Where did it go wrong for you?

[sacreblueits442]

...his first game here, where he chose to bring on a player to combat a perceived aerial threat, that in the end so disorganised the backline we conceded and lost the game!!!

  For someone who had been in the game so long and managed Liverpool, won endless trophies with Celtic,  competed in Champions League as well as Europa League,  year in year out, and that was his answer to a basic situation.

  He still does it now, 3 and a half years later, he continues to counteract any changes by his opposite manager by undermining  his own team. He is not someone who learns, in an environment where tactics and knowledge are essential,  he fails to learn from past failures.

  It is a known fact that some people with ADHD, do not learn from past problems,  they just go and repeat the same things again.

  I don't know if he is a good coach and a limited manager, players start to regress under his tutelage and he is too easily outfoxed by other managers.

  That is when the alarm bells started ringing for me.

Edited 18 September 2022 by sacreblueits442
Spelling error.

[South Shire Fox]

The mentality and characteristics of the players signed under Rodgers recruitment. Was watching a Sky Sports programme with Neville and Rooney the other day where they analysed Man Utd beating Arsenal 8-2 and they were saying that team under Wenger just full of players of the same ilk, characterless, leaderless, weak but good technically.. that is exactly what has happened at this club. Rodgers completely disregards how important aspects of the game are such as having leaders and players that will ‘die for the cause’ in a team in favour of signing players who are nice on the eye and can keep the ball.

 

We are team that is now full of players that crumble as soon as a slight bit of pressure is applied, there is absolutely no fight and resilience to stand tall and try to aggressively fight off anything that is thrown at them. Even little things that others teams do like players backing each other in a square up on the pitch with an opposition player just doesnt happen at Leicester anymore. Can remember last season it was KDH vs half the Villa team and not a single one of our players was there to back him up.  Aggression and passion is something thats either in you or its not and not something that can be coached. This all stems from the recruitment and the complete lack of leaders signed by Rodgers under his tenure, something he did exactly the same with at Liverpool.

Edited 18 September 2022 by South Shire Fox

[coolhandfox]

Hard to complain about 19/20 and 20/21 seasons.

[Sol thewall Bamba]

First bottling of the CL. Got laughed out of town by the Perspective Brigade (remember them?) at the time but it was truly awful and set the tone for the following 24 months.

[Stuntman_Mike]

1 minute ago, South Shire Fox said:

The mentality and characteristics of the players signed under Rodgers recruitment. Was watching a Sky Sports programme with Neville and Rooney the other day where they analysed Man Utd beating Arsenal 8-2 and they were saying that team under Wenger just full of players of the same ilk, characterless, leaderless, weak but good technically.. that is exactly what has happened at this club. Rodgers completely disregards how important aspects of the game are such as having leaders and players that will ‘die for the cause’ in a team is in favour of signing players who are nice on the eye and can keep the ball.

 

We are team that is now full of players that crumble as soon as a slight bit of pressure is applied, there is absolutely no fight and resilience to stand tall and try to aggressively fight off anything that is thrown at them. Even little things that others teams do like players backing each other in a square up on the pitch with an opposition player just doesnt happen at Leicester anymore. Can remember last season it was KDH vs half the Villa team and not a single one of our players was there to back him up.  Aggression and passion is something thats either in you or its not and not something that can be coached. This all stems from the recruitment and the complete lack of leaders signed by Rodgers under his tenure, something he did exactly the same with at Liverpool.

Plus you factor in the loss of Kasper, an aging and injury prone Evans, Ndidi out of form, Vardy slowing down, Youri's head elsewhere, Cags who has plenty of passion not even making the squad, Albrighton not good enough to be a starter. These are all players with attitudes that other players and fans thrive off. It's a mess.

 

[Foxxed]

I started getting a little uneasy when Gray was bailing us out in the latter half of our first good half season. And I had serious doubts when our xG predicted our second half season collapse. I was buoyed by our FA cup win, uneasy when we shithoused a win against Wolves at the start of the next season, and I assumed we were crap about five games after, briefly buoyed again by the Man Utd win, but soon after wanted Rodgers gone. Daka’s injury was the point where I started getting angry with Rodgers however—bad form I can live with, possibly injuring our players is unacceptable.

 

We should have sacked him in Feb. There wasn’t one point for me. But by then all his negatives were clearly outweighing any positives.

 

 

Edited 18 September 2022 by Foxxed

[coolhandfox]

Last summer window spending 60m on squad players who don't get in the team, that was time to have a refresh.

 

Keeping the players who don't want to be here, Tielemans, Soyuncu, Praet and Soumare, consider you own performance at work when you don't want work somewhere, it drops off a cliff. 

 

Lack of leadership COVID party etc.

[fox_favourite]

It all went wrong when the club decided to get rid of the clappers. 
 

there, I said it. Now I’m going to run! Lattterrrsssssss

[filbertway]

The smashings by Liverpool and Man City changed Rodgers approach to games and he became more cautious, that's when things changed on the pitch. We suddenly looked less sure of ourselves and we became more conscious of having something to lose and that really permeated into the players.

 

It started going wrong off the pitch the moment he arrived, he's slowly undone and dismantled what appeared to be one of the best functioning clubs in the top flight. He won't be fully to blame, but it's quite clear he was given a lot of freedom by Rudkin and his judgement was trusted.

 

For me, Rudkin should be walking as well. His faith and trust in Rodgers over this period of going backwards is ultimately on him. 

[Alf Bentley]

18 minutes ago, Lionator said:

I don’t feel there was a specific point where it went wrong but there were plenty of signs that while Rodgers can coach good football, he is a terrible manager psychology wise. The early examples were the Villa semi final where we completely froze and then the Bournemouth capitulation. He has simply never been able to inject positivity back into the squad since the 9-0 really. 
 

What we see with the success under Pearson and Ranieri, and with Pep and Klopp is that psychology is most important in the modern game, Rodgers either ignores that or doesn’t have the man management skills to implement it. 

 

This is very much how I see it.

 

Rodgers clearly has good coaching skills, as early in his reign we saw improvements in the technical performance of individual players and of the team. Sometimes that yielded frustrating slow possession football, but at other times it yielded scintillating high-quality team play that put us in contention for CL qualification and Cups.

 

However, even during that time of success there were signs of psychological weakness in the group. I don't buy the idea that the 2 seasons we slipped from CL places to 5th were just a case of tiredness or running out of steam. I remember Soyuncu, who had had a good season, having a meltdown at Bournemouth after conceding and getting an utterly needless red card. That's just one player, but there seemed to be an inability to handle peaks of stress.

 

Not every manager is - or has to be great at psychology, positive motivation, man management etc. But if that's not their strength, they need other people to cover that side - whether that's other members of coaching staff or players who are leaders on the pitch and in the dressing room. Not only does it seem that Pearson and Ranieri were better at that side of things, but they also had players in the squad who seemed strong characters in themselves or leaders with other players....almost all of whom have now left, Schmeichel arguably being the last of them. Pearson, in particular, often spoke of character/attitude being a key factor in the players he signed - one that has been prized less under Rodgers (and yes, others bear responsibility in that, too).

 

Even ignoring the most obvious examples of a lack of self-belief (failing to take responsibility for following runners at set pieces, lacking calm concentration when receiving a difficult pass), in the 1st half yesterday, when we weren't too bad, we saw Daka shoot too early when sent through for a 1-on-1 and a team move where several players failed to get a shot away in the Spurs penalty area, playing short passes to one another until they lost possession.....that screams lack of self-belief to me. If you then add the countless occasions, both this season and last, when we've collapsed in the late stages or conceded immediately after scoring or ended up trying to hang on to a lead in the final minutes....

 

Other factors do come into it. We spent about 65m on new signings in summer 2021, yet none of them have yet become 1st team regulars. Of course, the FFP difficulties curtailing transfer business in summer 2022, the loss of Schmeichel and the late loss of Fofana have exacerbated the problems, but the rot was already there, as others have said.

 

The last major factor adding to the longer-term lack of self-belief has surely been Rodgers' attitude to the very real difficulty of the lack of a 2022 squad refresh. Some managers could/would have used that to boost a defiant siege mentality. But instead Rodgers seems to have been subtly throwing his hands up and dripping comments to the media about the lack of signings despite a need for a refresh - carefully not blaming anyone, but using it to protect his own reputation: if we're struggling, it's not his  fault is the message. With self-belief already fragile, what must it feel like for the manager to be effectively telling everyone he needed to replace many of them, but was sadly unable to do so?

 

Back when we finished 5th twice and won the FA Cup, this psychological weakness was present but only seemed like a minor issue, but it has got worse over time. When we finished 8th last season, that seriously flattered us as regards team performances - we ended up that high because we have several attacking players who have the individual ability to score goals out of nothing. Yes, we had many injuries but our team performances last season were those of a bottom-half club, whoever played.

 

I suppose the good news is that we still have the players and the team to score goals (10 in 7 PL matches, even when rock bottom and missing a lot of chances). If we introduce a management that can re-instil self-belief into individuals and team, including the ability to defend individually and as a team, even without Schmeichel & Fofana we could still finish mid-table - especially as we've had some tough fixtures early on. All the signs are that can only happen under new management. 

[Criggers]

54 minutes ago, RumbleFox said:

That Bournemouth capitulation. 

Was this for me. That game was just weird and we’ve never recovered.

[sdb]

The Vestergaard and Bertrand signings. A clear shift from everything we've done well, with significant long term implications. 

 

Imagine not having those 2 on the wage bill. We'd have made signings, the club would surely be a better place to be (rather than have 2 down and outs stinking the place out) and Rodgers would have one less excuse at his disposal 

[sdb]

3 minutes ago, Criggers said:

Was this for me. That game was just weird and we’ve never recovered.

The worst substitute I've ever seen. Brendan lost a lot of his aura that day. Most of his in game changes since then have been detrimental too. Was certainly a big moment, and absolutely sickening afternoon. Bottle job.

[RedSoxUK]

1 hour ago, davieG said:

Maybe it's what we had to do to challenge the rich6 but our wages structure is beyond our means.

 

This has affected our transfer strategy of sell high and replace cheaply which only works for the better players unfortunately the high wages  of the better players seems to have affected the level of pay of the less able players.

 

We've also made the mistake of filling back up spaces with expensive PL players instead of future potential.

 

So we're left with an unbalanced overpaid team of misfits that for whatever reason, not good enough, not liked by Rodgers or can't be arsed players leaving us with a very small squad of players including inexperienced ones and some who want to leave.

 

 

 

Yeah, it's long term fix unfortunately, but spot on.

 

[Le Renard]

When the team failed to qualify for the Champions league for the second season in a row, the belief ebbed out of the squad and the confidence never returned. 

[Freeman's Wharfer]

We did a deal with the devil.

 

We appointed a manager that from day one was on a self-advancement mission and who’d jump ship at the first opportunity.
 

Whilst he is a good manager and coach, and has delivered relative success on paper, we’re paying the price now for a manager that was never in it for the long haul. He’ll destroy anything and anyone in his way in the pursuit of self-preservation and it’s a situation where we need to cut him out of the club before he does further damage

Unfortunately, a misguided sense of loyalty to a man that would never have returned that loyalty has put us in some severe danger.

[RumbleFox]

25 minutes ago, Criggers said:

Was this for me. That game was just weird and we’ve never recovered.

Remember seeing Cags basically just stood in our net looking like he wanted to die. 

[RumbleFox]

If you look closely, you can actually pinpoint the exact moment our hearts ripped in two. 

Edited 18 September 2022 by RumbleFox

[JimmyC74]

1 hour ago, BrianSwan said:

I write this as a curious outsider, and by no means wish to wind up anyone.

 

Leicester have been held up as a pillar for the rest of the clubs in the English pyramid as a model professional club. Where if you do everything right, you can beat the odds and win trophies vs the wealth of oil states, doing a 'Leicester'. What has happened the past two years? is it just impossible to keep replacing the players who leave with equal quality after a while? Have you lost key people in recruitment? Southampton had a similiar thing, at one point they had Tadic, Mane, Van Dijk etc

 

I hope the new manager can sort it out for you.

Bringing in Congerton, poor recruitment, paying average players too much in wages, failing to improve the first XI, manager presiding over a decline a mentality, having a blind spot over his own / defensive coach’s capabilities and ability to organise 

[Finn Claw II]

Underwhelming transfers pretty much consistently.

 

 

[SouthStandUpperTier]

36 minutes ago, Freeman's Wharfer said:

We did a deal with the devil.

 

We appointed a manager that from day one was on a self-advancement mission and who’d jump ship at the first opportunity.
 

Whilst he is a good manager and coach, and has delivered relative success on paper, we’re paying the price now for a manager that was never in it for the long haul. He’ll destroy anything and anyone in his way in the pursuit of self-preservation and it’s a situation where we need to cut him out of the club before he does further damage

Unfortunately, a misguided sense of loyalty to a man that would never have returned that loyalty has put us in some severe danger.

I've got no problem with managers (or players) seeing us as a stepping stone to better career opportunities. Let's face it, Leicester City is hardly going to be the limit of anyone's ambitions. 

 

They must however leave the club in a better place than how they found it, and in that regard BR is failing. There is no greater indicator of his failure than the fact he is still here, 3½ years later, with this being his longest tenure at any club. His grand plan will have been to have moved back to a 'big 6' club by now.

[MattFox]

Not making any decent signing’s in January 2020 

[Ric Flair]

2 hours ago, Matt said:

Changing style.

 

I'll go back to the season after our league win we were apparently 'found out', apparently it wasn't sustainable, so we ripped that up and went down the style the majority of other clubs play, the boring, insipid, disgusting style, every team matching each other up, playing exactly the same making for a boring game period.

 

We're now been playing the tippy tappy shite, sideways, backwards, the so called 'way to play football', apparently a sustainable and 'pretty' style for 5 years now, it's clear we've been found out, so how long are we going to continue with it? Bearing in mind we instantly ripped up our old style because we'd been 'found out'.

 

I'm not sure it's ever been good, exciting, positive or pretty and if you ain't got the players to play in such a way I don't see how its particularly sustainable.

 

Many of the players we have are suited to our old style, we still sign many players largely suited to our old style, yet there is a brief from someone in the club. the board? That we want to go down the route playing in this way, the club is confused.

 

This isn't me looking back and admiring nostalgically, I just wanna see effective football, there is a time and place for the tippy tappy we are exclusively playing but there lies the problem, we're playing it exclusively. Mix it up. (That goes for the game in general)

  

Which successful teams play sustained counter attacking football?

[lcfc_forever]

When Schmeichel punched the ball into the back of his own net vs Tottenham.

 

Missing out on CL for a second season in a row was very damaging, compounded by Fofana's injury and buying Vestergaard. 

[Matt]

33 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

Which successful teams play sustained counter attacking football?

Liverpool - Although I think they've changed this season, low and behold, they're somewhat struggling.

Atletico.

 

I can't honestly say I watch them very often but I believe Atalanta, Dortmund do?

 

Just a few examples, it may not be all out soak up pressure and hit them in their cases but it's certainly far away from possession for the sake of possession (ala Man City and the boring style everyone seems obsessed to copy), it's possession with purpose, effective football.

 

I sure if I think deep enough there are others, but the pool is lacking to give examples because as I said in my post the majority of clubs play this way, the game is gone.

 

Besides, who says i'm talking about purely counter attacking football? You're correct, in terms of that's what I harp on about regarding our own old style, that is what we were built on, but I kept getting told last season the stats shown we were high on the list of counter attacks, it's not about that, it's about us hardly getting the ball forward, it's about us have needless, boring, pointless possession for the sake of possession and doing very little with it, I wanna see forwards football, exciting, possession with purpose - which is even more bizarre that we ripped it up completely when we got 'found out' rather than try to advance on it or tweak it, instead ripped it up, chucked it away and completely change what we were about.

 

I've already noted that there is a time and place for all styles, the issue is we're playing one, awful style, exclusively.

 

Football is a team game, the objective is to score more goals than the opposition - theres a lot of snobbery about anything other than possession based football, people bang on about 'anti-football' this obsession about possession based football, people happy to 'control the game' by tipping and tapping, sideways and backwards football, this is anti-football in my eyes, that isn't controlling the game, certainly when an example of Rodgers can be used that he was quite visibly seething about being 3-0 up at HT claiming we weren't 'controlling the game'.

 

As the OP said "Leicester have been held as a pillar for the rest of the clubs in England", "Where if you do everything right, you can beat the odds", why change so dramatically then? We were once fearless, we're now fearful and alot of the is down to our slow, insipid, negative way of playing just to 'fit in' with how everyone else plays instead of doing what we're good at.

 

It might work for Man City, you can't deny they're successful, why everyone is obsessed to copy and replicate is beyond me - there's another big reason why they're successful rather than their style if everyone hadn't already noticed.

 

Edited 18 September 2022 by Matt