Fair play to Leicester their plan almost worked. I have been a tad concerned at times when teams sit deep and defend we sometimes seem to struggle to break them down and seem to run out of ideas a bit too quickly for my liking. In a way a 0-0 draw might be a perfect result. Just enough to get us there, but not enough to make us complacent and remind everyone we really will struggle next season unless we buy 4-5 new players. It's kind of shocking how all a bang average team has to do is sit deep and defend and we really sometimes do run out of ideas very quickly. Hopefully we'll be able to play some of the kids vs Chelsea and give them some time out. Ratings - Pope - 8 - MOTM - Didn't have much to do throughout most of the game, but an excellent save in the last few minutes + some good positioning to clear up the panic at the back came in handy. He did his job. I don't think anyone was more important than him for us tonight really. In a game when we can't score our only point will come from a clean sheet and he contributed most to that. Trippier - 8 - Some deadly deliveries from corners and from the wing. A couple of **** ones but he was definitely our most creative player tonight, and the little touches he takes sometimes and his composure in difficult situations is really impressive. Deserves to be in team of the season. Schar - 7 - Didn't have way too much defending to do, but apart from a couple of sloppy errors, he dealt with their front two reasonably well when needed. Botman - 7 - Good defending when asked. Some iffy passing, but did his job. Burn - 7 Longstaff - 7 - Worked hard as usual. The frustrating thing about him is he makes some decent runs but lacks a final stroke of the brush. His work in the middle of park has been really important this season, I do enjoy his defensive work rate and his dispossessing of players. He's a good engine to have in the middle of the field and will be crucial next year, but he isn't good enough surely to be in our starting 11 next year. He just isn't impressive in any area apart from his engine. Probably the best of our midfield 3 tonight, at least he got into some good positions. Bruno - 6 - His diving recently has annoyed me. Decent composure and distribution in the middle of the park, didn't really create much as the game went on. Dilly dallied on the ball a lot. Good defensive work though, and sprayed the ball around the park, just couldn't really penetrate their defence with anything. Anderson - 5.5 - Worked hard, some decent movement and skills but no end product and too many **** shots. Not a terrible performance but didn't really seem to show much quality. I applaud his movement and work rate, but that's about it. Isak - 6 - A couple of good shots on target, in the 2nd half when we were struggling to do anything he found some good space. Not great, ****ed up some shots, but it wasn't a great game offensively for us so cannot be too critical. I definitely don't want to see him play on the LW any more. Wasn't bad, some dangerous moments. Wilson - 5 - Mostly anonymous, got no service. Sandwiched in that Leicester back line. Don't think he really did anything. Apart from an early shot that hit the post I can't remember him doing anything. Almiron - 6 - Worked hard, didn't have much defensive work to do, got into some decent positions but his shots were ****. One decent shot that hit the post. Did create the Isak chance. ASM - 7.5 - Made good impact when he came on tbf to him. Created a great chance but our players couldn't untangle each other. Our best threat in the last 20 minutes. Caused Castagne a lot of problems. Murphy/Gordon - N/A.
Trippier MOM for me. Did everything well and didn't put a foot wrong defensively. Some bus parking from Leicester was that.
Overly negative on some for me Tash. I'd give the lot of them a 10 tbf. They've done a bloody brilliant job this season. Leicester...well I guess their plan worked and I think it was the best situation they could have hoped for before tonight. Any team in the world is going to find it hard to break down that level of defensive block. I do think we are going to need to learn how to play this kind of tactic, probably by giving up the ball a bit and trying to draw them out
ASM a 7.5? Give over. He played for 2 minutes of good football then that was it. Nothing. Miggy was a 7 but he showed his limitations test. Schar again wasteful in attack and sloppy at times in defence. That said, very good heading. Anderson was a solid 7 in the first half but clearly tired as the game went on and having ASM next to him didn’t help. Pope was my man of the match. Not much to do all game but then when needed produced the goods
We passed it around their penalty box aimlessly. We should have had a few more longer range shots early doors. To test the goalkeeper. To have only 4 shots on target when we had 22 is poor. That shows where we lack quality. Wilson had a Wilson game. Anderson doesn’t look good enough for the level we want to be at unfortunately but he’s a good squad player.
Pope MoM from Leicester’s one and only shot?! Give over! Trippier (8) our best, Almiron (7.5) was typical Almiron, everything except the final pass/touch, Wilson (5) was very poor and Schar (6) was almost as bad. Everyone else a 7, as they completely dominated the match without being good enough to find a winner.
Yes Roland because if he hadn’t of made that save we would have had to get something against Chelsea (which we will) but it saved me a week of listening to bedwetters
Keepers can do good workout besides just saving shots. HIs positioning was also good. His save is the main reason we're not sweating going into the last game of the season.
This was my thought, we made it to easy for Leicester to sit and just defend their box, could have knocked it around at the back and tried to draw them out but when we had possession we just went straight to the wings and straight forwards which was what Leicester wanted. Thought we also could have changed shape to go 2 up top with Isak with Wilson as Wilson was massively outnumbered in the middle of the box on his own. Couple of the one two angled runs nearly came off for Miggy and if one of the ones that hit the post went it Leicester would have had to come out and attack. tbh though a point was all that was needed and bar 10 mins at the end they didn't trouble us at all and a point worked for us. Buzzing for the boys and the staff, can we just fast forward to the beginning of the next window now.
I don't think we were bad, but we just weren't that good either. Many of them don't deserve more than 5-6/10. Some people criticizing the ASM 7.5 rating but the reality is he was our best threat in the final 30 minutes of the game really. He created a great chance and would draw in 2 defenders at a time.
Leicester just didn't want to come out of their half looked like even Vardy was told to stay behind the half way line. Any team without KDB / Silva is going to struggle with the intricacies of getting the ball through a back 8. Just too many people in the way
Pros - finally a clean sheet again, we didn't lose Cons - we didn't win We looked tired, but Leicester were crappy and they were lucky to get a point tbh.
If we reflect critically, you’ve got to say that we couldn’t hit a cow’s arse with a banjo last night. It’s happened a few times and cost us points, often against the poorer sides. We had enough shots and should of had a few more. Isak was on target at least once, but there were too many finishing up in row Z. That’s a genuine area of improvement needed in our side. If we compare the class of 96 era to us now, we’re short of a Beardsley/ Shearer/ Cole clinical finisher. Maybe that’s what the next window will target. In fairness, Eddie did say the next window will probably be the toughest.
TBH I think if Isak is played in his proper position he could easily score 20+ goals a season, he's a good finisher, but he's not playing in his proper position. When he was playing as a 9 he was scoring quite frequently. I don't think we're being fair to our current stikers. Wilson and Isak have good scoring records when they get a run of games at CF.
We've been scoring goals for fun! They just made it mega mega difficult last night. I do think we could have switched up tactics somewhat to maybe let the pressure off them for a short while to draw them out a bit
Agree, we need to be able to stretch the game a bit when it's like that, and sometimes you have to really **** about with it to draw someone out and then switch play very quickly... We were so eager to score we were just penning them in and compounding the problem. We'll get it fixed for next year.
