The fact that Leicester City next season will play in Europe and finished 5th with Jamie Vardy winning the Golden Boot was all an act of what was achieved before the restart of the season, and what happened after is just a rot of management chopping and changing, injuries and experienced players doing stupid mistakes.
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So why is this happening and how do you get out of the problems and try to get things back to normal. Is it all just a fact that vital players were not available, missing Pereira, Maddison, Soyuncu and Chilwell in key areas.
TCF belive that Brendan Rodgers is looking for answers and that his football vision is based on the fact that systems can be changed for the benefit of getting a better result, but when that is not happening, what then, change it back?
Brendan looks totally in the wilderness at times and the way he has used Kelechi Iheanacho and Demarai Gray this season is not helping those two develope. Then to axe the player with most assists from a starting line-up (Barnes), is also strange.
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To stay loyal to a system is what made Leicester City win the league and they played 4-4-1-1 without any talk about changing that to anything else. During the days of Martin O’Neill we had a 3-5-2 settled system and it worked wonders.
So why does Brendan Rodgers believe that changing from the well working 4-3-3 to 3-4-3 and against Manchester United playing 3-5-2 will work as they are hardly systems that are drilled week in and week out.
Brendan Rodgers has stressed the fact that he needs more attacking options and believe the defense is working well, but then he needs to let players such as Barnes, Gray and Iheanacho leave, but that looks like a suicide act and we will, without them, see a decline in performances, be sure.
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He has used almost £60million on Praet and Perez, two players that has been below expectations this season and not given any special confidence from Brendan at all, so what will he do with those two recruits.
Leicester City owners have one answer to “decline” in recent seasons, sacking the manager. That will not happen before next season starts so they will wait until they have seen Leicester City fighting in the bottom again.
Claudio Ranieri, Craig Shakespeare and Claude Puel all did see a heavy decline after one and a half season, and excactly the same is going on at the moment and silly mistakes, structure changes and line-up’s you don’t understand are all coming out of the hat.
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So what is Brendan Rodgers up to?, he looks a bit out of controll and has gone away from what he believed in when Leicester City were flying earlier in the season, why?
If he had kept his structure and just slotted in the players he believed would do the job and maybe just replaced players if they looked tired or injured, he could have just singled out his problem which was injuries, but now he has juggled players around that wasn’t injured and he has no easy answer for this decline.
It looks messy at the moment and as a fan you don’t have any clue of what will going to happen and sadly to find talents and players better than the current group is a costly affair and missing the target could be fatal.
All defenders at Leicester City knows how to play in a four men defense, no one really knows much about a three men defense and very few players knows how to act in those vital flank positions, without full backs in the team.
It was so simple and no one would have questioned anything if Brendan Rodgers had settled with a 4-3-3 and just slotted in players for those injured and tried to play a team without juggling players around who must have a lot questions about their future.
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Kasper Schmeichel made fatal mistakes and his performances at times was like a horror movie, so when will it be possible for Danny Ward to get a chance to play, only if Kasper is injured. Look at Frank Lampard and how he made it clear that Kepa has no future anymore after making silly mistakes. Brendan Rodgers is known for his “soft” approach and overlooking facts that are important if you want to win with a squad.
Ward should have been given the gloves for the games after that Bournemouth game, this would have given a clear message to the squad that errors of that type is totally unacceptable in the professional game and it should be addressed.
The inclusion of Wes Morgan and his presence was questioned a few weeks ago when Ryan Bennett was in front and selected before Morgan. Strangely Brendan Rodgers changed his idea about Bennett and totally overlooked his loan signing from Wolves in the end.
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The use of Hamza Choudhury and Nampalys Mendy is also something to address as the two were one minute in and another totally forgotten, Hamza not selected, Mendy was in, then Mendy was out and Hamza in. Praet played out of position and signed for what reason?, an offensive player and always used in a central position at Anderlecht and Sampdoria, mostly played out of position at Leicester City looking at times totally lost in his positioning and uncertain about most decisions out on the field.
Praet is also a player that is used to play week in and week out and has done so for the past seven or eight seasons, and suddenly finds himself mostly as a sub, something he has little or no experience from. A player needs to find his role and the sub role is something you have to learn and how to attack in the best way possible, Praet has absolutely no idea of how to perform coming off the bench. it takes time to adapt, and that might have cost the club 5 to 7 points this season.
The message from Brendan Rodgers yesterday is a scary approach as he will be in heavy trouble trying to find better players for a reasonable price somewhere, he might have to search the moon and further in space to find them, they don’t excist, sorry!
TCF - FILBERT WAY 