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Match Leicester away Monday 19th 20.00 GMT

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GDG said:
My thoughts on the game:-



  • Probably wrote this 10 times last season and will write it every week until it’s no longer an issue, but our wide play is just so poor and it’s the biggest issue in the way we play. I don’t believe any team in the league (including City and Woolwich) get their attacking wide players on the ball in dangerous areas as much as we do. Unfortunately, we don’t have a wide player between the 4/5 on our books (reserve judgement on Odebert) that is a true one on one threat, or that puts fear into a defender. If we dont sort this we’re really put at risk our goals this season. It needs addressing.
  • To that point, we need to now consider Son a normal member of the squad and not a world class talent whose place cannot be questioned. For me - I’d pay whatever we need to for Eze and look at him as Son’s replacement this season. Eze and Odebert in the wide areas has a very different feel to Son and Johnson in games like this against a low block. We need this profile of player…
  • On the goal, really poor from Romero. He’s too often attracted to the ball as a defender and it isn’t good. A lot of fans wank themselves into oblivion when he charges out of defence to pressure the ball, I see the space he leaves behind and cringe. Someone needs to have a word.
  • Important we talk about the first half where our domination and football was excellent. We totally controlled the game in the way I think Ange wants to.
  • Clearly not killing the game off was an issue, but I also didn’t think our domination created enough clear cut chances (hence the low XG). More a series of decent half chances and threatening positions.
  • I wrote a couple of times last season about how easy we are to defend against once a side is camped in their box and we needed more runners from deep to combat that. Unsurprisingly the goal came from a deep late run from Porro. We need more of that from the FBs and the nominal 8 (Sarr in this case). It’s hard to defend.
  • Thought Bentancur was good in spite of some of the comments on here (I’ll admit I’m a fan) and controlled the game. VDV excellent too.
  • Udogie looked rusty.
  • Johnson really does need to work on his technical capability and needs to add a trick or 2 to his repertoire to make him more of a threat. I’m not a huge fan (albeit I think some of the comments on here go too far) and I really don’t any to bandwagon jump, but I just don’t see anything elite about his play at all. He’s so technically limited and has real confidence issues.
  • Solanke did ok. Pressed hard and put himself about. Thought he could have taken the chance where he stooped for the header on his foot. He’ll be decent for us.
  • Bergvall looked so classy when brought on. What a talent, the technical ability is insane. He dallied for the chance Vic berated him on but he got an absolute hospital ball from Romero too. I’d be fast tracking him into the first XI personally.
  • Kulu also lively when he came on. I think he can consider himself to be very very unfortunate not to start yesterday bearing in mind his pre season form. Suspect he’ll start in place of Johnson against Everton.
  • First game so won’t panic, but saw a lot of similarities to last season, most notably how our play hamstrings when it goes to our wide players.
  • We also need to be content that you can’t dominate for 90 mins and when to add a level of “control” to the game.
  • Biggest takeaway is that our business cannot be done yet in this window yet, and for all the talk of a “busy 8” and a backup LB, wide players is still the priority. I know it’s unlikely because Son is seemingly undroppable and we’ve signed Werner and Oderbert already, but if you take emotion and context out and look at the side objectively it’s where we can make the biggest improvement to our starting XI.


Onwards and upwards. COYS.
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Great post. Saved me writing that out.
This is us in a nutshell.
 
The amount of over reaction to this performance and result is unbelievable.

Always looking for individuals to blame and call shit. It’s laughable. Sanchez is gone on to Royal. Royal is gone onto Johnson. Blah blah blah.

I was upset by the result as well and of course we spurned chances, conceded a goal on their first chance and yea we had a period of panic incited mediocrity but FFS people it’s a football match and better teams than us have had worse results against worse teams than Leicester City.


I would hate to see some of your blood pressure readings at moments like these.

Get some perspective
 
nicoclaesen said:
You telling me that Bergvall doesn’t offer more than Sarr,Biss and Bentancur in terms of taking the ball,passing,play riskier passes in the final third,finds areas to hurt teams and his delivery from set pieces.
Nothing delusional about it mate. He’s better than what we have starting.
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Of course he offers something, he’s a talented young player. But the idea he’s going to be a starter when he’s still a kid learning is expecting a bit much. He needs time develop. It’s very much a learning season for him.

When he has the inevitable bad game or makes mistakes the same people who thought Sarr was the next big thing will be the first to start writing him off too. Fans are horrendously two faced like that.
 
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Phomesy said:
Posts like this always make me laugh. Like there's this sub-section of Spurs fans who are ever so noble and wise and can, therefore, predict with absolute certainty not only what the problems are (like the rest of us aren't aware of the team's various weaknesses :rolleyes: ) but that these problems will never be fixed under the current manager.

This is Ange's second season. Every project takes time. Even Pep took 18 months to force City into his image with every resource at his disposal. We all see the problems but there is simply no cause to sack a manager this early in their project unless he completely loses the dressing room because he lacks authority and respect of the squad.

We have (and continue) to completely change our list. We are incredibly young squad now. Everyone is aware of "the problems" - it's just that normal sane fans have normal sane expectation management.

No one is saying fans can't highlight our frustrating final third performance or how open we are to counters or set piece issues - we all see the problems. But there's a difference between discussing problems and creating a poisonous atmosphere of negativity.
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Like I said, I don't want to be right, but I'm pretty certain I am.
You've here whining about levy sacking him in a few months. But it'll be because we're in the bottom half and not winning games anymore, it because he just felt like a change.
 
Richard Arlison said:
That’s true but the line is also pretty thin. They cleared a goal off the line from a corner, if Sarr gets there first to tap that in, the xG on that would have been 0.9 and completely change the complexion of those stats. Same goes for the Johnson shot/cross with no defender on him at the back post. If Son 2 yards further forward it’s a 0.9 xG tap in.
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I think the discrepancy between X-Threat and XG is the most telling metric. Our X-Thraat was 3x theirs, our XG only a little better/similar.

This feeds into the theory of our build up being ok but our final ball/final execution being pretty poor.
 
bus-conductor said:
I think the discrepancy between X-Threat and XG is the most telling metric. Our X-Thraat was 3x theirs, our XG only a little better/similar.

This feeds into the theory of our build up being ok but our final ball/final execution being pretty poor.
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Sorry if you're not entirely sure and don't have the figures but how did our xT work out in comparison to games last season against teams of this calibre?

Were we ultimately alot more threatening and alot more dangerous against Leicester (due to perhaps actually having a striker) than in other games? But simply didn't have the good enough final ball?

Or was this just same old? - because without the stats, I thought we looked alot better offensively in this one. Well, in the first half anyway.
 
Starks said:
Sorry if you're not entirely sure and don't have the figures but how did our xT work out in comparison to games last season against teams of this calibre?

Were we ultimately alot more threatening and alot more dangerous against Leicester (due to perhaps actually having a striker) than in other games? But simply didn't have the good enough final ball?

Or was this just same old? - because without the stats, I thought we looked alot better offensively in this one. Well, in the first half anyway.
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The xT figures are out there (that twitter account I posted does them for every game in Europe's top leagues) but I'm not sure where they are collated/aggregated anywhere.

I think it was a pretty common theme (xT better than xG) from memory. Our xG averaged 1.9 last season- 6th best.
 
Starks said:
Sorry if you're not entirely sure and don't have the figures but how did our xT work out in comparison to games last season against teams of this calibre?

Were we ultimately alot more threatening and alot more dangerous against Leicester (due to perhaps actually having a striker) than in other games? But simply didn't have the good enough final ball?

Or was this just same old? - because without the stats, I thought we looked alot better offensively in this one. Well, in the first half anyway.
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Last season we converted 1.73 xT into 1.79 xG and 1.95 G


So while there may have been individual matches last season where we didn't convert threat to opportunities, it wasn't a systemic issue.
 
Maureen said:
The kid is 18, cost a fifth of Johnson and puts himself about far more than him. In fact you’d be suprised to see Johnson actually get the ball where berg did from cuti. Which let’s face it gave him no outlet as he had two Leicester players breathing down his neck. The wise option would have been to try and play a longer ball for Werner to chase down.
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I don't disagree. All the more reason he shouldn't be dropped into a 'Top 6' starting 11. The problem is that Fans seem to justify him playing and don't give him the same treatment as Johnson, Werner...etc. Truth is that he isn't the saviour NOW that he is being touted as
 
We didn't play tremendously different yesterday to this game. We just took our chances and held out better (or luckier) when Everton got a period of chances and corners.
 
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