV pundits but anyone who says we are good at setpieces is officially a cvnt.

[Poakey]

Love the Viva Leicester chant

[Kitchandro]

It took 2 minutes 12 seconds before the person in front of me moaned about the team. 

 

And 10 minutes for the crowd to start with 'We always get shit refs'.

 

10 minutes into the first home friendly of the season

[Kitchandro]

We'll be OK. Without sounding arrogant there's not a lot many defences can do about the prowess of Nugent and Woods strikers instinct. Sure the lack of pre season goals may be a little worrying but I'm not reading too much into it.

 

Vardy had a couple of poor touches when if they'd been decent he'd have had a chance. He just needs confidence. We know Waggy can do the bizz too given enough game time.

 

The problem is that Vardy's touch has been poor since he's been here, it's not confidence. And Wood has been lacking confidence for months now, when is he going to snap out of it and turn into the player he was for the first 8 games with us?

 

In an ideal world we'd definitely bring another striker in.

[kingfox]

Whitbread was one of our better players today FACT! He got forward better than Konchesky even, and he was picking out passes well. St Ledger did nothing wrong either, as some people say he did, not being bias as well, him and Morgan looked comfortable for most of the game.

 

 

Exactly what does Drinkwater bring to the team? He passes forward effectively sooooo infrequently.
Work to do on this lot.

 

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

 

Love you Col.

[Happy Fox]

Vardy and Waghorn are not up to scratch you can try and paint them like Picasso it aint going to f**king work need a 3rd choice striker or if not possible promote a striker from the Under 21s.

[suffolk fox]

How anyone can call Waghorn an embarrassment when Wood looked like a Leicester Tigers player had been shoved into a blue shirt is beyond me. The 3-5-2 showed more potential for me than the 4-5-1/4-4-2 in the 2nd half. I felt we lacked pace on the left compared to the right but that could be combated with Baka/Schlupp instead of Konch who I would like to have been tried at LCB. The 3 in midfield was wrong as there was no out and out creative player in there. Kingy seemed to go missing though and Knocky looked wasted out wide but did little in the game.

Agree Wood first touch is diabolical and he still can't trap a football. Honestly do not think he could trap a bag of cement.

[GingerrrFox]

Vardy and Waghorn are not up to scratch you can try and paint them like Picasso it aint going to f**king work need a 3rd choice striker or if not possible promote a striker from the Under 21s.

Wood was worse than Waghorn today and that is not even debatable.

[Ric Flair]

Devoid of ideas up front was a big problem last season and I can't see it changing much. If we could just get one more striker with sheer pace and a good first touch then that would be a big help. We're possibly a centre half and a centre midfielder short too as Danns i'm not convinced will be in the plans and he didn't seem particularly motivated. Whitbread looked alright today but does a lot of fouling, which annoys me. St Ledger looked iffy but he'll do a job if we need him. De Laet and James were excellent in their positioning, but Konchesky is going to struggle at left wing back, i'd rather he dropped in as the left centre back and have either Schlupp, Bakayogo or even Dyer there.

Wood was worse than Waghorn today and that is not even debatable.

 

Wood wasn't as bad as he was at the end of last season. He held it up well and made some positive runs but it was fairly mediocre I must admit.

[chris_lcfc_85]

Whitbread was one of our better players today FACT! He got forward better than Konchesky even, and he was picking out passes well. St Ledger did nothing wrong either, as some people say he did, not being bias as well, him and Morgan looked comfortable for most of the game.   YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS Love you Col.

We can debate all day but he actually played a fair few forward passes today and constantly played the ball to the wide players or often looked wide for options. That's not my opinion chaps, that actually happened today. He was better than king or Danns IMO.

Plus he is allowed to go back you know, it's called ball retention.

It's better than pumping it constantly and handing possession back to the opposition

[ramadaone]

He was wrong side of his man from one of the free kicks.

If you look at it again he was the right side of his man ( goal side ) but Morgan who should have been the "shield" had not got in front of the player - the reason Morgan was out of position was due to a very clever block by one of the Monaco forwards who was standing originally in an off side position

This little things all add up but today's game just confirmed that in general " English" players are technically miles behind "foreign" players especially with their first touch ( see Vardy )

This isn't Pearsons fault but more to do with our Academies in general but perhaps the EPPP will resolve that issue in time ( but probably not my life time )

Until "we" make possession of the ball a much higher priority than we currently do England will continue to lag behind the rest of the world.

Starting 11 today would originally have been Pearsons starting 11 against Boro but think his after match comments Drinkwater will be replaced by Marshall and Vardy by Nugent subject to injury

[chris_lcfc_85]

We can debate all day but he actually played a fair few forward passes today and constantly played the ball to the wide players or often looked wide for options. That's not my opinion chaps, that actually happened today. He was better than king or Danns IMO.Plus he is allowed to go back you know, it's called ball retention.It's better than pumping it constantly and handing possession back to the opposition

Obviously I'm referring to drinkwater

[Babylon]

Wood was ok for the first 20 minutes when the rest of the team were doing ok and he had support. We could have Ronaldo upfront, but if he's not getting the balls or the support from others it's unlikely anything will come from it. After 20 minutes the wingbacks stop getting forward, the midfield stopped pressing up and he was isolated upfront just as he and Nugent were at the end of last season.