Matchday Chat - Saturday 28th April, 2018

[Stan]

all kick-offs 15.00

Burnley vs Brighton
Crystal Palace vs Leicester
Huddersfield vs Everton
Newcastle vs West Brom
Southampton vs Bournemouth

[True Blue]

2 minutes ago, Stan said:

good post

https://giphy.com/gifs/iW8tsoJWcfPc4/html5

[Dave]

I was going to post a Sky Sports article yesterday which questioned whether the Leicester City players mindset was already 'on holiday' but then I remembered who they're playing this weekend.

[Cicero]

 

[Lucas]

8 hours ago, Stan said:

all kick-offs 15.00

Burnley vs Brighton
Crystal Palace vs Leicester
Huddersfield vs Everton
Newcastle vs West Brom
Southampton vs Bournemouth

Massive, massive weekend at the bottom.

For Southampton, they have to win this game or it's curtains. This is the one game they will have been targeting as nothing but a win from. Hughes needs a win to get the team going, I think they might just scrape it tomorrow as well.

With Chelsea, City and Arsenal waiting for Huddersfield, I think they need a result tomorrow against Everton. I can see them only getting a draw though. They'll struggle to break Everton down.

Palace win tomorrow and I think that see's them secure. Would consider them favourites at home to Leicester who look done for the season now.

I can't see Swansea doing much against Chelsea. They were awful against City last week, they look a little precarious to me and I fully expect them to be dragged back into it by Saturday night.

[Dan+]

I expect us to lose tomorrow. It looks like Puel's on his way and we've got absolutely nothing to play for. They'll beat us and secure survival while we stand and stare at this crossroads that we've got no idea which path to go down.

We've survived comfortably this year but I'm not sure that'll be the case next season. Not without some significant changes.

[Stan]

100% Benteke scoring against us tomorrow. Guaranteed. 

[Honey Honey]

Gotta win 2 more for top 10 I think. Or win this and avoid defeat against Watford next week.

[Dave]

19 hours ago, Dan said:

I expect us to lose tomorrow. It looks like Puel's on his way and we've got absolutely nothing to play for. They'll beat us and secure survival while we stand and stare at this crossroads that we've got no idea which path to go down.

We've survived comfortably this year but I'm not sure that'll be the case next season. Not without some significant changes.

Puel on his way? You have got to be shitting me?

[Dave]

@Dan @Stan you might want to run in to the dressing room at half time and replace your players flip flops with football boots.

[Honey Honey]

Classic on the beach performance. All our best players turned to shite passing and half hearted except Ritchie.

We will end the season with 5 straight defeats

 

[RandoEFC+]

Very good away performance from us. 

[Dan+]

First time I've ever left early. Puel can't recover that and there's no point keeping him on. But I'm not supporting some of those cunts again. They're a disgrace.

[roversgirl]

8 minutes ago, Dan said:

First time I've ever left early. Puel can't recover that and there's no point keeping him on. But I'm not supporting some of those cunts again. They're a disgrace.

Surely where you are in the league is about right?! In and around Everton and Burnley is probably fair, and Burnley have had an outstanding season for them. I can't see you doing much better in all reality and like Saints, I'd be careful what you wish for if you do sack Puel as I can see you really struggling. 9th position behind Everton and Burnley is pretty much where you should be and is a decent season! You can't keep comparing your seasons to your PL winning season as realistically that was a very rare season!

[Dan+]

10 minutes ago, Cannabis said:

Feel your pain. Absolutely disgusting attitude

 

6 minutes ago, roversgirl said:

Surely where you are in the league is about right?! In and around Everton and Burnley is probably fair, and Burnley have had an outstanding season for them. I can't see you doing much better in all reality and like Saints, I'd be careful what you wish for if you do sack Puel as I can see you really struggling. 9th position behind Everton and Burnley is pretty much where you should be and is a decent season! You can't keep comparing your seasons to your PL winning season as realistically that was a very rare season!

I'll reply to this all properly when I'm home later and I'll explain why it's a whole lot worse than it looks.

Well done too @The Palace Fan. Absolutely massacred us twice and deserved every goal.

[UNORTHODOX]

On 27/04/2018 at 14:17, The Palace Fan said:

I was going to post a Sky Sports article yesterday which questioned whether the Leicester City players mindset was already 'on holiday' but then I remembered who they're playing this weekend.

Well that must have been a nice surprise. A 4-0 drubbing and almost certainly safe now, Congrats.

EDIT: actually 5-0 and Benteke scored the winner 

[Dr. Gonzo]

On 4/27/2018 at 06:17, The Palace Fan said:

I was going to post a Sky Sports article yesterday which questioned whether the Leicester City players mindset was already 'on holiday' but then I remembered who they're playing this weekend.

Yeah I wouldn't want to temp fate like that either. But looks like they are already on holiday and that's a big win and a massive 3 points for you. Pretty sure you're just about safe now.

[Dave]

13 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Yeah I wouldn't want to temp fate like that either. But looks like they are already on holiday and that's a big win and a massive 3 points for you. Pretty sure you're just about safe now.

I bet your relieved we had all those injuries and Frank DeBoer. Without that fourteen game head start youd be competing with Tottenham for fourth place.

[Stan]

4 hours ago, Teso dos Bichos said:

Maguire playing midfielder?

only cos Silva (our midfield sub who came on) got injured and Dragovic went CB.

22 hours ago, Stan said:

100% Benteke scoring against us tomorrow. Guaranteed. 

Hope people put money of this. Bound to happen.

[Honey Honey]

John Anderson made a hilarious faux pas on the radio before our game. He was asked what he thought about West Brom's new manager and he meant to say he is blue and white through and through but he ballsed it up and said "he's black" 

[Dan+]

7 hours ago, roversgirl said:

Surely where you are in the league is about right?! In and around Everton and Burnley is probably fair, and Burnley have had an outstanding season for them. I can't see you doing much better in all reality and like Saints, I'd be careful what you wish for if you do sack Puel as I can see you really struggling. 9th position behind Everton and Burnley is pretty much where you should be and is a decent season! You can't keep comparing your seasons to your PL winning season as realistically that was a very rare season!

Right, I said I'll explain it in detail, you might not be bothered, you might be. But this is why we're a shambles, and why us being 9th is an absolute misleading travesty.

9th in the table would actually be our third highest finish in my lifetime, which makes you wonder why we're unhappy - the problem is, we've seen this all before. This is now the third time in not far off over a year that we have seen a total implosion from the team and we are quite sick at the fact some people seem to be untouchable in this strange pattern, and how the manager is always the fall guy.

Leicester didn't get to where they were through good planning from the club. Leicester got to where they got to because of the forward thinking of Pearson, the foundations he laid out in terms of recruitment, team ethic, sports science and the overall feel-good factor about the club. Pearson gets fun poked at him because he's a bit mad and he's prone to a stupid incident, but people really do overlook how big a part he played here. He was always a step ahead of Dyche and Burnley. They were always giving us a run for our money, but we'd always come out on top.

Then 2015/16 happened. Pearson left in controversial circumstances and in came Ranieri, a total wildcard appointment, ridiculed by the masses and with a good reason, everything about him screamed past-it. Yet incredibly, we won the league. It was a mixture of what Pearson had built, and what Ranieri added that season. He handled things brilliantly and deserves a lot of credit himself, but he was never the builder, and that showed months later when we nosedived and looked certain for the drop.

Shakespeare came in, we went on another good run that was enough to steer us well clear of the drop, but finished weakly - not weakly enough to cost himself the full-time role. A three year contract was given to him. He was binned eight games into it.

We had been built all of these years on being an aggressive, counter-attacking side, unfased by possession stats and largely built around the ultimate counter-attacking striker. So when we brought in Claude Puel, what were they thinking was going to happen? Puel is a possession football man, totally opposite to what we've been playing for a long-time, so there is naturally going to be some turbulence along the way. Yet again, we start well under him, he steers us comfortably clear of the drop and then the bookies make us odds-on favourites to finish 7th. You can see the logic in that.

But once again, it's all gone tits up. We've won 4 games in 18, we haven't beaten a single one of the bottom five at home, we've stopped creating chances and our defence is appalling. How can this possibly be happening yet again? How can we be such an up and down team?

So to summarise who we've appointed under these owners:
- Paulo Sousa (Similar to Puel and given a percentage football team, sacked after 9 games)
- Sven-Goran Eriksson (A big name who started well, then blew millions on rubbish and put us in trouble with FFP, sacked within a year)
- Nigel Pearson (Brought back to the club on the basis he was here before, eventually got us up, kept us up, and was unluckily sacked)
- Claudio Ranieri (A wildcard appointment who threw his name into the hat, amazingly won the league, saw us plummet next year, sacked)
- Craig Shakespeare (Interim manager gets the job permanently, sacked within months)
- Claude Puel (Inherits a team unsuited to him, starts well, implodes, I expect he'll be sacked this week)

The bottom line, for me, is that the majority of the good that's happened was through co-incidence and luck, rather than anything real footballing nous within the club. I'm fed up of seeing manager after manager fall to the sword while these over-powered players and director of football keep getting away with it. The owners I think have their hearts in the right places and they've got some genuinely exciting ambitions for the club, but I think what happened two years ago has deluded people within the club into thinking that we're running the footballing side far better than we truly are.

We are largely bailed out by Vardy and Mahrez. We are not a good side.

We were bottom for six months three years ago, and at no point during that season did I feel as close to as disillusioned with the team as I have done on a number of occasions since, including that disgrace earlier. I have attended I reckon well over 500 games of ours and that was the first time ever I have by choice left the game early. A complete humiliation in every possible way.

It isn't that we aren't up where we were in 2015/16. I'm not stupid enough to demand we compete with the top six clubs as things stand, but it's that I see things getting a lot worse for us, and one of these bad runs is eventually going to sink us back into Championship, whilst probably having the biggest wage bill ever seen at that level.

I look at clubs like Sunderland, like Blackburn, like Bolton. I won't sit there and just accept us making the same mistakes because we're only Leicester. I want us learning from your mistakes.

We need some changes before it's too late.

[Dan+]

Oh and I must add, some of these players need to go. It's an absolute joke that they keep getting away with this. There are clearly some players in that dressing room far too powerful and holding us back from progressing. We need a strong manager in to move them on.

[Dan+]

11 hours ago, The Palace Fan said:

Puel on his way? You have got to be shitting me?

What do you reckon now?

I think he's almost certain to go. I feel sorry for him in some ways, I think he's got some good ideas but he just hasn't got the authority to implement them, and with such flimsy foundations I just can't see how he survives what is without a doubt our worst result in 8 years.

[Honey Honey]

Hey Dan, SirBalon wants his keyboard back 

[Danny]

On 28/04/2018 at 04:10, Cicero said:

 

Ah Arsenal that "proper" club, with their alienation of the working classes and Emirates Air Hostesses ready to welcome the players out in a true north London fashion