A season of two halves

[Les-TA-Jon]

16 hours ago, Pliskin said:

What happened was we went on that 8 game winning streak. It completely blew the season out of proportion. The disappointing thing is, we would be home and dry by now, if we had hit some kind of mediocre form. I’m my eyes, this season is a failure. Regardless of what happens it has been a disaster in the second half. There’s a lot to think about over the summer... lots of planning and lots of thinking to be done, otherwise next season could be an epic disaster, if we are ill prepared. The Europa league is gruelling, and frankly not worth the effort it needs on my opinion.  

If the 2 halves of the season that the OP describes were reversed - poor form for the first half, followed by good form and football,  a record 9-0 win and 8 in a row, whilst rising up the table to 5th, would you still see the season as a failure? 

[PhillippaT]

17 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

Playing football is a lot like making love to a beautiful woman.

No it's not  

[Stuntman_Mike]

17 hours ago, Pliskin said:

What happened was we went on that 8 game winning streak. It completely blew the season out of proportion. The disappointing thing is, we would be home and dry by now, if we had hit some kind of mediocre form. I’m my eyes, this season is a failure. Regardless of what happens it has been a disaster in the second half. There’s a lot to think about over the summer... lots of planning and lots of thinking to be done, otherwise next season could be an epic disaster, if we are ill prepared. The Europa league is gruelling, and frankly not worth the effort it needs on my opinion.  

Personally I think European football is what it's all about.

 

I'd sacrifice being mid table next year and having a good run in the Europa League, the only time it would be a concern is if we're pulled into a relegation fight.

 

If you want to do well or win trophies then you have to come to terms with juggling the extra games that comes with it. 

 

Otherwise, what is the point? Do we not take the Europa League serious like West Ham that time who then tried their hardest to get back in it. Makes no sense.

Edited 20 July 2020 by Stuntman_Mike

[That_Dude]

17 hours ago, Pliskin said:

What happened was we went on that 8 game winning streak. It completely blew the season out of proportion. The disappointing thing is, we would be home and dry by now, if we had hit some kind of mediocre form. I’m my eyes, this season is a failure. Regardless of what happens it has been a disaster in the second half. There’s a lot to think about over the summer... lots of planning and lots of thinking to be done, otherwise next season could be an epic disaster, if we are ill prepared. The Europa league is gruelling, and frankly not worth the effort it needs on my opinion.  

Two wins (Brighton and Bournemouth) after the lockdown would've achieved that.

 

Hell, even only one win against Bournemouth wouldn't forced to go gung ho against a Mourinho team and the result might probably have been different. Now we have to beat Man United since I don't see West ham doing us any favor.

 

European foortball is still worth it imo, even if it's just the EL. We have to add to the squad though.

Edited 20 July 2020 by That_Dude

[coolhandfox]

16 hours ago, The Blur said:

Do people really buy our wingers do not score enough argument?   Zaha has got 4,  Townsend 1,  Traoe 4 and I cannot be bothered to look at the rest but I am guessing not many have notched more than Perez (8) and Barnes (6)?   Pepe at Arsenal got the same amount as Perez for an example.  

That's why Palace are in the bottom half.............

 

Chelsea:  William has 9, Pulisic 8

Man U: Rashford has 17 (I'm saying the Martial plays down the middle, but if you want to say Rashford does, Martial has also scored 17)

Edited 20 July 2020 by coolhandfox

[Leicester_Loyal]

29 minutes ago, coolhandfox said:

That's why Palace are in the bottom half.............

 

Chelsea:  William has 9, Pulisic 8

Man U: Rashford has 17 (I'm saying the Martial plays down the middle, but if you want to say Rashford does, Martial has also scored 17)

Salah & Mane have 19 and 17. Sterling & Mahrez have 17 & 10. If we want top 4 we need a winger that's going to get double figures every season. We can't expect Vardy to get 20+ goals next season, someone needs to take some of the burden off him.

 

Be nice if our CBs could actually score 3 or 4 from set pieces too.

[The Blur]

2 hours ago, coolhandfox said:

That's why Palace are in the bottom half.............

 

Chelsea:  William has 9, Pulisic 8

Man U: Rashford has 17 (I'm saying the Martial plays down the middle, but if you want to say Rashford does, Martial has also scored 17)

 

2 hours ago, Leicester_Loyal said:

Salah & Mane have 19 and 17. Sterling & Mahrez have 17 & 10. If we want top 4 we need a winger that's going to get double figures every season. We can't expect Vardy to get 20+ goals next season, someone needs to take some of the burden off him.

 

Be nice if our CBs could actually score 3 or 4 from set pieces too.

 

Yeah-  I was looking at teams around our level and made quick comparision with Palace due to their well known wingers and Traore of Wolves.   I also looked at Everton but their statisics were shocking!    I did not count teams from big six as they would have access to players of higher quality calibre however with that said we are only three goals short of Chelsea.   I reckon Rashford and Greenwood play in more advanced positions for United on a consistent basis so it is a tad unfair comparision.   On the whole,  I think we are best of the rest for teams on our level wingers wise and 10+ goals wingers are not that straightfoward to find that some may think on here.  

 

Superb point re CBs though-  if Evans and Soyuncu grabbed few more goals then that could swing two or three matches in our favour potentially.   

Edited 20 July 2020 by The Blur

[Tom12345]

22 hours ago, Leicester_Loyal said:

• Vardy had that ridiculous run of good form then a ridiculous run of poor form
• Rodgers making some dodgy decisions throughout the season (tactics and subs).
• Injuries.
• Wingers aren't prolific enough.

Combination of all of these has meant that our second half has been pretty shit, we should have easily obtained top 4, it's very disappointing.

No. When are fans going to learn not to doubt Vardy. Vardy never dropped off in form. He may have an off game here and there, but he is a legend that makes who we are. He had no chances in the second half of the season. As explained in many other posts, we got found out since Norwich game and to play us, teams did not need to be afraid that we counter attack with Vardy and sit back like what the useless pundits say, they just need to press us at the back because we like too much passing at the back and BR did not know how to switch formation and player roles to allow our back 4 (except Ricardo) to get the ball up field. Ndidi is not good enough yet for that role - he is not Kante yet (though he will get better). Maddison playing deep does not suit him and the team and we then over rely on him for everything which causes team chemistry to fail and takes Tielemans out of his natural game. Chilwell just knows how to keep his head down and runs and passes back, and so he lacks chemistry with Barnes. I can go on with a few more examples of BR using too many round pegs to go through square holes. We became too boringly one dimensional and predictable. We could only play occasionally when the other team didn’t prepare enough and did not try to press us at the back and allow us to get the ball to our other midfielders. This is why we then had the occasional good game like against Villa just before the break. 

 

But it is not Vardy. Though I share the same sentiment that I am disappointed at how we are ending the season. Not because we do not have the squad - we do; but because BR was too stubborn to change (if Maguire is still here I bet you Soy is still on the bench).  At least the last few games have been better in parts but only because injuries forced BR to change. I really like to give him a chance and see how he will improve on this next season.

Edited 20 July 2020 by Tom12345

[Chrysalis]

On 19/07/2020 at 19:05, Swiss_tony said:

Games 1-19

W - 12

D - 3

L - 4

GF - 41

GA - 18

Pts - 39

 

Games 20-37

W - 6

D - 5

L - 7

GF - 26

GA - 21

Pts - 23

 

What's interesting after looking at these stats is, our defence is about the same between the two halves, but our goal  scoring has just dropped off dramatically. Even if you treated a few of the 9 goals against a Soton as blip, we just aren't scoring enough  to  turn  losses into  draws, and draws into  wins.

We get a lot of possession 71% today, and don't turn it into enough goals.

 

In any other year, 5th would be fantastic, but this is going to feel like such a letdown.

 

 

In first half of season we didnt have a defensive posture and our play in the final 3rd was slick.

 

I have said for a while we have been struggling to score.

 

The bournemouth first half possession, in first half of season we would be 3 or 4 goals up at half time.  Spurs we probably would have scored at least a couple first half as well with the play we had.

Edited 20 July 2020 by Chrysalis

[Swiss_tony]

other interesting stats for 2019/20

 

pass accuracy 83%

cross accuracy  20%

shooting accuracy 36%

 

Our top  3 shooters (not scorers).

 

vardy 23 goals from 84 shots, 27% conversion rate.

barnes 6 goals from 60 shots, 10% conversion rate

maddison 6 goals from 74 shots, 8% conversion rate.

 

 

if rodgers is looking at these stats,  we need attacking midfielders who can pass forward and score, wingers who can  cross and score, and strikers who can score.

without vardy we'd be in the lower half of the table.

 

Maddison has 6 goals and 3 assists, for a supposedly world class attacking mid,  those are pretty dismal  numbers.

 

Edited 20 July 2020 by Swiss_tony
typo

[Phube]

Interesting Season of two half’s stat from Jordan Blackwell.

 

 

So a game like Spurs yesterday would never have been a loss in the first half of the season.

[Leicester_Loyal]

3 hours ago, Tom12345 said:

No. When are fans going to learn not to doubt Vardy. Vardy never dropped off in form. He may have an off game here and there, but he is a legend that makes who we are. He had no chances in the second half of the season. As explained in many other posts, we got found out since Norwich game and to play us, teams did not need to be afraid that we counter attack with Vardy and sit back like what the useless pundits say, they just need to press us at the back because we like too much passing at the back and BR did not know how to switch formation and player roles to allow our back 4 (except Ricardo) to get the ball up field.

He scored in one game (twice against Villa) in 11 games! He missed plenty of chances, including penalties. Not only that his touch seemed to be awful and his general all round play suffered. There's no shame in saying he had a bad run of form, it happens to everyone.

[Leicester_Loyal]

11 minutes ago, Phube said:

Interesting Season of two half’s stat from Jordan Blackwell.

 

 

So a game like Spurs yesterday would never have been a loss in the first half of the season.

A lot of this was down to Vardy, I'm sure he'd scored about 40% of his shots on target earlier on in the season. We were lucky earlier in the season and we've been a bit unlucky in the second half of the season, but a lot of it boils down to our own making.

[Nicolo Barella]

To be honest. So many small points since the restart where we could have placed ourselves in CL places. If we had not conceded to that freak Dawson bicycle kick, or Rodgers hadn't subbed Iheanacho off against Bournemouth, we could have 3 points and GD on Man Utd right now. It really is painful that we've missed out the way we have (not that we can't still get CL, but realistically things don't look great).

[Cala Bona Fox]

I also think that when we got the 14 point cushion there was perhaps a switching off mentally. When we started dropping a few points it didn't seem to matter. I remember  Rodgers a couple times saying that if we want to challenge the top clubs we have to have a top club mentality. This is generally a young squad and hopefully they will learn from this season that you can't take anything for granted. Overall I think the season has been a success but if we miss out on Champions League,  we'll look back and with a feeling of disappointment at what might have been.