Match Day Thread Leicester City at the Bridge

.........on a more positive note, out of the 4 league cup semi finalists that all played midweek we did best in the league with a draw. Bristol City lost yesterday and Arsenal and Manchester City lost today. Seems all 4 teams were knackered so we shouldn’t read too much into our result yesterday.

 

On the other hand Liverpool rolled City and we dropped from 2nd to 4th !!!
That's what's frustrating me Blue, against Arsenal who were there for the taking, we needed to play some pacey players to get behind their fragile defence. But no, Pedro and Willian watch from the bench. Same yesterday. Then Cahill gets hurt so on comes Christensen and Luiz sits there shivering. With all respect to Christensen, he does not have Luiz' ability to pass or control a match, despite his being our best up and comer. Luiz should have started and that log Bakayoko gone on holidays somewhere with his mate Morata so they could practice shooting at goal.Hazard could have rested. That's what's pissing me off about Conte, the team comes 2nd to his point scoring against Roman.
Incidently, Mahrez and Vardy showed what we are missing in our midfield and striker. They made Bakayoko and Morata look like 2nd division players, and Fabregas look like he needs a good rest.

End of moan, I will get behind the players who I am sure do their best.

 

Spend serious Dough or pay up Tony. He cannot be 4th or 5th paid manager in the league and win every season.

 

Are you saying his ability is linked to his wage, if you paid him more would he be better?

 

He would be better motivated.

Haven't you seen players like Alexis, Luis, Cristiano sulk ??

Judas does it every other season too.

Why you so surprised when I state the obvious.

 

Mostly because you talk bullshit

 

Lets do this, if Judas ditches you to Paris and if Ed picks up Tony next season - would you agree I know something ?

 

No!

 

Agree in general with your sentiment.

I am more than happy for Conte to stay but he needs to buck up his ideas. The football recently has been a bit turgid from his defence first philosophy. We've stopped flooding numbers forward like we did previously and this is exarcebated and is STILL an issue from last year where both our CMs are both ball shufflers and cannot play the ball forward properly (in bakayokos case he even finds it hard to shuffle the ball).

Why have we abandoned the 3-4-3 as at least we had the numbers up there.

As for Luiz vs Christensen, luiz is my favourite player but this is a 50/50 call. Luiz has been in bad form previously and even against norwich looked a bit ropey. Whilst Christensens not been playing any raking long balls (something that luiz has flattered to deceive for a while), he's not exactly Gary Cahill bad at distributing the ball.

 

In a less antagonistic mood than last post, I have 2 issues with Conte and 1 non issue.
The non issue is that I totally agree he is an excellent manager and would be great long term.
Issue 1 is he is poor at man management AND has a suspect temperament. As a result players who are really good are driven away or left on the bench. Like Stan, there is no room for forgiveness or a pragmatic agreement. Bad for the team and the Club.
Issue2. He holds on to perceived slights too long, and again the Team suffers. ie the Club not buying who he wants, so not selecting the best team to prove his point.

Luiz v Christensen. I don't see any need for one to be pitted against the other, we have 2 really excellent CDs. Luiz had a bad form patch due in no small part to a bad knee injury which he stupidly played through. He needs game time as Norwich showed. However when fit he gives us plenty that Christensen, as yet, can't match, passing ability and goals. Christensen on the other hand is looking immaculate in defence and will no doubt step up his attack and passing with experience. So what should be the perfect situation to rest one play one, depending on the opposition , is wasted because of Contes' intransigence.
Luiz should have started and Christensen given a well earned breather. Cahill was the worst possible choice of the 3 in that position.

 

I actually think Christensens passing is one of his strong points. He doesn't always manage to get it forward but his success rate must be 90% uowards? I don't see him give it away much. Luiz has obviously got a more expansive passing range but doesn't always hit the target and I think Christensen is already a better defender. If we want a defender who can bring the ball out of defence we should be getting Maguire. We should've got him in the summer, was astounded we didn't even look at him.

 

All fair enough ... but Leicester were seriously good

 

Getting it forward is my main point about Christensen, and not a put down of him. Mostly it goes sideways, and agreed mostly it's accurate, but he does not yet start attacks or break froward, which is fair enough, he's doing his main job really well. Luiz does have that skill in his armoury, and it's that something different that right now, we really need. As I said, we have both players, both excellent and both different in what they offer.Conte is crazy not using them both as required for the specific opposition. Luiz hasn't become a dope in 3 months, he was just injured and is now rusty. He can also give us a difference as a DM, as can Ampadu.
My main beef is Conte is not using what we have , so stop griping about what we haven't got ( though I do think he has been badly served by recruiters)

 

If we had to play Luiz, i'd prefer him at RCB or LCB. They are the two that do most of the attacking anyway

 

Not pragmatic??

Calling to pay Tony top 2 salary or sack him is pragmatic.

You shouldn't pay a guy who finished 1st in league 5th best salary.

Ridiculous.

 

You should pay him the salary he signed a contract for and if he performs offer more on his renewal.
Do you up a players wages every time they have a good season?

 

Why not?
The best players don't always get the top salary. Sanchez for instance wants 350,000 per week , Hazard gets closer to 200,000, who's the better player? Christensen gets 80,000, Luiz gets 150,000 who's the better player. That's just our team.
Messi gets 100,000,000 per year AFTER tax Guaranteed by Barca, which is more than Ronaldo.
There is NO logic about payment and skill, just about contracted payments.
Managers and players get what they sign in their contract. End of. And not ONCE have I heard of Conte whingeing about money, only about who we don't buy for him.

 

Yes all teams increase players wages by offering new extended contracts with better terms.


Cristiano wants to be paid same as Messi, even though he is not as good as Leo.
Players angle a move away if they think they are not paid what they deserve. Why different for managers?

 

Not everyone will whinge about pay like Cristiano does every season.
No way Conte is going to come out and say he is getting paid less.

I made a statement in August 2015 to make Jose best paid manager or sack him right away. Our board was so stupid to do neither of that.
Tony is doing a Jose now. Pay him or let him go to avoid massive mistake.
At this rate with Cescy we will be struggling to make top 10 let alone top 4.

 

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