Relegation

[Guest itude]

3 hours ago, Chrysalis said:

That attitude is how clubs end up adrift before taking action.

It is yes !

Sadly I see no signs the club has learned this lesson from history.

[S1ddo71]

5 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

How can it be a ‘very, very real consideration’ 4 games into the season? 
 

I’m sure even Bournemouth fans are still thinking positively that their side can stay up after a 9-0 drubbing, as it’s still early days. 
 

Fair enough if you’re worried, I just think that considering we’ve got a sample size of the last 3 and a half years of knowing what this side is capable of suggests that we are much better than relegation. 
 

We’re in a rut but can’t see this form continuing over a whole season. We have too much quality to go down. We need at least one defender before deadline day, though. 

Bournemouth have only just come back up to the Premier League, mate.

[Chelmofox]

10 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

How can it be a ‘very, very real consideration’ 4 games into the season? 
 

I’m sure even Bournemouth fans are still thinking positively that their side can stay up after a 9-0 drubbing, as it’s still early days. 
 

Fair enough if you’re worried, I just think that considering we’ve got a sample size of the last 3 and a half years of knowing what this side is capable of suggests that we are much better than relegation. 
 

We’re in a rut but can’t see this form continuing over a whole season. We have too much quality to go down. We need at least one defender before deadline day, though. 

Firstly, statement in bold is no more than a cliche.

 

But granted, 4 games its impossible to predict. But that wasn't your question, your question was 'Anybody else just not worried at all in the slightest about relegation'. Bad form, bad management and the inability to win games is a massive concern. Last season we saw all team take massive dips in form (Brighton lost 6 in a row, Wolves have been pants for quite a long time), so we know there is a long way to go. But until we start getting some points, i am going to worry.

 

Brendan doesn't have the skills to deal with this. He is a poor man manager and can't lift these guys. The bullsh*t we listen to these poor guys listen to constantly. If he turns it around he could probably class it as his best achievement.

Edited 28 August 2022 by Chelmofox

[Guest itude]

33 minutes ago, harpendenfox said:

Right now, yes, things are as grim as hell, but I'm going to try and compose some positive words, as much for my own benefit as anyone else's.

 

We have a number of very good Premier League players, including:

 

Ward, Castagne, Evans, Soyuncu, JJ, Thomas

N'didi, Maddison, KDH, Barnes, Tielemans

Iheanacho, Vardy (I know he is nearing the end, but I remember him going about 20 games without a goal in 2016/17, and again in early 2021 - he's not done yet)

 

Then there are others who are decent backs up, including:

Iversen (I'm guessing a bit there), Mendy, Perez, Albrighton, Daka.

 

Right now we are bereft of confidence, and have a manager who seems miserable, and I fear his morale has impacted the team negatively. If we can change the mindset, and hopefully recruit a good centre back and right winger this week, I think we will be okay. Can Brendan change his mindset? I simply don't know where he's at. Frankly he needs to stop sulking and start leading.

He doesn't seem the type. Blames anything he can think of rather than himself. keeps on making the same mistakes over and over again. Doesn't strike me as someone who can adapt to this current situation. He is anyway at least partly to blame for it !

[Mickyblueeyes]

7 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

How can it be a ‘very, very real consideration’ 4 games into the season? 
 

I’m sure even Bournemouth fans are still thinking positively that their side can stay up after a 9-0 drubbing, as it’s still early days. 
 

Fair enough if you’re worried, I just think that considering we’ve got a sample size of the last 3 and a half years of knowing what this side is capable of suggests that we are much better than relegation. 
 

We’re in a rut but can’t see this form continuing over a whole season. We have too much quality to go down. We need at least one defender before deadline day, though. 

It’s not 4 games. Collapses under Rodgers is now a norm. Bournemouth. Fulham. Newcastle. Spurs. Forest. Etc. We are now so accustomed to it we think it’s a Normal. It’s not.

 

We’ve struggled on and off for 12 months. Players are void of confidence. Leadership in the board room is poor. All in all, we are currently not in a very good position. We are definitely in a relegation scrap if it doesn’t change

[Sampson]

11 minutes ago, FoxesWalk said:

Worst big chance creation in the league, worst big chances conceded in the league. We will likely be bottom at the end of the day, and deservedly so. It’s hard to see the direction changing at the moment, but it’s a long season. 
 

Last few days of the window will be massive, dreading it honestly. It’s stale and unenjoyable to watch us at the moment, have been on a downward spiral for 18+ months… hopefully the decline ends before we are relegated. 

Yes and we’re still scoring goals despite that through individual quality when our chance creation is so crap, that’s my point. We were 5th top scorers in the division last season despite having something like the 16th best xG, that’s because we have some of the best attacking players in the league who dragged us out of trouble time and time again last season even while not creating much
 

That’s exactly my point. I’m not going to start worrying after 4 games when we some Individual players who are really capable of winning us games even when the rest of the squad is creating nothing. There’s much more important things in life worth worrying about than worrying your football team is going down after 4 games despite the fact we’ve seen how we have individual quality players who can drag us through last season 

Edited 28 August 2022 by Sampson

[Guest itude]

1 hour ago, SouthStandUpperTier said:

Think positively. If Villa beat WHU, and Newcastle get a 2-goal win at Wolves, we actually climb a place in the table.  

I would love to think positively, I am just struggling to find literally anything to think that way about ,at the moment. Dreaming ?

I guess I can do that

[FoxesWalk]

3 minutes ago, Sampson said:

Yes and we’re still scoring goals despite that through individual quality when our chance creation is so crap, that’s my point. We were 5th top scorers in the division last season despite having something like the 16th best xG, that’s because we have some of the best attacking players in the league who dragged us out of trouble time and time again last season. 
 

That’s exactly my point. I’m not going to start worrying after 4 games when we some Individual players who are really capable of winning us games even when the rest of the squad is creating nothing. There’s much more important things in life worth worrying about than worrying your football team is going down after 4 games despite the fact we’ve seen how we have individual quality players who can drag us through last season 

Not creating chances and relying on individual moments is a very high risk way to sustain your position imo. We are one or two injuries away from trouble if our defence stays similar to its current performance. 

Edited 28 August 2022 by FoxesWalk

[Dames]

1 minute ago, FoxesWalk said:

Not creating chances and relying on individual moments is a very high risk way to sustain your position imo. We are one or two injuries away from trouble if our defence stays similar to its current performance. 

And both those players we rely on are quite injury prone too. Maddison and Barnes both seem to miss a couple months each season. 

[Md9]

Can’t start to worry yet when one win puts you up to 12th place. Not ideal getting off to a bad start but it can easily be saved after 3 games into the season. Let’s see if we get any one in now and what the reaction from the players is like over the next few games 

[Sampson]

3 minutes ago, FoxesWalk said:

Not creating chances and relying on individual moments is a very high risk way to sustain your position imo. We are one or two injuries away from trouble if our defence stays similar to its current performance. 

But we’ve always massively outscored our xG under Rodgers. Every team is a couple of injuries away from trouble, that’s a non-argument - you take the best 2 of 3 attacking/creative players out of any side and they’ll start to struggle. It’s no riskier than any other strategy like creating lots of chances but having average players doing the finishing, it’s the same risk to injury to your creative players and you’re done for

[Stuntman_Mike]

I'd take relegation if it means those freaks begging for shirts aren't interested in following us. Seeing them draped over the netting all game yesterday was disgusting 

 

Special shout out to the other city fans;

The ones fighting amongst themselves

The fan screaming it was never a penalty from Youri foul despite then saying he hadn't seen it, oh and the guy sat in a standing section moaning my flag was restricting his view.

[FoxesWalk]

2 minutes ago, Md9 said:

Can’t start to worry yet when one win puts you up to 12th place. Not ideal getting off to a bad start but it can easily be saved after 3 games into the season. Let’s see if we get any one in now and what the reaction from the players is like over the next few games 

True, it is a struggle to see when we might next win a game though… 

 

United and Brighton up next, slim chance there, Villa after that, probably our best chance before October as Spurs is after that.
 

Good chance we go into the Forest game in October bottom of the league. 

[FoxesWalk]

8 minutes ago, Sampson said:

But we’ve always massively outscored our xG under Rodgers. Every team is a couple of injuries away from trouble, that’s a non-argument - you take the best 2 of 3 attacking/creative players out of any side and they’ll start to struggle. It’s no riskier than any other strategy like creating lots of chances but having average players doing the finishing, it’s the same risk to injury to your creative players and you’re done for

Disagree, most half decent teams create chances because they have a system that works. We don’t. When they lose players they stick to that system that creates chances and it might drop a bit or rise a bit with each changing player, but major swings aren’t that common from losing individual players.
 

A huge reason we outperformed our xG last season was Maddison, he’s scores lots of low xG chances, has this season too. That is a single player we rely on heavily, if we lose him for months, or he stops massively outperforming from the chances he gets (which is statistically pretty likely) we are in the shit. We concede a minimum of 2 goals per game, have done for some time now, we need 3 to win a game most of the time, even against terrible teams we create enough quality chances to score 0.3 goals… how is that not concerning? 

Edited 28 August 2022 by FoxesWalk

[copunk]

May sound crazy to some but I've never been less excited for a season in all my life 

It's not even losing, we've all seen us lose enough times, I can take a loss, it's part and parcel of football, everyone loses

It's just the manner in which we are set up every game, players in the line up which shouldn't be there, playing well in 10 minute spells, the constant dread of when the first goal conceded is going to come, I used to feel gutted when we conceded goals, but now it's that inevitable it doesn't bother me in the slightest

I don't even get excited about going a goal, or even 2 goals up anymore, because our game management is the worst it's ever been, we don't have the players good enough to sit back and defend a lead for a substantial amount of time (see Brentford and Southampton) but it's not even just this season, the rot set in well over a year ago and most of us could see where we were going 

I would never ever slate how the club is ran, we are the luckiest fans in the world to have the owners we do and their commitment to us has never ever been in doubt, but something seems drastically wrong behind the scenes this season, we've been told bits and bobs about what's going on in regards to the transfer situation, but I can't help feel that something much deeper is going on

We don't have the worst team in the league, in fact far from it, but we are playing like we are the worst team in the league, we know when we are set up right we can beat anyone, these are most of the lads who just missed out on top 4 twice, won the FA cup and reached a European semi final, they can't have completely gone to pot ability wise for no reason, and it stems back to management, like it always does in football 

I don't care what anyone says, if we don't pick up at least 6 points over the next 3 games, we are in massive trouble, teams will start to pull away and it will take a massive effort to claw back a reasonable finish in the league, folk can say it's only 4 games into the season and rightly so there is a long way to go, but we can all see that so far I've not seen one performance that has gave me hope that we won't be in a relegation fight 

[Guest itude]

In order to think positively I would have to see some signs of change, preferably Rodgers gone, but it seems that is not happening. Other things might help such as improved defending, much better tactical awareness, bringing in some decent ( thought out) new players. I am not seeing any of that, and if we continue as we are ,just hoping for some miracle run, sorry I don't see that happening. To think otherwise is taking positivity and optimism to a foolish degree, one that ignores reality.

So yes, even after this small number of games, we must be in danger of being in at least a relegation fight.

Oh and I just remembered..Stockport as well

[Paninistickers]

Anyone else find it vaguely interesting to wargame what would happen if we went down? 

 

I'm guessing we could retain Vards (who i suspect might relish it) Evans,  soumare, KDH, Daka , Iverson..and at a push try to cling onto Barnes, Wilf, Kels and JJ

 

Castagne and Madders would clearly be off, along with all the other out of contracts; Dan, Mendy, youri, Perez, Cags

 

Mouthwatering thought of what Barnes, Kels and Vards  could do to big clogging defences 🙃

[Md9]

11 minutes ago, FoxesWalk said:

True, it is a struggle to see when we might next win a game though… 

 

United and Brighton up next, slim chance there, Villa after that, probably our best chance before October as Spurs is after that.
 

Good chance we go into the Forest game in October bottom of the league. 

If we still have no wins after that then you have to start to look at things a little more serious . 1 or 2 wins from them games slightly eases the worry. On another day vardy has his shooting boots and and we possibly get a win yesterday and things don’t look as bad . 

[FoxesWalk]

1 minute ago, Md9 said:

If we still have no wins after that then you have to start to look at things a little more serious . 1 or 2 wins from them games slightly eases the worry. On another day vardy has his shooting boots and and we possibly get a win yesterday and things don’t look as bad . 

Agree, fine margins. Brentford and Southampton are both easier wins than than any of our next 4, and we got 1 point from those. We will see, but the direction of travel (and no real positives to suggest it might change) is pretty concerning… Do we have a squad of players motivated to scrap it out in the bottom 5 or so teams? I don’t think we do, and that is where we appear to be, bookies agree. 

[UHDrive]

The club have got themselves into a mess about contract lengths and profits. Because of the Tielemans contract bring so drawn out we should at this point tell him he's doing one more year and that's that.

 

Same for Fofana. Tell him no, no. Tell him he's signed a five year deal and we'll sell you next year. 

 

Both of them needed their heads turned, by the club, back to the club.

 

My opinion, the club have panicked and bolted. Also imo, this will have a poor impact on a structured rebuild next year with available cash, profit sales and player sales as well as integration of players.

[Thefox81]

For me if Rodgers stays it will be a relegation battle.

If he goes then i think anywhere between 10th and 14th and comfortably clear of the bottom 3. But he has to go within a month for the above to be achievable.

 

[Paninistickers]

Just now, FoxesWalk said:

Agree, fine margins. Brentford and Southampton are both easier wins than than any of our next 4, and we got 1 point from those. We will see, but the direction of travel (and no real positives to suggest it might change) is pretty concerning… Do we have a squad of players motivated to scrap it out in the bottom 5 or so teams? I don’t think we do, and that is where we appear to be, bookies agree. 

What the bookies think is entirely irrelevant. They are reacting to betting patterns. And betting patterns are influenced by sky and talksport creating an illusion that we've lost half our squad and are in financial ruin. 

 

We're in a mess. Bournemouth and Saints will finish below us (I don't care they beat us, they were absolute shite and visibly stunned they'd walked with 3 points) ....then it's a fist fight between us, Everton, Brentford, forest, Fulham, Villa, West Ham, Wolves, Palace and Leeds. I'm reasonably confident we can scrape way to finish above at least 1 of them

[FoxesWalk]

Just now, Paninistickers said:

What the bookies think is entirely irrelevant. They are reacting to betting patterns. And betting patterns are influenced by sky and talksport creating an illusion that we've lost half our squad and are in financial ruin. 

 

We're in a mess. Bournemouth and Saints will finish below us (I don't care they beat us, they were absolute shite and visibly stunned they'd walked with 3 points) ....then it's a fist fight between us, Everton, Brentford, forest, Fulham, Villa, West Ham, Wolves, Palace and Leeds. I'm reasonably confident we can scrape way to finish above at least 1 of them

I agree, I don’t think we will go down, but it is a genuine possibility. I would take 15th place right now based on current evidence. 

[Ted Maul]

Not remotely worried about relegation.... yet. 

 

We've got far too much quality in the first team, even without any incoming transfers. Painfully obvious that a change of approach is going to be needed to kick them into gear though.

[Gav_LCFC14]

11 minutes ago, Paninistickers said:

Anyone else find it vaguely interesting to wargame what would happen if we went down? 

 

I'm guessing we could retain Vards (who i suspect might relish it) Evans,  soumare, KDH, Daka , Iverson..and at a push try to cling onto Barnes, Wilf, Kels and JJ

 

Castagne and Madders would clearly be off, along with all the other out of contracts; Dan, Mendy, youri, Perez, Cags

 

Mouthwatering thought of what Barnes, Kels and Vards  could do to big clogging defences 🙃

I think your seriously underestimating the mass exodus that will occur. The players highlighted alone will be gone. JJ & Barnes are pushing for England. Vardy will be on wages that are well above £100k/w which won't be sustainable in the championship. Soumare and Daka will most likely have relegation clauses in their contract.  

 

I don't think we're going down but in a hypothetical It would be an utter disaster that will see the team have to start from scratch.