so, Burnley. they are basically very predictable line up which is solid at the back Pope Lowton Tarkowski Mee Taylor Gudmundsson Westwood Brownhill McNeil Vydra Wood they might go 4411 with Cork in midifeld and put Brownhill as a slightly advanced player. they did with v man utd In general with the 442 they have managed to score a few goals here and there but they have also conceded goals. their only clean sheets were wolves and fulham recently. With fans in I am sure they don't want to just park a bus but they don't want to get beat. The issues for us look to me to be related to both CBS potentially being occupied 1 on 1. they have to cope individually and not fall over each other. then they are quite physical side so to pen them back in will require us to have a bit more control than recently. I would not personally try anything fancy like going 4231 to put in shaqiri and all it will do is push people down the two big cbs throats. The way to score is to pass round this lot not cross. Its 433 for me.
I think the thing that did it was his spending of the suarez money and then failing. I’m not sure if he’s fully in charge of transfers at Leicester or not as their recruitment seems decent, but he brought some very average players for big money at the time. Lovren and lallana for 25m each, lamberts(albeit relatively cheap), Markovic, moreno, borini. Was a lot of average mid table level players there.
How dare you include Borini in that lot! You forgot Ballotelli. We don't know how much was Rodgers and how much was the committee, but transfers were certainly an issue and he was at least partly responsible. There was also the wider issue of how to mould the team after the great season. Suarez left, Sturridge became perma-injured, Gerrard's Indian summer was over and he was just old, Hendo lost form and Sterling stopped trying after half a season. He never managed to implement a workable identity after that because the players weren't good enough and the system didn't really work.
Burnley, another team I don't like... (puts on Kevin Keegan voice) ...I would love it if we smashed them, love it!
I think what says it all is knowing they had a game to absolutely crown their season and kick on on a Tuesday and he let his players off on one on the Saturday night. You cannot do that. Just can't they only needed to wait a week and have a massive private blow out. Perhaps the players insisted given they has a lock away in a hotel or whatever but rodgers has potentially blown his clubs CL ambitions. That IMO still says small time. the minute i heard players admitting it happened in pregame last night i knew cheslea would run over them, only rank finishing and var stopped Leicester getting hammered. Its really about mentality, Leicester have done well this season against the big clubs but tactically its rather limited to play it long to vardy still. they now can get a max of 69 points which is good still but really what they've done is gone and put out a strong team in the FA cup and had a bit of luck with the draw. they beat utd well thats really what got them going in it. I'm delighted they won the thing cos lets face it few clubs do take it seriously but I would love us to get a cup run like they did one of these days. look at ours: Villa away (they got covid) Man utd away Last year Everton away Shrewsbury where we ended up being stupid and getting replay Cheslea away 5th round year before wolves away year before Everton H West brom H (poor this) really if we got brentford and stoke then brightnon at home I would be hoping we might at least TRY Rodgers has done fine but theres a class above him and he's a bit of distance away form it in mentality and strength IMO. Nobody recalls leicester meekly falling out of the europa leage at the first knockouts by losing at home to prague nor losing to arsenal in the league cup. For me they were and are in the mix here and 3rd was theirs. Now they are hoping to win big and get a favour of LFC for 4th. A draw last night would all but assure then of CL football.
Rodgers is a good coach IMO but has big flaws - his eye for players, ego, ability to manage European football and coaching his defence. The backroom staff at Leicester have done a fantastic job with recruitment and have given Brendan the tools to coach and develop the team. Rodgers should stay out of player recruitment as much as possible and trust the scouts.
Yeah despite finding many reasons to be hopeful that include better form, salah going for leading scorer, Phillips, a bit of fight in the side and a decent run of form there is still that knowledge this team is sloppy and weak and more than capable of chucking in a disaster. My view is we can rely on alisson, phillips, trent, robertson, fabinho, thiago and salah. We are carrying williams, wijnaldum, firmino and mane. 4 virtually passengers at times. If all 4 turn up we have a good chance.
Oh I wrote ballotelli originally then amended what I was saying and forgot to add him back in. His man management didn’t seem quite up to it but it was his first top top side so no doubt he’s a better manager now than he was then after his stints at celtic
Yes I ageee he's improved since he was with us. He had the talent, but now he's added more experience and learned from (at least some of) his mistakes.
Agreed. By 2 or 3 goals if we score early. we are winning it handsomely tonight despite some nervy moments. We always have Allison to get us that last second winner if we have to.
My nerves are jangling like it's the champions league final. It's worse because I think we are overwhelming favourites, I much prefer it when we are the underdogs pulling something out of the hat.
