Leicester v Aston Villa - Match Thread - Monday 9th March, 8pm

[wittonite]

Astonishing difference between the City match and last night. But it's the one thing which gives me some hope, because City showed that with (almost) the same players we can compete.

My guess is this. For the City game DS recognised how tough the opposition was and set us up accordingly. Guilbert is set to mark Sterling and keeps him in his pocket all game. And so on. For the Leicester game DS decides that his brand of attacking football can sweep all before it. So Guilbert is in some vague area up the pitch and has 2 players not one to cope with every time they attack. And so on. Deluded.

So, the players may not be wonderful but I think they're good enough (mainly) to compete. They have to be set up right, and DS might/is not the one to do it. Carra said we should forget about playing "football" and start thinking about winning matches. Dead right.

Astonishing difference between the City match and last night gives you some hope and I see where you are coming from but it makes my blood boil.
Its like they were saying yes we can get up for ninety minutes to get a cup winners medal but cant be bothered for a bread and butter match.
I find it very hard to take, I am super competative and all I see when I look at our league performances is a bunch of couldnt care less bottlers.
I would like to think we can still grab the seventeenth position that I predicted at the start of the season but with every passing game that Smith sets them up to get beat it becomes more difficult to sustain the belief.

 

[wittonite]

I really don't understand that after 10 minutes we just fell apart. We should have taken some confidence from that , but inexplicably we just fell apart and the writing was on the wall despite Reina's brain fade and a poor penalty decision.

Feel sorry for Nyland , I fail to see what he has done wrong and Reina certainly hasn't been any better.

This 10 minutes thing is a pattern. We constantly do it, come out, press high, press hard and then when the opposition weather the storm we drop off the pace and thats it.
Im sure teams watch videos of our opening fifteen minutes in the full knowledge that we then go AWOL and are chasing shadows for the rest of the game.
If we can all see it, and I assume non of us are pro managers it shouldnt be too hard for our management team to spot it, or do they see it and cant do anything about it.

 

[robbali]

That last sentence is what I recall if I am not mistaken being used regularly on here after every terrible defeat. It is in our hands but what is the likelihood of we doing anything about it? Even if the game in hand was against someone around us or any team in poor form but well above us we still cannot be confident of beating them.

Game in hand Sheff u.
Next four are chelsea manu wolves and liverpool.
Only question is how many points we will be behind after that lot.

 

[robbali]

There is one thing in the last 10 years we seem to have perfected at this club and that's employing poor managers. As soon as we started bringing in other clubs cast offs, you could see it was never going to work in the Prem. We look miles away from what's expected and its really embarrassing to watch. Sad times, again.

Smith is a villa fan and is not responsible for signing the utter shite we bought in the summer....or drinkwater. Or at least that's what we are being told.
That's why he's being given the benefit of the doubt. Unlike the previous shower you alluded to.

 

[BBJ]

I was up the Holte for that game BBJ and concur and yes last night was beyond abysmal.
I have refused to join in the regular slagging off of the team on here, but sadly last night was the final straw.
You cannot make excuses for that performance last night, especially after the battling game against City the week before.
I didnt see anything last night that made me think that we can get out of the hole we have dug for ourselves.
The defence is so so poor with players seemingly not having a clue what their job within the team is.
The two fullbacks might as well have not bothered turning out, so ineffective were they and our midfield both defensively and in the attacking mode offered nothing.
Feel sorry for Jack, he has given his all for our cause, and the task now looks beyond him. (Or anyone else for that matter)

Are you saying that you were on the Holte for that Chelsea caning?
So was I.
Which begs the question - why didn't we see each other?

 

[Silhillvilla]

Jacks demeanour was definitely a little different last night, saw him one time walking head bowed down and giving a disapproving head shake whilst staring down at the pitch. Can't blame him as he's had the weight of the whole club it seems on his shoulders

 

[wittonite]

Are you saying that you were on the Holte for that Chelsea caning?
So was I.
Which begs the question - why didn't we see each other?

We probably did. My memory is not up to much but I seem to think it was pissing it down and the crowd was sparse. Worse thing about that game was my mate at school and his dad were massive Chelsea fans having come up to Brum with the army and I never heard the last of it.

 

[BBJ]

We probably did. My memory is not up to much but I seem to think it was pissing it down and the crowd was sparse. Worse thing about that game was my mate at school and his dad were massive Chelsea fans having come up to Brum with the army and I never heard the last of it.

I don't remember the rain but it was sparsely attended. But that was the norm during much of the 1960s - crowds of around 20,000. You have to remember that football was very expensive then - four bob to stand at a game.

 

[wittonite]

I don't remember the rain but it was sparsely attended. But that was the norm during much of the 1960s - crowds of around 20,000. You have to remember that football was very expensive then - four bob to stand at a game.

If you had of asked me I would have said it was a shilling. Told you my memory is lousy.

 

[Melon Donkey]

The lack of composure and our utter cluelessness on the ball last night was just incredible.

Second half Targett literally just kicked the ball away like a 5 year old just to get rid of it and absolve himself of taking responsibility. He wasn't trying to find anyone and it went straight to a Leicester player. I was surprisingly reserved in my reaction watching last night but I properly hit the sofa and scared the pooch at that point.

Disgraceful performance last night. Utterly disgraceful and embarrassing.

 

[CDX_EIRE]

The lack of composure and our utter cluelessness on the ball last night was just incredible.

Yet at the same time we have Mings and others who are careless with the ball and allow opponents to get close enough to either pick it off them or block the clearance. We seem to be farily ponderous with the ball like we were under Lambert and our only sense of urgency or tempo happens when we get freekicks and the opposition have overcommitted.

We play our way into trouble, play it long or give it away easily, the closest thing to a middle ground is Grealish picking it up in transition. We seem to solely rely on him carrying it forward into the final third where we get overloads because he is the dangerman.

It's hard to see where the spark is going to come from, I am starting to lose faith that McGinn is the missing piece when it see such abject performances.

 

[McParlandTheGreat]

McGinn is great but he's not the missing piece. I reckon Monday night was due to a very poor game plan. I doubt any thought had been given to Leicester's danger points and how to deal with them.

We have the ability to get down the wings, but that's disappeared.

 

[robbali]

T

Yet at the same time we have Mings and others who are careless with the ball and allow opponents to get close enough to either pick it off them or block the clearance. We seem to be farily ponderous with the ball like we were under Lambert and our only sense of urgency or tempo happens when we get freekicks and the opposition have overcommitted.

We play our way into trouble, play it long or give it away easily, the closest thing to a middle ground is Grealish picking it up in transition. We seem to solely rely on him carrying it forward into the final third where we get overloads because he is the dangerman.

It's hard to see where the spark is going to come from, I am starting to lose faith that McGinn is the missing piece when it see such abject performances.

TOO much pressure on McGinn to 'make the difference'. If he was carrying an injury before THE injury v saints then smith must have been flogging him like a dead horse which explains his form slump.
The rest bar grealish are simply not good enough......that's why the mistakes and goals against flow and that's why we are going down.

 

[robbali]

B

One thing which I don't think anybody has mentioned. When the players were on the field immediately before kick-off, Targett was having a word with Jack. Jack had a face like thunder. Targett looked as though he was trying to calm him down or at least cheer him up.

Wonder what that was about. Looked as though something had seriously upset Jack, although I wouldn't like to speculate what (because it would just be speculation).

BEING stuck out on the left wing again?

 

[robbali]

It matches what I've seen the majority of games this season. On the whole I've been entertained, I've enjoyed watching us, we have scored and created goals despite having a poor playing staff. Jack Grealish is playing his best football of his career so far because we are playing a system that suits him.

Yeah you can pull out my positive comments after a performance like that or a performance like Southampton and make me look silly, but I'll be right back on here after the next win we get whether its against Chelsea next week or Charlton next season and there will be far more people agreeing with me.

If it was just 'that' performance it would still be awful but a one off . Trouble is we have been throwing in performances like that all through the season. As with the last lot who went down the goals against are now starting to stack up.
Not sure what our style of play is supposed to be under smith. Not sure he knows anymore.

 

[robbali]

I'm not sure how blaming individual errors is some type of exoneration for the coaching/manager. If players are making individual errors that lead to goals (apparently we lead the league) then that is down to the fact that the shape and (lack of) organization isn't right. Players make mistakes all the time. The whole idea of having a defined defensive shape is to ensure that those moments aren't punished with goals. It's the simple concept of pressure/cover defensively. If the player pressing the ball makes a mistake, then there is a covering player in the right place to help. A defender getting beaten in a 1v1 situation is normal. That defender not having a covering player is the problem under this manager.

Look at the move that lead to Leicester's penalty last night. Guilbert pressing the opposing left-back on the halfway line was a poor decision, but if the shape was right, Nakamba, Luiz or Engels should have been in a position to slide over and prevent Barnes from running clean-through. Instead, our defence was 40 yards further back and midfield nowhere to be seen. When you coach defensive shape, it's basics to ensure that your back-four stays connected. Our back-four just follow players and drop-off. They're defending the "what-if this happens" situation instead of keeping the shape and cutting out attacks before they become dangerous. It really isn't difficult to coach. I used to do it with 18 year old college kids. A few sessions where they were (literally) connected to each other with pieces of rope 9 yards long in a shadow-play exercise. If they became too far separated and the rope came out of one of their hands then 10 press-ups. Never took more than about 50 press-ups for them to start to figure it out...

Give them enough rope to hang themselves? Joking.

 

[robbali]

It's not even a good PL this season with Liverpool and City the only two sides that are outstanding the rest are beatable, it's not like the top 6 are invincible

It's a premier league of about six decent teams....Liverpool and city head them. The rest vary from average to very poor. Trouble is....

 

[robbali]

Smile for social media posts put out by the official club accounts.

We go again on Saturday. ...

 

[robbali]

Must admit when I saw the starting line up I thought we were fucked. It's remarkable that we are not cut adrift in the league. Some of the performances this season are as bad as the year we went down, now more frequent.

Yes. The failings of others eh. It's the hope that kills you.

 

[BBJ]

If you had of asked me I would have said it was a shilling. Told you my memory is lousy.

Well, if you were at school it might have been a shilling for you.