Post by leicesterlass on Nov 11, 2006 17:22:06 GMT -1
You're 2-1 up with 3 minutes to go, suddenly your centre-back gives away a free-kick (I use that loosely) and then argues his way into the referee's book to earn a one match suspension for his 5th yellow card of the season.
What do you do?
Defend quite a way from your goal line to give your goalie a chance if there is a loose ball?
No, this is Leicester we're talking about remember, so:
You defend right on top of your goalie and not win the first or SECOND headers and then let somebody who has 3, yes, 3 players around him score on your own six yard line.
Another example of first class defending the Leicester way when you're leading by the odd goal at home with just stoppage time to battle through, well done Leicester
So what exactly went wrong?
Poor poor defending for both goals, after looking seemingly solid at set-piece defending a few weeks prior to today we now seem to have lost the plot completely.
But we have no flow as a team, there is no creativity, no attacking flair, nothing.
Our centre-backs are fine generally (bar today when they were both shockingly at fault for both goals) except for their passing. Our trouble defensively is that having two non-passing centre-backs and two non-attacking full-backs means we've no natural impetus going forward when we gain possession in defence.
Solution: Hoof ball to two smaller than average strikers.
Couple that with two essentially defensive central midfielders (Hughes and Stearman today) and we are simply bound not to flow as a team. Our tactics from the start of this match were far far too cautious and, for a home team, we predictably created very little.
That encourages the opposition who are not going to be afraid to commit extra men forward, forcing us to 'defend' and obviously, to defend the only way we know how and sit back and invite pressure until the inevitable happens.
Six draws in 10 matches tells the story of our failure to force our own game on the opposition and the perpetual defensive overload of our team makes that inevitable. We had the personnel to win but we also retained the weaknesses to encouage the opposition.
Fryatt offered very very little today, he just hasn't seemed at the races so far this season, Hume is a class above.
Stearman is not a midfielder - the experiment worked very well against Villa but in the Championship there is no time on the ball in the middle of the park and Stears continually taking too many touches on the ball and his disappearing from despatches for too long left us extremely exposed and bossed in the centre of the park.
Hughes disappeared too in the second half and that left us very vulnerable because we weren't ever truly creative in the first place.
All in all I'm disgusted with Rob Kelly really, time after time he fields a team with little to no attacking outlets and basically concedes at least 2 points before we kick off. This is more so away from home than at the Walkers but even today the team of:
Logan
Maybury Kisnorbo McCarthy Johansson
Sylla Hughes Stearman Welsh
Hume Fryatt
Arguably there are 6 players there who offer us no attacking threat whatsoever. The great Leicester teams of old had wing-backs who'd look good going forward as well as being solid at the back. Both Maybury and Johansson arguably do the latter properly but provide is nothing going forward.
Same said for Hughes and Stearman, you could argue that Hughes is an attacking midfielder but as I watch him week on week he shows limited attributes needed by an attacking midfielder, he rarely makes runs into the opposition box and doesn't have the passing range to unlock a defence. Stearman quite simply is a CB/RB playing in CM, enough said.
Finally (no cheering at the sight of that word!!) for too long we've played with no width in the midfield. Today we had two wingers on the park but didn't use them. Although they're not the most gifted of players to ever grace the turf, a decent ball from the wing is better than one launched from defence.
I whole-heartedly have the confidence in Rob to shake things up a bit and sort our team out but at the minute, quite frankly we are not good enough.
What do you do?
Defend quite a way from your goal line to give your goalie a chance if there is a loose ball?
No, this is Leicester we're talking about remember, so:
You defend right on top of your goalie and not win the first or SECOND headers and then let somebody who has 3, yes, 3 players around him score on your own six yard line.
Another example of first class defending the Leicester way when you're leading by the odd goal at home with just stoppage time to battle through, well done Leicester
So what exactly went wrong?
Poor poor defending for both goals, after looking seemingly solid at set-piece defending a few weeks prior to today we now seem to have lost the plot completely.
But we have no flow as a team, there is no creativity, no attacking flair, nothing.
Our centre-backs are fine generally (bar today when they were both shockingly at fault for both goals) except for their passing. Our trouble defensively is that having two non-passing centre-backs and two non-attacking full-backs means we've no natural impetus going forward when we gain possession in defence.
Solution: Hoof ball to two smaller than average strikers.
Couple that with two essentially defensive central midfielders (Hughes and Stearman today) and we are simply bound not to flow as a team. Our tactics from the start of this match were far far too cautious and, for a home team, we predictably created very little.
That encourages the opposition who are not going to be afraid to commit extra men forward, forcing us to 'defend' and obviously, to defend the only way we know how and sit back and invite pressure until the inevitable happens.
Six draws in 10 matches tells the story of our failure to force our own game on the opposition and the perpetual defensive overload of our team makes that inevitable. We had the personnel to win but we also retained the weaknesses to encouage the opposition.
Fryatt offered very very little today, he just hasn't seemed at the races so far this season, Hume is a class above.
Stearman is not a midfielder - the experiment worked very well against Villa but in the Championship there is no time on the ball in the middle of the park and Stears continually taking too many touches on the ball and his disappearing from despatches for too long left us extremely exposed and bossed in the centre of the park.
Hughes disappeared too in the second half and that left us very vulnerable because we weren't ever truly creative in the first place.
All in all I'm disgusted with Rob Kelly really, time after time he fields a team with little to no attacking outlets and basically concedes at least 2 points before we kick off. This is more so away from home than at the Walkers but even today the team of:
Logan
Maybury Kisnorbo McCarthy Johansson
Sylla Hughes Stearman Welsh
Hume Fryatt
Arguably there are 6 players there who offer us no attacking threat whatsoever. The great Leicester teams of old had wing-backs who'd look good going forward as well as being solid at the back. Both Maybury and Johansson arguably do the latter properly but provide is nothing going forward.
Same said for Hughes and Stearman, you could argue that Hughes is an attacking midfielder but as I watch him week on week he shows limited attributes needed by an attacking midfielder, he rarely makes runs into the opposition box and doesn't have the passing range to unlock a defence. Stearman quite simply is a CB/RB playing in CM, enough said.
Finally (no cheering at the sight of that word!!) for too long we've played with no width in the midfield. Today we had two wingers on the park but didn't use them. Although they're not the most gifted of players to ever grace the turf, a decent ball from the wing is better than one launched from defence.
I whole-heartedly have the confidence in Rob to shake things up a bit and sort our team out but at the minute, quite frankly we are not good enough.
