Leicester 0-2 Arsenal post match

[Fox92]

Terrible first half hour in which they looked better than us everywhere, especially going forward.

 

Thought we were better second half but only had a little spell where we should have scored.

 

Beaten by the better team on the day.

[Guest Col city fan]

1 minute ago, sacreblueits442 said:

....no, they dropped off...!!!

If that was us in the ascendency and chose to drop like they did, I would have been livid. Ramsdale aside, had we had better finishing we could have got something out of this. They did not drop because we put them under pressure, they invited that pressure on themselves.

    They knew what they were doing, no need to chase the game, and sat deeper to make this more difficult for us.

The game was over in the first 20 mins. Defensively we (again) were utterly clueless. That wasn’t like watching a Premiership defence by the way.

We created some chances but if we had scored, Arsenal could have upped a gear and scored again I think 

We have to sort out our defence both in terms of sticking to a way of playing and sorting out the personnel. It’s not good enough at this level 

[lcfc_forever]

Some perspective - Arsenal have spent the most of any PL team this season, and so they should be competing high in the table. And they’re also eight matches or so unbeaten so comments like ‘they were there to be beaten’ are ridiculous. They deserve credit for their clinical finishing, resilience and organisation. The challenges for them is they have pretty thin resources defensively and have had a lot of luck in the past few games so things could change for them. 
 

We played well from the 25 mins mark and with a bit more luck/better finishing, could and should have got something from the game. We weren’t terrible or poor for the vast majority of the game. And the team deserve credit for keeping going and creating so many chances. 
 

The fundamental problem was our set piece defending, organisation and softness early in the game. That’s where the criticism should be directed. 

Edited 30 October 2021 by lcfc_forever

[Edingleyfox]

Very frustrating afternoon. Arsenal were so much better and we were painfully slow in the first half but still made mistakes. I think the changes at half time were right although Iheanacho had such poor service he might feel unlucky. Amartey and Soumare had a  lot of the ball but  struggled to pass the ball forwards and made individual errors although Soumare was better later. I don't think Thomas was comfortable in the first half looking very nervy, but in second half with Barnes he was much better.

 

At the end of the day certainly very unlucky not to score but the usual defending issues and lack of ideas and width in the first half was too much. I don't think we look in any way solid with 3 at the back certainly with the players available and hope we go back to a back 4

[funkyrobot]

1 minute ago, Mark said:

Castagne is not going to take anyone on though, he's decent at making use of space if someone like Perez is in front of him but when he has the whole side to himself not so much. We can get away with it if a team is focusing on the threat of Ricardo on the other side though.

Castagne is a runner who bombs on and is more than capable of playing as a wing back. I agree that Ricardo is the better dribbler but Castagne wasn’t the problem in that formation and he isn’t a fairly described as a defensive fullback. The weakness was we had nothing on the left. 

[filbertway]

Same stuff different week. Start rubbish and then have a better second half. Looks like the Man U game was a one off against one of the few teams less well tactically drilled than ourselves.

 

Shame, as I thought Rodgers had genuinely turned a corner but apparently not.

 

The team is clearly good enough as almost all of our second halfs show. The manager is not getting anywhere near the maximum he can get out of this squad though.

[orangecity23]

We threw that away in the first half by our inability to defend set pieces (although, nice of Oliver to ignore the blatant foul on Soumare, ignore him being injured so Arsenal could continue playing and get a corner. Then let him have treatment while we defend a corner with 10 men, from which Arsenal get a second corner and score. Compare and contrast when Ben White goes down injured while we were attacking in the second half, and there's no problem immediately stopping play so he can get treatment). Very annoyed that the goal conceeded was a carbon copy of the Brentford goal and the Vardy OG against Burnley. We need this sorting out badly.

 

First half, Amartey is getting stick for playing badly, but I think part of that comes from the wrong shape - time and time again, when we tried to pass out from the back, we would shuffle it across the CBs, who might work it to the wingbacks, who were immediately marked by 2 players and turned back to the CBs. Soumare and Tielemans weren't showing for the ball off the centre backs. Could have done with Maddison or one of the strikers trying to get closer to the wingbacks as well, as there's no way on earth Luke Thomas is going to dribble past and outpace 2 players, and Castagne is better when he has some space to run into. Amartey lost the ball a lot, but the formation was offering very little passing options to anyone in defence, seemed like half the time we were expecting Amartey to do all the creative passing in the opposition half, that's when you know something is badly wrong! Arsenal have played well against Villa when they lined up in a back 5 last week, think they are clearly set up well to handle that formation, and we played right into their hands. Fair play to Rogers changing shape at half time, we looked much better with wingers on, and the full backs looked a lot better once they actually had someone to link up with.

Edited 30 October 2021 by orangecity23

[Dandy king]

All I wish for every season is that we beat f ing arsenal. That's all.  Is that so much to ask ? 

[sacreblueits442]

5 minutes ago, justfoxes said:

Is it a case of Brendan thinks some of our players are better than they really are or is it just a case of European & Cup football with not a hell of a lot of time and a smaller squad can’t recharge their batteries as quicker as some other players ?

...Rodgers made 10 changes for the cup game in midweek, but he did bring on some first team players!!!

It was very much the formation that had us undone, where we can be too aggressive with our Wingbacks and push too high up the pitch. The spaces behind the Wingbacks were being targeted by Arsenal and where there success was coming from. They just played around us and we were not at the races.

  We needed to adjust and match up with them, but that does not happen with Rodgers, as he waits till at best half time or 65 minutes to make the change. A query in another topic regarding bringing in Potter, would have seen Potter make the adjustment immediately to prevent further damage and allow the players to regroup, and be not so flustered by what was going on around them. 

   We have seen how vulnerable we can be with an aggressive approach with our Wingbacks and we have gone down this line again, Rodgers just seem to fail to learn from past experiences, and you would hope he does not  go down this route again, but he will.

[Paninistickers]

apologies as I cba to read the thread. Where was Ricky today? Did he pull up in training?

[Matt]

19 minutes ago, BKLFox said:

So you don’t get that he does that to get 1 and more often than not 2 players come at him taking them out the game when he passes.

 

And how often does it work?
 

Especially when we’re losing and the opposition is happy for us to have possession as they know it’ll go no where.
 

For example today, the game just stopped, he went no where, no one came at him.

 

We must be one of the least threatening teams when I’m possession. If I were the opposition I’d say “here have all the possession you want. **** up (because you will **** up, several times) and we’re on you.”

 

We must be one of the least threatening teams in the league when in possession.

 

Edited 30 October 2021 by Matt

[sdb]

1 hour ago, Lawless said:

This is spot on. Besides United , in which we conceded 2, we’ve not played a good game this season. 

Very true. 1 convincing performance all season, in truth.

[Guest Kopfkino]

14 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

The game was over in the first 20 mins. Defensively we (again) were utterly clueless. That wasn’t like watching a Premiership defence by the way.

We created some chances but if we had scored, Arsenal could have upped a gear and scored again I think 

We have to sort out our defence both in terms of sticking to a way of playing and sorting out the personnel. It’s not good enough at this level 

It’s weird people talk about our chances yet  ignore that Aubameyang had the best chance of the second half . Thomas’ shot gets cited as a chance but not Saka’s initial shot that was statistically equal. And completely ignored is Evans’ potential sending off, which leads to a 1v1, where Castagne has probably just about saved him

[StanSP]

1 hour ago, Mark said:

I want to know why as a club we are absolutely fine with Maddison strolling over to every single corner no matter what, so incredibly infuriating he doesn’t have an ounce of urgency about him.

Minor issue compared to the grand scheme of things ie the shocking defence. 

[BKLFox]

4 minutes ago, Matt said:

And how often does it work?
 

Especially when we’re losing and the opposition is happy for us to have possession as they know it’ll go no where. For example today, the game just stopped, he went no where, no one came at him.

 

We must be one of the least threatening teams when I’m possession. If I were the opposition I’d say “here have all the possession you want. **** up and we’re on you.”

Admittedly the game stops sometimes not every time which is what some see.

on the flip put yourself in his shoes if they don’t come and just set there is an overload defence against attack where does he put it, I’m sure if he just hoofed it ala Kasper you’d be on his back for that.

it’s boring but needed to pull the opposition around otherwise there are no gaps

[ScrumpyJack]

What a match. Could’ve been 4-2!

[NaijaFox]

33 minutes ago, sacreblueits442 said:

....no, they dropped off...!!!

If that was us in the ascendency and chose to drop like they did, I would have been livid. Ramsdale aside, had we had better finishing we could have got something out of this. They did not drop because we put them under pressure, they invited that pressure on themselves.

    They knew what they were doing, no need to chase the game, and sat deeper to make this more difficult for us.

First, the disagreement was actually whether they "coasted"...

 

I am in complete agreement their play dropped off - but it was because we played much better.

If they sat "deeper" it was only because we pushed up (with our wingers) and put them under pressure. 

 

Here's an (admittedly inexact) analogy: we failed to score in this game because Ramsdale pulled off some top-shelf saves and not because our attack was blunt or particularly wasteful. Sometimes, what happens to you is as a result of the effort of others.  

 

Edited 30 October 2021 by NaijaFox

[Leicesterpool]

The performance and attitude from the team in the whole first half and most of the second half felt like the time were having one big hangover from the night before. Felt like a lot of lads were just off the pace today. Other than vardy, kasper and barnes the rest of the team I felt had a bit of a mare today. Can I give credit to arsenal... they looked a class above us for the first 20. But I thought they looked bang average and more than beatable, I think if we had got one goal back in this we would have gone on to got that equaliser also.

[foxes_rule1978]

We lost that because we just start games so poorly, it has been a problem for a while now. We can’t continue to come back from 1 or 2 nil down nearly every game 

[Matt]

16 minutes ago, BKLFox said:

Admittedly the game stops sometimes not every time which is what some see.

on the flip put yourself in his shoes if they don’t come and just set there is an overload defence against attack where does he put it, I’m sure if he just hoofed it ala Kasper you’d be on his back for that.

it’s boring but needed to pull the opposition around otherwise there are no gaps

I’ve said it numerous times now, there is a time and a place for it, I’m not against it  full stop, however I’m against it when in most games its all we exclusively do.

 

As for a hoof? Sometimes it's needed, there is far too much football snobbery, sometimes people need to understand a long ball can be a thing of beauty but no in the modern game you must go round the house.

 

That's not to say I want long balls exclusively all the time as much as I don't want this tepid tippy tappy shit all the time, there is a time and a place for both, but it seems its one or the other, there lies the problem (I talk about football in general there - not just us)

 

Tbf we're picking up on 1 or 2 incidents when we did it today, we didn't do it that much today, because we were too sloppy when we had the ball to do it and because we didn't show any endeavour or interest in wanting it.

 

Edited 30 October 2021 by Matt

[PAULCFC]

1 hour ago, RowlattsFox said:

If anything it shows how shit man United were. Put any sort of pressure on the midfield and defence and we have nothing. 

Did we have a midfield today.must have missed it.

[Claridge]

Barnes must start

[Lcfc82]

So slow out of the blocks again today and it’s cost us the game. 

The changes we made at half time should of been made after 20 minutes.

[sacreblueits442]

16 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

The game was over in the first 20 mins. Defensively we (again) were utterly clueless. That wasn’t like watching a Premiership defence by the way.

We created some chances but if we had scored, Arsenal could have upped a gear and scored again I think 

We have to sort out our defence both in terms of sticking to a way of playing and sorting out the personnel. It’s not good enough at this level 

.....you maybe right, It seemed like at the end the only team that was going to score was them!!!

The defence situation will have to revert to a back four, with Ricardo Evans Soyuncu Castagne for the moment.

  Ricardo is better as an attacking Fullback as well as Castagne and according to games we either need three in the middle or a double pivot. We are going to have to be brave enough to play with just one upfront.

[Mapperleyfox]

Frustrating afternoon, they came out the blocks much quicker and you have to ask why...

 

Abysmal defending in the first 15 minutes cost us the game, far too easy for them to carve us open in that early part of the game. Not that they were anything special - we made it so easy for them.

 

We're going to be inconsistent i think, brilliant last weekend and pretty ordinary today which is why i don't think we'll be troubling the top 4 at all this time...