Bayfox Posted 3 December 2014 Posted 3 December 2014 I know it's a big ask but I don't want this to be about slating anyone. But which of the above is the reason for our current position? I think a lot of us felt when we came up, that players such as DD, mahrez, vardy etc could more than hold their own in the top flight. Our start backed up that, however was the month with the diamond a wasted month, well that was down to NFP. In the last couple of games, we have gone back to something closer to 4 4 ****ing 2. But still got very little reward for our efforts, is this a sign the players aren't good enough or is it just individual errors. I would like to see where people would lay the blame, if any. Or is it a combination of all 3?
Dickov22 Posted 3 December 2014 Posted 3 December 2014 All 3 for me. Kasper threw away two points against Burnley Pearson killed any chance we had of getting anything against WBA and Southampton with that dreadful diamond Tactics- QPR away for example- bring off Ulloa and put on Albrighton. Crazy Vardy has missed loads of chances he'd have put away last season. Nothing Pearson can do about that and we have no one better Combination of all sorts. I'd add lack of transfer dealings in the summer too but I don't blame Pearson for that. He made it clear through various interviews over the summer that he wanted to sign more players but for reasons we don't know, couldn't. I can't believe for a second he honestly wanted to start the season with Konchesky as first choice left back. With only two decent strikers in Vardy and Ulloa etc. I really think Pearson deserves longer to turn it around. Why should we only give him a third of the season yet give a new manager two thirds? Should be the other way round for me. People suggesting Pulis assume he is literally waiting around the corner to take the hot seat! He might not even want to come here and even if he did, it's clear we lack quality. Luckily for us, there are other sides equally as poor in my opinion: WBA Palace Burnley QPR Villa
cc_star Posted 3 December 2014 Posted 3 December 2014 Tactics, tactics, tactics. Yes there's individual error after individual error costing us 1, 2 or 3 goals every game but those situations are only coming about because of our tactics We have to be difficult to play against & 442 either flat with wingers or in a diamond is easy to play against. Defend in numbers like we did Vs Arsenal to good effect & to nearly good effect Vs Chelsea, and this would be far easier than it was in those two games with a midfielder or two patrolling our defensive line Our gung ho approach (with both mids running box-to-box the whole 90mins) will see us lose practically every game because it will always give the opposition chances, & in this division they have the quality to finish them Become difficult to play against first & foremost, then go gung go later on to chase a result, if needed!
Babylon Posted 3 December 2014 Posted 3 December 2014 I've seen a lot of people saying we need to tighten up etc, we tried that againt Southampton, Swansea and West Brom and were beyond woeful. I'd rather sit through games like QPR and Liverpool than experience those games again.
Crinklyfox Posted 3 December 2014 Posted 3 December 2014 Tactics in previous games like Newcastle but more recently players, who despite putting in a shift appear low on confidence. The manager's responsible for tactics and motivation.
walkerleeds Posted 3 December 2014 Posted 3 December 2014 Players. Three mistakes cost us the goals. How can the manager legislate for that?
Fox Ulike Posted 3 December 2014 Posted 3 December 2014 I've seen a lot of people saying we need to tighten up etc, we tried that againt Southampton, Swansea and West Brom and were beyond woeful. I'd rather sit through games like QPR and Liverpool than experience those games again. I think what people are saying (or what I'm saying maybe) is that what we need is balance. It's not a question of whether we go with the choking 4 man midfield like West Brom, or the gung-ho 442 against QPR. There are other options! It's about combining the two approaches so that we're not overly defensive but not wide open either. I keep saying it: 451. Overly dramatic i know... BUT...It's our only hope now.
Fox Ulike Posted 3 December 2014 Posted 3 December 2014 Just incidentally, we played 3 in the middle in the second half at Stoke (Cambi, Drinky and Hammond). We started the same 3 in the middle in the game against Man Utd. We then had one bad result against Palace and abandoned 3 in the middle, and so in the next game against Burnley we went with just 2 in the middle with a 442. We haven't won since.
marbelladave Posted 3 December 2014 Posted 3 December 2014 When you have a squad of moderate players you have to get the best out of them. This means playing a system that they all buy into, that they understand and that they are capable of playing. There have been times when our platers have looked like they do not know what they are doing, what they are being asked to do seems to go against every instinct in their bodies. Las night our best play came when we stopped worrying about what we were supposed to be doing and just went for it, I'm not suggesting that is the answer but getting players to concentrate on what they are best at would be a start. Just a few examples, De Laet being asked to play narrow and deep at QPR, hopeless. Let loose to press Sterling last night, much better. Morgan as a left centre back, even Konchesky looked better in that position. Burdening Mahrez with so much defensive work that his attacking flair is lost. There are other factors too, zonal marking seems to mean that no-one knows who is responsible for marking who, central midfielders allowed to run loose leaving central defence without support, playing Ulloa in a side with no one to cross the ball, etc, etc. The energy and application is there, most games anyway, just set up to get the most from it.
kingpowerout Posted 3 December 2014 Posted 3 December 2014 All 3 for me. Kasper threw away two points against Burnley Pearson killed any chance we had of getting anything against WBA and Southampton with that dreadful diamond Tactics- QPR away for example- bring off Ulloa and put on Albrighton. Crazy Vardy has missed loads of chances he'd have put away last season. Nothing Pearson can do about that and we have no one better Combination of all sorts. I'd add lack of transfer dealings in the summer too but I don't blame Pearson for that. He made it clear through various interviews over the summer that he wanted to sign more players but for reasons we don't know, couldn't. I can't believe for a second he honestly wanted to start the season with Konchesky as first choice left back. With only two decent strikers in Vardy and Ulloa etc. I really think Pearson deserves longer to turn it around. Why should we only give him a third of the season yet give a new manager two thirds? Should be the other way round for me. People suggesting Pulis assume he is literally waiting around the corner to take the hot seat! He might not even want to come here and even if he did, it's clear we lack quality. Luckily for us, there are other sides equally as poor in my opinion: WBA Palace Burnley QPR Villa I agree with all the above apart from: WBA - Have Berahino Burnley - Have Ings QPR - Have Austin Villa - Have Benteke All those players are capable of creating a goal and winning a game out of nothing. We do not have that player in our squad. Ulloa spends 75% of his game outside the box trying his hardest to hold up the ball and wait for support. For all of Jamie Vardy's huff and puff he needs 4 chances to score 1 goal and as a newly promoted team you are lucky if you get 4 decent chances in a game at this level. The club have invested a lot of time and money into Pearson and in particular his backroom staff and scouting network it's about time they start to find us players not with potential but with the current ability to change games at this level.
David Guiza Posted 3 December 2014 Posted 3 December 2014 As above, all 3 for me. Pearson - His arrogance is great when we're winning, but it really doesn't help him when we're not. His comments after the Burnley game have really came back to bite him, since then Burnley have found a little form and we have been dreadful at best. Also, post the United game he seems to have given far too much respect to very poor sides, Burnley, Sunderland and West Brom at home in particular. Tactics - I won't even go into the diamond, but everybody knows that didn't work. Pearson himself said he wanted to stick with the majority of the players that got us here in the first place, and that's fair enough, but he's done the complete opposite in many ways. Yes the majority of the players are the same, but the shape, balance and ambition of the side is completley different. Of course there were always going to be changes due to the difference in opposition, but there's no way on earth we'd have faced up to Derby and QPR last season, for example, in the manner that we did against West Brom this season - why the difference? Players - As above, there have been far too many individual errors thus far from players who were almost faultless last season. But, the difference is, our errors are being punished by the opposition and we're not punishing any errors ourselves. Of course Pearson is going to say that confidence and belief is as high as ever, to protect the players etc, but far too many players are doing things this season that they'd never have done last season. E.g Vardy last night shooting from 20yards rather than running at Kolo Toure, same as Nugent on numerous occasions. James giving the ball away so many times needlessly, Konch unable to find a blue shirt (some might say that's always the case), Morgan giving too much respect to their forwards at times. It's clear that there's not one single thing that will change our season, but as Nige said it's down to himself and the players, not anybody else, to turn it around. Sunday is massive for me, a win will banish most of the memories of the last couple of months, a draw will breave a little bit of confidence, and a loss may be the final nail in the coffin in some respects - based on the forthcoming games after Villa.
Babylon Posted 3 December 2014 Posted 3 December 2014 I think what people are saying (or what I'm saying maybe) is that what we need is balance. It's not a question of whether we go with the choking 4 man midfield like West Brom, or the gung-ho 442 against QPR. There are other options! It's about combining the two approaches so that we're not overly defensive but not wide open either. I keep saying it: 451. Overly dramatic i know... BUT...It's our only hope now. I don't know about you, but I've seen us play 4-5-1 before and we've been utterly shit, in the championship and this league. Yes I understand balance but you talk like it's easy to achieve. We played mega defensive and still conceded and lost, we played attacking and still didn't score enough to win. Whilst I agree about balance, it might not make much difference if the extremes aren't even fixing the problems they are meant to. Last night we didn't lose through being too attacking, we weren't caught on the counter particularly. We had stupid unforced errors and lapses in concentration.
Babylon Posted 3 December 2014 Posted 3 December 2014 Just incidentally, we played 3 in the middle in the second half at Stoke (Cambi, Drinky and Hammond). We started the same 3 in the middle in the game against Man Utd. We then had one bad result against Palace and abandoned 3 in the middle, and so in the next game against Burnley we went with just 2 in the middle with a 442. We haven't won since. It was the fabled diamond against united. Nugent played much deeper than he ever normally would.
Silverdaz Posted 3 December 2014 Posted 3 December 2014 All 3 for me. Kasper threw away two points against Burnley Pearson killed any chance we had of getting anything against WBA and Southampton with that dreadful diamond Tactics- QPR away for example- bring off Ulloa and put on Albrighton. Crazy Vardy has missed loads of chances he'd have put away last season. Nothing Pearson can do about that and we have no one better Combination of all sorts. I'd add lack of transfer dealings in the summer too but I don't blame Pearson for that. He made it clear through various interviews over the summer that he wanted to sign more players but for reasons we don't know, couldn't. I can't believe for a second he honestly wanted to start the season with Konchesky as first choice left back. With only two decent strikers in Vardy and Ulloa etc. I really think Pearson deserves longer to turn it around. Why should we only give him a third of the season yet give a new manager two thirds? Should be the other way round for me. People suggesting Pulis assume he is literally waiting around the corner to take the hot seat! He might not even want to come here and even if he did, it's clear we lack quality. Luckily for us, there are other sides equally as poor in my opinion: WBA Palace Burnley QPR Villa Ermmm I think you will find that was James who thre two points away against Burnley with his needless tackle
Babylon Posted 3 December 2014 Posted 3 December 2014 Ermmm I think you will find that was James who thre two points away against Burnley with his needless tackle They are both culpable.
Ian S Posted 3 December 2014 Posted 3 December 2014 They are both culpable. Agreed but Kasper takes the majority of blame for me,yes we gave a daft free kick away but your keeper has to do better than that.I would add that I am now of a mind to suggest Hamer is given a chance.
Captain... Posted 3 December 2014 Posted 3 December 2014 It is a combination of all 3, but ultimately it can be summed up as naivety and inexperience, this league is proving more demanding than we first thought, especially after our great start. We can look at the mistakes we have made, and they are not big mistakes, but little mistakes on the pitch getting punished, off the pitch we didn't strengthen as well we thought, or hoped. It is such fine margins that games aren't going our way, and unfortunately we are seeing the mental fragility we saw 2 years ago. We are not in a terrible position we are 2 points off where we need to be at the end of the season with a lot of games left, the biggest risk for me is making wholesale changes. We tried to play containing football and it didn't work, so we have gone back to attacking, at least now we are scoring goals and creating chances, we are competing against good teams and we are not disgracing ourselves, we just need to cut out the sloppy mistakes and take the chances we create and we will be fine.
RowZ Posted 3 December 2014 Posted 3 December 2014 The manager .....every part of the team is his responsibility and so are the results He picks the team He prepares the team He motivates the team And when things aren't working - he's the only one who can change it. I just don't get this opinion & mentality of the manager having no influence once the players have crossed the line. If it really did take Pearson 13 games to find his 'best' 11 then the current levels of performance are probably all we can expect under his management. Accept the role you're paid to do, and do it well - or be moved on so someone else with better skills can get things done - just like any other job.
Fox Ulike Posted 3 December 2014 Posted 3 December 2014 It was the fabled diamond against united. Nugent played much deeper than he ever normally would. Not really it was billed as a 433. Vardy was wide and as I remember it Nugent started wide as well. Call it what you like. The point is we weren't outnumbered in the centre of the park because we had 3 proper centre-midfielders in there. You seem to be under Pearson's spell that we can only ever play either 2 or 4 Centre-midfielders. Three is the magic number.
Babylon Posted 3 December 2014 Posted 3 December 2014 Not really it was billed as a 433. Vardy was wide and as I remember it Nugent started wide as well. Call it what you like. The point is we weren't outnumbered in the centre of the park because we had 3 proper centre-midfielders in there. You seem to be under Pearson's spell that we can only ever play either 2 or 4 Centre-midfielders. Three is the magic number. I'm under no spell, I've seen us play 4-5-1 and thought we were utter shit. I don't need any spell to tell me it wasn't working, I saw it not work, like at Swansea. Nugents job was to occupy Blind was it not, it was only billed as 433 before anyone had actually seen it in action.
Guest ttfn Posted 3 December 2014 Posted 3 December 2014 It's difficult to know where we go from here. We undoubtedly wasted a great run of fixtures when confidence was sky high after our good start with a series of poor team selections, defensive tactics and odd substitutions. Having gone back to 4-4-2 and a more attack-minded approach we've been involved in 3 close games which we deserved far more than 1 point from collectively, but the formation undoubtedly does leave us exposed in central midfield. It also means that Schlupp is a guaranteed starter on the left to help out Konchesky, which leaves us at a massive disadvantage from the off. On the whole I think the players are good enough, but lacking in confidence and in a rut which they're struggling to emerge from. For that reason I think it's clear that a few additions are necessary in January. Schmeichel is having a bad run of form (sorry but I don't buy that he was poor last season or the 2 before it - he's much better than anybody else we've had since Walker) and if Hamer is not considered good enough to replace Schmeichel when he is playing this badly then we need a new goalkeeper. I'd be interested to know if Finnegan thinks Hennessey would be an upgrade, because he's not happy at Palace at the moment according to the London press. Similarly 2 full backs have to be a priority in January. We could also do with a forward, the type of which depends on what we're trying to achieve. It could be that we go after an attacking midfielder (eg Pienaar) as somebody to link midfield and attack, but if we want to play 3 more conservative players in the middle I'd like to see us bring in somebody who understands the role of a wide forward in a 4-3-3 because presently none of our players seem to be capable of fulfilling that role. Even with January coming up there are another 5 games before then and we need to register a win before then not to get cut adrift and to make us a vaguely appealing prospect to join.
Dickov22 Posted 3 December 2014 Posted 3 December 2014 Ermmm I think you will find that was James who thre two points away against Burnley with his needless tackle Both have blame but Kasper practically left an open goal for Wallace.
Fox Ulike Posted 3 December 2014 Posted 3 December 2014 I'm under no spell, I've seen us play 4-5-1 and thought we were utter shit. I don't need any spell to tell me it wasn't working, I saw it not work, like at Swansea. Nugents job was to occupy Blind was it not, it was only billed as 433 before anyone had actually seen it in action. Not so. Swansea we started with 2 CMs: Hammond and Drinkwater. Vardy was wide left, then Ulloa wide left at the start of the second half. Nugent was god knows where. How you can say with any confidence what system we played at Swansea is beyond me! When we did bring on the subs and had Cambi, King and James all on the pitch, we looked a lot better. We actually nearly scored a goal. I'm talking about playing THREE central midfielders, and two wingers. And when I say 'wingers' I do actually mean wingers. Not putting forwards like Vardy or Ulloa out wide. I can't believe that you think that the formation that has conceded 6 goals in the last two games, and picked up 0 points despite scoring first in both games is the way to go!!
Dickov22 Posted 3 December 2014 Posted 3 December 2014 Glaringly obvious last night we needed another centre mid in the side. Ball drops to Gerrard and there's no one anywhere near him. We can blame Wes for the clearance (although that's harsh in my opinion as he was stretching) but the fact is we didn't have a midfielder tracking Gerrard's run Similar chance fell to Cambiasso late on. The difference was, he had bodies all around him including a Liverpool midfielder and that was enough to deny him having a free shot at goal like Gerrard had. I'm fine with us playing sides like WBA, Villa, Burnley. Sunderland and going for it with a 442 but against a side like Liverpool who had Lucas, Gerrard and Henderson all starting, I'd have preferred us to play 3 Cm's. This doesn't mean I advocate the diamond Pearson picked where we had no wide players at all. or playing strikers out wide which we did at Swansea, I'd still have one of the front players being a natural wide man. We are giving our defence too much to do by not having enough protection in the middle of the park.
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.