Match Day Thread Leicester City v Southampton Saturday 12th January 2019 3pm

It is one of the (many) things I dislike about the premier league, the 24 hour news coverage. With so much time to fill and people whose job it is to fill it with something there is so much bullshit that comes out. If you look solely at Puel's results since he has come to England they have been pretty good really. Yes he plays a pretty dull brand of football but it gets results. I don't recall the media hounding out Dyche last year or Allardyce teams in the past when they were getting results despite playing football that made your eyes bleed

 

It’s a personality thing: as we all know the most important thing nowadays is not ability but personality. Dyche might be a marginally better manager than Claude but he has a gritty Northern outlook which the media love, just as they love the pie-and-gravy Allardyce. Puel struggles with the language still, and isn’t blessed with natural charisma, so he is, evidently, fair game to be picked on.

 

Yeah that's my point. It is why Claude would be better off returning to France or going somewhere with less media intensity. Having him as manager hinders the club he is at in the PL as it is not just a results business anymore, it is a business business and the manager is the main "front man" for that business in a way as he will be the one who most people see.

 

How the hell can you be a decent manager without any seeming regard for your customers?? I cannot think of any club's manager that doesn't consider its' followers. Puel just didn't seem to be interested........!!

 

I guess it just depends on how you view football really. Some will say it is entertainment first and foremost, others will say sport is all about results. You are buying the ticket in the hope to see your team win, not be entertained (though the overall enjoyment for some is obviously linked to the result)

 

We could've played a high energy, expansive style for the 37 matches in total up until the end of January but key players would've been suffering from severe burnout by then and it's likely that we would've been hanging on to our league position by May.
There was a more entertaining style developing at the start of 2017 as witnessed by the scoring of 4 goals away from home in successive matches at Sunderland and Watford.

 

This 100%.

Passion and intensity bleed through from the manager, football is about so much more than stats and numbers, you can't help that feel that the personality of the manager is reflected by the style of play on the pitch. Some of our displays under Puel were monumentally boring and uninspiring, in particular, the away loss to Sparta Prague (the furthest I've ever travelled to watch such dross) and the failure to score at home in his last six matches.

 

Entertainment is important to me but allowances must be made for Managers trying to negotiate the fixture congestion of 4 competitions with a relatively limited squad IMO.

 

You would've moaning more if the squad burnt itself out and got relegated though I suspect.

 

It’s funny the stick we got when we sacked him. Press etc moaning about us being above our station and what more do we expect...

 

And karma truly did pay us back there. Been even more turgid since then, without the results.

Saying that, I was a Puel apologist, and think he should have been given another season - and without doubt, we'd be in a better position than we were up to a few weeks ago, and likely still have Ralph in charge now.

 

Not really, I think the football that was on offer and a number of other issues are showing justified, particularly given what is going on with him at Leicester.

The fact we screwed up twice with the replacement isn't relevant of keeping him, that was just us screwing up, as we had done with transfers and stuff over the two year period.

 

I think the football and morale was way worse under his immediate successor, without the results Puel was getting. Yes, there is no link between him going and who we screwed up by hiring. But had he not gone, then we wouldn't have had to screw up our hiring - so I would stick to my view that he should have been given a full pre-season and a chance to take us into the following season.

Nothing is really going on with him per se at Leicester - it is more going on with players, fans, and media. He is doing what he did and would probably have continued to do at Saints - keeping Leicester fairly well buoyant in the league, and above Everton, West Ham etc. He has Leicester a point off seventh - don't think they'd have a right to finish any higher than seventh this season (with a team slowly declining in quality in key areas, as it is) under any manager.

Of course, they're entitled to want to see more exciting football - just might be at the expense of their league placings if they don't grab someone decent.

 

And I'd also add that when managers play weakened teams in the cups and end up getting knocked out, they almost always get the flack for doing so.

But I would say that it is in most cases likely that the club itself has not created the right incentive structure. If he was encouraged to go on a cup run, for example, and his league position targets were allowed to be relaxed accordingly, Leicester would undoubtedly have progressed.

I bet he leaves England having never finished a club below their league position target.

He's basically just a man doing his job with minimum fuss!

 

In a world that quite likes fuss!

 

But that doesn't have to happen though, does it?
Otherwise we'd have been relegated under Pochettino.

 

I will say two words:
Sheffield United

 

My point was about fixture congestion, I don't think that Poch had to deal with that when he was the Manager here.

 

I don't get it?

 

They beat us 1-0 in the cup (QF). We rotated.......heavily.