useless Posted January 17, 2016 Share Posted January 17, 2016 Villa are the only team I want to see break the status quo and become part of it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeyp102 Posted January 17, 2016 Share Posted January 17, 2016 Rainieri cost them the win yesterday, bringing in de laet for Mahrez showed they were happy with the draw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted January 17, 2016 Share Posted January 17, 2016 He brought him on when they were a goal up so in fairness it was to keep what they had. I don't think Mahrez was at his best and that penalty was so poor. So really one could say Mahrez cost them the win. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted January 17, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted January 17, 2016 7 hours ago, Dr_Pangloss said: I was impressed in the first half. They looked so much better than us physically, much better athletes, plus mentally much, much sharper, playing one/two touch football, hunting in packs, and always moving into space. In the second half their levels dropped significantly and we made a much better go of it. Kante is a brilliant player and Drinkwater is surprising very good. But with Vardy no longer in goal scoring form, and Mahrez frankly looking awful, they are going to struggle to break the top sides down. They will definitely slip away and I don't think they will finish in the top four. The difference was our approach. Leicester are hard working, organised and apply high pressure all over the place. Unless you can pass it like Arsenal, it becomes very hard to pass it round the, and in the first half that was our approach and it failed. What struck me the most was how even their strikers were part of the defence the whole time. When our centrebacks or deep midfielders had the ball, it was Vardy and Okizaki defending from the front. When we play, our strikers just get wandered past when the opposition have the ball. The way they play makes it very hard to pass through them because they've got everybody back and hassling the opposition. Second half we bypassed all that and went long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sexbelowsound Posted January 17, 2016 Share Posted January 17, 2016 The difference between Leicester and everyone else is PEDS or at the very least 3-4 scoops of a hardcore preworkout. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted January 17, 2016 Share Posted January 17, 2016 (edited) It's interesting despite how amazing they've been it's mid January and they're on 44 points and not a huge amount clear of even teams like Stoke and West Ham. Does it show how far standards have fallen that in 2008-09 season we reached I think 51 points by the start of February. Yet we weren't even near the top of the table, think highest was 3rd for a couple of weeks before we went back down to 4th and then down to 6th as the season ended. Are they really any better than we were in 2008-09, I guess the answer will be how high they finish. Typical Lerner seriously invested when the league was at it's peak between 2006-09, just have to look at the performances in the CL. Edited January 17, 2016 by VillaChris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted January 17, 2016 Share Posted January 17, 2016 It's interesting despite how amazing they've been it's mid January and they're on 44 points and not a huge amount clear of even teams like Stoke and West Ham. Does it show how far standards have fallen that in 2008-09 season we reached I think 51 points by the start of February. Yet we weren't even near the top of the table, think highest was 3rd for a couple of weeks before we went back down to 4th and then down to 6th as the season ended. Are they really any better than we were in 2008-09, I guess the answer will be how high they finish. Typical Lerner seriously invested when the league was at it's peak between 2006-09, just have to look at the performances in the CL. Weren't we only 3/4 points off the top despite being 3rd? Also something like 9 points clear of Arsenal. We won 5 in a row, lost a tight one to Chelsea, then came Stoke? We then lost 5 in a row including being smashed 5-0 by Liverpool. Horrid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted January 17, 2016 Share Posted January 17, 2016 I can't really remember where we were in relation to top but I do remember us going 3rd after beating Blackburn 2 nil away as we'd been 4th for a long while. We certainly had over 50 points at that time. League was a lot better really, Chelsea had Cech, Carvalho, Terry, Lampard, Ballack, Essien, Anelka, Drogba. You could argue the current 11 ignoring the disaster of this season, has just as many talented players but nowhere near the heart and mental strength of some of those warriors e.g Hazard going off injured early in games. Man. United it's fair to say were a bit better back then...Rio, Vidic, Evra, Ronaldo, Tevez, Rooney berbatov. That was the season Liverpool seriously challenged for the league...Mascherano, Alonso, Gerrard was the best midfield around then and Torres was in great form but they lacked depth which cost them the league. Only Arsenal weren't as good as they are now but they still had quality like Fabregas and RVP back then. So yeah looking at it, I think what we did back in 08/09 was just as impressive as what Leicester are doing now even if we didn't go top that year, a similar playing style aswell but of course will Leicester implode as spectacularly as we did from Stoke onwards. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted January 17, 2016 Share Posted January 17, 2016 Man City weren't as good then either. I think we managed 60, 62 and 64 pts in the three seasons we finished 6th, guess Leicester could finish with less points than that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted January 18, 2016 Share Posted January 18, 2016 Man. City have just replaced Liverpool in the Sky 4 pecking order really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodders0223 Posted January 18, 2016 Share Posted January 18, 2016 If we all donate £2.50 a month we can give Jamie Vardy three daily hot meals the guy deserves and so badly requires. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted January 18, 2016 Share Posted January 18, 2016 I thought Ranieri was very classy after the game, as many other managers would have whined and moaned about Gestede handball in the goal and he just said the ref didnt see it unfortunately Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a m ole Posted January 18, 2016 Share Posted January 18, 2016 23 hours ago, sexbelowsound said: The difference between Leicester and everyone else is PEDS or at the very least 3-4 scoops of a hardcore preworkout. imagine if that is the legacy that Pearson left and they're still enjoying the effects of it. What's the half life of those things? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LondonLax Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 On 1/17/2016 at 06:39, Stevo985 said: The difference was our approach. Leicester are hard working, organised and apply high pressure all over the place. Unless you can pass it like Arsenal, it becomes very hard to pass it round the, and in the first half that was our approach and it failed. What struck me the most was how even their strikers were part of the defence the whole time. When our centrebacks or deep midfielders had the ball, it was Vardy and Okizaki defending from the front. When we play, our strikers just get wandered past when the opposition have the ball. The way they play makes it very hard to pass through them because they've got everybody back and hassling the opposition. Second half we bypassed all that and went long. I agree with all of your assessment, the only thing i would change is that they don't apply high pressure all over the place. They don't do the high press that Liverpool and Spurs do, instead they let our defenders have the ball to pass around at the back mostly unchallenged. What they do though, as you say, is have their forwards defend from the front and apply pressure to our midfield, that way they always have big numbers back behind the ball. Once they win the ball back they rush forward on the counter attack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 To be honest i did not think there was much difference between the two teams on saturday night. Had we started the season like this I think we would be midtable Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted January 19, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted January 19, 2016 7 hours ago, LondonLax said: I agree with all of your assessment, the only thing i would change is that they don't apply high pressure all over the place. They don't do the high press that Liverpool and Spurs do, instead they let our defenders have the ball to pass around at the back mostly unchallenged. What they do though, as you say, is have their forwards defend from the front and apply pressure to our midfield, that way they always have big numbers back behind the ball. Once they win the ball back they rush forward on the counter attack. Yeah I agree with that. Maybe pressure was the wrong word. What I was trying to get across was they defend with their whole team. When our defenders or deep midfielders have the ball, we have to actively get it past their forward line, which is something we never seem to do. Our forwards are quite passive when the opposition has the ball and when they do apply pressure it's too easy to pass it round them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a m ole Posted January 20, 2016 Share Posted January 20, 2016 I've been impressed by their debut left back so far, 19, very comfortable on the ball and making runs, looks 'lightweight' but is playing on the left with the 8st wet through Gray and aren't struggling with the pace and strength of Walker or speed of Lamela. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a m ole Posted January 20, 2016 Share Posted January 20, 2016 And as I say that he stands off Son and that happens haha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted January 20, 2016 Share Posted January 20, 2016 Leicester are already starting to slowly collapse. I reckon they will finish 6th Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Czechlad Posted January 20, 2016 Share Posted January 20, 2016 6 minutes ago, Demitri_C said: Leicester are already starting to slowly collapse. I reckon they will finish 6th Vardy and Mahrez have slowed down a bit so the whole team has slowed down. If Kozak and Ayew started scoring 10+ goals in the next 10 games, I guarantee we'd shoot up the table like a rocket. Leicester's defense needs work to stay in top 4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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