Bournemouth post match 1-1

[ZeGuy]

Shit game. Puel had a brain fart with his 3 at the back and Diabate should've come on waaaaaaaaaaaaaay earlier. Don't want to single any player out (even if Albrighton was shit, lol, don't take this seriously. or do) because it was first and foremost a manager failure. We managed to get a point which is nothing short of a miracle when we look at the team's dismal diplay.

 

Saved by a stroke of genius.

 

Dread the day when Mahrez will go. Anyway right is

 

[Mark 'expert' Lawrenson]

2 minutes ago, Number7 said:

possession: 67:33%

shots: 22:9

on goal 4:3.

 

Negative tactics? Are you talking about Bournemouth?

Never rated the possession stat, it means diddly squat.

[Mr Weller]

We changed the moment we went with front 2. Vardy totally isolated before then so cross after cross was wasted This happened against Swansea and Stoke so I am concerned Puel stuck to plan A. 

 

Long term it it is never good for a manager to insist on one style of play regardless of results. The training ground is where new styles are honed but they should not be introduced until the players are confident with it and they clearly aren't.

 

If Puel wants to survive he'll have to be more pragmatic than this. Fortunately we looked a different team on the last 20 so here's a lesson he must learn.

[Chester Dontlie]

5 minutes ago, vanity said:

Ridiculous. Another game with overly defensive personnel where Riyad has to bail us out. 

 

- When we FINALLY brought in Diabate, which meant we FINALLY had an actual attacking player on the left instead of just Ben of House One Leg, we suddenly were able to completely dominate the game. Why is Claude so frightened against a team averaging less than a goal per game when away from home? Why does he insist on fielding defensive players and urging them to attack instead of simply fielding attacking players up front? You cannot start a game with Chilwell and Albrighton on the same side with Ndidi and James in the middle and field a balanced attack.

 

- Speaking of Albrighton, bless his heart, I love the guy, rough penalty, and he was incredibly useful today as a utility player. That said, he is a defensive player with ok ball control and a bit of burst, he can get around players, but all he can do is send in crosses, he doesn't look to score. When we are in open play, this has been pretty well worthless of late. Wes claims to be 6-1, but that's only true if we're rounding up -- I appreciate his strength in the box allows him to make room, and he was seemingly our most capable crossing target, but it is really rough going if your best attacking opportunities are crossing to your 6-0 tall CB. Claude, when you field a defensive side, you lose the creativity necessary to breakdown the defense. How many times are you going to insist on making the same mistake?

 

- What do we think about Silva? He didn't cover himself in glory, but he had very little support in terms of players around him he could play off of. Claude, go back and watch the first half of the Man City game. Watch how Silva plays off Diabate to break the Man City press. Silva is not a "break the box down" type of AM, he isn't a Hazard brother, but he is effective when he gets to make a run with the ball.  But if he is doing that, and then hands it off to a teammate, that teammate needs to be able to maintain possession and get the ball back to him. We saw Diabate and Silva pair up exceedingly effectively 1st half of Man City. But today, Silva had nobody to pair with. Mahrez was being marked by several defenders most of the time, and Albrighton doesn't have the touch. So it was Silva coming forward with nobody to partner with. Before we start thinking Silva shouldn't be starting, let him play with some players up front who can help him. 

 

- Ndidi is worthless right now as an attacking player, he is poor on the ball, he is young and improving, but come the F on Claude, accept it and MOVE ON, stop trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. The reality is that Ndidi's failures as an attacking player seemed to get in his head and impact his defending.

 

- People are crapping on James, and I get why, but he isn't bad to my eyes, he is the guy who is constantly helping his teammates double the man on the ball while keeping an eye on the middle, and he is pretty dogged about that. But his lateral mobility is below average, which makes him look slower than he is, and prevents him from actually getting in to the action as much as we need him to. Iborra is allegedly healthy, IDK how he isn't given a look. Before the game, I wanted Chilwell at LB (edit: corrected typo), but at this point, it is clear that isn't working. Can we go with Albrighton?

 

Amartey-Dragovic-Maguire-Albrighton 

                     Ndidi 

       Iborra                 Silva

Riyad                             Diabate

                   Vardy

 

Probably will be criticized, but we need our best players on the field, and Albrighton brings more on both sides of the ball vis-a-vis Chilwell. I think we need to take a long look at playing Albrighton as a LB. He can get forward, use his crossing ability if need be, but leave attacking the left edge of the defense to Diabate. 

 

- Playing Morgan didn't hurt us on the scoreboard, and he got himself in position to miss several excellent scoring opportunities, which is good in a sense. But if you play Morgan, that is one more player on the pitch who isn't good with the ball at his feet unless he doesn't have a man on him. When you have him, Ndidi, and James all in the middle together, that is a recipe for being dispossessed in front of your goal, which we saw happen REPEATEDLY today. If Puel is convinced Morgan brings more to the team than Dragon, ok, but you need to offset his lack of on-ball ability by giving Silva players to play the ball off of. If you are trying to protect Morgan with two defensive MF in front of him, then we need to stop trying to build from the back. 

 

- Going with Morgan in my formation above would be fine, though I prefer Dragon. Perhaps Wes brings something intangible to the team that is more valuable than having a younger, faster, slightly better CB on the field. Replacing Amartey with Simpson would work as well.  

 

- Losing Amartey hurt, I thought having him start was a smart move from Puel. 

 

- We really miss Shinji. Playing Iheanacho out of position doesn't help us, and only hurts his confidence. We need a Shinji replacement ASAP. I know we have tried to find one repeatedly, but we haven't found one yet and need to keep looking.

 

- I think we need to start thinking about starting Iheanacho over Vardy situationally. Vardy is simply too easy to take away when our only other real threat is Mahrez. I know 90% of the fans on hear will view that as sacrilege, but Iheanacho at the head of the attack might give us a more balanced look. 

 

- FFS, with all these corners and crosses, my kingdom for a healthy Slimani. He'd have had hat tricks the last two games. If we had him instead of Iheanacho today, I think he'd have feasted. At a minimum, his presence would've forced the defense to come out of the box to attack Albrighton to prevent the crosses, which naturally would open up the defense a bit.

 

Fuchs I am a long-winded SOB today.

Some very good points there

 

PUEL OUT VANITY IN

[HighPeakFox]

11 minutes ago, Colourmy said:

Yes but I once watched Hill Street Blues, so cut me some slack, please?

I've read your posts, so no 

[turtmcfly]

4 minutes ago, Gerbold said:

I've not got a huge downer on him but, watching Bein Sports (which is in Arabic) I didn't hear his name uttered once.

Desperate as I am not to appear dense, I'm going to admit I don't understand the relevance of the commentary being in Arabic. Not trolling!

Edited 3 March 2018 by turtmcfly

[Monsell1976]

Not seen puels post match interview, but if he mentions lack of tempo again, he really needs to have a word with himself, picking virtually  the same players and system over and over with no improvement 

[Ian Nacho]

I think the point was deserved, just, the ball just didn't seem to want to go in, in the second half. However, the performance was abysmal. Morgan was all over the place, Chilwell was running around in circles, Matty James does nothing and so does Silva. We're so one dimensional, all we do it boot it up from the back for Vardy to run on to which 9/10 doesn't work. We have a severe lack of quality. We have quite a lot of players who if didn't have a good work rate, would be championship players. N'Didi great in midfield running about, cutting out balls, shows no real creativity. Albrighton runs and runs but most of the time his final ball isn't the best. We all know Vardy would be nothing without his work rate. Our ball retention is awful and the best player who have at keeping the ball is on the bench, Iborra...

[ARTY_FOX]

13 minutes ago, Number7 said:

possession: 67:33%

shots: 22:9

on goal 4:3.

 

Negative tactics? Are you talking about Bournemouth?

We didn't start trying to attempt to score until Bournemouth decided to camp out the 1-0 win for the last 20 or so. Stats are misleading. If you'd watched you'd know that. 

Edited 3 March 2018 by ARTY_FOX

[Blue ROI]

Where do you start with that?

 

Very disappointing. Was pleased that changes were made before but it seems re-active not pro-active. Like Shakeys last game against West Brom

 

The more James plays the worse he gets. He just hasn't got the pace or the finesse required for this level. Silva looks very lightweight too. I'll admit I wanted him to start but he cant have too many complaints that he's not playing more after that.

 

Surely Iborra is worth a go now. We've picked up a lot more points with him starting than without.

 

We're suffering from being too reliant on Vardy. From the plethora of dodgy transfers since August 2015 this is the one area we've slipped up the most. Teams know all too well now what we're about and its easy to negate.

 

Hard to know where we go now. Claude is on the back foot now. Hopefully this is some kind of masterplan leading to a great escape like run of form. We've a cushion on teams below us who'll punch each other out but in the long term this doesnt look good. Not when you can make out the white seats during a game.

 

We need someone to get us out of the 2016 mentality. If we don't the consequences will be dire.

 

Edited 3 March 2018 by Blue ROI

[Mr Weller]

It's not that complicated to be honest. I agreeDiabate and Silva link well so at some point they should have a chance but the priority should be Okazaki in, James out, drop Morgan for Dragovic and have Iborra and Diabate as options.

[RumbleFox]

Didn't see the game or the result yet but have read this thread.  Did we lose 22-0?  X

[Vardinio'sCat]

37 minutes ago, katieakita said:

The beast from the far East is back next week also start Diabate, people call for Simmo to be dumped then moan when he is, also a bonus to deny E Howe a win. Poor day, poor game, very poor ref all part of the "fun" of supporting the Foxes

 

The Beast from the East is back... Wasilewski?

[Marutimon]

Here's a thought: Try a league game with Vardy on the bench and Iheanacho the point man? Plan A isn't working, so something needs to change. And Iheanacho + Vardy isn't working either... And maybe Nacho will finally break his league duck...

 

Not a permanent solution, so there seems to be no plan without Vardy...

Edited 3 March 2018 by Marutimon

[Colourmy]

13 minutes ago, ZeGuy said:

Shit game. Puel had a brain fart with his 3 at the back and Diabate should've come on waaaaaaaaaaaaaay earlier. Don't want to single any player out (even if Albrighton was shit, lol, don't take this seriously. or do) because it was first and foremost a manager failure. We managed to get a point which is nothing short of a miracle when we look at the team's dismal diplay.

 

Saved by a stroke of genius.

 

Dread the day when Mahrez will go. Anyway right is

 

You have got the biggest boner on of all time for Mahrez haven't you?. 

Harrassment or stalker will be your comeuppance I fear!

[vanity]

6 minutes ago, Ian Nacho said:

I think the point was deserved, just, the ball just didn't seem to want to go in, in the second half. However, the performance was abysmal. Morgan was all over the place, Chilwell was running around in circles, Matty James does nothing and so does Silva. We're so one dimensional, all we do it boot it up from the back for Vardy to run on to which 9/10 doesn't work. We have a severe lack of quality. We have quite a lot of players who if didn't have a good work rate, would be championship players. N'Didi great in midfield running about, cutting out balls, shows no real creativity. Albrighton runs and runs but most of the time his final ball isn't the best. We all know Vardy would be nothing without his work rate. Our ball retention is awful and the best player who have at keeping the ball is on the bench, Iborra...

I agree it was deserved. I think we are at the point where we have to acknowledge this thing where the ball doesn't seem to want to go in is happening game after game. You point to having the wrong personnel on the field, and I tend to agree. IDK what happened to Iborra playing, but holy hell he is deep in Puel's doghouse. Does Puel have a hot daughter VI was after or something? IDK, but it is time for a real explanation from Puel.

[fuchsntf]

1 hour ago, jayfox26 said:

Great goal but we are so bad. Should be beating teams like these at home, they are a very poor side! I keep saying it but dropping points at home to these, stoke, palace and Swansea is unacceptable. Also dropped points at home to WBA but can't blame Puel for that. We seem to be getting worse and Puel seems to be playing the same team with the same tactics and no plan b. Not good enough and unless we have a drastic upturn in from we will once again be looking for a new manager. I don't like us keep changing managers but I really don't like the way we are playing under Puel at the moment 

Puel. changed did the Team...

[Johnthefoxrayner]

1 hour ago, Crinklyfox said:

They wanted it more than us.

 

They were better organised than us.

 

They played better football than us.

 

We got what we deserved.

Same as last week then

[Tom12345]

22 minutes ago, vanity said:

Ridiculous. Another game with overly defensive personnel where Riyad has to bail us out. 

 

- When we FINALLY brought in Diabate, which meant we FINALLY had an actual attacking player on the left instead of just Ben of House One Leg, we suddenly were able to completely dominate the game. Why is Claude so frightened against a team averaging less than a goal per game when away from home? Why does he insist on fielding defensive players and urging them to attack instead of simply fielding attacking players up front? You cannot start a game with Chilwell and Albrighton on the same side with Ndidi and James in the middle and field a balanced attack.

 

- Speaking of Albrighton, bless his heart, I love the guy, rough penalty, and he was incredibly useful today as a utility player. That said, he is a defensive player with ok ball control and a bit of burst, he can get around players, but all he can do is send in crosses, he doesn't look to score. When we are in open play, this has been pretty well worthless of late. Wes claims to be 6-1, but that's only true if we're rounding up -- I appreciate his strength in the box allows him to make room, and he was seemingly our most capable crossing target, but it is really rough going if your best attacking opportunities are crossing to your 6-0 tall CB. Claude, when you field a defensive side, you lose the creativity necessary to breakdown the defense. How many times are you going to insist on making the same mistake?

 

- What do we think about Silva? He didn't cover himself in glory, but he had very little support in terms of players around him he could play off of. Claude, go back and watch the first half of the Man City game. Watch how Silva plays off Diabate to break the Man City press. Silva is not a "break the box down" type of AM, he isn't a Hazard brother, but he is effective when he gets to make a run with the ball.  But if he is doing that, and then hands it off to a teammate, that teammate needs to be able to maintain possession and get the ball back to him. We saw Diabate and Silva pair up exceedingly effectively 1st half of Man City. But today, Silva had nobody to pair with. Mahrez was being marked by several defenders most of the time, and Albrighton doesn't have the touch. So it was Silva coming forward with nobody to partner with. Before we start thinking Silva shouldn't be starting, let him play with some players up front who can help him. 

 

- Ndidi is worthless right now as an attacking player, he is poor on the ball, he is young and improving, but come the F on Claude, accept it and MOVE ON, stop trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. The reality is that Ndidi's failures as an attacking player seemed to get in his head and impact his defending.

 

- People are crapping on James, and I get why, but he isn't bad to my eyes, he is the guy who is constantly helping his teammates double the man on the ball while keeping an eye on the middle, and he is pretty dogged about that. But his lateral mobility is below average, which makes him look slower than he is, and prevents him from actually getting in to the action as much as we need him to. Iborra is allegedly healthy, IDK how he isn't given a look. Before the game, I wanted Chilwell at LB (edit: corrected typo), but at this point, it is clear that isn't working. Can we go with Albrighton?

 

Amartey-Dragovic-Maguire-Albrighton 

                     Ndidi 

       Iborra                 Silva

Riyad                             Diabate

                   Vardy

 

Probably will be criticized, but we need our best players on the field, and Albrighton brings more on both sides of the ball vis-a-vis Chilwell. I think we need to take a long look at playing Albrighton as a LB. He can get forward, use his crossing ability if need be, but leave attacking the left edge of the defense to Diabate. 

 

- Playing Morgan didn't hurt us on the scoreboard, and he got himself in position to miss several excellent scoring opportunities, which is good in a sense. But if you play Morgan, that is one more player on the pitch who isn't good with the ball at his feet unless he doesn't have a man on him. When you have him, Ndidi, and James all in the middle together, that is a recipe for being dispossessed in front of your goal, which we saw happen REPEATEDLY today. If Puel is convinced Morgan brings more to the team than Dragon, ok, but you need to offset his lack of on-ball ability by giving Silva players to play the ball off of. If you are trying to protect Morgan with two defensive MF in front of him, then we need to stop trying to build from the back. 

 

- Going with Morgan in my formation above would be fine, though I prefer Dragon. Perhaps Wes brings something intangible to the team that is more valuable than having a younger, faster, slightly better CB on the field. Replacing Amartey with Simpson would work as well.  

 

- Losing Amartey hurt, I thought having him start was a smart move from Puel. 

 

- We really miss Shinji. Playing Iheanacho out of position doesn't help us, and only hurts his confidence. We need a Shinji replacement ASAP. I know we have tried to find one repeatedly, but we haven't found one yet and need to keep looking.

 

- I think we need to start thinking about starting Iheanacho over Vardy situationally. Vardy is simply too easy to take away when our only other real threat is Mahrez. I know 90% of the fans on hear will view that as sacrilege, but Iheanacho at the head of the attack might give us a more balanced look. 

 

- FFS, with all these corners and crosses, my kingdom for a healthy Slimani. He'd have had hat tricks the last two games. If we had him instead of Iheanacho today, I think he'd have feasted. At a minimum, his presence would've forced the defense to come out of the box to attack Albrighton to prevent the crosses, which naturally would open up the defense a bit.

 

Fuchs I am a long-winded SOB today.

Good post

[ZeGuy]

2 minutes ago, Colourmy said:

You have got the biggest boner on of all time for Mahrez haven't you?. 

Harrassment or stalker will be your comeuppance I fear!

Whatever you say mate. Whatever you say.

 

If you're not able to see how important he is to the team, then there's nothing I can do for you.

Edited 3 March 2018 by ZeGuy

[Guest Col city fan]

Have we had two wins in the last 13 games, or did I make that up?

[ZeGuy]

Just now, Col city fan said:

Have we had two wins in the last 13 games, or did I make that up?

Nope. Still 8th. Go figure.

[Beachyboy]

50 minutes ago, Head Honcho said:

If you're happy with mid table mediocrity then he has a job for life.

 

I couldn't watch this tripe week in week out.

 

Give me relegation battles over this any time.

Im not happy with mid table mediocrity, I am for this season after the last 18 months, Rome wasnt built in a day, an mid table is closer to where we wanna be than relegation battles, I dont like hearing these knee jerk reactions, the owners always know the right time to make the call regarding managerial changes an I would suspect they wouldn't even think about it for at least a month to 6 weeks.

[vanity]

1 minute ago, Marutimon said:

Here's a thought: Try a league game with Vardy on the bench and Iheanacho the point man? Plan A isn't working, so something needs to change. And Iheanacho + Vardy isn't working either...

If Puel is insistent on continuing with this defense-first personnel strategy, as well as building from the back, I don't see how he can keep starting Vardy. We need more from our forward than lurking on the deepest CB's hip. We need more involvement up top if we only have Riyad and Silva as the other real attacking players on the pitch. 

 

Vardy is one of my favorite players, and I hate to say it, but his style is looking less and less compatible with what Claude wants to do by the minute. 

[FLAN]

1 minute ago, vanity said:

If Puel is insistent on continuing with this defense-first personnel strategy, as well as building from the back, I don't see how he can keep starting Vardy. We need more from our forward than lurking on the deepest CB's hip. We need more involvement up top if we only have Riyad and Silva as the other real attacking players on the pitch. 

 

Vardy is one of my favorite players, and I hate to say it, but his style is looking less and less compatible with what Claude wants to do by the minute. 

What striker would be making any difference with the lack of service?  Vardy is the least of the problems. He’s totally isolated.