Brendan - Attacking Manager

[deanolegend1989]

9 hours ago, volpeazzurro said:

Summed up well I think. There absolutely were better options today and I also chose both of yours in the order you have them. For various obvious reasons, you wouldn't have Morgan or Armarty as first choice centre halves now but certainly with the former,  his vast experience is engrained and he'd die for the cause on such an occasion. Why would you even have both on the bench if have so little faith in them? Ndidi is no centre back but he is a destructive midfielder, one of the very best in the Premiership who can stop problems forming and even getting to a weakened defence. I too thought Rodgers would have learned from the last time he tried it.

 

You can rarely expect to see a season where all your best players stay fit and available and by definition, your squad players aren't necessarily as good as your first 11 but if a system stays roughly the same, they can come in and play a valuable role if they are comfortable and competent playing in the role they're being asked to fulfil. Why would you ask an already slightly inferior player to fulfill a role he's unlikely to succeed in unless there are no viable alternatives?

 

Only one of our centres halves was a true centre half yesterday and even Soyuncu looks uncomfortable when played wide left of 3! To me, it is very reminiscent of past failed England managers in trying to cram your best players on the pitch regardless, rather than playing what is actually your best team ie Scholes on the left winger and Ndidi centre half etc. It's almost as if such managers believe that if they play all their stars, they can't be blamed or held accountable if it all goes tits up! 

 

Too many round pegs in square holes leads to players losing confidence and being frustrated like Ricardo. When we went two one up, someone on the commentary team commented that it was a very difficult job for Ryan Mason, not being an experienced manager to be pitted against Rodgers who is a 'master tactician'! The latter simply just isn't true but merely part of the media myth and total guff that is regularly trotted out in an unexplainable Rodgers media friendly love in. Such myth self perpetuates as pundits follow each other like lemmings, fearful of being the odd one out, some of them at times never appear to have an original thought in their heads. Rodgers definitely has some superb qualities but master tactician is not one of them and once someone in the media spouts such guff, they all incestuously follow each other vomiting more slobber like Savage saying that Rodgers was so good, he could manage any team in the world. The trouble is, is that supporters tend to  buy into such myth also and it becomes fact forever it seems absolving such a manager from constructive criticism. We absolutely know that such pundits can be wrong because they all jumped fairly and squarely on the 'Leicester can't sustain it ' bandwagon the year we won the Premiership because it was statistically the easy thing to do for a successful prediction and none of them wanted to look less sagely than one of their counterparts . Likewise, all managers could also have learned a lesson from that in that it is most often the best team that wins, not the best individuals or galacticos. 

 

Where I have to concede, but quite happily, is with those on here who quite rightly point out that there isn't actually any known better manager out there that is seemingly busting a gut to come here because that, simply put, is the reality of the matter. Neither is Rodgers a bad manager despite all I've said because his man management and coaching abilities are possibly second to none. Probably because of previous experience he has an inate and competitive fear of failure that leans him towards the pragmatic and perceived safe option.

 

We cannot deny that 5th place and an FA Cup is anything but exceptional though but, I do think we made hard work of it and limped there with a lot of good fortune. We have some excellent talent at Leicester and sometimes it was bursts of individual talent that got us there and certainly  not latterly down to good play or tactical genius.

 

The fact remains, we were so close and had been in that top tier for so long that perhaps rationality goes out of the window at times and we now live in a blame culture. So, we go again next year perhaps with a few new faces and hopefully keeping all of our current better ones! Despite his mixture of foibles and good points though, Rodgers will I think be drained and hugely disappointed also because if he was to be enlikened to a player, he is one of those that gives of his best and leaves it all out on the pitch. The pandemic has made life terrible at times and possibly polarise our view even more but, after a good break I'm sure we'll all be optimistic again next season and hopefully be back in person to cheer them on!

Fantastic post and I agree pretty much with it word for word.

As you said, there were far better options and he never learns his lessons.

I know Amarty isn’t great but it is a round peg in round hole and overall would of been a much better option. You can’t guarantee it would work but I could guarantee that what he did wouldn’t, and it didn’t!

There is absolutely no way that as average as Amarty is, he would be any worse than Rhys Williams and Nat Phillips at Liverpool. As I said previously Klopp was doing the same - not trusting his squad players and putting square pegs in round holes and was getting dogs abuse for bemoaning injury’s and excuses. He adjusted, Rodgers didn’t.

He continued with a formation that I’ve outlined for months why it’s failing, it’s right in front of everyone’s faces and yet he sticked to it.

Since the international break we have won 3 drawn 1 and loss 5 - the wins being a very fortunate one vs Palace bailed out by a wonder strike, One vs Man Utd’s second string and vs West Brom where barring 45 mins, we were really poor as soon as Sam nullified us.

We are easy to play in a 5 atb, and even worse when we don’t have actual CBS there, the whole things a mess and we can bemoan injuries, but the reality is we had enough to make it with a tactically astute manager.

 

Again I agree completely with what you say about how the media portray in. It’s completely true and the reason people at the moment can’t see past him/the narrative and like you say so perfectly - the ‘myth’.

At the end of the day we are a ‘small’ club to the media, so winning silverware is a pass for anything else and boosts the profile and keeps the myth of him going. People who look deeper into it can see that he is far from the main reason we won the FA Cup.

We might be ‘little Leicester’ and don’t get me wrong, winning the FA Cup is a brilliant achievement and he has to take credit for that but the squad we have and the performance on the day of our players - in particularly Youri, Kasper Soyuncu and Fofana who produced world class moments - it was far from ‘his tactics’ that won us that game.

 

He has to take huge blame for the failure to make top 4. Last season it was an awful collapse but other than an absolute mental Brighton at home match with a flat middle 4 of Madders Mendy Ndidi Gray and a bizarre negative decision away at Bournemouth which we completely bottled, I thought there was lots of other factors as to why we went on an awful run pre and post lockdown.

We looked unfit, injuries to key men, smaller squad and playing the likes of Ryan Bennett and a clearly not ready Justin.

This season however is more down to him. FA Cup means people will turn a blind eye, but imo he actually did a worse job this season than last in his decision making and in game tactical management.

It remains to be seen but I truly believe if he was just braver and adjusted we’d of made it. We were 1/9 to make the top 4 before the Southampton game and were even 1/4 at 65 mins yesterday. The bookies are rarely wrong, and this wasn’t a situation where we were punching so hard but didn’t have enough squad depth - this was situations that we were in most eyes clearly going to make it , yet it never felt to me even close because we haven’t looked convincing on the pitch in any game since he’s gone 5 atb.

Away at Aston Villa made me think we had a real chance, then he changed and I didn’t think we would at any point until after Palace when I thought ‘we really are playing poor but we might fall over the line somehow’. We didn’t and despite being 1/9 on it felt 1/1 at best and that’s down to underachieving.

Barnes injury is hugely impacting us and people can throw the injury argument/he’s won the FA Cup/bigger clubs bigger resources as an excuse, but the reality is Klopps poor management mid season and Frank struggling with his flop signings, gave us a pass if we wanted it - We didn’t.

 

I also agree that despite it looking like I’m completely against everything - at the start of the season you tell me ‘5th and an FA Cup’ I’d snap your hands off(I thought we’d finish 5-9th at the start of the season so I’d of snapped it with a cup!). However that was before and after how Liverpool got hit hard by injuries and Chelsea’s 200 million was spent poorly let’s be honest, so with the situation presented we should of made it count.

Last season we blew a bigger points lead but as stated above felt like we had lots more wrong and Ricardo Chillwell Madders injuries cost us, we looked unfit after lockdown and it cost us. Brendan was at fault but it was a bit of everything and Man Utd’s relentless form. Last season we were very unlucky as this season it’s more thrown away. Fofana and Castange gave a lot more solidy to the defence and before the last few games we had no real injuries except Barnes and Justin yet we have been poor ever since Barnes was out due to poor management, tactics and formations. In the same way Klopp kept making excuses losing Van Dijk and started throwing it away, he then just stopped moaning and trusted his initial style and just coped with weak CBs.
There is no way we shouldn’t of made top 4 this year and that’s why it could be detrimental to our future trajectory. Youri Wilf and Fofana and Soyuncu are the spine that will keep us pushing. Lose any of them(especially Youri) we will go back to mid table and that’s the fear for me.

Not even bothered by the CL. Its more just for the fact that we really will find it hard to keep these boys now I fear.

Should we lose nobody(significant anyway) and add a RW, CF and that lad from Lille we’ll push hard for top 4 again imo. However if we lose anyone I mentioned above we will do well to finish above 8th. Crucial summer for us and bottling the top 4 is the reason it’ll be a huge sweat

 

[The_77]

9 hours ago, Nick said:

It’s not that you have an opinion. It’s not that people can’t take criticism. It’s not even your contempt for Brendan Rogers or Mendy... It’s that you can’t separate your opinion from fact.

 

Most people stop reading posts that are written with rhetoric that states ‘if you disagree with me you don’t know anything about football’

 

Its clear you watch the games and it’s clear you have passion and love for the club but hailing Amartey, Praet and 433 as the blindingly obvious solution, for me isn’t a strong enough argument to justify the statements you have made. Some of which are pretty over the top and verging on hateful!

 

The manager is clearly working with what he has available. He clearly doesn’t favour Amartey or Praet despite seeing them every day in training. I was disappointed Madders went off as I thought we retained possession and had a potential creative spark but the manager clearly knows what he has in him and what he doesn’t. I also hate 5 at the back and it’s only really works against shit teams. But we are resigned to playing it because we have no quality depth in squad whatsoever across the midfield and available for selection.

 

Like you, I’m gutted this morning but try and find perspective rather than this hate blame mission you’re on, I like reading the football side of your posts it’s what they are wrapped in that’s a bit OTT buddy.

We scored 5 goals playing 5 ATB at Man City! Works against some decent clubs too. 

[Nick]

1 minute ago, The_77 said:

We scored 5 goals playing 5 ATB at Man City! Works against some decent clubs too. 

TBH you might be right - it works better on the counter than it probably does when trying to create in the final third with possession! Fair point!

[volpeazzurro]

18 hours ago, The_77 said:

We scored 5 goals playing 5 ATB at Man City! Works against some decent clubs too. 

Yes it did and worked well but look at our pace on the counter attack that day. Also, our 3 centre backs included Soyuncu, Evans and Armarty, 3 proper centre backs, he trusted Armarty that day, no makeshift square pegs in the shape of Castagne or Ndidi! 2 round peg full backs in the shape of Castagne and JJ. No Ndidi and we coped with Mendy, Tielemans and Praet. We did admittedly have a big bonus of Barnes. We trusted Praet and Armarty that day and no Perez. Yet we started not to trust some players and play others out of position ie one proper centre half of 3 against Spurs?

Edited 25 May 2021 by volpeazzurro

[don_danbury]

25 minutes ago, The_77 said:

We scored 5 goals playing 5 ATB at Man City! Works against some decent clubs too. 

freak game. 3 goals were penalties, couple of dodgy ones imo and 1 a rocket from outside the box.

[deanolegend1989]

2 minutes ago, volpeazzurro said:

Yes it did and worked well but look at our pace on the counter attack that day. Also, our 3 centre backs included Soyuncu, Evans and Armarty, 3 proper centre backs, he trusted Armarty that day, no makeshift square pegs in the shape of Castagne or Ndidi! 2 round peg full backs in the shape of Castagne and JJ. No Ndidi and we coped with Mendy, Tielemans and Praet. We did admittedly have a big bonus of Barnes. We trusted Praet and Armarty that day and no Perez. Yet we started not to trust some players and play others out of position ie on proper centre half of 3 against Spurs?

 

2 minutes ago, don_danbury said:

freak game. 3 goals were penalties, couple of dodgy ones imo and 1 a rocket from outside the box.

Both absolutely spot on.

Freak game that actually was the reason he then kept the same formation vs West Ham the week after rather than adjusting. Another poor decision.

I actually think that Man City game was the reason he became so negative, it was always in his head that ‘it worked that game’.

 

On top of both of your above posts which are both spot on, I’ll add that Man City were without Laporte Diaz and Stones which proved to be crucial. They also took off Fernandinho at 1-1 which was a poor decision at the time I thought and brought on Delap.

There was so many factors that went in our favour that game and it didn’t tell the true story.

[Hollyfox]

As said before, yesterday's switching of Wilfred reminded me of the Everton game. 

Allan went off with and injury at HT (I think) but we kept Wilf as an emergency centre half. 

We were 1-0 down at the time, but Everton weren't all that and it was crying out for us to take control of the midfield. 

When Mendy came on and Wilf went back, yesterday, I was swearing like fuch. 

 

Not a Brendan bashing from me, but I really couldn't understand it. 

Edited 24 May 2021 by Hollyfox

[Blue ROI]

I can understand in some respects why Amartey wasn't brought in given that it was Kane and Son but Men-Didi has never worked out for us.

 

There has been a pattern with the latter. At least with Amartey we beat City and he scored the winner at Brighton. Easy to say it looking back but it was probably the better of the 2 options.

[turlo]

10 minutes ago, Hollyfox said:

As said before, yesterday's switching of Wilfred reminded me of the Everton game. 

Allan went off with and injury at HT (I think) but we kept Wilf as an emergency centre half. 

We were 1-0 down at the time, but Everton weren't all that and it was crying out for us to take control of the midfield. 

When Mendy came on and Wilf went back, yesterday, I was swearing like fuch. 

 

Not a Brendan bashing from me, but I really couldn't understand it. 

Mendy in a 2 man midfield has been proven to be disastrous this season ie Everton, Fulham and Leeds at home. Even though I'm pretty much over the disappointment of missing out of missing out on ULC  football, I just can't get my head around that decision from yesterday. 

[The_77]

1 hour ago, don_danbury said:

freak game. 3 goals were penalties, couple of dodgy ones imo and 1 a rocket from outside the box.

We completely carved up their backline. Castagne and JJ were bombing up the pitch and getting into advanced positions all game. 

[don_danbury]

2 hours ago, The_77 said:

We completely carved up their backline. Castagne and JJ were bombing up the pitch and getting into advanced positions all game. 

agree but man city's defence was garbage that day. didn't they have ake and garcia back there? 

[Dan LCFC]

10 hours ago, turlo said:

Mendy in a 2 man midfield has been proven to be disastrous this season ie Everton, Fulham and Leeds at home. Even though I'm pretty much over the disappointment of missing out of missing out on ULC  football, I just can't get my head around that decision from yesterday. 

Yep completely agree. Mendy is nowhere near good enough really. Hardly any redeeming quality.

[Sooper Steve's shin]

On 23/05/2021 at 23:59, StriderHiryu said:

I think people need to understand quite what an impact losing Harvey Barnes and James Justin with more than a third of the season left to play had on us. On top of that Maddison got injured around the same time and though he recovered, was not quite the same player, and we basically played the entire season without Ricardo anywhere close to his level, for obvious reasons.

 

I actually think people massively underestimate the rabbit out of the hat that Rodgers pulled by getting the 3412 to work and turning Kelechi Iheanacho into a monster. Nacho single handedly saved the season IMO, we could have crashed and burned a long time ago if it wasn't for his goals.

 

Rodgers had to be pragmatic because our squad got decimated. He could easily have complained Klopp style, but got on with it.

 

Of course he needs to take a fair share of blame for capitulations against Newcastle and Spurs (among others) but for the most part the man did an amazing job. If we want to play silky attacking football every game, we need the squad to do it. Today Spurs brought on Champions League winning Gareth Bale and Brazillian international Lucas Moura. We brought on Nampalys Mendy, Ayoze Perez and a still nowhere near full fitness Ricardo.

 

What Rodgers managed to do with this squad is a brilliant achievement even if today feels so bad.

Totally agree. It wasn’t just the injuries and loss of individuals in most cases, but the lack of subsequent cover to then be able to rotate the team that meant we had a side dead on its feet by the end of the season. We would have expected Evans and Soyuncu to be our main CBs at the start of the season with Fofana keeping them fresh, but both had injuries leading to Fofana playing pretty much all season. That he gets crocked in the last game was the icing on the cake. 
 

Ricardo, Thomas and others have had to play more/sooner than they expected. Arguably, Vardy, Maddison, Soyuncu and Ndidi all came back too early at various points and suffered from it. 
 

Iheanacho’s coming of age was a blessing that probably became a bit of a millstone - to shift away from two up front would mean dropping Vardy or Iheanacho. It would have been very brave to play JV alone until he rediscovered his scoring touch and Iheanacho was clearly benefitting from Vardy’s support. So by playing two up front, it limits the ability for Rodgers to switch back to a four: 4-4-2 perhaps leaves us weak in the middle (and we don’t have the wingers), 4-3-1-2 doesn’t give us width. 3 or 5 at the back at least allows us wing-backs to play up the sides. 

 

I think Under and Gray didn’t have the football brain the Rodgers’ system needs. What some have bemoaned on this thread as slow build-up is the strategic side of working an opening (see the goal vs Man Utd where we had 20+ passes in the build up as a classic example). The players need to be patient and clever to work the ball around, spot the opportunity and go for it. IMO, the downside of this approach came at the end of a long and difficult season when we tailed off with players too mentally and physically drained to make the same bursts they were doing before Christmas. Notably, it was Tielemans who kept going right to the end but we became too reliant on him to do it all. 

[Tom12345]

Even when we needed to score after getting to 2-2, he substituted Albrighton out for Perez. We needed to score, so not sure why not take Mendy out? Albrighton did ok before then and his long passes remained probably our most effective way in getting the ball forward at the time. So yes, Rodgers is too conservative even when our season was down to the wire and we needed to score!

Edited 25 May 2021 by Tom12345

[Tom12345]

On 24/05/2021 at 02:58, peterborofox said:

I don't think we did sit back today even when we should have done at 2-1.

 He tried to park the bus at home to Man City and Chelsea away, it failed easily.

 

When ahead like in the final or today we should have done that. 

 

Tactically he gets so much wrong

In fairness, at that point, I thought we did ok. We should’t have just sat back and invited pressure. We were unlucky in that respect that Kasper punched the ball in. After that though, I do question our tactics. We needed to chase so I thought we should have kept Albrighton on instead of Mendy (for Perez).

[jmono84]

We started 442 but we switched to 3 or 5 at the back and that’s where we went limp as a fart. We don’t have the players for it, no width and CM’s can’t cope and it leaves two guys up top in no mans land. Terrible decision. I was screaming for us to just go for it and if we get beat then so be it but to change tactics which completely handed over emphasis to Spurs was very poor from Brendan.

 

I just hope we’ve learnt if he wants to play this system more then we need a lot more players to pull it off. For me the reason why we’ve done so bad recently is this system, completely nullified us in several games.

 

We also took off Maddison who was playing the sharpest half for weeks!

 

[chapero82]

You can’t play attacking football when your attacking players aren’t fully fit or injured 

[Nalis]

Bar Man City and possibly Liverpool, I'd like to know who these premier leagues playing free flowing football game in game out are.

 

 

[Koke]

Goals scored 

 

Man City 83

Man Utd 73

Liverpool 68

Leicester 68

Tottenham 68

West Ham 62

Leeds 62

Chelsea 58

 

The real story here how has Chelsea scored less goals than a Moyes team after spending about £250m.  As for us, we are joint 3rd highest and we haven't had a 9-0 tax to boost our GD like United have had this season.

 

Xg for this season we are 7th, behind the usual teams + Brighton. Our possession stat we are also top 6.

 

I think the stats suggest we are not doing badly, we are not far off averaging 2 goals per game. On the eye test though, it doesn't look as fluid and progressive as maybe last year. Our passing seem slower, too many unnecessary touches etc. 

[Chrysalis]

On 23/05/2021 at 19:54, Stevosevic said:

When he first came in we were told this was the case 

 

Now we play 5 at the back and try and defend whenever we take the lead against good opposition.

 

Sitting back cost us today. And in all the other games we were defensive from the first whistle.

 

He's changed as a manager since he's been with us 

 

 

He has become very cautious I agree, the turning point I feel was the two heavy defeats last season that were close to each other.

 

Now we defend small lead's as you said and also reset our play when we gain possession instead of rushing on counter's.

 

I do feel we can play more direct, but have also observed on occasions when we become more positive such as the spurs game we still concede heavily, so I can see why he is doing it.

 

I feel the way forward for us we need to get a good attacking winger, Ricardo might be good enough as in the Chelsea game he shown glimpses but he needs to be played in that position if we use him, but buying another I think will be prudent, as well as a new Striker, so hoping we concentrate on forward players in transfer window.

 

When everyone fit for me be Castagne right back, Ricardo right winger, Justin left back, Barnes left winger.

Edited 25 May 2021 by Chrysalis

[volpeazzurro]

12 hours ago, Chrysalis said:

He has become very cautious I agree, the turning point I feel was the two heavy defeats last season that were close to each other.

 

Now we defend small lead's as you said and also reset our play when we gain possession instead of rushing on counter's.

 

I do feel we can play more direct, but have also observed on occasions when we become more positive such as the spurs game we still concede heavily, so I can see why he is doing it.

 

I feel the way forward for us we need to get a good attacking winger, Ricardo might be good enough as in the Chelsea game he shown glimpses but he needs to be played in that position if we use him, but buying another I think will be prudent, as well as a new Striker, so hoping we concentrate on forward players in transfer window.

 

When everyone fit for me be Castagne right back, Ricardo right winger, Justin left back, Barnes left winger.

The only flaw in the plan there for me is Ricardo. He's just not a winger by any wild stretch of the imagination or even a wing back really. He is however a good defender that can be devastating running from deep and causes problems. Just because you have a problem specialist position doesn't mean that you can fill with any old really good player like England tried to do with Scholes on the left wing. World class midfielder he was, winger he wasn't. Likewise Ricardo, and he's looked very frustrated out of position. Less to do with fitness, though understandably an issue, more to do with skill set or lack of. 

Edited 25 May 2021 by volpeazzurro

[Ric Flair]

I've defended Rodgers a lot this season as more often than not he does a good job here. I don't buy the fact this squad is top 4 under normal circumstances and that's why I then view Ridgers as a good coach and manager. 

 

There's weaknesses in this team even at full strength and as a squad we are nowhere near as strong as the big 6. Rodgers has a nucleus of a very very good team though and he's got methods and ability to get the best out of them which is where some clubs aren't as sharp as we are.

 

I'm annoyed we have fallen short for a 2nd season running, we didn't learn our lesson in the transfer windows and whether it's bad luck or not we have essentially played the final 3rd of the season without Justin, Barnes, Maddison and Praet. The latter two have been available but were neither deployed/deployed correctly or in any sort of form to have an impact. Maddison might as well have not played if you measure his output since he came back.

 

We just don't have thr players to play 4-2-3-1 without Barnes. Our choice of wingers is absolutely horrendous, but 3-4-1-2 seemingly stunted the performances of Maddison and Vardy too. They seem to work better as Maddison being given the licence to support Vardy off the shoulder, he drops too deep in a 3-4-1-2 for some reason. Our problem was though that Iheanacho hasn't yet suited 4-2-3-1 and in 3-4-1-2 he simply carried this team to not only the FA Cup final but also maintained our top 5 position, we could easily have ended up mid table without his goals. It's assumed that in another system that others would have stepped up, but who? Maddison has been way off it, Vardy and Perez too. In fact Perez is supposedly best as a support striker/attacking midfielder and yet his stats since we played this formation from February onwards is simply horrible. He's crap and needs getting rid of, I'm done with him.

 

Could we have still play 4-2-3-1 without Barnes and whilst Maddison, Praet and Perez were injured? Maybe we could in recent weeks, or at least tried it but we seemed to set on 3-4-1-2 because we managed to ride that crisis after Arsenal by grinding out that win at Brighton and then hammering Sheffield Utd. It was all about Iheanacho and then the Man Utd game in the quarter final was electric and we all thought we'd locked on to a system that would see us through.

 

After the international break it became clear that wasn't necessarily going to be the case, I wish he had at least tried 4-2-3-1 as that's going to big me forever, it probably wouldn't have made much difference as we'd have had to drop one of Vardy or Iheanacho and played wingers consisting of Albrighton on one side and Ricardo or Perez on the other, it's vulgar when you think about it. But defensively as a back 5 we weren't even that solid so we can't hide behind that excuse that at least what we lost going forward in a back 5 we made up for it in defence because we didn't, we got done by 3 or more goals away at West Ham and home to Newcastle and Spurs, its grim.

 

Overall I'm proud of them of course this season as we had a relentless schedule with horrible injuries and we won the FA Cup which was breathtaking and means way more to me than top 4 but regardless of the league position we ended up in, the position was reached by dropping down the pecking order at the end for a 2nd season running and it does hurt. I worry we won't get this opportunity again and if we get 60-66 points next season it could only be enough for 6th - 7th and will be viewed as a poor season when it isn't given who we are up against but it's the manner in which things occur.

 

Still fully behind Rodgers, be careful what we wish for as we could easily have a manager who can't get what Rodgers gets out of this squad and we'd be back scrabbling about for 9th again or worse.

 

 

[Sooper Steve's shin]

1 hour ago, Ric Flair said:

 I'm annoyed we have fallen short for a 2nd season running, we didn't learn our lesson in the transfer windows and whether it's bad luck or not we have essentially played the final 3rd of the season without Justin, Barnes, Maddison and Praet. The latter two have been available but were neither deployed/deployed correctly or in any sort of form to have an impact. Maddison might as well have not played if you measure his output since he came back.

 

 

Arguably, you could add Vardy to that - he was a shadow of himself after coming back very quickly from surgery. 

[Ric Flair]

44 minutes ago, Sooper Steve's shin said:

Arguably, you could add Vardy to that - he was a shadow of himself after coming back very quickly from surgery. 

Vardy is a curious one, as a finisher he was below standard but his game play with Iheanacho was important and I'm not sure either would have had the impact for us up top on their own, Vardy because he wasn't in form and Iheanacho because he often struggles in the lone striker role.

[ARM1968]

This thread title confuses me. Which manager is BR attacking?