Banana Skin?

Surely citing ihenancho and £25m shows that spending it on a defender may have resulted in the same outcome.

We are ultimately saying ‘just imagine if we had better players in different positions’ - surely that’s a given.

The defence isn’t my biggest concern at the moment, but I’m going to allow myself some time to reflect on this loss (which was far closer than the result suggests) before making a sweeping judgment. The one thing we do know that is now more than just a 90 minute loss is that Vardy is becoming more isolated in this formation and that attacking impotency has an affect on us defensively, particularly without Okazaki.

This may all be sorted involuntary come January if Mahrez goes

comment by Keep_the_faith1 (U8129)
posted 1 minute ago
Surely citing ihenancho and £25m shows that spending it on a defender may have resulted in the same outcome.

We are ultimately saying ‘just imagine if we had better players in different positions’ - surely that’s a given.

The defence isn’t my biggest concern at the moment, but I’m going to allow myself some time to reflect on this loss (which was far closer than the result suggests) before making a sweeping judgment. The one thing we do know that is now more than just a 90 minute loss is that Vardy is becoming more isolated in this formation and that attacking impotency has an affect on us defensively, particularly without Okazaki.

This may all be sorted involuntary come January if Mahrez goes
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The point which you seem to be spectacularly missing is that we spent a large sum of money on a player who wasn't needed for a position where we had enough competition when we desperately needed to shore up the defence.

How can the defence not be your biggest concern - have you even watched us in the last 4 weeks?!! Check the number of goals we concede per game - you can't carry on like that.

Good god.....

The defence is a massive concern for me , we need competition at right back and I think Dragovic needs a run out too. Wes was very poor today.

Saying the defence isn't his biggest concern when we have conceded 25 goals in 18 games and concede more from corners than any other team in the PL

Going back to today’s match and the “smaller picture”, I was annoyed by Iborra’s push which cost us the opportunity to get back into the game. Well picked up by the referee but we don’t seem to have learned from these types of instances over many, many years where stupidity/naivety on our part has resulted in a goal being disallowed. Had that “goal” stood, it may well have been the game changer. I can’t recall many chances being created up until that point and I’m angry about it.

I go to almost every game home and away.

My riposte to your point is that we needed to sure up the defence and we purchased a new central defender who has been very good on the whole. Perhaps my point in return has been missed maybe through miscommunication. Reactively in the context of the here and now I am not saying we don’t need further defensive recruitment, I am saying at the time, nobody was moaning that we didn’t purchase TWO double-figure multi million pound players (Despite us trying to) and people WERE saying we needed another striker as Vardy wasn’t getting any younger and we didn’t have enough goal threat/goal scoring in that area. Of course it is easier to say now that we could have relied more on Okazaki for goals and invested the money in another central defender (again, Im unsure who this central defender is that we could have purchased as we did try to negotiate deals for others). My main concern is any threat to our team morale and unity that we have built and I worry most that by steering away from Okazakis inclusion and by isolating Vardy we are going to have a detrimental affect on this. In addition, this is having an affect on our defensive unit and ability to provide cover for the back 5. I never have really thought of defensive assurance as a departmental concern for 4 or 5 players but a cohesive team responsibility and tactical decision. Ergo, I am concerned about our defensive aptitude but perhaps I don’t see that limited to our back 5 player choices or transfers (perhaps I am wrong with this way of thinking). Ultimately having concerns about our defensive abilities and aptitude can be different to our defensive player selections and certainly in the hierarchy of concerns, a different perspective on where hindsight subjective reflections on player purchases rests in that pyramid.

But that’s why we are here, to debate rather than ridicule

N'Didi will be out for Tuesday's game not Man Utd

It would be much easier not to ridicule if you didn't keep making such daft points - or at least putting them across in a way that opens you up to ridicule. Like saying the defence isn't the biggest concern for example. It's your opinion but a mind boggling one

Yes people were saying we needed more defensive recruitments in the summer - no one I know was happy with just the one defensive addition. We have been saying the same thing for almost 2 years.

Iheanacho is a confusing signing - exciting at the time I will admit but he isn't the same as Vardy and our priority was not to solve the goal scoring issue

“It would be much easier not to ridicule if you didn't keep making such daft points -“

Well I think it’s a shame you choose to ridicule because it’s easy, but there are much worse things happening in the world. And I also appreciate you are probably annoyed, I may seem calm on a forum but I kicked a lamppost after the game and will probably be out with a Beckham injury now for several weeks

Re: defence.

You asked me to reflect on the last month of games prior to today...I’m excluding the Man City game for obvious reasons... and I am left reflecting on 5 games:
4 of which we won and 1 of which we drew.

We scored 11 and conceded 5.

In terms of points and GF and GA, upper echelons of the league.

What do I see that as? Progress.

I think there is room for improvement, particularly after today, but let’s have some perspective in terms of the game. You yourself pre-empted knee-jerk reaction to what would be 90 minutes.

I have explained my perspective on defensive improvements and the different between defensive recruitment and defensive responsibility as a collective and the affect of this and it’s position with regard to our priorities moving forward.

You mention Gray et al and their heroics that get the back line out of the brown stuff but refrain from reflection on how many times other players cover them in terms of defensive duty.

As I mentioned, our defensive integrity as a team is a concern for me but I perhaps see that more as a reflection on formation, player discipline, in game tactics, etc as opposed to simply reflecting on spending 25m in August and how that would have changed things.

I guess ultimately, the nuts and bolts of my initial riposte is that signing another defender for 25m (again, who this player is that we could have got who we didn’t try to I don’t know) wouldn’t have just solved any defensive shortcomings over the last month as it isn’t like a game of championship manager (I’m assuming you mean we should have replaced Morgan by the way) and additionally, I think you are being harsh on our defence during the cited period of the last month, when, on the whole, I think they have been okay - particularly considering changes in front of them, around them, and encouragement to pass the ball out more on occasions and get forward more - to assist with a comparison consider when Ranieri asked the team to do something similar and tinkered around after the title winning season

If we had been playing the same way, the same team, the same formation and regression had occurred in our defensive line continually , I would be extremely concerned. But this hasn’t been the case.