Watford (a) Post-Match Thread (2-1 defeat)

[The Quick Brown Fox]

People have moaned about Simpson, but fvck me we missed him today. 

[Blue Ed]

All the promise that we showed playing decent football seemed to go out of the window today. Here's what I learnt today

 

I love King but poor old Ndidi had no help today in the middle. He ended up trying to play Fullback, CDM and Attacking Midfield. Where was King what was he doing today. Cant get Silva and Iborra back quick enough.

 

We need 2 fullbacks by the end of next Summer. Chilwell is good player but it would be great to have some cover for him. 

 

I liked Slimani's attitude when he came on. Looked like he really wanted to do something and put in effort.

 

Players were making to many wrong choices today. to many times we were trying the killer pass and itwasn't happening. 

 

[sm1]

We've really shot ourselves in the foot against Palace & Watford. Two out of form dog shit teams , and we've taken zero points. I sudder to think what will happen to us if/when Mahrez leaves.

[st albans fox]

Remember when we used to take the lead and nearly always win ...........

Edited 26 December 2017 by st albans fox

[NewEnglandFox]

5 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

It's our first game we've lost since Feb 2016 from taking the lead first

We were up 3-2 at Arsenal in the 80' 4 months ago.

[Xen]

Just now, NewEnglandFox said:

We were up 3-2 at Arsenal in the 80' 4 months ago.

We didn't score first in that game. 

[Guest Col city fan]

As I wrote earlier, I think it’s difficult to blame Puel. He’s inherited a very average squad. He can only be judged when he’s had a couple of transfer windows. 

Its my belief if he stays for any length of time, he’ll look to ship out large parts of the squad. Musa, Slim, Huth, Mendy, Amartey, Wes, Fuchs, Dragovic..amongst others.

I think we’ll see a squad overhaul under Puel.

We can’t judge him on this lot. Some of them are fine. Others are rubbish

[ealingfox]

We can't rely on Vardy for goals anymore at all. It's only really been one season where you could think him likely to score his first chance of a game. It was the exception.

 

For the first time I've really started to empathise with the view that Mahrez should go. What's the point of him sticking around really? His career deserves more than pissing about with a load of plodders at a club that doesn't know what it's doing and doesn't have the real ambition to put themselves up there.

 

Let him go and use the funds to keep ourselves up. Sad but the transformation back to rank and file is long complete. Won the title last year and already we are basically the same as any old mid table muck again. So bloody depressing. 

Edited 26 December 2017 by ealingfox

[Guest Col city fan]

39 minutes ago, browniefox said:

People have moaned about Simpson, but fvck me we missed him today. 

Leicester’s most under rated player by decent proportions of FT posters

[SheppyFox]

1 minute ago, Col city fan said:

As I wrote earlier, I think it’s difficult to blame Puel. He’s inherited a very average squad. He can only be judged when he’s had a couple of transfer windows. 

Its my belief if he stays for any length of time, he’ll look to ship out large parts of the squad. Musa, Slim, Huth, Mendy, Amartey, Wes, Fuchs, Dragovic..amongst others.

I think we’ll see a squad overhaul under Puel.

We can’t judge him on this lot. Some of them are fine. Others are rubbish

Touché  

[NewEnglandFox]

1 minute ago, Xen said:

We didn't score first in that game. 

 

1 minute ago, pmcla26 said:

I said taking the lead first. I Probably could have worded better and said scoring first.

We were leading the game like the post he quoted says. I don't know why you feel it necessary to skew it to score first then lose. Dropping points from winning positions even if we didn't score first clearly fits into that. And it's much more common to talk about points dropped from winning positions. We also dropped points from winning positions against United last week, West Ham, and Stoke as well.

[BenTheFox]

2 hours ago, Durnerz said:

Typical poor Boxing Day result - still 8th, miles better than when you wind the clock back to early season under Shakey.

A nice bit of perspective. 

[Kitchandro]

Puel can’t even accept we were crap.

 

That’s worrying.

 

And the squad, for the last time, is not that bad. It’s certainly better than Watford and Palace’s.

 

It’s not an excuse for being tactically inept and playing in a way that doesn’t get the best out of the players. Or for hopeless defending as a unit. Or am inability to be a threat and create chances. And it doesn’t change the tempo or make you press correctly either.

 

Fed up of excuses for the first 6 months until people realise that different players do not make bad managers into good ones.

[vanity]

2 hours ago, Brooksy said:

****ing pathetic. Defence needs an overhaul. Kasper needs dropping. King is nowhere near good enough at this level. **** off Leicester. Not convinced by Puel at all

You say you aren't convinced by Puel, but he cannot control the players he has. As you say, our defense is poor. Kasper is poor AF from penalty kicks, good god he is just a liability at this point, and King isn't good enough. Those things aren't Puel's fault, he has to deal with what he has. But JFC Kasper is starting to look truly awful. To get beaten near post like that, when it is literally the only angle the guy can score from, that is 100% on him. His body needs to be in the way of that shot, just awful. 

 

2 hours ago, UniFox21 said:

Silva can sign properly in 6 days...

And we need him. And the guy from PSG. We played today without Iborra, and our quality dipped dramatically. We were absolutely dominated in the midfield. We can play King sometimes, he is adequate sometimes, but there are certain match-ups he simply has no business being on the pitch, and sadly, today was one of them. King needs to head off to the Championship.

[body102]

Was all optimistic we would win easily , until I got in the ground and they weren't selling alcohol .

[Guest]

That was fun.

 

Don't think we missed Simpson at all. We had a couple of defensive mistakes for the goals but the howler was Kasper and the other was the Morgan/Chilwell mix up. I enjoyed not seeing simpson mess up the attack time after time.

 

Should have got at least a point though.

[Gerard]

2 hours ago, Col city fan said:

Agree. But I’d have much rather see us start today with a central midfield containing Drinkwater. 

 

We got £35m for him even though he was awful since Nov 2016 and looked like he was never going to be 100% fit ever. We can say almost certainly we sold him at his peak value, selling Drinkwater was great business by us.

 

We have nothing to worry about at this stage as we're still 10pts above the relegation zone.

[KJT]

5 minutes ago, vanity said:

You say you aren't convinced by Puel, but he cannot control the players he has. As you say, our defense is poor. Kasper is poor AF from penalty kicks, good god he is just a liability at this point, and King isn't good enough. Those things aren't Puel's fault, he has to deal with what he has. But JFC Kasper is starting to look truly awful. To get beaten near post like that, when it is literally the only angle the guy can score from, that is 100% on him. His body needs to be in the way of that shot, just awful. 

 

And we need him. And the guy from PSG. We played today without Iborra, and our quality dipped dramatically. We were absolutely dominated in the midfield. We can play King sometimes, he is adequate sometimes, but there are certain match-ups he simply has no business being on the pitch, and sadly, today was one of them. King needs to head off to the Championship.

Look at Everton they crap in all departments then Big Sam came in and he seems to brought and confidence and toughness to there play. Leicester seem to have been in a same situation as Everton but does Puel manage like Big Sam to instill spirit in our highly paid squad

[BenTheFox]

1 hour ago, foxfanazer said:

Gonna dodge this place for a few days.

 

Disappointing result but some saying they were right about Puel all along are embarrassing. I’m such a massively better place than we were before he came in

I know man. Some of our fans seriously need to give their heads a wobble. Puel didn't sign any of the players and he's done well! 18 points from 11 games is a good return. I often wonder what it is that people expect. 

[ealingfox]

1 minute ago, Kitchandro said:

Puel can’t even accept we were crap.

 

That’s worrying.

 

And the squad, for the last time, is not that bad. It’s certainly better than Watford and Palace’s.

 

It’s not an excuse for being tactically inept and playing in a way that doesn’t get the best out of the players. Or for hopeless defending as a unit. Or am inability to be a threat and create chances. And it doesn’t change the tempo or make you press correctly either.

 

Fed up of excuses for the first 6 months until people realise that different players do not make bad managers into good ones.

 

It's definitely not better than Palace or Watford's tbh.

 

Palace had 3 of their first choice back line out against us and yet their defence was Kelly, Dann, Tomkins and Schlupp. That's 3 dependable and steady PL level players, and Jeff Schlupp.

 

What if we were 3 short like that? Amartey, Morgan, Dragovic and Chilwell/Fuchs? That's garbage. We don't have enough past our best players. 

[vanity]

12 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

As I wrote earlier, I think it’s difficult to blame Puel. He’s inherited a very average squad. He can only be judged when he’s had a couple of transfer windows. 

Its my belief if he stays for any length of time, he’ll look to ship out large parts of the squad. Musa, Slim, Huth, Mendy, Amartey, Wes, Fuchs, Dragovic..amongst others.

I think we’ll see a squad overhaul under Puel.

We can’t judge him on this lot. Some of them are fine. Others are rubbish

This is right. He has to do what he can with the talent available to him, but he is definitely eyeing potentially available players. Right now, if we had to sit here and say who the absolute, no-brainer starters going forward, we are probably looking at Ndidi, Maguire, Gray, and Mahrez. Everyone else, including Vardy, are likely up for upgrade.

[grobyfox1990]

What the hell happened to Chilwell at ht?! Came out a different man 2nd half, loads of stick from the fans, then head absolutely dropped from 55 mins onwards! 

[Old Fox]

Just got back and my ramblings would include:

 

Why play 4-4-2 with three centre halves and no full backs - 3-5-2 with  Albrighton and Chilwell would have made some sense ?

Even at HT CP should have put Fuchs on for Dragovic or Chilwell and reverted to a 3-5-2?

 

Both poor management decisions as well as baffling substitutions.

 

Chilwell is not a left back - woeful defensively and his passing was  rubbish - he and Drag passed to more yellow shirts than any other player on the pitch.

King cannot play in a 2 man midfield as poor old Wilf will need 2 days rest now

albrighton was our best player by a country mile

Schmeichel looks short  in confidence and way off his high standards

 

A point would have disappointing as they were clearly short of confidence but the worst part was watching and it was obvious that  we needed to make changes to the shape and CP made poor decisions imo

 

Big next 6 games as for me I remain unconvinced .......and if RM goes in Jan we will be in for a long second half of the season as he is the only creating for Vards 

 

Edited 26 December 2017 by Old Fox

[lifted*fox]

people questioning giving up on puel already aren't worth conversing with.

 

he's come in and worked wonders with what he's been given tbh.

 

anyone that can't see that? 

 

Edited 26 December 2017 by lifted*fox
fine to question, but calling for his head? pffffffft.

[Blue ROI]

2 hours ago, Gazza M said:

How many have we conceded just on half time. It really is ridiculous. Massive concentration issues this year.

And nearly all in the games away at London for whatever reason.