Leicester City v Watford FC - 20/01/2018

Trouble is we lost another game too.

 

That's ok. We can get over that disappointment by doubling down at the end of the month.

 

We shouldn't be the worst team but we are. Who is worse than us at the moment? No-one is below us in the ten game form table. Look at some of the teams we've lost to and the circumstances!

Brighton - their only victory in 13 league games! They didn't score in nine of those 13 but we've given them four points this season by not scoring a single goal against them.
Huddersfield - as above, they hadn't scored in seven away games. Came to Vicarage Road and won 4-1!
Swansea - bottom at the time. Had lost seven away games in a row. Beat us in the last five minutes.
Palace - bottom at the time. Beat us in the last five minutes.

Of our measly five points in the last 11 games, one of them was against a Southampton side who are the only team that are in equally rancid form. They tore us apart for the first half and we got back in the game by going route one and getting lucky with a handball. We are absolutely terrible and the most concerning thing for me is the way it's changed from unlucky defeats where we were probably the better side, to being deserved defeats where we offer nothing going forwards until we start lumping balls forward in desperation.

 

I clutch at several distant straws tonight to find anything vaguely positive to post!

 

I still maintain that there isn’t another manager out there (who is attainable) who will get a tune out of this defence. And the attackers we have aren’t good enough to take the pressure of the defence for the majority of a game at the moment. There is no one overriding thing causing this form - it’s an amalgamation of quite a few things, most of which may be able to wait until the summer to be rectified. The two most pressing though are the manager and the defence.

I boil this down to two scenarios...

Will a new manager sort out this defence given the fact that they aren’t actually underperforming? - they just aren’t good enough IMO. A new manager will still need better defenders I think.

Or, can we back Silva with new defenders?

Either way, Silva or no Silva - the defensive aspect of this current squad will take us down I think.

 

If none of our injured players are not due back for a while yet we have to sign some new players. It doesn’t matter who the manager is when we have pretty much a whole starting eleven injured.

 

We're in trouble.

 

Am I the only one who really didn't think we were that bad today? It was always going to be a tough ask away at Leicester and we were comfortably their equal throughout the match - we started off quite brightly, more in line with the second half against Southampton than the first, and were it not for the stupid penalty given away by Wague I could have easily seen it staying 0-0 in which case there would have been few complaints.

 

The are always if's and but's in every match. The thing is too many are falling for the other side. Had Gray scored that one v one, had the linesman kept his flag down for Deeney's goal, had Wague not made that challenge etc. It's the same story in every match.

Small details decide games, but we could play that game again tomorrow and we'd still lose. The bottom line is we're not good enough. Whether we stay up will be down to small details in key games going our way. Right now, it seems unlikely, but it's still possible we could stay up.

 

I cannot accept that last sentence.
I understand that our defenders as individuals and as a collective aren't great but both QSF and Nutty Walt had fewer options and delivered better organised defences.
If he is half the coach he thinks he is, Silva should be able to decide upon a strategy that makes the individual players better and the defence better. That is THE job of a coach.Clough is the prime example,average to failing players (Burns,Robertson,Birtles...) made into a strong cohesive unit. GT to a lesser extent.
Silva appears to be making them worse yet the players apparently appear to support him.
I suppose it will all become clear but it seems a complete muddle at the moment.

 

Very true and I respect and agree with parts of your statement there. But players depreciate. Some of them quickly. And the defenders we have that both Walt and QSF both had are seemingly depreciating rapidly in age and ability. The whole defensive unit needs a leader and that may well drag the others into a sense of responsibility on the pitch. At the minute they play like 4/5 strangers regardless of the names on the back of the shirt. Silva can drum defensive work and shape into them all week but if they aren’t good enough to do it, that’s a massive problem.

 

I too respect and agree with you about players 'falling off the cliff' in terms of age and performance. Everytime I play a match I am reminded of this fact,thank goodness for seniors tennis!
However I cannot believe all of our defenders have 'hit the wall' in unison. I suspect it is a combination of your very valid point,lack of organisation/defensive coaching,injuries,bad results and therefore lack of confidence.
Not forgetting dear old Everton!

 

I said before and I'll say it again, does anyone think Allardyce could organise this defence?

If the answer is yes then it's down to the coaching.

I'd say yes. Silva is not a defensive coach.

 

Burnsy is basically saying that Silva is doing a good as a job that can be done with the defence. Fewer supporters are buying that line. Read most of the forums of the bottom 6-8 teams, and I bet they all lament the ability of their defenders. We can keep blaming injuries, too, and this is a valid point, but the manner of goals being conceded doesn't suggest to me Silva can address.

 

Another one who will defend (forgive pun) Silva to the hilt!

 

I'm very concerned. This isn't just a blip, it's been going on for three months now. Some players aren't at their best (Doucoure/Richarlison) and others have never been particularly good (our defence.) We've gone from ironically cheering when Gray got subbed off to ironically cheering when he comes on in three or four weeks. The truth is that none of our forwards are going to score on a consistent basis.

I'm not sure about the calls for 4-4-2, there's a reason none of the league play it. Yes Leicester were successful with it two years ago but that relied on Kante who basically did the work of two. I certainly think that the time to try it is with Doucoure and Cleverley in centre midfield, both Watson and Pereyra are far too static and would leave us exposed in a two so Silva was right to stick with one up top today. (Our temporary success in 4-4-2 relied on Ighalo being in the form of his life and having Abdi/Jurado on the sides who would play very narrow and not let us get overloaded centrally, Richarlison/Carillo won't do that.) However, I do see that we need to try something different.

I don't know about Silva. If he's lost the dressing room then he needs to go. If not, I can't see a manager out there who I'm confident would do any better.

Fundamentally, I'm not sure our current 11/18 is any better than the rest of that below eleven. We are missing Cathcart/Kaboul/Chalobah/Hughes/Kike, where are they all? They're nearly half a team and it would feel like new signings if we got them back. I don't think many teams outside the top six+Everton would be able to cope with that many long term injuries.

As you can probably tell, I'm torn. We haven't played that badly other than Brighton/Huddersfield but at some point you can't keep making excuses. We need four wins for safety, we're very capable of that and most games are being decided on fine margins which could turn with a bit of luck. Then I look at our run in and after West Ham we're basically reliant on a handful of home games for points because we have four of the big six away and it's easy to see how it could slip away.

 

If this is true,which rather appears to be the case this is not acceptable.
Any ball sport (excepting golf which Mark Twain had just about sussed) has 3-5 possibilities.
In tennis we have Trade,Build, Finish,Neutralise and Flip The Point.
Trading involves two players in a post serve/return,back of the court scenario trying to gain the upper hand by keeping their court position strong and the ball deep.
Building is when a player can take control of the point by making the opponent move and thus creating space.
Finish concludes the point.
Neutralise is when a player nullifies the build or sometimes the finish.
Flip is when a player hits an outrageous winner from an opponent's finish.
Silva to me only seems to want to build and finish and our building now is so slow and ponderous that we are neutralised more often than not.We are vulnerable to an opponent's build and in Leicester's case,as most probably feared, a Flip or counter attack in football.
Any good coach in any sport must pay attention to all aspects or run the risk of his team/player being one dimensional and therefore easily diagnosed.
Silva needs,very quickly,to get back to basics.

 

Sorry, who are you again?

 

Agree with this, even with a new manager we will still better players and not just in defence. Injuries are deep and we clearly serious lack quality in depth across the pitch.

The midfield was our strongest area earlier in the season. They protected the back 4 and provided a greater goal scoring threat than our strikers. Now though they are all knackered or injured.

It concerns me that the plan seems to be to rely on the injured players coming back since a. no one actually seems to know when they will come back and b. they will still need to find some sort of form & fitness when they do return, which isnt guarenteed.

 

I'm sorry, but I don't buy this excuse.

We've got a very good squad, and a right to expect a lot better than we've been getting from the players who've been available.

The fact that Silva refuses to deploy them in a way that plays to their strengths is a hundred times more relevant than who's injured.

 

Just back.

Drove there via the Fosse Way - the old Roman road. Quite scenic, but rain and sleet all the way and even a fair bit of fog.

The Newarke Houses museum was very good and the Firebug bar was OK too. The food portions were enormous! They had 3 year old, 7 year old and especial Havana Club on, so a stern salute for that.

As for the game, we started off very brightly. Plenty of early pressure and I thought we might upset them. Karnezis looked like a different keeper from last time out. A decent early save seemed to do wonders for his confidence. Came out and claimed the ball cleanly on several occasions. I was quite impressed. We were matching them and looking a little bit threatening.

I imagine from the lack of complaints on here, that the penalty was stone bonk. From the stands, it looked like he'd nicked the ball before Vardy went over his outstretched leg, but that must have been just wishful thinking and the afore mentioned Havana Club.

After HT we never really looked like scoring too much apart from Gray's 1 on 1. Crossing was dreadful. Made Ikechi Anya's crossing look pinpoint. Easy catching practice for Schmeikal mainly. Carrillo got dispossessed over and over again. Watson actually did pretty well in the middle of the park, putting in some handy tackles and breaking up their attacks. Only problem is that he doesn't have the ability to do anything creative with the ball once he's won it apart from pass it short or sideways.

There was an immediate difference when Gray came on. He's a creative player and intelligent in the box - rather than just blasting it towards goal at the first sniff like some of our other forwards. The little ball over the top for him to run on to worked nicely several times and looked like the source if an equaliser was going to come from anywhere. His 1 on 1 seemed more difficult than the two he fluffed a short while back. He just took a fraction of a second too long and that let the leics defender get back for a very decent block in combination with Schmeical.

Richarlison offered next to nothing going forward. Doucoure was doo doo. Janmaat had another poor game.

At least we seemed to try hard though. There was plenty of running. We forced them back from our goal line right back to their keeper at one point with some solid closing down. Can't fault the effort, the players just don't seem good enough.

 

I’m not backing anyone to the hilt as I’m sure you are alluding to myself given your response to my post. I have been critical of Silva. Damningly so in some posts - you won’t have to look hard to find them. I just like to think I show reasoning in my arguments for why it isn’t all his fault. If I felt everything would change with a simple change of manager, then I’d be all for doing it immediately. The fact that I don’t think that doesn’t mean I would back him unconditionally.

 

We don’t have a very good squad though. We have a capable first choice team but the team we were left with today looked weak on paper in several areas and played predictably so.

 

Sorry but the last sentence is completely ridiculous. If you didn’t know where we were in the league table and read that you would think we were 20th with 10 points not 10th. I will grant you that we are on a very poor run of form but that is sensationalism of the very highest form.

 

As we saw earlier in the season we have a very good group of 11/12 players. Outside of that the depth in quality deteriorates pretty quickly. We have one or two players starting currently who probaley shouldnt even be playing at this level.

Agreed about Silva not being able to adapt to the injuries and strengths of whose left to pick from. Its a far bigger contributor to these last 10/15 games than Everton sniffing around.

 

Except possibly playing two up front how do you think Silva should deploy the players currently available?

 

Let's look deeper into that.

Karnezis (send back to Udinese), Zeegelaar (sell), Kabasele (back up player), Wague (send back to Udinese), Janmaat (sell), Doucoure (1st team player), Watson (sell), Ricarlison (1st team player), Pereyra (1st team player), Carrillo (1st team player), Deeney (back up player), Prodl (back up player), Mariappa (sell), Sinclair (sell), Gray (back up player), Capoue (sell), Okaka (sell), Bachmann (3rd choice keeper n/a)

So, of that squad that was in use today only four I would consider good enough for a mid-table EPL side, four back up players, but the rest are not good enough to be selected for first team duty. IMO of course.

 

That's very magnanimous of you.

 

I've just realised who you are and the username you used to post under before you were banned. Explains the dangerous levels of stupidity and all-round weirdness.

 

We effectively lost because they scored from a penalty that was conceded as the ball was running away from our goal. Their second was due to us replacing our defenders with attackers and going for the equaliser. From what I saw, I cannot accept that the likes of Mahrez, Vardy, Albrighton, etc, made our defence look as if they would concede very many. They won the flipping league just a couple of years ago, yet they looked only average against us. Our defence is not worse than the vast majority of the teams below the top 8 or so. We can get by with our defence against two thirds of our opposition.

But yet again, our forwards looked toothless. Time and time again our average defence is exposed by our lack of success in scoring goals, and the need for the likes of Doucoure to get up front and do what the forwards are paid to do. It is our attack that is letting us down. Even today, had Gray stuck away his sitter, we would have been level and would probably have held on to a point. One shot! Such are the fine margins that can mean the difference between winning, losing or drawing.

Our toothless attack is the main problem because it affects everything else we do. The way we have to play, our attitude, our confidence, our and our demeanor. Furthermore, our opposition knows we are toothless up front and can set themselves up accordingly, knowing that they can attack with almost inpunity.

When it comes to replacing players, I think that we have half a dozen average defenders. The mistakes we make are pretty well spread across the back line, we have no outstanding players and none much worse defensively than any of the others. So to strengthen the defence markedly, we actually need to replace them all, not one or two.

Apart from the Gray chance, there was one incident that stood out for me, and SLB remarked about it in the Shoutbox. Carillo received the ball on the right touch line and put in a reasonable cross to the near post , on a reasonable trajectory and at a good pace. Where were Deeney, Gray and Okaka? All at the back post, static and useless. Not one of them went to the near post to attack the ball, take a chance, or to make the defenders actually think a bit. They are the reason why our defensive errors seem so magnified in importance.

So many on here seem to look at a losing score and because our defence concede more than the opposition defence, then assume it must be our defence to blame. That isn't the case.

If we could get a goalscorer, someone who could create chances and take them, the difference would be remarkable.

 

4-4-2.

How many goals do we concede because our only wide men are the full backs, who've been trying to do two jobs?

 

Silva stills puzzles me with Gray. Scores in successive games then dropped. Do other managers drop their goalscorers or does he play Deeney on purpose as a way of persuading the board to get another striker in. Or maybe he just doesn't give a monkeys anymore.

 

Reader of this forum but never really post but just need to get the frustration of this season out somehow.
Trying to work out how it's all gone so wrong.
Manager,yes he has conducted himself badly and his demeanour on the touch line and interviews gets worse each week.behind the scenes there is obviously lots going on between the owners and the coach and it's not helping big time but unless everyone involved mans up and all get behind each other it's killing us,one thing I would say about the coach is that he doesn't system to me to of lost the players.i saw a reaction last week against Southampton and today the attitude was there just ability at both ends of the pitch wasn't.i don't really like him though looks like wants out but is stuck with us.
Injuries,this is an absolute disaster,we are not a big club and are not going to have a squad of players with equal ability so a couple of injuries and yes we can cope but the amount we have no one could get away with and be as strong.unlucky or bad medical team I'm not sure but the time it's taking to get these guys back is adding to all our frustrations along with lack of info from the club.
Femenia ,challobah,kaboul,Britos,success,Cathcart,mariappa,cleverly and Hughes just too many
Timing,from the Everton debacle to the injuries to the loss of form of key players to the tiredness of players(Richie and duocoure) and no way we can rest them to the 50/50 red cards that went against us to the games we lost in the dying moments palace,Swansea,Everton.it all seems to gone against us and it just seems to have crushed our confidence
I can't believe from those first ten games when I fell in love with this team again after last seasons Mazari circus that it's now come to this,I just spend the whole 90 mins shaking my head at what we have become.
What's the answer?
Sack the coach.maybe
Sign some players.maybe
I would prefer gino to give a public vote of confidence to silva they shake hands and act as the professionals they are and we get some players off the treatment table asap.
Get the whole club moving in the right direction together.
Busting me up watching us fall apart like this

 

You honestly believe it’s that simple?