Match Day Thread Leicester v. Southampton. Thursday 19th April 7:45pm

The Midland Massive took a deep breath and bought our tickets for this one as you lot nagged us into going.
The good news is that my wife is the substitute for my son who is working and the only game she came to this season is WBA away and we won so that's it, I think we will win because of that

 

2 goals ought to be enough to at least draw a game. Don’t know if we can really point the finger at any one department (nb didn’t see the match). If it were earlier in the day we would be saying “promising performance, unlucky, we will be ok this year “.

 

How many times have we had leads and then lost............One could argue perhaps if the defensive midfield and back 4 were not having to be up in the opposition box to score the goals that the strikers should be scoring, they just might be able to defend a bit better.........Depends how you look at it I guess.

 

True. I think you have to accept that when teams like Arsenal and Chelsea want to make a comeback against us they can

 

Lots of our fans are already getting impatient and calling for his head. I’m not at that stage yet as there’s obviously two sides
In his favour I like that he plays youngsters and previously I was getting on board with the trying to keep possession more. Then there’s the sides where you think we just can’t be sacking managers this easily and looking at you guys this season is a kind of careful what you wish for.
Not in his favour is that he wants to play possession based football but keeps selecting Simpson and Morgan! He seems very reactive not proactive and we just play slow aimless football, possession for possessions sake.
There is more negatives than positives right now but I’m still at the stage of letting him get his own players in the summer and seeing what difference that makes. If he successfully manages to bin off Morgan and Simpson in the summer New contract for him!

 

I'm going for 6-0 home win. 3 for Vardy, 2 for Mahrez, 1 for Schmeichel (90 yard clearance into the wind).

Or, 0-1 - Cedric with a 30 yard screamer.

Haven't decided yet.

 

Kind of how I felt about him. He wasn’t terrible, organised our defence but the football was dour. I don’t think he deserved to be sacked but didn’t feel he was the best fit for the club.

 

Keep saying it Whitely. It has to be true eventually.

 

I believe a club needs to give someone like Puel that second season to get his ideas understood and his players in to do what his plan is.

Football today is too impatient.

 

Surprised to hear that tbh. I always thought Puel played defensive football whilst at Saints because defence was our strength. Got the best out of Romeu and having one of the best CBs in the league (for half a season anyway), plus extra fixtures from Europa made being defensive a bit of a no brainer. Leicester have a far better squad for the style of play he had at Nice which was quick counter attacking football. There is arguably nobody more suited to it outside of the top 6.

As you say maybe he is just learning the squad and with a couple of his additions in the summer he will have you playing the Nice style of football, or I have misjudged him and he is actually just a defensive minded manager. But if that is the case he will still get results, you are currently on a similar run to us when we had nothing to play for at the end of last season, it happens.

 

If fans took a moment to remember when he joined Saints, he actually said that due to the fixtures and Europa, we would be playing a slower style of play based on possession to manage the squad through the season.

He told us it would happen, yet that was ignored or soon forgotten.

I hope Leicester stick by him for the second season.

 

I have always been a big advocate of him, watched a lot of Nice the season before he arrived and they were great to watch. My defence of him was always that we didn't have the squad to play "his" style of football, and obviously the fixtures. I said it at the end of last season I would've given him til Xmas this year, if the football was still tragic then probably time to move on, but I am 100% he would've gotten us enough points to not be where we are now even if the football was dull.

It is another slight on the board that the only players they brought in for his style was Boufal, who was injured at the time, and Redmond who was always a bit of a project player despite selling what? £43m in Mane and Pelle, who scored probably over 50% of our goals the previous season. They should've backed him in January with more than just a striker who relies on service, but that sounds very similar to this season.

 

In fact the more I think about it, this January was very similar to last January. We were content to just sit tight and thought we had enough to be OK. Last January obviously slightly different as we weren't really in a relegation fight so could afford to not pay the January premium, but still it just screams incompetence from the board.

I still haven't got over the year we were 5th going into January and about a couple of points behind 4th, Pelle was our only striker and we signed Elia on loan and no striker, Pelle went on a dry spell and we fell away. That was the season we actually could've pushed for CL, **** January premiums, spend the money then and we might have finished in the top 4 and at worst would've had a great time, at best everything would've been much different to now.

 

You're not wrong but this made me laugh. We dream about something like that happening to us. I thought that was against the rules. 20 point deduction.

 

That’s the feeling for us, most fans feel he did the hard bit getting us away from the bottom and we got into 7th place in about Jan with Burnley going months without picking up many points and failed to push on. No sensible Leicester fans think we should be challenging top 4/5 and know two years ago was a one off but it’s pure fact that if we had been taking our chances and picking up the results we should have, Burnley were definitely there for the taking and probably Arsenal too.
Obviously many clubs yourself included would probably love our ‘problems’ this season and first world problems spring to mind. As I say, I’d keep him but we really need an improvement at both ends of the pitch. I do really think you’ll get something on Thursday

 

Yeah there’s lots of factors. Like you say your squad didn’t really have great attacking threats and I still think some of our squad just have bad attitudes. I don’t buy te nothing to play for thing as they are professionals who should want to play in Europe which 7th would do if you don’t win the cup.
Needless to say now we have ****ed it, 100% I want you guys to win the cup

 

It’s good in its own right don’t get me wrong! But his customary goal as per the last two weeks invariably means nothing as we’ve already conceded the customary Morgan calamity at the other end!

 

I'm just teasing. Ok here's a real question: do Leicester fans find Puel boring? Or do they find his style of play boring? Or both?

 

There were a lot of rumours that he fell out with the squad here which, if true, I think played a major part in him being sacked after a good season on paper. He seems like a pretty boring guy when being interviewed but if he is falling out with the players at Leicester as well then he clearly has something that winds people up. Maybe it is prima donna players, which every club will have, or maybe it is something to do with him, impossible to say without having inside knowledge of what the reason for the fallings out are.

I think he is a solid enough manager who will get you results, perhaps without being entertaining, whether that is what you want is a personal choice, personally I'd rather roll the dice on someone who plays attractive football who might not get the results as being an also ran in the PL is incredibly boring, so you may as well see good football week in week out.

Yes I know you won the league 2 years ago so the also ran comment might grate you, but I'm sure you know what I mean.