Puel 'Facing the sack' - reports

[Monsell1976]

This is where puel gets me, you just know he’s going to keep you up, I like the football he’s trying to achieve, but the players sorry are not technically good enough, hence the amount of passes needlessly wasted, but is he going to progress us, because most of the time we are boring, with little or no attacking threat.

 

 I had just joined the puel out camp after the poor results and being bored to death, then we play like we did against Chelsea and Man City, and then followed it up with the Cardiff and even though we won Everton, which went back to poor boring football, so confused me even more wether I like puel or not.

 

 I’m going to wait till the summer, as I think puel is conservative, but get rid of poor technical players, bring in better, and we might not be as boring to watch, because yes results are important, but not looking forward to going because of boredom is a concern, so if he can find the balance between entertaining football and results, I’d be happy for him to stay.

 

[Babylon]

Do people seriously think after Beating Chelsea and Man City, Puel turned around to the players and said "Great result lads, what I want to do now is pass the ball around slowly and try not to break down the opposition" or something?

 

This is where the "agenda" stuff comes from, people are looking for it to be the managers choice. Rather than looking at what's clearly gone on for like the last two years or so. Big team = space to move the ball into quickly and use the counter. Small team = not as much space to move into and less opportunity to counter.

 

We were dog muck 16/17... yet we pulled off the Man City 4-1, Liverpool 3-1, Sevilla 2-0. We were pretty cack last year and still managed exciting decent football at Arsenal 4-3 loss and at home 3-1 win. Chelsea away 0-0 unlucky not to win, Spurs away 5-4 loss, Spurs at home 2-1 win, Everton at home 2-1 win.  Even this year before the change to the 3 CDM's, we played some great stuff first half at Arsenal, I thought we showed up well against Liverpool and again at United.

 

The most obvious answer isn't that the manager isn't utterly mental, but that we're just following the trend we've been on for some time. Puel has embraced the counter in the games it's going to stand a chance of working, but is trying to get a style that works against those who won't give us the space. No it's clunky and not exactly working perfectly at the minute. But it's working a damn site better than the 30% possession and trying to counter Huddersfield etc did most of the time. Hence us being 7th.

 

He's literally said the same himself.

Edited 2 January 2019 by Babylon

[whoareyaaa]

23 minutes ago, Babylon said:

Because we don't have the ball as much in those games. The other team comes onto us and there is space to attack if teams leave it, unlike against the smaller teams who don't.

 

There has been no change of philosophy, this is no different to what's been happening for 14 months. Vardy has continued to have a good record against the better teams and finds it harder against the smaller ones who don't attack. Hence why generally our better play has come against the better teams who we can counter.

 

Countering defensive teams does not work, it stopped working before Puel arrived and it continues to be a struggle against them now.

Good point, I think that stems from the title win prior to that teams would come and play against us however since we won the league teams now park the bus and look for the counter themselves even away from home at times.

[elvisfmcfly]

7 minutes ago, Babylon said:

Do people seriously think after Beating Chelsea and Man City, Puel turned around to the players and said "Great result lads, what I want to do now is pass the ball around slowly and try not to break down the opposition" or something?

 

This is where the "agenda" stuff comes from, people are looking for it to be the managers choice. Rather than looking at what's clearly gone on for like the last two years or so. Big team = space to move the ball into quickly and use the counter. Small team = not as much space to move into and less opportunity to counter.

 

We were dog muck 16/17... yet we pulled off the Man City 4-1, Liverpool 3-1, Sevilla 2-0. We were pretty cack last year and still managed exciting decent football at Arsenal 4-3 loss and at home 3-1 win. Chelsea away 0-0 unlucky not to win, Spurs away 5-4 loss, Spurs at home 2-1 win, Everton at home 2-1 win.  Even this year before the change to the 3 CDM's, we played some great stuff first half at Arsenal, I thought we showed up well against Liverpool and again at United.

 

The most obvious answer is that the manager isn't utterly mental, but that we're just following the trend we've been on for some time. Puel has embraced the counter in the games it's going to stand a chance of working, but is trying to get a style that works against those who won't give us the space. No it's clunky and not exactly working perfectly at the minute. But it's working a damn site better than the 30% possession and trying to counter Huddersfield etc did most of the time. Hence us being 7th.

Well inspector Babylon I’m assuming this is a typo?

[Captain...]

40 minutes ago, Babylon said:

51 shots at goal in those three games, including a missed pen and some absolute sitters missed. Whilst we absolutely have a long way to go in terms of making the system work like clock work against those teams. There are others out there not even putting in those numbers.

 

We've been conceding screamers and not much else of late, we've got the fifth best defence in the league and have only conceded two more than Spurs. We aren't gifting the opposition that many easy chances any more. The problem looks to have been rectified, compared to last season or early season. Last season we had about the fourth or fifth worst defence.

 

Why do people keep saying this FFS, the 433 works against teams who want to attack us. Why do people think three CDM's is going to somehow create more shots against teams who only intend to defend?

 

So your suggestion is what? Because them playing counter football wasn't working before Puel even arrived. We cannot rely on a counter against deep sitting teams with no intention of attacking.

 

I'd rather have a manager who has faith in what he's try to do, than someone who says "well Danny Simpson and Okazaki can't kick the ball stright, so I'll plow on playing hustle and bustle football rather than going out and buying Ricardo and Maddison who are more in line with my long term plan".

 

I’m not saying go 433 with Hamza, Mendy, Ndidi. I am saying don’t trot out the tried and failed 4231.

 

We have created lots of “chances” but how many have been long range shots from outside the area? Apart from Nacho in the first minute we barely troubled Fulham until Shinji came on, we allowed Fulham 15 shots in our box. Cardiff, Burnley, Brighton, Palace games, look at the expected goals for those games we created 1 good chance per game, 2 of those were penalties. Vs Cardiff we created 3 chances from open play in their box we had 10 hopeful shots from outside the box and a few headers from corners. 

 

Vs Palace Vardy has one good chance and Ndidi had a header from a corner the rest of our chances were very low percentage shots. 

 

Burnley was a better effort but we still failed to carve out many clear cut chances. Brighton we had a man sent off early so it is hard to read too much into that game.

 

You can point to some of the screamers we’ve conceded, but Gylfi, Milovojevic, Camarasa all head too much space and time. Considering we have 2 CDMs to cover that area.

 

I can’t argue with our position and points tally, but I can see a team that doesn’t create enough and concedes possession in dangerous areas too often. It feels like a false position, and one we’ve been in before. Last season we were 7th but fell away badly.

 

Final question, how many goals have we scored playing Puel-ball? How many times have we carved open a defence after passing it around the midfield and defence? Most of our goals still come from quick counters, capitalising on errors and creating a chance with 1 or 2 passes. Passing it around the midfield/defence creates a chance for the opposition more often than it does for us.

 

 

[Babylon]

Just now, whoareyaaa said:

Good point, I think that stems from the title win prior to that teams would come and play against us however since we won the league teams now park the bus and look for the counter themselves even away from home at times.

That's why the last third of the title win season was such a battle. Anyone actually think we played well against Saints, Newcastle, Norwich, Palace, Sunderland, West Brom, Villa? Games we hardly created in and the opposition missed good chances. They were all very fine margin games and that was with Kante and Mahrez. We had to grind it out the more teams sat deeper, our position and winning was great... but the football was shit quite often.

[Babylon]

1 minute ago, elvisfmcfly said:

Well inspector Babylon I’m assuming this is a typo?

I'm sorry, 4-2.

[whoareyaaa]

3 minutes ago, Babylon said:

That's why the last third of the title win season was such a battle. Anyone actually think we played well against Saints, Newcastle, Norwich, Palace, Sunderland, West Brom, Villa? Games we hardly created in and the opposition missed good chances. They were all very fine margin games and that was with Kante and Mahrez. We had to grind it out the more teams sat deeper, our position and winning was great... but the football was shit quite often.

agreed, even the big teams struggle against these kind of sides and I guess we are considered/analysed similar to the top 6 as they know we have quality throughout the team... it takes patience, one piece of team play and sometimes a bit of magic from our better players to come out with 3 points which in turn means games are by no means going to be exciting for 90 minutes.

[sylofox]

9 minutes ago, Babylon said:

I'm sorry, 4-2.

You should be

[Stan]

17 hours ago, KingsX said:

Honestly, our descent into tribalism here is as tiresome as the worst of our inconsistent football.  It's like the incumbency of Claude Puel is becoming more important than the players, management, and direction of the club put together.

 

As a cautious but mostly consistent "in", I am past fed up with the insistent, mindless negativity of a sizable minority of the "outs".  But I still hate to see a thread titled "Puel out mob".  Lots of us in the middle continue to see both pluses and minuses, and are willing to consider both.

I see what you're getting at, but the implication is that his job is on a continual knife edge. It's completely bonkers that we have Puel In/Out after almost every match.

[RumbleFox]

11 minutes ago, Captain... said:

I’m not saying go 433 with Hamza, Mendy, Ndidi. I am saying don’t trot out the tried and failed 4231.

 

We have created lots of “chances” but how many have been long range shots from outside the area? Apart from Nacho in the first minute we barely troubled Fulham until Shinji came on, we allowed Fulham 15 shots in our box. Cardiff, Burnley, Brighton, Palace games, look at the expected goals for those games we created 1 good chance per game, 2 of those were penalties. Vs Cardiff we created 3 chances from open play in their box we had 10 hopeful shots from outside the box and a few headers from corners. 

 

Vs Palace Vardy has one good chance and Ndidi had a header from a corner the rest of our chances were very low percentage shots. 

 

Burnley was a better effort but we still failed to carve out many clear cut chances. Brighton we had a man sent off early so it is hard to read too much into that game.

 

You can point to some of the screamers we’ve conceded, but Gylfi, Milovojevic, Camarasa all head too much space and time. Considering we have 2 CDMs to cover that area.

 

I can’t argue with our position and points tally, but I can see a team that doesn’t create enough and concedes possession in dangerous areas too often. It feels like a false position, and one we’ve been in before. Last season we were 7th but fell away badly.

 

Final question, how many goals have we scored playing Puel-ball? How many times have we carved open a defence after passing it around the midfield and defence? Most of our goals still come from quick counters, capitalising on errors and creating a chance with 1 or 2 passes. Passing it around the midfield/defence creates a chance for the opposition more often than it does for us.

 

 

I'll admit we did not end the season well but I feel "fell away badly" is an exaggeration given we finished 9th.  7th to 9th is a small fall away by anyone's standards.  X

[Monsell1976]

17 minutes ago, Babylon said:

Do people seriously think after Beating Chelsea and Man City, Puel turned around to the players and said "Great result lads, what I want to do now is pass the ball around slowly and try not to break down the opposition" or something?

 

This is where the "agenda" stuff comes from, people are looking for it to be the managers choice. Rather than looking at what's clearly gone on for like the last two years or so. Big team = space to move the ball into quickly and use the counter. Small team = not as much space to move into and less opportunity to counter.

 

We were dog muck 16/17... yet we pulled off the Man City 4-1, Liverpool 3-1, Sevilla 2-0. We were pretty cack last year and still managed exciting decent football at Arsenal 4-3 loss and at home 3-1 win. Chelsea away 0-0 unlucky not to win, Spurs away 5-4 loss, Spurs at home 2-1 win, Everton at home 2-1 win.  Even this year before the change to the 3 CDM's, we played some great stuff first half at Arsenal, I thought we showed up well against Liverpool and again at United.

 

The most obvious answer isn't that the manager isn't utterly mental, but that we're just following the trend we've been on for some time. Puel has embraced the counter in the games it's going to stand a chance of working, but is trying to get a style that works against those who won't give us the space. No it's clunky and not exactly working perfectly at the minute. But it's working a damn site better than the 30% possession and trying to counter Huddersfield etc did most of the time. Hence us being 7th.

 

He's literally said the same himself.

Like I posted, the truth is this current squad isn’t technically good enough, hence, yes we can play on the counter attack against teams that come at us, but lack any sort of flair or technical ability when teams like Cardiff come here and put 11 behind the ball.

 

 I’m not a puel hater by a long shot, but he has to take a lot of responsibility, as an example,  because we try the patient build up against teams that sit in,  realise our players cannot technically pass the ball quick enough to create space, and chances, so we bring on albrighton as an example, to throw balls into the box, but we only have gray in the box, as the only recognised striker has been taken off.

[Hollyfox]

Go on YouTube and type in Indecisive Dave from the Fast Show

 

That is Leicester City fans under Puel.

 

That includes me?

[coolhandfox]

To many people think we can go on playing the same football as we did to win the title, the PL continually evolves, just ask Jose.

[Babylon]

6 minutes ago, Captain... said:

I can’t argue with our position and points tally, but I can see a team that doesn’t create enough and concedes possession in dangerous areas too often. It feels like a false position, and one we’ve been in before. Last season we were 7th but fell away badly.

A false position? There is no such thing is there really, we are where we are because we're better than the other bunch. You think you'd accept someone saying that if we'd missed loads of chances and were 16th?

 

6 minutes ago, Captain... said:

Final question, how many goals have we scored playing Puel-ball? How many times have we carved open a defence after passing it around the midfield and defence? Most of our goals still come from quick counters, capitalising on errors and creating a chance with 1 or 2 passes. Passing it around the midfield/defence creates a chance for the opposition more often than it does for us.

Every other goal that's not a counter?

 

Firstly, keeping possession isn't just about scoring, It's also about reducing the time the opposition has the ball and thus presenting them with less chance to cause us problems. Secondly, considering we've scored as many counters this season, as we did in the title win, perhaps it's making us better at that as there are more players capable of making the quick pass when available. You see Simpson making the pass Ricardo did? or Okazaki the Maddison pass at Chelsea? Lastly, it's still a work in progress... literally everyone including the manager knows it needs work and probably more technically blessed players for it to ever work as he wants.

 

I'm not sure what "Puel Ball" is even meant to mean. I don't think he's trying to be a Man City making a 60 pass move from back to front and end up slotting it in, it's highly unlikely we'll ever get there with our budget. The crux of it is, players who are more technical and better on the ball, are far more likely to be able to pick the pass or create something against a packed tight defence.

 

We've lost the best person we had for that to Man City, making it twice as hard for us. And the attacking players he's been presented are mostly complete flops, we've had so many CM's and Strikers signed by others flop and so many loaded into the squad, that's he's not even been able to buy one he fancies or fits what he wants yet.

[FLAN]

I’ve akways been of the opinion that when you are winning the style is secondary but under Puel I feel different. We don’t have a target as such (promotion or avoiding relegation) so the entertainment becomes more important. Currently that is severely lacking in most home games. I find it odd he is lauded for improving some players yet fails with silva for example and it is the player to blame. Surely a decent coach could get a tune from someone with his ability?

[Captain...]

12 minutes ago, RumbleFox said:

I'll admit we did not end the season well but I feel "fell away badly" is an exaggeration given we finished 9th.  7th to 9th is a small fall away by anyone's standards.  X

After going 7th with a 2-0 win vs Watford we had 14 games left of which we won 3. We finished the season on 47 points and we lost 5-0 to Palace and dropped points to Southampton, Stoke and Swansea in the process. 

[coolhandfox]

1 minute ago, F1_AN said:

I’ve akways been of the opinion that when you are winning the style is secondary but under Puel I feel different. We don’t have a target as such (promotion or avoiding relegation) so the entertainment becomes more important. Currently that is severely lacking in most home games. I find it odd he is lauded for improving some players yet fails with silva for example and it is the player to blame. Surely a decent coach could get a tune from someone with his ability?

Can't remember Ferguson improving Juan Sebastián Verón much, but he seemed to do a great job with Giggs, Beckham and Scholes, do you consider Sir Alex a decent coach?

 

[RumbleFox]

1 minute ago, Captain... said:

After going 7th with a 2-0 win vs Watford we had 14 games left of which we won 3. We finished the season on 47 points and we lost 5-0 to Palace and dropped points to Southampton, Stoke and Swansea in the process. 

I agree, and we fell away "slightly" in terms of position.  Just not a huge fan of hyperbole but apologies, I was probably being slightly pedantic.  I take your point.  X

[UniFox21]

8 minutes ago, F1_AN said:

I’ve akways been of the opinion that when you are winning the style is secondary but under Puel I feel different. We don’t have a target as such (promotion or avoiding relegation) so the entertainment becomes more important. Currently that is severely lacking in most home games. I find it odd he is lauded for improving some players yet fails with silva for example and it is the player to blame. Surely a decent coach could get a tune from someone with his ability?

This isn't entirely true, there has always been players who just clash with a coach or don't match with the style being implemented. 

A great example is Lukaku at Everton, the guy was a machine. Then look at him under Jose at United. 

[chapero82]

 Vardy and N’didi don’t suit his style of play so those two may go in the summer I think 

[Babylon]

7 minutes ago, Monsell1976 said:

Like I posted, the truth is this current squad isn’t technically good enough, hence, yes we can play on the counter attack against teams that come at us, but lack any sort of flair or technical ability when teams like Cardiff come here and put 11 behind the ball.

 

 I’m not a puel hater by a long shot, but he has to take a lot of responsibility, as an example,  because we try the patient build up against teams that sit in,  realise our players cannot technically pass the ball quick enough to create space, and chances, so we bring on albrighton as an example, to throw balls into the box, but we only have gray in the box, as the only recognised striker has been taken off.

So what do you want him to do? Abandon his philosophy because we have some bang average players, or would you rather who stuck with it and saw who can work in that system. Then set about replacing those who can't with ones who can.

 

If we were scrambling around the bottom not able to buy a win, then fair enough you have to just do whatever you can. If that means abandoning the long term aim for the short term, then needs must. But we are comfortable, we aren't going down. So lets try and make it work, it might mean another two transfer windows are needed. But it wasn't working before anyway, so lets give it a chance and some time.

 

He saw we needed more from right back and from the 10 and we've replaced frankly two of the weaker links in the team, with Ricardo and Maddison who look good enough to work in the system.

 

We all thought Silva and Iheanacho would then solve the more attacking CM and the backup striker issues, but they've flopped. Meaning issues we thought were previously solved are still there. So he's now got to sort that as well, on top of that the club failed to replace Mahrez properly in the summer. I'm sure they know that full well. You only need to see our scatter gun approach for a winger to know clearly we didn't get our first choices for whatever reason.

 

Look, I know it's not perfect and he's not perfect. Leaving 2 CDM's on when chasing a game, or not having a striker with something a bit different to change a game or get on a cross is frustrating at times. But we had the two big men as backup before and they weren't exactly ripping up trees.

 

If he looks at what we've got and thinks, like most of us seem to. That we will need a striker, a CM comfortable on the ball who can pick a pass and a better winger. Then he should get the time to move the squad around into a position that means we can get them in.

[Ric Flair]

1 hour ago, Babylon said:

Because we don't have the ball as much in those games. The other team comes onto us and there is space to attack if teams leave it, unlike against the smaller teams who don't.

 

There has been no change of philosophy, this is no different to what's been happening for 14 months. Vardy has continued to have a good record against the better teams and finds it harder against the smaller ones who don't attack. Hence why generally our better play has come against the better teams who we can counter.

 

Countering defensive teams does not work, it stopped working before Puel arrived and it continues to be a struggle against them now.

Prior to these two wins vs Chelsea and Man City, our record under Puel vs the better sides was pretty grim. I think this new formation is spot on for tougher games though and it's one of the best things to come out of this season. If we can improve our home form vs mediocre teams then, we will cement 7th and theres really not much to be aggrieved about.

[Babylon]

14 minutes ago, F1_AN said:

I’ve akways been of the opinion that when you are winning the style is secondary but under Puel I feel different. We don’t have a target as such (promotion or avoiding relegation) so the entertainment becomes more important. Currently that is severely lacking in most home games. I find it odd he is lauded for improving some players yet fails with silva for example and it is the player to blame. Surely a decent coach could get a tune from someone with his ability?

Or perhaps he's just not as good as people think he might be?

 

Didn't we all think this when Sven signed a load of names. Beckford, brilliant signing, just what we need... hang on, why isn't Pearson playing him, Pearson is shit, Pearson is a moron, it's Pearson making Beckford shit when he does play.... oh we've sold him and he now plays in league one. Whilst some bloke we'd never heard of takes his place and smashes us to the title (twice).

 

Or he might be good, but he just doesn't fit the system. It's also possible it's a clanger from Puel, every manager has them. But realistically, only time and perspective will give us the answer like it did with Pearson and Beckford, Danns, Mills etc.

[Ric Flair]

Just now, Babylon said:

Or perhaps he's just not as good as people think he might be?

 

Didn't we all think this when Sven signed a load of names. Beckford, brilliant signing, just what we need... hang on, why isn't Pearson playing him, Pearson is shit, Pearson is a moron, it's Pearson making Beckford shit when he does play.... oh we've sold him and he now plays in league one. Whilst some bloke we'd never heard of takes his place and smashes us to the title (twice).

 

Or he might be good, but he just doesn't fit the system. It's also possible it's a clanger from Puel, every manager has them. But realistically, only time and perspective will give us the answer like it did with Pearson and Beckford, Danns, Mills etc.

My only gripe regarding Silva is, 4-3-3 is the one system that should cover his weaknesses we've seen from him but allow him to do what he's good at which is move the ball forward quickly. But Puel has decided his time here is done and that's that, it's a shame as certain underperforming players get chance after chance.