Managerial Replacements

[Chelmofox]

47 minutes ago, Babylon said:

So why was it as dull as dishwater to watch most of the time then?

Maybe you preferred it when we were losing and we chasing games?

 

The most likely reason is possession football breaking down low block. I felt the more open games were more exciting.

[Babylon]

31 minutes ago, Saxondale said:

No, you want some magical unicorn football that is both endlessly exhilarating and ever successful. You want passes to be both immediate and accurate. You want us to move the ball forward at all times but never concede possession.

 

If you find us winning the league at a canter and scoring 89 goals boring, then - I hate to break it to you - you’re in for a long season.

That is utter nonsense, I've never demanded success and neither have I asked for perfect football. I just don't want to be bored to death, I want to go and enjoy a game of football. I'm managed to enjoy plenty of football since I've been going down in the 80's, much of it wasn't perfect and it wasn't always successful. 

[fox_up_north]

1 hour ago, Saxondale said:

I still think the board will want somebody with solid Premier League experience. I think they will surprise us with somebody who was a fairly big name a few years ago - like they did with Ranieri.

 

 

If you're doing that, the names that would stick out to me are in the Benitez, De Boer mould. 

[Basildon Fox]

2 hours ago, indierich06 said:

What do we do with the players we invested in last summer in order to try and play this way? I don't think we have the 'right' players to perfectly implement any one style to be honest. Do you think we've got the pace, the finishers and the workrate in the squad to play even half as well as we did in 15/16? 

 

People assume that possession/technical-based footballer is 'harder', and that other ways of playing are 'easier' - it's nonsense. You employ the style that suits that players you have, or something approximating that, and we've spent quite a lot investing in players who play a certain way and are used to a certain style. The board aren't going to throw the baby out with the bathwater, chasing some type of football that we don't have the players for and goes against what we're actually trying to build - well, they might do, they've made plenty of stupid decisions before.

Take a look at what we did to Southampton (twice) when we broke quickly and with purpose.  This team with the pace it has can be devastating with quicker attacks and at no point were we playing long ball.  This is exactly the kind of style we should be playing next season.  Most teams will come onto us a lot more than last season.  We will have much less chances so have to exploit them as best we can when they come.

[Chelmofox]

16 minutes ago, Basildon Fox said:

Take a look at what we did to Southampton (twice) when we broke quickly and with purpose.  This team with the pace it has can be devastating with quicker attacks and at no point were we playing long ball.  This is exactly the kind of style we should be playing next season.  Most teams will come onto us a lot more than last season.  We will have much less chances so have to exploit them as best we can when they come.

I think the players liked playing how they did against Southampton, and it was a bloody good game too. Our players pressed like they were maniacs - we would swarm around them and only gave them the option of going backwards. It is likely that the setup was a result of the players meeting and compromising on the total possession tactic. Would like to think that is how we will setup too, and low block against the best if we have to.

[Saxondale]

42 minutes ago, Babylon said:

That is utter nonsense, I've never demanded success and neither have I asked for perfect football. I just don't want to be bored to death, I want to go and enjoy a game of football. I'm managed to enjoy plenty of football since I've been going down in the 80's, much of it wasn't perfect and it wasn't always successful. 

Well if you’re not worried about success then that’s fair. But a manager who brings exciting football but no success won’t last long.

[inckley fox]

9 minutes ago, Saxondale said:

Well if you’re not worried about success then that’s fair. But a manager who brings exciting football but no success won’t last long.

I'm not sure it's about what the papers might call 'exciting football'. I doubt he's asking for Keegan-era Newcastle!

 

We've had some sides that were plain dull over the time period he's referencing. The way we played under Puel, or even Levein and (arguably) the second year of Pearson's first spell wasn't easy to watch, irrespective of the success. It was very conservative. And people rarely talk about the great entertainers of the Little and even O'Neill years.

 

However in the case of those last two examples we were defined by our work-rate. We might have been defensive at times, but a combination of lower expectations, charged atmosphere and spirit made those eras more exhilarating. By contrast, last season seemed to be about playing in a way in which superior players could suffocate the game with possession. When that didn't work, we seemed to lack many of the qualities which you'd tend to associate with Leicester teams, like the ones that yo-yo'd between leagues in the past, occasionally upsetting the top flight apple-cart, or even the one which was our most successful ever side, eight years ago.

 

So it's perhaps more about identity. You won't get away with playing O'Neill or Pearson-ball at Barcelona, and you'll struggle with Puel and Maresca-ball at Leicester, simply because it's not what the public responds to, it's not what excites us, and it's not even what brought us our greatest successes.

 

People say 'but what about Bloomfield?' But the response is easy; at the time many preferred the more industrial football that preceded it under O'Farrell. In the end, Bloomfield was being booed from the terraces while we finished 11th. As for those who loved those goal-shy Bloomfield sides because they played 'the right way', well those voices have mostly gone now, albeit after years of complaining that the more successful sides under, say, O'Neill, weren't honouring some tradition which everyone else was in the process of forgetting. It's different now, of course, and harder to forget, because everyone can remember us being far more successful - playing a different way - in recent history. Until those achievements are eclipsed, that identity could hold strong for decades, as it did after Bloomfield, or longer.

 

All of which makes Top's determination to reject that longer-standing footballing identity (which was the making of King Power's ownership, after their previous dalliances with a possession-based game under Sven) a hard sell. It seems both very un-Leicester, and less effective than something in recent memory. And the argument that it's more sustainable, based on the past few seasons, is clearly baseless.

[Matt]

3 hours ago, Babylon said:

So why was it as dull as dishwater to watch most of the time then?

This is what I don’t get.

 

The stats flying around about us last season.

 

I heard a stat the other day, Southgates England team have scored more than X

 

Man City score goals.

 

Heck! Unbelievably I think there was even stats that showed Rodgers’ football in a positive light for creativity/goals (I seem to remember people arguing against me).

 

Common denomination? All dull as dishwater, for all the positive stats and spin it doesn’t get people out their seats.

 

Then you finally get a game with goals (and by my own admission I’m only using 2 examples here) WBA 3-0 at HT and Southampton 5-0, genuinely exciting games with goals and 2 different managers aren’t happy with it, would far more favour “control”.

 

Edited 5 June by Matt

[Pliskin]

If we selected Cooper ahead of CC, either he doesn’t want it, or Cooper lied in his interview. 

[An Away Move]

There was a good article I read this week about a ‘culture war’ happening in football. On one side it’s the control freakery ‘tippy tappy’ influenced by Pep. 
The article was centred on Real Madrid and how they just play pragmatic football with brilliance. They don’t have an identifiable philosophy. They just find a way to win. 
I found it an interesting counterbalance to the ‘Pep is changing the game’ discourse. It also helped me be less tribal in my own views and have a greater understanding of those on this forum that didn’t like Maresca’s style. 

Edited 5 June by An Away Move

[cityfanlee23]

12 hours ago, OldBob said:

This is the premier league son. He’s currently managing in the worst championship I’ve seen. It’s not the same league as it was ten years ago, where you couldn’t make the mistakes us and Southampton have this season and still gone up. If the club had any sense now it would scrap the tippy tappy rubbish and appoint a manager that will make us hard to beat 

I think the important context for Corberan is that yes he does have a "style" but he's very pragmatic, he usually sets up in a 4-2-3-1, but his formations change throughout the game where players take up different roles and positions to counter the opponent. This season he has also played a 3-5-2, a 4-4-2, a 3-4-3 and a 5-4-1. 
Corberan does have a preferred playing style, but he's proven at West Brom that he plays to beat the opposition and get the best out of the squad he has, rather than setting up solely to play "his way" like Enzo did. 

I'd rather have a pragmatic Corberan than a static manager wedded to a system with the season we face. 

[bmt]

The more I think about it the more keen I am on Corberan. Get it done.

[mozartfox]

32 minutes ago, Pliskin said:

If we selected Cooper ahead of CC, either he doesn’t want it, or Cooper lied in his interview. 

Or Rudkin was smoking a spliff??

[Bordersfox]

12 minutes ago, bmt said:

The more I think about it the more keen I am on Corberan. Get it done.

He's my choice and Top has emailed me to say he's keen as MON has said no again. Continuity to some degree but, it seems, without Maresca's dogmatism.  

 

Used to working within limited budgets and ready to step up and prove himself.

 

In our current situation there are no perfect choices but he certainly seems an obvious choice. 

[Pliskin]

1 minute ago, mozartfox said:

Or Rudkin was smoking a spliff??

Red eyes Rudkin. 

[LinekersLugs]

[Mint23]

Anyone but Lampard please 

[J. James]

The argument about the "new" way of playing vs the "old" way of playing is as bogus as old vs new music, successful young musicians draw on the past just as successful young coaches do.

 

Progression is not a straight line its a circle and old styles both in sport and music come around again and are recycled as new!

 

The point here is not how a particular manager is perceived as playing, its about adaptability and the wit and willingness to change to suit the circumstances.

 

As l said about Rodgers any fool can impose a style of play on a group of players and fail because they aren't good enough, the music analogy applies again, asking your ok but limited lead guitarist to play a Nuno Bettencourt 10 minute solo is plainly crazy but that same guitarist could be very entertaining and successful with a simpler piece.

 

It's so easy to see a team playing in a particular way and assume that's how the coach likes to play, it may be thats how he has to play to succeed with the players at his disposal!

 

Great generals did not go into every battle with the same plan, the ones that did are forgotten.

 

Coaches that refuse to change the way they play are basically shop windowing themselves imao, Rodgers was and so was Enzo.

[lfu]

"Tippy tappy" is such an asinine buzzphrase at this point

 

Often accompanied by an opinion that would have been dated 20 years ago

[Basildon Fox]

Just now, lfu said:

"Tippy tappy" is such an asinine buzzphrase at this point

 

Often accompanied by an opinion that would have been dated 20 years ago

Why?  A complete bollocks statement without any evidence to back it up.

 

Stop trying to be intellectual.  Its a ****ing football forum. 

[ClaphamFox]

17 minutes ago, Mint23 said:

Anyone but Lampard please 

You're easily pleased 

[SixtiesFox]

Corberan makes the most sense in terms of continuity by building on the style (love it or hate it) implemented by Enzo. Cooper would be the choice if survival next term is our sole aim. Given the appointment of Enzo when we were in desperate straights after being relegated is anything to go by (promotion or bust didn't appear to be the deciding factor then but rather building something new for the longer term) then Corberan would seem to be the more likely option. 

[Lambert09]

i’ve said it before and still 1000% believe •it will not be cooper.

 

It just doesn’t fit what we are looking for at all. Top wants a specific brand of football. Top wants to break in to europe. Call it delusional or whatever you want but he doesn’t really go for a stop gap manager. we’ve only done it once since he’s been here with smith and that situation was obviously unique. 

 

Whoever we go for will be someone he thinks will be a good long term appointment and for me this rules out cooper. 

 

lts very well known that Top wanted to move away from the previous brand of football we played. He’s not going to take us as far away from it as we’ve ever been, then move back towards it. 

 

So relax if you’re worried about that because it simply won’t happen. 

 

We might be penny pinching but we also didn’t want the 10m for maresca. The aim was still to be competitive. We wouldn’t flinch to pay half of it for a decent coach we wanted 

 

[indierich06]

Again, Cooper and Corberan are actually quite similar in terms of their football and their philosophy.

[Guppys Love Child]

4 hours ago, S1DDO said:

I’m pretty sure we played this way in 15/16 season, worked pretty well 

Correct my friend, I'm with you on that one ...and I miss it.

 

During the 15/16, we certainly played polar opposite to EnzoBall.

 

And the cameo 1/2 appearances of upping the tempo and stopped pi$$ing around with it "looking for solutions," we were a much better team for it.

 

It's been said before, unless you have a team full of Foden's and De Bruyne's and the the cheque book to buy them, styles like EnzoBall are hard to pull off and be affective regularly and certainly in our own case.

If we had starting next season under Enzo playing 'his way, IMO we would have received many a battering.

Edited 5 June by Guppys Love Child