Leicester coming apart at the seams...

RUCK4444

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United have a good first team and so does Leicester and a thin squad. So who knew missing (out of form) key players would hurt both their performances?..
I haven’t mentioned either squad mate, simply pointing out that Ole haters have used Rodgers time at Leicester as some form of proof Ole must be shite.

Point being, things change over the course of a season and pointing at one manager and saying your shite because x manager is doing well is a nonsense.

If anybody needed proof of that then look at Ole’s initial spell compared to what followed.
There are so many variables that most ignore for the flavour of the month.
 
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Who said that? I never.

You catch my drift mate. People are so black and white on here, a run of good or bad form can change the outlook for any team.
You're getting this mixed up here mate.

Rogders to me, and many others, clearly had his team playing way above the sum of their parts, and they are still 9 points ahead of United even after a massive shit spell.

No-one can claim that Ole, at any point has had United playing above the sum of their parts.

I've claimed all along that Brenton was working wonders with a team that wasn't anywhere near good enough to be ahead of United, Chelsea and Spurs, let alone MILES ahead. It was the "in at all costs brigade" that tried claiming all sorts of shite like Leicester have a much better team than us, that's why they are so far ahead, it's not Ole's fault at all.

At the end of the day plenty of Ole haters have used Rodgers at Leicester as ‘proof’ Ole is shite.
Im not sure but I would bet a tenner your one of them? ;)
At the end of the day, I would bet you a tenner that you agreed somewhat ;)

I would expect Rodgers to get the most of this team very quickly, which is where I agree Ole is struggling.
 
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RUCK4444

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You're getting this mixed up here mate.

Rogders to me, and many others, clearly had his team playing way above the sum of their parts, and they are still 9 points ahead of United even after a massive shit spell.

No-one can claim that Ole, at any point has had United playing above the sum of their parts.

I've claimed all along that Brenton was working wonders with a team that wasn't anywhere near good enough to be ahead of United, Chelsea and Spurs, let alone MILES ahead. It was the "in at all costs brigade" that tried claiming all sorts of shite like Leicester have a much better team than us, that's why they are so far ahead, it's not Ole's fault at all.
Nah it’s been the other way around.

Plenty have pointed out how well Brendan done so quickly and used it as a stick to beat Ole with.

Sure maybe a few have replied to say they have a better squad but that’s not what initiated the comparison.

I actually think Rodgers is a very good manager for what it’s worth. Then again he is far more experienced than Ole, Lampard, Arteta at the top level and working under far less pressure than Ole in particular.
 

Amarsdd

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I haven’t mentioned either squad mate, simply pointing out that Ole haters have used Rodgers time at Leicester as some form of proof Ole must be shite.

Point being, things change over the course of a season and pointing at one manager and saying your shite because x manager is doing well is a nonsense.

If anybody needed proof of that then look at Ole’s initial spell compared to what followed.
There are so many variables that most ignore for the flavour of the month.
I'm talking from the same pov.
 

Leftback99

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Nah it’s been the other way around.

Plenty have pointed out how well Brendan done so quickly and used it as a stick to beat Ole with.

Sure maybe a few have replied to say they have a better squad but that’s not what initiated the comparison.

I actually think Rodgers is a very good manager for what it’s worth. Then again he is far more experienced than Ole, Lampard, Arteta at the top level and working under far less pressure than Ole in particular.
I doubt you'll find many saying they had a better squad. A few recognised they have a strong first XI that they were playing every week while we had injuries to key players from our best XI. Now Leicester have injuries Rodgers doesn't look like the magician he was hailed on here.
 
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I doubt you'll find many saying they had a better squad. A few recognised they have a strong first XI that they were playing every week while we had injuries to key players from our best XI. Now Leicester have injuries Rodgers doesn't look like the magician he was hailed on here.
Plenty of long time redcafe posters claimed exactly that, just a quick search gave me 3 corkers.

To be fair a lot of people said Leicester’s squad was full of quality, which it clearly is and was before they got into the top four.
Leicester aren't punching above their weight, they have consistently been doing well and their squad is better than every other team they are ahead of except City.
Leicester and Spuds have better start 11 than we have. Who they had on the bench versus Lingard?
I had us at 6th or 7th at the end of the season.
 

Dec9003

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Plenty of long time redcafe posters claimed exactly that, just a quick search gave me 3 corkers.
A corker, are we pretending all their players are rubbish now because they lost a few matches?
Leicester have some fantastic players, that much is obvious surely.
 

RUCK4444

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Yup, you're one of them…
Yes, like I said I’ve been impressed by Brenton everywhere he has been.

The difference is I wasn’t using his decent spell at Leicester to ridicule Ole.

I was responding, most likely, to posters like yourself who were using his impressive start at Leicester as proof Ole wasn’t good enough.

All you’ve done is prove what I was rolling my eyes at in my very first post about this :)
 

anant

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Liverpool, even now, is the biggest overperformance of xG I have ever seen.

They have 22 more points more than xG would indicate !
That's xPts not xG. The model is run on how many goals a team is expected to score, and while they are overperfoming both xG and xGA metric, its within reasonable range.
xPts is a derivative of these metrics and doesnt often converge with the actual numbers (there are 2 assumptions now instead of 1 - one to calculate xG and xGA and next to calculate probabilty of a team outscoring the other team)
 

Dec9003

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I don't doubt there will be a few. I think 'squad' and first team gets confused on here a lot though.
I don’t really get why he included my post anyway, my post had nothing to do with United, just praising Leicester.
He probably did a search and didn’t find as many as he’d hoped or whatever.
 

Gasolin

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That wasn’t what we were told though, plenty of people desperate to absolve Ole of any blame told us Leicester have a much better side than us.

The truth has always been that United have a better side and squad and that Brenton was overachieving whilst Ole was underachieving. Let’s hope this role reversal continues from now until the run-in. A win tomorrow and a final day win at Leicester would make the gap just 3 points, so it’s all there to play for.
I believe we clearly said it takes time + injuries and freak results happened as the opposition starting scoring on some of the few shots they had but this is getting fixed thanks to key players coming back and others progressing.
 

arthurka

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I had a wager with my mate in November that Utd would finish above Brendan and his mignons. I hope he serves my beer cases cold..
 

Bondi77

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Leicester are a good side,
I watched them against City last week and they played well and were unlucky in my opinion. They are just on a bad run at the moment like most teams have at some stage in the season.
 

TheGodsInRed

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Just shows xg got it wrong.
It doesn’t show that. Expected goals are based on averages so it shows they either have amazingly clinical shooters, or have been lucky.

Teams at the top of tables will normally over perform XG because they have the best players, but they way they have been over performing is mental.

XG is good for analysis, not sure how much of a proven tool it is for prediction though.
 

The Boy

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Their poor run just shows how all teams struggle with a dip in form or injury to key players. Rodger’s made Vardy the focal point for the team and sped up their play massively relying on his pace, when he took over from Puel. Take Vardy out of the equation and Leicester just are not as clinical or as threatening.
 

amolbhatia50k

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They've overachieved this season. There's always a decline for teams who do that.
 

Mr Smith

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To be fair, they haven't been terrible, they just can't seem to convert their chances. Vardy going off the boil has really hurt them.
 

Josep Dowling

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Vardy hasn't been fit for a while, makes all the difference.

Ndidi also has been missing for a few games and he's the rock in their midfield. It just shows how essential it is to have a good CDM to help the front lads do the work.
We need him in a United shirt next season. He should be a priority target along with Sancho.
 

Adam-Utd

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We need him in a United shirt next season. He should be a priority target along with Sancho.
He's a fantastic player and would be a great Matic replacement, but Leicester will want insane money and we could get Partey or somebody similar for less.
 

Chipper

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Should still be a comfortable top 4 finish, and seeing as top 5 might be enough it would take an absolute catastrophe for them not to make the CL.

We're currently on 1.5 points per game so to see that through they need more than 57 to finish above us = 8 points from 10 matches.

Our form is currently better than that but still, no way they should miss out or even finish below us.
 
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I don’t really get why he included my post anyway, my post had nothing to do with United, just praising Leicester.
He probably did a search and didn’t find as many as he’d hoped or whatever.
I included yours because it would've been extremely long-winded to include the post you responded to there which was questioning the newly revised top 4 quality of Leicester's squad.
 

Dec9003

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I included yours because it would've been extremely long-winded to include the post you responded to there which was questioning the newly revised top 4 quality of Leicester's squad.
Fair enough but you said to the other bloke that you’d found three posts claiming they had a better squad than us, which I didn’t say.
 

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ok @Leftback99

Here's a couple fresh from today:
Calm down lad, my opinion Leicester are miles ahead of us on points and consistency this season is a valid one. Hence their position in the league. It doesn't lie.

Very cute of you to call me a liar in one of my previous posts. There's having a constructive discussion on a fans forum, and there's getting outright insulted like you did and quoting me randomly in multiple threads.

I would consider Leicester to have a marginally better squad (before Bruno arrived). Some examples: Ashley Young, Phil Jones, Lindelof, Pereira, Lingard, James, Shaw (at the start of the season many people wanted him gone, and Williams wasn't on the scene). Most of these were legitimate starters. Compare them to Leicester's starters in those positions and its no contest. This has been built on 4-5 years of excellent recruitment, knowing when to buy, when to sell, the types of players to buy. Bruno coming in has probably just tipped the scales slightly in our favour and next season with the correct recruitment we may surpass them again.

Leicester are playing poorly at the moment, but the league doesn't lie and their position is deserved and I'd say we are about 4th best in this league in my opinion. Remove your red tinted glasses and accept where we are right now.

(For context to the rest of the posters in this thread that i've been dragged into, I appear to have caught a whopper when he reacted to one of my posts where I was saying Ole has us just about where we are worth, challenging for 4th and competing in cup competitions. I said we probably don't deserve 3rd place right now, that we had probably the 4th best squad in the league at the start of the season, so therefore bringing another manager in wouldn't really drastically improve our league position).
 
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Phil Osophy

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I think it's important when we compare squads to have some perspective, and take into account how the players are evolving throghout a season.

Last summer a midfield pair of Fred and McTominay as fix starters would have been seen as something poor and unreliable, but they've given a giant step forward and it looks like a solid pair right now.

A left back with an inconsistent Luke Shaw and Ashley Young, also with De Gea looking like an amateur in the last months of last season. Despite his howler yesterday I think he's been fine lately, overall, and Shaw has improved his performances too with Williams being a sweet surprise that nobody expected.

Rashford (time to burst his bubble, and so on) as our main attacking weapon, after showing just isolated sparks until now. But I think since October he's been scoring almost a goal per game and showing much more maturity on his game on a weekly basis, showing clear signs of improvement under the current management. And Martial as a number 9 after looking stagnated for years on the wing, with his attitude under big question marks at the end of last season. Talking about Martial now is very different of doing it last summer.

A hole on the right wing, covered somehow by a kid from the Championship who was signed as a punt, and some untested youth players (Greenwood, Chong) that were yet to play an official game with the first team.

And let's not say anything about the cherry on the cake: Mata, Lingard, Pereira as our number 10 options. As we've seen this season there's no remedy for these guys, and we've been carrying three intruders for the whole year.

If we look half decent at the moment it's mainly thanks to the current staff polishing and improving players, introducing youngsters with common sense, making the right calls in the market and getting good performances from their own signings from the first minute, creating also a positive and hard-working atmosphere. One can rate Ole and the staff more or less and it's legit, but pretending to ignore the platform they're developing in difficult circumstances is simply dishonest.
 

Chipper

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Should still be a comfortable top 4 finish, and seeing as top 5 might be enough it would take an absolute catastrophe for them not to make the CL.

We're currently on 1.5 points per game so to see that through they need more than 57 to finish above us = 8 points from 10 matches.

Our form is currently better than that but still, no way they should miss out or even finish below us.
Well I got that one very wrong. :lol:

Still surprised they did quite as bad as bad they did post lockdown. Looking it up now, 9 points from 9 which is just about staying up form. Form wasn't much better pre-lockdown, 11 from the 9 before and we all knew they were on the slide that but I don't know, I'd have thought lockdown would have seen them regroup, work on things and then come back stronger, a bit like Spurs did in the end. Don't think Leicester had the same injuries pre lockdown as Spurs but they actually got worse.
 

Web of Bissaka

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Their best 11 is that good, all had good and great forms in the first half of this season which helps. They led the league at 3rd place for many months is not a coincidence. Injuries, drop of form and injuries then naturally they''ll drop points <-- they sure did.. a lot.

Biggest problem is they don't have good squad depth.

In constrast, both Chelsea and United have far stronger squad depth, which is why both clubs still lingers closely at 4th, 5th and 6th. Chelsea have greater squad depth I suppose.

Our squad players get criticized a lot, but the likes of McT, Fred, James, etc did enough to held on until Bruno's arrival to make our best 11 among the top best.
 

ivaldo

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I feel like we only need one more win to secure 2nd.