Match Day Thread Leicester city v Southampton F.A cup semi finals Sunday 18th April 18:30pm B.T Sports

Deluded and an idiot Tom, embarrassing now how you stick up for refs .......embarrassing.

 

He missed a couple of yellow cards FFS, not exactly game changing. Soyuncu call could have gone either way - Ings wasn't getting to the ball which probably swayed the referee's mind. Referees are human, they've got 2 eyes - they don't get everything right.

 

More than 3 points of 17th

 

Off
Ffs

 

Again, refs persuasion, never our way.
Ref wasn’t good? Side with ref.....put on kit ....get into bed .......drink a coffee........refs rule ok.

 

Agreed. Although coaches will probably tell you that both sides put in excellent defensive displays to deny goal scoring opportunities and this requires tremendous effort that can leave players totally drained. Such displays are, however, rarely entertaining

 

The question is why aren't we playing that way anymore? Sure when we had 2 games a week every week and we had no fit players I understood we couldn't play that way. But these players have played Ralphs way with success in 2020. Why haven't we reverted to playing Ralphs pressing system again? The players know the system, they have plenty of rest in between games now and have training sessions in the week. We are almost a fully fit squad and have been for a while. You would expect to have seen at least some semblance of our pressing game again. Can we not play in that way because the players have lost all confidence? That Ralph has so far been unable to get them playing again is a worry. I really don't see where we go from here because I don't see how we get the kind of shake up we need with our ownership.

 

Agreed. That and a fair few players just not being good enough I'm afraid. I would say our team is better than maybe 6/7 others in the league in all honesty

 

Why???????

 

Buzzing after line of duty, anyone else had a good evening?

 

Will be intrigued to see how the last 7 games pan out and the summer unfolds. After tonight and the total lack of fight from the team I would not be at all surprised to see us pick up a handful of points between now and the end of the season-relegation could go either way in my mind.

Fulham have no form but are fighting like hell, Newcastle had no form but are fighting and picking up points here and there, as we saw over the last two games, West Brom are not dead and buried yet.

As many will have had their say and their right to not think there was much chance of us getting a result today for whatever reason, many people will be sceptical that Ralph will get the funds he needs or the backing from Gao to rebuild the squad as he feels he needs to.

We need a major overhaul of players; but while RH knows we won’t have the financial backing to replace the dross, he can’t call out the fair few players who won’t ever rise above Championship level.

Although it’s worth nothing and there will be people accusing me of knee jerk reactions, I can’t help feeling a rocky few months lays ahead and not with great outcomes for the team.

 

And in answer to the question? What position?

 

theres lots of cheaper options out there....!!!

 

I mean I can answer it for you. I think we probably have somewhere around the 14th/15th best squad in the league. At a push. Which is, funnily enough, where we are.

 

We will always be the nearly men. Spending between 15m and 19m on players we will never quite meet the next level. Our league position is about right and we punched above that in 2020.

We deserve More

 

Honestly think it is entirely because of injuries and exhaustion. Used to be able to hear Ralph shouting from the sidelines all match, these days he's much much more subdued. We were playing the high intensity game and the team/results soon suffered. Liverpool had the same.

Honestly believe it's been a conscious effort to lower the tempo and it doesn't suit the personnel we have. In midfield we have a number of pacy lightweight players who are ineffective in a more static build up. Without them we have very little in the way of creativity.

 

Not sure about that, he was shouting himself hoarse today.

 

To me that excuse doesn’t wash anymore. For the first couple of months of 2021 sure, but not anymore. We haven’t had much in the way of injuries for a month and half? And our fixture schedule has been mostly once a week. These are professional athletes. I don’t know what the reason is, but Ralph and the players look lost, like we are stuck in some sort of weird limbo. Weak mentality and no signs of any fight or desire to get back to where we were before our season crumbled. The same aimless game plan every week with no resemblance of Ralph’s pressing style. Pressing doesn’t even have to be for 90 minutes, but we just don’t do it anymore. Ralph seems to get stuck in ruts just as much as the players which isn’t ideal. I have no idea what the answers are, but it looks pretty bleak right now.

 

I do think the whole situation with Covid has hit the players harder than we might think. Constantly being in a bubble and constantly playing in empty stadiums along lockdown rules could well have taken their toll. I just think we need to see out this season then press the reset button.

 

But why has it hit us so much worse than other teams? Every team is dealing with that, at least half the teams in the league have just as bad squad depth as us and most have had injuries this season. Yet we are the worst team in most of the important categories in 2021

The summer is massive, as I’ve said before I would sell anyone we can and burn the whole lot down and start again.