Why are we the only relegation battlers that are playing like we don't care ?

[Kitchandro]

A lot of people talking about the contracts, but it isn’t that,

 

It’s the character of the players. Unlike under Pearson, we are not buying players with a strong, professional mentality.

 

The bad attitude has been here for several seasons now, hence why we threw away two top 4 finishes and lose almost every crunch game.

[Durnerz]

There's no leadership in the team. Evans and Kasper got us through many games but now one is gone and one is constantly injured. There are players on that pitch with a lot of talent for the game but no drive when the chips are down and no one's around to instil discipline on the park. Hence why the captains armband has been like a hot potato all season.

 

Adding to that we are a soft side, not many players in that team like making a tackle or winning an aerial dual. The confidence has slowly been ebbed away due to poor recruitment, poor in game management (Rodgers) and a lack of ideas, Smith so far hasn't brought anything new to the table. 

 

It feels like some of the players, in their minds, are gone already and probably can't wait to leave this part of their careers behind them, sad but true. 

[Dahnsouff]

6 hours ago, Matt_Lcfc said:

…

I also think that for some unclear reason, the club downed tools after winning the FA Cup

…

It’s this for me, a nagging feeling that some perceived the clubs ceiling had been reached, the good times had been had and down was the direction of travel. A belief it had been done and could get no better than what had gone before. That’s clearly pathetic but I cannot shake this feeling.

[Wasyls Pec Deck]

There’s a lack of incentive at almost all levels of the club - many of the players out of contract, players on too much money milking us dry (probably laughing at how many they’re being paid), the manager on a short term deal and the board who aren’t on performance related pay etc. Even if everyone drops 2%, and probably unconsciously, that’s enough to be in this mess. It’s a shambles.

[Vazman]

5 hours ago, Les-TA-Jon said:

• 7 players out of contract in summer 2023
• 7 players out of contract in summer 2024
• Manager who continually publicly said a lot of them weren't good enough - eroding confidence
• Manager who publicly said we would not and could not compete, eroding 'disrupt the top 6' mentality of first half of his tenure
• Manager who coached some players into decline/away from their strengths (Ndidi, Vardy)
• Manager who refused to play his best players due to pride (Iversen), personal issues (Soyuncu) and unfavouring people inexplicably (Kelechi)
• Groups of players who were frozen out and didn't get the move they wanted, stuck at a club and under a manager they don't want to be with (Soyuncu, Praet, Vestergaard)
• Loss of leaders and model professionals who have left and not been replaced (Kasper, Evans, Morgan, Fuchs, Albrighton)  

 

Exactly this, and some pretty big egos, who since our leaders left, are running riot and rough shot over everyone, hence the lack of team spirit and fighting mentality.

 

They're simply turning up and going through the motions, with a whimper regardless of what tweets get pushed out, after a shocking sh€%e, season defining footballmatch.

[blueharmie]

Were shite quite simply

[Le Renard]

Too many players of the same ilk, Dean Smith seems to think they are a good bunch of lads, and that is where the problem lies.  Kasper wound people up and made people uncomfortable, telling people straight if they weren't pulling their weight, maybe Albrighton could be like that in his own way, maybe he isn't vocal like Kasper, but he probably voiced his opinion.  Rodgers slowly got rid of these strong characters and seemed to sideline Vardy, so we all believed that he was finished.  Any organisation needs dissenting voices and a mixture of characters, but we seem to have a squad created in the image of Rodgers, with a bloody leadership group.  Sometimes you just need some home truths told to your face, not a bloody group of leaders to discuss it!!

[Stevosevic]

1. Most are soft mentally.

 

2. I think genuine complacency of them thinking they won’t go down. 

[Chrysalis]

11 hours ago, don_danbury said:

too long under rodgers.

^^

 

Usually when things start to rot, the club ownership, directors will bring in a new manager to try and break the rot setting in.

 

We simply let the rot set, we let it harden, and then far too late we tried to do something about it.

 

Could sense the team losing confidence and effectiveness as the season went on.

 

By the time we changed things up, I expect a big enough part of the squad felt its all done, a few of the players have stepped up but it wasnt enough, too much of the team on the pitch are not in it.

 

Our main issue is as someone else pointed out in another post today, the team is just very lazy in switching from possession to a defensive shape, the ball bypasses the midfield, and the back 4 are put under too much pressure too quickly, then even when we have any kind of defensive shape, we have no closing down to win the ball back except on what seems like randomly one of our players suddenly trying to make an interception.  The player who seemed to most consistently try was Nacho who is of course now injured.

 

On second balls, headers etc. often our players dont even jump or try to win the ball, these issues are a mental one and partially might be fitness related as well.

[damolcfc]

Castagne on Arsenal radar.... 🙈 

Are they giving up too? 

[TJQuik]

It really does bring your piss to a boil seeing them fanny about the pitch when we're headed for possible financial oblivion if we go down. The club that has been paying them an obscene amount of money to kick a bag of air around, even by kicking around a bag of air standards.

[Stinkenzo]

You'll probably see the same thread on the other sides' forums. If Everton lose with a whimper this weekend questions will be asked of them again.

[ARM1968]

Ive never found it hard to fight. Some people do. Pearson brought in players with the right attitude. Many now don’t have it. Add in the confidence eroding fool that was Rodgers and it’s almost a perfect storm. That’s not even mentioning certain players coasting to avoid injury so they can move on in the summer. 

[Stinkenzo]

23 hours ago, Kitchandro said:

A lot of people talking about the contracts, but it isn’t that,

 

It’s the character of the players. Unlike under Pearson, we are not buying players with a strong, professional mentality.

 

The bad attitude has been here for several seasons now, hence why we threw away two top 4 finishes and lose almost every crunch game.

Generally our fans have been wanting us to sign young players so that we can sell them on. See us get linked to anybody over 25 and those fans will barf. Young players and strong, professional mentalities don't always go hand in hand. A few more experienced players in the side 2/3 years ago and we wouldn't have cocked up 4th

[Danno]

We’ve only got one proper, experienced head and that’s Vardy. 
 

Our left hand side is completely fvcked. Thomas and Barnes are two absolute fannies, they’ve both never won a 50-50 in their lives and disappear when the going gets tough. For a supposed Leicester lad, Barnes seems like the one who’s least bothered some of the time. 
 

Centre defence is a mess. Evans was a decent leader, but even he’s been pretty dire and should be gone in the summer if his reported wages are true. Faes and Soyuncu are basically the same player, both far too rash and jump into everything. 
 

Castagne is an OK player. He looks good when he gets loads of space going forward but he’s a liability at the back post and has moments of madness like the DCL penalty or that almost own goal against Watford last season. 
 

We badly need a nasty fvcker at CDM. Tielemans really isn’t a leader and isn’t an athlete either, he runs like he has a caravan on his back and can’t get up and down the pitch. Soumare is just baffling, good player in there but he plays every game like it’s a friendly. Ndidi isn’t nasty enough and god knows what happened to the player he once was. KDH could come good and his mentality is great, and he can do the box to box role pretty well. 

Praet obviously couldn’t care less and just coasts about really. I don’t know what he does well. 
 

Daka is another one who seems a massive confidence player. 
 

 

Maddison can still come up with something brilliant at any given moment but the captaincy seems to have made him try far too hard. Keeps losing the ball and trying mental shots from everywhere. 
 

In goal Iversen seems a decent keeper but he’s no leader really, seems pretty meek. 
 

Watching Arsenal vs Newcastle you can see what we lack. Obviously a whole lot of quality but there’s no one good at the dark arts. No one falling over wasting time, no one in the refs face, we’re just far too nice. Those things could have been the difference between us being comfortably on 40 points or more if we learnt to hold onto a lead. 
 

People say we’re missing Schmeichel but he was the same captain who saw the collapses against Bournemouth, Spurs etc and the amount of big games we bottled since winning the league.

[Fox1980]

They don’t want to fight because that means putting your body on the line and the likes of Tielemans and Maddison wouldn’t want to risk getting injured with a big move on the horizon. The others just don’t have it in them!
 

let’s be honest even if we did stay up this season I still think we will probably go down next season because we are going to have a massive turnover of players 

Edited 11 May 2023 by Fox1980

[HybridFox]

It's all well some of the players now coming out saying we're hurting, none of us want to go down etc. But it's the application on the pitch that will do the talking. So far this squad has failed. Anything less than leaving it all on the pitch in these last 3 games is frankly unacceptable at this stage

[TrentFox]

This is a trick question, right?? 

[Daggers]

On 10/05/2023 at 13:10, Noahfence said:

Because nearly all of them know they won’t be here come pre season in July 

<insert a ‘he’s right you know’ gif here>

[sm1]

The unity in the squad has gone, there's too many cliques formed at Seagrave. The Belgium lads have their clique, the young English players, KDH, Barnes, Maddison & Thomas have theres. The African lads, Ndidi, Nacho & Amartey have theres. Seagrave is such a huge place, the intimacy of Belvior Drive has been lost, so has the team spirit. 

[SafewayFox]

10 minutes ago, sm1 said:

The unity in the squad has gone, there's too many cliques formed at Seagrave. The Belgium lads have their clique, the young English players, KDH, Barnes, Maddison & Thomas have theres. The African lads, Ndidi, Nacho & Amartey have theres. Seagrave is such a huge place, the intimacy of Belvior Drive has been lost, so has the team spirit. 

It does appear that way.

Serious Rocky 3 vibes isn’t it 👀

[Guy]

On 10/05/2023 at 20:12, Le Renard said:

Too many players of the same ilk, Dean Smith seems to think they are a good bunch of lads, and that is where the problem lies.  Kasper wound people up and made people uncomfortable, telling people straight if they weren't pulling their weight, maybe Albrighton could be like that in his own way, maybe he isn't vocal like Kasper, but he probably voiced his opinion.  Rodgers slowly got rid of these strong characters and seemed to sideline Vardy, so we all believed that he was finished.  Any organisation needs dissenting voices and a mixture of characters, but we seem to have a squad created in the image of Rodgers, with a bloody leadership group.  Sometimes you just need some home truths told to your face, not a bloody group of leaders to discuss it!!

Definitely agree with this re Rodgers. No wonder the Rodgers era gets compared to the Peter Taylor era so often on here as Taylor also ostracised and phased out the quality and outspoen players that remained from the M.O'Neill era during his early tenure, including Cottee, Ian Marshall and Steve Walsh!

[filthyfox]

On 10/05/2023 at 13:02, FoyleFox said:

Because our team doesn't care

Went down hill as soon as we shafted Hamza

[jayfox26]

Some really Good points made in here that I agree with and another thing I feel is and has been a huge issue this season is fitness. We look terribly unfit compared to other teams and this gives us a huge disadvantage every game. If we are losing, which we are most games, we don't have the fitness to actually pressure teams and get back into games in the 2nd half more often than not. How many times have we come from behind and won? How often have we scored important late goals to win or snatch a draw? Even in the odd occasion we are winning, we struggle to see games out as when other teams turn the screw and pressure us we crumble. Mentality plays a huge part but lack of fitness is also a key driver for me when we look at individual mistakes and failing to get back in/see games out. 

 

Why are we unfit? Has Rodgers ran the players into the ground? Possibly. Lack of actually caring so not giving 100% on the training ground? Possibly. Training ground environment too comfortable with the golf course, swimming pool, beds for sleeping, sauna etc? Possibly. 

 

This also points to yet another area of the club that has failed. The fitness and medical team. The players not being at peak fitness could also be a contributing factor in our horrendous injury record over the past few years. 

[Lee Monty]

I think the silence from the club is deafening, A week ago we were being told to "BRING THE NOISE" then Everton bullied us for all but 15 minutes. The Fulham 1st half destroyed the fans that paid to watch the tripe. The only ounce of self belief ( more wishful thinking) that we can survive is that we look like we can score goals but the realistic veiw is we need to score 5 just to draw a match, Top isnt a bad bloke but he aint his dad either Vichai would have probably made changes earlier but would we be still challenging for the top 6 nobody knows. Theres a rift opened up between the fans and the  players and those players looked shell shocked on monday to be told to **** off at the end. Theres a small chance we get a result against Liverpool but **** all chance we get anything from Newcastle probably meaning West ham will be a dead rubber. The whole feel to LCFC is dying this year the U21s relegated the senior mens and womens sides facing the same fate. These are my thoughts and its painful to watch especially given the past 10 years but what else is there. I guess the reformation of leicester united means i can go see some 'real football' and hope they go one better than Hinckley united did and get into the football league in 30 years one can hope i guess .....

 

 

 

 

 

 

..... and thats all we have left faint hope.