total ****

Are you by any chance related to Mahrez ?

 

Are you his agent Fosse mate?
Lets be right, he was bang average for most of the game and has been now for too long. We are carrying him as a team in too many games. If I were at team mate of his at present, seeing him bottle tackles or at best go in half hearted in case he gets hurt. No Im sorry that doesn't cut it at Leicester. He could get away with it in the title winning season when team hadn't sussed him out but now they are doubling up on him
Im sure he will have more joy in a team of quality players where team cant double up on him.
Going to be interesting to see if he is still here on September 1st

 

I agree Miami. We're Leicester City Fc, not Mahrez Fc. He's had far too much credit imo that he has played unlike some others at the centre of transfer sagas but his agent has actively been trying to get Roma to put stupid bids in to unsettle him and get him a move on the cheap. The agent represents the player so I'm just as disappointed by the behaviour he is happy for his agent to. End of the day we are still a few bad results as last season showed from being back in the championship so we need players who want to be here and put the effort in

 

Tbh what more do you expect him to do? If no one is giving him the ball in attacking areas then is he meant to drop deep looking for it and so leave us light in attack when we do start a counter attack?

I'm not his biggest fan and I agree with you about his treatment of us but I also see the failure of the club to bring in any alternative.

 

Oh yeah we shouldn't let him go without an alternative as I think he may pick up in September if he is still here. We should be looking to replace him purely in my opinion. I don't want us to end up stuck in the moment of the league win. We need to move on from that is all I think

 

TBF he did show some promising signs - like Fosse said he was at fault for one of Arsenal's goals but was better after half time.

For all my talk about wanting an experience AM, maybe it was Appleton that perked him up - after all wouldn't a talking to from this fella make you want to perform better:

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I'm not his agent ... but I did see the likes of Vardy and Simpson encouraging him at the start of the second half because he was obviously trying to make amends for his inept challenge that led to the equaliser ... he wins more aerial challenges than people give him credit for too. The reality is that he has been good in most of the pre-season games - arguably our best player - yet you are saying that he has been average for "far too long" - what does that say about the rest?

His reaction to his mistake last Friday was to create a third goal ... it wasn't his fault that we then conceded two very soft goals, yet his critics on here would have you believe that he was the main reason for us losing - he wasn't.

But he has been judged and Leicester fans do like a scapegoat ... but to lose the likes of Mahrez and replace them with another Albrighton type will, IMHO, ensure that we will be in a relegation battle ... because no amount of running around and getting stuck in is a sustainable alternative to real quality ... just my opinion.

 

Yep if the defence had held out we'd have all praised Mahrez.

I don't understand why people hate him so much.

 

To make up for him wanting to leave - if he didn't say that then people would be more understanding but now we can say "good riddance, he played ****" if he does go.

 

Albrighton is outstanding for us but I agree that you need someone like Mahrez to create.

It's like Park/Kuyt - excellent players who are massive to the team but you can't win anything with a whole team of them

 

You're right about Appleton!
As Fosse said below, I was really impressed with him in pre-season, disappointed with shrinking out of that challenge at Arsenal as it begs questions about avoiding injury etc.
As I said, hopefully he'll stay and be fully motivated in his own right if he's here in September the reason he gets so much stick from some as mentioned below again, is because of the standard he sets. Other players are average and play like it so play to their level. Even the biggest Mahrez fan would surely admit he has been so far below his standard he said set relative to other players compared to their ability (not saying other haven't been below par as well but they aren't as good players to start with). I'm sure you wouldn't find a Leicester fan alive that doesn't want Mahrez to buckle down and produce what he did on 15/16. Why would anyone want to sell a player like that!

 

Mahrez wins a corner and then delivers the kick for Vardy to score. All hail the creative one! That justifies him being picked? You have to be joking me! I suppose you could credit him for our first and second goals because he was busy occupying opponents on the opposite side of the pitch. The reasons for selecting him are getting more and more tenuous. He might have looked good in pre-season games when it's all about fitness and no one is making real tackles, but put him in a real challenge and he comes up short. This guy is supposed to be our creative saviour this season, when he played all last season and we spent most of that time where? In or just above the relegation zone.

If he has scored or created a couple of goals then I can (grudgingly) put up with a bit of backsliding with his defensive duties. But if he's having an unproductive game then he needs to muck in and do the same as the rest of the team. He has to be more involved and influential. Should we expect anything less from a player on £100K a week and reputedly worth £50 million? I suspect that if the situation were different and we were looking to buy him for that amount there would be plenty on this board who wouldn't be enthusiastic.

 

Who else is there that can play there and create because I can't see anyone else in our squad which really troubles me tbh.

 

And don't forget that when the oppo's have 2 players ganging up on Mahrez, that leaves more space for others. All we need is more players than can score at the end off their run like Vardy (who is also heavily marked) does. That type of player doesn't come cheap and are rarely available. Maybe Gray can fill that role as he becomes more experienced? Our main problem is not Mahrez ducking out of challenges or not working hard enough, it's our defence which needs bolstering.

 

On the contrary. One of our main problems is Mahrez ducking out of challenges and not working back, because that leads to the right side of our defence always being put under pressure and allows crosses to be put in at will, and we are conceding goals from exactly that position. Why should we make excuses for him? It's a team game and we are as weak as our weakest link. If we had bought Sigurdsson as our creative player to replace Mahrez, would we have played him on the right wing? Put Gray out there for a run of games and let him alternate flanks with Albrighton.

 

Why do you want our creative savior to track back? He needs to be in the opposition half to make the chances not defend them.

Also remember that we have a really crap attacker in Simpson on the right as well - Mahrez literally has to do everything by himself and got poor balls in deep positions.

We haven't brought Siggurdson so no point in thinking about what ifs - we are in the situation where the only real alternative on the right wing is a left winger in Gray who is someone that you create chances for, not the one that creates chances.

 

That's a big worry tbh. Would have been tempting to have kept Lawrence and risk losing him for free if we knew Mahrez is going

 

I was using the term 'creative saviour' in an ironic way. Agreed that he should be in the opponents half when we are attacking with the ball (why wouldn't he be?), but when we lose it he has to get back and defend properly. We already have 2 strikers who shouldn't be expected to track back, although they do from time to time. We simply can't afford a third player in a key position out wide to do that, particularly when we know we are vulnerable to crosses. If Albrighton can get up and back, then why can't Mahrez? If he lacks the stamina to do it, then that's another reason he shouldn't be in that position. Using Simpson's supposed lack of attacking abilities to justify this is not confronting the problem. All Simpson needs to do is offer support behind Mahrez, not go past opponents. And, as far as I'm concerned, he does that okay.

Regarding Sigurdsson I was merely saying that, if he had come here to replace Mahrez, we would have used him in a more central position where he could use his creativity, and not wide right where we have put Mahrez because he can't hack it in the middle.

 

If Mahrez does drop back how would we counter attack? All we would ba able to do is play long balls to Vardy if everyone else in in our half - majority of the time now it is Mahrez and Vardy who are the ones furthest forward as Okazaki isn't really playing as a striker but as an attacking midfielder who drops back.

While Okazaki is more your kind of player with his grafting, he just isn't good enough to link the attack and defense which is the reason why we were after Sigurdsson and Deeney who both would have been better in that position and would have lessened the load placed on Mahrez to be our unironic creative savior.

Also on another note who do we have that can get the ball and make those passes that turn defense into attack? During the great escape it was Cambiasso , 2 season ago it was Drinkwater and last season it was no one as Drinkwater who was as bad as you are saying Mahrez is.

If our defense is so poor we need our attackers to drop back then it is the fault of our defense - Simpson and Morgan have been poor for a while and that we haven't replaced them is a big worry.