64 Goals Conceded in 35 Games, Where did it all go so wrong?

[Fox92]

We've got Championship standard goalkeepers and Championship standard defenders.

[AKCJ]

Getting out of the Championship is all about defending well. Winning games 1-0 or 2-1 is a necessity when getting out of that league. Very, very rarely do sides that come up concede 3 or more in a game. 

 

When we go down, we have to properly organise a defence and goalkeeper. I think Souttar, Kristiansen, Thomas and Iversen are young enough to keep but we absolutely have to sign some experienced leaders at the back and someone in midfield that will always be up for it in terms of getting on the ball and winning it back.

 

We shouldn't have any issues with quality next season but we absolutely have to reform the mentality at the club. The club has spend 4/5 years as a shameless stepping stone and it's led to a team that simply does not give a shit. That has to change.

[splinterdream]

43 minutes ago, LVFox said:

A) we didn't plan for Fofana going

B) we didn't recognise Evans is a walking sick note

C) we never sorted out a solid CM. Imo Ndidi should have been given more time at start of season and then in January we should have moved for someone solid and dependable.

D) Ward should have been dropped way before he was.

 

 

It’s criminal isn’t it, I made post after post saying we couldn’t let fofana and kasper go in that window otherwise we’ll get relegated, and here we are, who the hell sanctioned that?

[Finnegan]

Just now, Wasyls Pec Deck said:

Good points well made. I think it’s now pretty mainstream that Brendan massively benefited from what had gone on before, and he probably improved it for a short time. But as you say when it came to him truly putting his stamp on the side - tactically and recruitment - it began to fall apart, and look where we are now.

 

He was heavily criticised at Liverpool for not being able to organise them defensively. As many of us have said for a long time, the common thread in his career is that he chooses clubs to go into at the right time, he rides the crest of a wave and then after about 2 years it goes wrong and or he talks his way out of a job.

 

In rugby there are very pronounced coaching roles. Head coach has an attack coach, defence coach, forwards coach (kinda like a set piece coach.) I suppose a bit like NFL coordinators responsible for the different phases of play. 

 

Rodgers would be an excellent attack coach. If he didn't have to manage people or organise a defence and could be left to his own speciality of coaching a team to move and score goals he'd be a great asset to a club. 

 

At our best we've played some absolutely sumptuous attacking football with him here and you'd have to be bitter and jaded in the extreme to deny that. 

[Will1981]

12 minutes ago, Lambert09 said:

armartey isn’t easy on the eye and makes a bunch of mistakes but it does seem that his presence tends to make whoever’s with him play better. 

 

Can’t quite work out why but he has been part of most of our clean sheets 

Most of his mistakes are with his passing rather than his defending which is usually quite solid, He is not good enough to start every game but every game he does start he gives 100% effort, how many of our other players can we say honostly give 100% every game?

[FoxesWalk]

The defence has been poor but they are totally exposed by our non existent midfield and wingers not helping out as they should. 
 

We are setup in a 433 like a team that dominates others, but we don’t dominate, they all just cut right through our flimsy middle and the defence are left with a very difficult task multiple times every game. 
 

It’s all just wrong, and it’s too late to fix it. The dumbest part is we don’t even have the squad to play 433 well or reliably, but it’s also not flexible enough to play any other system competently. 

Edited 9 May 2023 by FoxesWalk

[bovril]

Iversen conceding more goals per minute than Ward is quite funny. 

[LVFox]

5 minutes ago, splinterdream said:

It’s criminal isn’t it, I made post after post saying we couldn’t let fofana and kasper go in that window otherwise we’ll get relegated, and here we are, who the hell sanctioned that?

I could have forgiven the GK scenario if we'd either of thought Iversen could become the number 1 with more experience, or we had similar strengthened CB if we didn't think there were decent GK options out there.

[FoxesWalk]

3 minutes ago, bovril said:

Iversen conceding more goals per minute than Ward is quite funny. 

It’s almost like it’s not about the goalkeeper, because there is no doubt Iversen is far superior as a shot stopper 

[Wasyls Pec Deck]

8 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

In rugby there are very pronounced coaching roles. Head coach has an attack coach, defence coach, forwards coach (kinda like a set piece coach.) I suppose a bit like NFL coordinators responsible for the different phases of play. 

 

Rodgers would be an excellent attack coach. If he didn't have to manage people or organise a defence and could be left to his own speciality of coaching a team to move and score goals he'd be a great asset to a club. 

 

At our best we've played some absolutely sumptuous attacking football with him here and you'd have to be bitter and jaded in the extreme to deny that. 

Interested points, and my favourite being the implication that Rodgers would be better if he didn’t have to manage people!!! 🤣 

[leicesterseddon]

We lack experience at the back. Our most experienced player in the PL yesterday was Soyuncu, and he’s hardly played this year.

 

Players like Faes, Kristiansen, etc might make decent players one day but in fairness to them it’s a tough league to crack in your first season.

 

I thought the same when we signed Souttar - he might be decent one day, but was he really what we needed in January given the situation we were in? 

[splinterdream]

12 minutes ago, LVFox said:

I could have forgiven the GK scenario if we'd either of thought Iversen could become the number 1 with more experience, or we had similar strengthened CB if we didn't think there were decent GK options out there.

And worse we didn’t even attempt to get a keeper in Jan, Navas was available 

[SK3Blue]

Confidence in your Goalkeeper breeds confidence in the defence.

 

Our first choice keeper was Danny Ward, and for far too long. 

 

Enough said. 

[Le Renard]

I would say it is a porous team, It has been obvious for some time, our team doesn't press the ball, and our central midfielders(except Mendy) have been utter s**te for the past 18 months.  I would hate to be a defender in our team, you just know that our midfield line will track back and press when they feel like it.  This makes our defenders look like a bunch of Keystone cops, they don't have any confidence, so they make rash unintelligent decisions.

I've been saying it for the last 3 seasons but we've lacked a midfield workhorse, who can get nasty at times and do the ugly stuff in games, we've recruited nice guys who get bullied.  The team talk from the opposition before a game is: "Get in their faces and get tight and pressurise them, and they'll fall like a house of cards, you'll score a couple of quick goals, game over".   

 

We are in for a big shock when the championship starts next season,  it will be even more physical and if we don't recruit the right type of player, then prepare for another season of "leaky defense time".

[Fox92]

14 minutes ago, FoxesWalk said:

It’s almost like it’s not about the goalkeeper, because there is no doubt Iversen is far superior as a shot stopper 

It is about the goalkeeper though. Every good team has a good goalkeeper. A team needs a goalkeeper to rely on, to breed confidence, and we haven't got that.

[StevieH]

I think Rodgers pretty much signalled this was going to happen with no signings in the summer. Schmeichel obviously saw it coming too.

[FoxesWalk]

5 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

It is about the goalkeeper though. Every good team has a good goalkeeper. A team needs a goalkeeper to rely on, to breed confidence, and we haven't got that.

It’s definitely a factor. But if you allow the number of shots of goal we do, it doesn’t matter who is in goal, they will score. Allison or Courtois wouldn’t keep clean sheets behind our rabble. Same thing arguably happened to Kasper, his final season wasn’t exactly sparkling as our midfield and defence crumbled in front of him. 

Edited 9 May 2023 by FoxesWalk

[los dedos]

1 hour ago, Will1981 said:

We are pretty much nailed on to go down as we have leaked goals at an alarming rate with teams scoring against us for fun, so I decided to see which players played the most minutes for us per goal conceded.

 

Goalkeepers

 

Ward 2340 minutes played 46 goals conceded (50.9 minutes per goal conceded)

Iversen 810 minutes played 18 goals conceded (45 minutes per goal conceded)

 

Defenders

 

Amartey 1610 minutes played 27 goals conceded (59.6 minutes per goal conceded)

Castagne 2987 minutes played 59 goals conceded (50.6 minutes per goal conceded)

Evans 811 minutes played 24 goals conceded (33.8 minutes per goal conceded)

Faes 2517 minutes played 47 goals conceded (53.6 minutes per goal conceded)

Justin 1254 minutes played 25 goals conceded (50.2 minutes per goal conceded)

Kristiansen 894 minutes played 21 goals conceded (42.6 minutes per goal conceded)

Ricardo 385 minutes played 9 goals conceded (42.8 minutes per goal conceded)

Souttar 900 minutes played 19 goals conceded (47.4 minutes per goal conceded)

Soyuncu 529 minutes played 13 goals conceded (40.7 minutes per goal conceded)

Thomas 868 minutes played 18 goals conceded (48.2 minutes per goal conceded)

 

Midfielders

 

Dewsbury-Hall 2244 minutes played 40 goals conceded (56.1 minutes per goal conceded)

Mendy 731 minutes played 12 goals conceded (60.9 minutes per goal conceded)

Ndidi 1531 minutes played 37 goals conceded (41.4 minutes per goal conceded)

Praet 639 minutes played 10 goals conceded (63.9 minutes per goal conceded)

Soumare 1365 minutes played 26 goals conceded (52.5 minutes per goal conceded)

Tielemans 2080 minutes played 45 goals conceded (46.2 minutes per goal conceded)

 

Attackers

 

Barnes 2540 minutes played 48 goals conceded (52.9 minutes per goal conceded)

Daka 1124 minutes played 23 goals conceded (48.9 minutes per goal conceded)

Iheanacho 999 minutes played 23 goals conceded (43.4 minutes per goal conceded)

Maddison 2259 minutes played 50 goals conceded (45.2 minutes per goal conceded)

Tete 710 minutes played 14 goals conceded (50.7 minutes per goal conceded)

Vardy 1685 minutes played 34 goals conceded (49.6 minutes per goal conceded)

 

Our Best XI

 

Ward

 

Castagne - Amartey - Faes - Justin

 

Praet - Mendy - KDH

 

Tete - Vardy - Barnes

 

 

 

Our Worst XI

 

Iversen

 

Ricardo - Evans - Soyuncu - Kristiansen

 

Tielemans - Ndidi - Soumare

 

Maddison

 

Nacho - Daka

 

Conclusion

 

Ward has conceded less per minute than Iversen but Ward played all of his games under Brendaball whereas Iversen has been in goal for Smith's more gung-ho style

 

Justin has been very solid and is a big miss, Amartey has been by far our most solid central defender.

 

Mendy and Preat have been criminally underused as our most solid midfielders, Ndidi has been a complete liability and statistically we concede the most goals per game when he is on the pitch.

Would be interesting to see the stats before yesterday's game. Especially Iversen and few others who've not played much this season. 

Oh and it's peak Internet people thinking the OP is suggesting this is the best actual team to play games .😅

[The Year Of The Fox]

Getting rid of Kasper

 

I’ll expand a little though. I reckon Rodgers knew Kasper saw through him (regardless of what Kasper may say in interviews) and also knew that Kasper had Top’s ear.

A way to ensure longevity in your job is by shipping out those who doubt you

 

I reckon Kasper’s departure has been so instrumental in our demise, that had he still been here, even if he’d broken both his legs and never played a minute for us this season, we wouldn’t be where we are now.

 

Edited 9 May 2023 by The Year Of The Fox

[Foxxed]

It's not (just) the team. It's the club that's gone to shit.

 

Vichai left us with three pillars.

 

1. Great scouting

2. Great academy

3. Great finances by leveraging the scouting and academy

 

1. Rodgers ignored the scouting

2. Rodgers ignored the academy

3. Rodgers let the players run down contracts

 

To add insult to injury, Rodgers ignored the physios and we suffered injury after injury.

 

And Rudkin saw it going to shit and gave Rodgers two big thumbs up. And Top did nothing.

 

The fact the team's gone to shit is a symptom, not the  cause.

[fox in the sox]

57 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

I've kept this opinion to myself, by and large, for the last year or so. Mostly because I can't stand revisionism for the most part and I've thrown so many pelters the way of Puel apologists that I'm well aware of the optics! 

 

But its been my belief for quite a while that 19/20, in particular the impressive start to the season where we were both defensively and offensively spectacular, was largely down to Claude Puel's defensive organisation and the legacy of that. 

 

Puel was an absolutely dreadful coach when it came to building an attacking team and a hideous man manager (trying to phase out Jamie Vardy being the pinnacle of that.) But he did know how to drill a team defensively and give it shape. 

 

Rodgers came in and added to that goals. He gave us great attacking patterns of play and added it to the work that had already been done. If Pearson deserved his share of the credit for the title win then Puel probably deserved his share of the credit for finishing 5th that year. 

 

We weren't really tested defensively that season until the back to back thrashings against Man City and Liverpool when Rodgers naively assumed he could just play the same aggressive system without changing anything and we got hammered. 

 

After that Rodgers (and Toure) had to think for themselves and they started making stupid decisions. Added extra defenders and defensive midfielders, it was primary school logic. More defensive players = more defensive team because, ultimately, he doesn't understand defensive patterns of play the same way he understands attacking ones. 

 

Then he starts getting his full backs to sit deeper and deeper and doesn't seem to appreciate that that's killing his chance creation. The whole balance of the team starts falling out of whack because he's forced to think for himself about how to defend and it just isn't his wheel house. 

 

That's the secret. He just never was and never will be a good defensive coach. We just had good foundations that have slowly crumbled over time and where it needed his work, he wasn't able to do it. 

 

This year didn't come out of the blue. It's slowly been happening since January 2020. This is just the natural culmination of that decay. 

I agree with a lot of your points but even with the defensive decline we were not conceding at such a rate last season to get relegated. Matters have been made worse this season with the loss of Schmeichel and no quality replacement which surely would not have been what Rodgers wanted.

[Fox92]

37 minutes ago, AKCJ said:

Getting out of the Championship is all about defending well. Winning games 1-0 or 2-1 is a necessity when getting out of that league. Very, very rarely do sides that come up concede 3 or more in a game. 

 

When we go down, we have to properly organise a defence and goalkeeper. I think Souttar, Kristiansen, Thomas and Iversen are young enough to keep but we absolutely have to sign some experienced leaders at the back and someone in midfield that will always be up for it in terms of getting on the ball and winning it back.

 

We shouldn't have any issues with quality next season but we absolutely have to reform the mentality at the club. The club has spend 4/5 years as a shameless stepping stone and it's led to a team that simply does not give a shit. That has to change.

We need a goalscorer though. We can keep all the clean sheets were like but we won't challenge without a consistent goalscorer.

 

Look at this season, the top three highest scorers (Akpom/Gyokeres/Morris) all play for a team that has finished in the top 6.

[Filberts lovechild]

8 minutes ago, Foxxed said:

It's not (just) the team. It's the club that's gone to shit.

 

Vichai left us with three pillars.

 

1. Great scouting

2. Great academy

3. Great finances by leveraging the scouting and academy

 

1. Rodgers ignored the scouting

2. Rodgers ignored the academy

3. Rodgers let the players run down contracts

 

To add insult to injury, Rodgers ignored the physios and we suffered injury after injury.

 

And Rudkin saw it going to shit and gave Rodgers two big thumbs up. And Top did nothing.

 

The fact the team's gone to shit is a symptom, not the  cause.

Bang on

[Sunbury Fox]

As others have said this season has been coming. Despite finishing 8th last season we conceded 59 goals, 6 more than relegated Burnley and more than all but 6 other teams. 

 

Things have got even worse this season because: 

 

1. We sold our first choice keeper without replacing him properly. 

2. We sold one of our best 2 CBs and the other one has sadly come to the end at the top level and is perpetually injured.

3. The 2 CBs we brought in to replace them were cheap and have proved not up to the job.

4. Rodgers compounded this by leaving out our best remaining fit CB and playing a clearly inferior player in his place. 

5. Our forwards and midfielders stopped pressing and running, allowing our defence to be exposed all too often. 

6. The form of our previously outstanding CDM has fallen off a cliff.

 

 

 

 

[steveb]

We bought badly for several years and didn`t play and bring on the best or offload the garbage. Mainly bought Championship level players.

Poor team selection, even worse use of substitutes.

Weak management , stupid contracts, wages and ridiculous contract lengths.

 

Our midfield didn`t turn up with the exception of Maddison when he felt like it. The rest played for over a year like they couldn`t care less because they had already signed elsewhere.

No captain in charge of defense, mostly its a piss up in a brewery.

Ward, picked by an idiot and played like an idiot, but he should have been weaned into the side not thrown in at the deep end.

i guarantee no attacking player was put on the team sheet until minutes to kick off, then endless poor choices and combos.

 

 

.

Edited 9 May 2023 by steveb
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