Leicester City 4-1 Watford Fc - Fa Cup Third Round - 08/01/2022

QSF

 

Why don't you pick one.

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Ah ok that make sense. The physical set-up they have down there is pretty good now and they are just embarking on the last phase. So it seems it’s the content not the facility. They’ve got one or two good players in the current 23’s and 18’s.

 

I love him to bits, amazing pro and lovely guy by all accounts but if he’d been playing right back opposite Sarr or King we’d have had scrape him off the pitch after an hour. Not sure he could still cut it in the Prem week in week out.

Thought Hernandez looked decent, some top quality play acting to try and get Daley-Campbell sent off too.

 

I'm not the one who is saying we should sack Uncle Claudio you are, so put your money where your mouth is HB

 

Setien or Fonseca, would be Pozzo's go to. Can't imagine them being convinced in the position we are in.

We'd be lucky to get Mick McArthy ATM.

 

A pragmatic coach is not going to work, because they will not be able to make us hard to beat. We just do not have the players for it.

If we sit back and invite pressure onto our defence, it will only provide further opportunities for one of the braindead ***** back there to give away a penalty when the player is dribbling away from goal or duck under a high ball with a striker behind them.

 

Exactly.......there are 100's of out of work coaches who would jump at the chance to manage a Premier League club. Even someone like Steve Bruce would do well, although I don't see Gino making an approach for him, he has an excellent track record for keeping a struggling club up.

I think we need a change of direction now, and we need someone who come in and gives us a fresh impetus. I'm not seeing the basics from Ranieri. I'm not seeing a highly motivated side who are difficult to break down. That's the minimum we should be seeing by now. The performances against Brentford and West Ham had relegation stamped all over them. Maybe we shouldn't dwell on the FA Cup match too much, however, had we won I'm sure many would be claiming we've turned the corner and would be pointing to it. For me, it was another performance full of malaise, which seems to be rife.

The players need a rocket up them, and I don't think Claudio is able to do that.

 

You forget. TVOR by his own admittance doesn’t know how to work the internet.

 

I genuinely think Steve Bruce would have a good shot at getting us promoted next season. Whether he's got the desire, is another question.

A scenario where Ranieri goes and Bruce keeps us up at the expense of Human Rights Abusers FC, is fun to imagine.

 

He seems too nice, doesn't he.

 

From where we are right now, Steve Bruce would be my choice. He's got loads of recent Premier League experience and a track record for keeping a poor side in the top league. Just imagine his first game being against Newcastle, followed by the muck and nettles fixture at Burnley. Those games would be right up his street.

We need a firefighter type. I think Bruce would keep us up because he's one of those managers who understand the ethos of hard work and being tough to beat. I think he's actually very underrated.

 

Cucho is basically a puppy. Everyone loves his sunny demeanour, he runs about a lot but is largely ineffectual.

 

We could also have done without the curious and offensive chant about Vardy.

 

What's Neil Warnock doing these days?

 

The knee jerk reaction to a bad run shadowed by injuries, Danny Rose, AFCON call ups, (some) tough fixtures and defensive **** ups is STEVE BRUCE. I genuinely think some of you lot have lost the plot here.

We should look at the next 3 fixtures as a chance rather than a banana skin. Yesterday our young players went through the motions and will remember their debuts. Our squad players did nothing out of the ordinary and our 1st team players strolled around at 75%. We effectively played out a training match and conceded the game with 35 minutes left by taking off 1st team players (who were clearly putting too much effort in) and brought on two 18 year olds.

Ranieri literally said after the game we didnt care and now onto the league.

 

Let’s wait until we get the next three fixtures out of the way before we decide if CR70 has to go, however I appreciate if next Saturday is a continuation of recent results things could escalate quickly after that, as lose away to Newcastle then the Burnley match becomes a lot harder!

 

We just need a win from somewhere to boost confidence, even one in the Cup would have helped. We have played almost all the top teams at home already and the key to staying up will be winning enough games at home from now on - starting with Norwich.

 

It was very difficult to see from our little corner, so it was a good tackle then?

 

We don’t have an issue scoring goals, if we bring in a defensive coach (like Bruce) the goals will dry up but we’ll still be letting goals in because we just don’t have the personnel to keep a clean sheet for 90 minutes.

Munoz wasn’t exactly a defensive coach, but we only scored in 3 out of 7 games with him in charge but still didn’t keep a clean sheet either.

 

For all that the spotlight is often placed on attacking flair, football is essentially a game of mistakes. Mistakes happen in every minute of every game; from the minor – such as being out of position by a few metres or giving the ball away high up the pitch, to the major ones which lead to goalscoring chances. Mistakes are forgiveable and good coaching can prevent players from making the same mistakes repeatedly. I can live with mistakes, even the bad ones.

What I am struggling with at the moment is the series of catastrophic, match-ruining and largely idiotic errors that have cost us so badly recently. Giving the ball away three times in a row and then Troost-Ekong's hopeless lunge in the box at Brentford. Kucka's entirely unnecessary and tired challenge in a very dangerous area against Spurs and the subsequent ludicrous defensive line at the free-kick, which basically invited the goal. And then Sierralta's foul in the box yesterday. Surely in the era of VAR defenders know that putting their hands on or leaning their body into an attacking player in the box automatically means a penalty. The first mistake was allowing the Leicester player to get goal side but once that mistake has been made don't make it worse and give away a penalty.

As much as the criticism of the squad-building and the failure to identify the obvious deficiences is frustrating, on a match to match basis it is draining to watch such flawed, careless, half-arsed football.

I can live with not being good enough and going down. I can cope with watching players who are clearly not up to it trying their hardest. What stretches the patience and saps the enthusiasm is watching a team that seems to have an arrogant streak that its level of performance does not in any way warrant. Idiotic mistakes followed by arm-waving, shoulder-shrugging and finger-pointing just make some of them incredibly unlikable.

I said to a pal yesterday that I can't remember a less likeable Watford team than this one. And I remember the days of Joe McLaughlin and Alan Devonshire, who I'm sure weren't bad people but were well past it by the time they got to us and played like it was all too much bother for them. It's not the run of defeats, it's the lackadaisical, careless play and the lack of individual and collective responsibility on display. There are some exceptions, of course, but they are the exceptions, currently.

Of course, in the grand scheme of things a cup defeat with several of the good ones missing doesn't matter all that much, especially with some new signings to come, but for heaven's sake what about showing a bit of dignity and pride and fight, all characteristics that get supporters on side and keep them on side.

Rant over, but there needs to be a big, big, big change in attitude and aptitude with 'Relegation Week' looming.

 

Interesting to note, Ranieri has now become the favourite next Premier League manager to be sacked, leapfrogging Benitez this morning.

 

I mean, he didn’t literally say that

 

Also - what’s going on now has been going on pretty much all season. Some of the complaints and concerns about the owner and his methods go back much, much further.

Nothing about this is ‘knee-jerk’ stuff.

 

My one issue with Ranieri (which I think he can change) is that he still hasn’t given us any kind of identity. We aren’t possession-hungry, we don’t press deep or high, we don’t free-flow in attack and we don’t defend in numbers.

We don’t have a style to speak of. We just seem to have 11 players going through the motions every week at present (I know there are a few exceptions to that) and we do nothing whatsoever as a cohesive team unit. Even most of our goals are largely self-created by 2-3 players max.

I like Ranieri. I want him to stay and think he should get time to build something. But my issue is that I don’t know what he’s building and I think poor players or not, he’s had time now to at least show give us an idea of what he intends to do. We are all a bit guilty, myself included, of talking like things will automatically click into place with a few better signings. I don’t think that’s the case.

 

Slipped over, Cucho made a miraculous recovery after Dean threatened to book Cleverley for moaning. The one he did get booked for was a dreadful Sunday league clattering.

 

How sh*t have things become when we have people genuinely wanting Steve Bruce to become our next manager.
God help us.

 

I believe @Filbert himself described Ranieri as a pragmatist when he joined? So that probably explains the lack of identity, as he’s just trying to make what he thinks is the best if what he’s got at his disposal, rather than actually having any sort of signature style of play of his own. So if that’s the case I’m not convinced we’ll ever see it, but one thing I don’t think you can remotely blame him for is the unforced defensive errors, so my hope would be we can somehow cut these out.

 

The unforced defensive errors also come about because of a lack of defensive shape and the lack of a CM who is told to exclusively sit in front of the back four.

These are things Ranieri has had the power to change. And if he asks and his instructions aren’t followed, then those who don’t listen should be dropped the following game for literally anyone else. He hasn’t done that.

 

Here is Ranieri’s recent track record in the Premier League

Leicester
P 25 W 5 D 6 L 14 Pts 21

Fulham
P 17 W 3 D 3 L 11 Pts 12

Watford
P 11 W 2 D 0 L 9 Pts 6

Total
P 53 W 10 D 9 L 34 Pts 39

It's quite alarming. Sure there are probably mitigating circumstances if we want to make excuses, but it's a pretty grim read. After 53 games, he's still not managed to attain the magic 40 points.

 

There’s one glaring error with that.

 

And the first season that Cambridge Utd have beaten as many Prem teams as Newcastle!

 

Granted its been happening all season, that's not on Ranieri and therefore emphasises the point. To call for Steve Bruce because CR has inherited an error prone set of defenders who can't buy a clean sheet? That's knee jerk. I wasn't talking about the owners transfer policy or general malaise at the club.

Which of our reserves should he bring in?

 

Why isn’t it on Ranieri? He’s been here for months. I don’t want rid of him at all - but all this talk of him being blameless is crazy and quite frankly does his actual genuine ability as a head coach a disservice.

As for your last question - It doesn’t really matter. Play Sissoko at CB. Play a half-fit Kabasele. Pick any number of U23’s.

Would all those things fail? Very very likely. But it would be trying something different whilst also sending a very stark, yet entirely fair, message - ‘I can’t trust these players and refuse to pick them’

He did it with Rose and played Ngakia at CB. No reason he couldn’t do it with others.