in summary, a good place to build upon. I think we will play like that (2 defensive midfielders) in away games and probably swap king for abe in home games.
i imagine he will be a big force in the home games. He could be left on the bench has he can be a game changer... though this would be a waste.
With so many midfielders coming in its forcing King to improve his game or else he wont get in the team In other news Leicestershire just beat Kent in the 2020 by 3 wickets and are now in the 2020 finals day. Paul Nixon seen us over the line in his last game at Grace road with 31 from 17. Legend
I think that playing two defensive midfielders away isn't a bad idea, no matter how crap the opposition, they always have a chance of winning at home so if we aim to draw our away matches (or nick a win by the odd goal through not conceding) then play a more attacking style at home then we'll be on to a winner!! Just imagine how that game would have turned out last season, no way would we have come away with a win - well done Sven and the boys
Emilo, I think your being a bit to critical of a team which fielded 7 new players away from home? I thought Leicester played within themselves a lot today which can look negative. If kingy would of finished a couple of good runs he had it would of been 3-0. Yes they knocked it about a bit but mainly in there own half. Another tough game at home against reading next week should give us more clues to what style of play we are looking to play? We got a very good clean sheet today whereas the full out attack approach last year cost us goals.
If we have 2 midfielders sitting back then we need to rely heavily on Peltier and Konchesky. We will need the wing backs pushing on followed by one of the midfielders and the 3 front men. We need the main striker sooner rather then later. With Bristol getting hammered that only helps our case with Nicky Maynard while Reading are accepting they will have to sell Shane Long.
Emilio - I think we were watching totally different games. Yes, they had a fair bit of possession in the first half - only to be expected with a numerical advantage for most of it. Kasper had 1 save to make in the first half, which was a decent shot, but an easy tip over the bar. Never seen a Leicester midfield work so hard for years. Fernandes was awesome. didnt just play a holding midfielder - he was all over the place breaking down moves. Cov didnt look dangerous at all - they reminded me of us under Sousa - a lot of possession and doing nothing with it. The communication in the defence was huge. I was 3 rows from the front and Mills and Bamba were chatting whenever it was called for. To be honest I was surprised that Abe was playing, but he had one of his best games for us. Sven played a team to graft and come away with the points. IT WORKED ! Thought we were in total control of the match. Kasper had 1 more save to make in the second half and that was it. It was a huge performance - defensive qualities throughout the team were awesome, and Nugent was unlucky with his header on to the post in the first half. This was a ground that we havent won at too often. The only real chances that were created were ours - Peltiers goal, nugent twice and King. A brilliant performance away from home where the absolute minimum we were gonna come home with was a point.
Maybe playing 2 holding midfielders is a good tactic in some away games, but I think if you have the better personnel (which we did today) you should be going out to take the game to them. I thought today could have easily been very different. I can't be the only one who had his head in his hands for the majority of the first half. Even the first 10 minutes, before Vassell got sent off, we were negative and too scared to create something. Or in fact more like we didn't have it in us to create something. We should have been straight out of the blocks and got at them with confidence, like a side who are promotion favourites would. The sending off just before half time was a big lift - they had been nothing if not dominant, and a better side would have punished us before that. I don't think they really looked like scoring as such, but all it took was a lucky ricochet and they might have. Why take that risk when we have better players? We barely looked like scoring in the first half either, apart from after the sending off when Nugent hit the post. I think the game went to plan as in we won it, but I think Sven himself will feel we need to play a lot better than that to be promotion candidates. Defensively we were good, we battled hard but attacking-wise, I wasn't impressed.
A lot of what you're saying is, I think, down to the fact that it was the first competitive game that this group of players have played in together. No matter how good a pre-season you've had, however much confidence has built up, there's bound to be nerves on the first day. Coventry just seemed to cope a little bit better with the nerves than City, but that's it. The defence was rock solid, the midfield battled incredibly hard, and Nugent was unlucky not to score. Considering 7 new faces in the starting line-up, you've surely got to take more positives from the game than negatives, especially considering it was away from home, though admittedly in a less-than-intimidating atmosphere. I think the sendings off did the trick in stirring the atmosphere up and turning it into a more physical, competitive game, which ironically suited Sven's starting line-up (which a lot of people questioned before the game - including me!) perfectly. This team did something which we've not seen for a while, and that's the fact that they could (fairly) comfortably revert to Plan B when Plan A wasn't working. No, it wasn't the perfect performance, but a debut goal, a clean sheet and 3 points on the opening day, all away from home - that's got to be worth 8 or 9 out of 10, surely? A couple of little niggly things to sort out, but on the basis of the whole of yesterday's game, we have a very strong base to build on, and just need to stay level-headed, imo. UTF!
