Pre Match Norwich v Leicester

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Just watched the MOTD highlights and it thouroughly backed up what I saw on Saturday.

RDL was playing so narrow for the goals it was like he was playing CD.

Every time Sanchez had the ball we had nobody anywhere near him, it was utterly shambolic. How could we leave a player like Sanchez to do what the **** he wanted? It resulted in him getting 3 goals and us losing the game.

No wonder every single side we have played so far this season has consistently targeted our right hand side.
 
Defending is not just about the defenders (shite though they were)

De Laet played with a big gaping hole in front of him. He was left hopelessly alone, and he's simply not good enough for that. Mahrez was nowhere to be seen, and Drinky and Kante were otherwise engaged

Had Albrighton been on the right hand side for the whole ninety minutes, it would have been a lot different
 
Fuchs will play. That's a given

If he does, I would expect Mahrez to be switched to the left and Albrighton to the right. I suspect that part of the reason that Mahrez is on the right is because de Laet is a better defender than Schlupp.
 
Leicester Mercury summary is very accurate:

Hope this doesn't break any rules, if so please delete MOD's.

Claudio Ranieri faces the first big test of his reign as Leicester City manager.

The Italian has previously said he wanted to see how his players reacted to a disappointment so he could assess their character, but the same has to be said about him.

So far, Ranieri has not tinkered too much with City's winning formula.

There has been a switch to a back four from the three centre-back system Nigel Pearson utilised effectively during the Great Escape last season, and there have been one or two other changes in approach.

But Ranieri has been careful not to make wholesale changes, recognising and protecting the squad's strength and character.

However, after their first setback of the season, everyone will be watching to see how Ranieri responds.

Will he throw away City's blueprint for a new game-plan, or will he be willing to accept they faced a superb Arsenal side that were simply better than them at playing the same game?

City certainly need to do something to address the number of goals they are conceding of late.

Arsenal's five-goal tally took the number of goals City have shipped to 14 in seven games. Only Sunderland have conceded more so far this season.

But, as an attacking force, City are still vibrant and irrepressible. The trick for Ranieri is how to tighten up his team defensively without sacrificing that potency.

City could have feasibly been 3-0 ahead before Arsenal scored their opening goal, and all of them could have been scored by Jamie Vardy, who is in the best form of his career.

Vardy struck the foot of Petr Cech's post two minutes before his 13th-minute opener and, five minutes later, his header from another exquisite Marc Albrighton cross took more paint off the woodwork.

However, within seconds the Gunners, who had also had an effort cleared off the line by Ritchie De Laet in the opening 10 minutes, carved their way up the field with minimal effort and Theo Walcott restored parity.

And that was how the rest of the game went, with both sides trading blows like a Rocky movie.

It was entertaining stuff, but it was a little naive from City because, when you go up against one of the Premier League's big hitters, it takes a brave side to go toe to toe, with their chin totally exposed, in such fashion.

City have enjoyed success playing an effective brand of counter-attacking football, but in the Gunners they came up against a side who have been applying that brand of the game for much longer and are better at it.

Alexis Sanchez, Mesut Ozil, Santi Cazorla and Aaron Ramsey were given far too much room by City on so many occasions, and they punished them ruthlessly.

Sanchez's first goal was a case in point as the Gunners carved City open down their left flank.

While there was an element of bad luck in how the ball eventually broke to Sanchez at the far post as the ball deflected off De Laet's attempted block, the Chile international had all the time in the world to stroke the ball home.

City were still very much in the game but Ranieri decided to try to tighten up the space in midfield. He took off Shinji Okazaki, who certainly had no luck with decisions from referee Craig Pawson in the first half, and put on an extra midfielder in Andy King.

However, the Gunners were still finding acres of space and were exploiting it with relish. Time and again Robert Huth, Wes Morgan and De Laet were forced to throw their bodies on the line to produce telling blocks, but it was desperation defending.

Goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel had produced some vital saves, too, but he will be disappointed that Sanchez was able to beat him to Ozil's cross to head home Arsenal's third.

Sanchez was awarded the freedom of the King Power Stadium to complete his hat-trick when he was able to collect the ball unmarked from a throw-in, flick the ball past N'Golo Kante and then pick his spot inside Schmeichel's near post from the edge of the box.

City showed their spirit by battling back and substitutes Andrej Kramaric and Leonardo Ulloa certainly made an impact.

Cech was arguably as busy as Schmeichel, but after he managed to deny Kramaric at close range, Vardy produced another superb finish to push himself to the top of the Premier League goalscorers' chart.

Even then Arsenal were not done, and with the last of an incredible 42 shots on goal in the game, substitute Olivier Giroud, who had completely mis-kicked a simple chance two minutes before, swept in Arsenal's fifth after the visitors had exploited more of the space generously afforded to them.

At the end, the City fans still applauded their side off the field in appreciation of a run that had seen them beaten just once before in the previous 15 Premier League games, by champions Chelsea no less.

But if that level of performance is to be replicated and another run put together, Ranieri must address their soft underbelly.

The trick is making City more solid without wrecking their exciting attacking play and losing their character.

That is the acid test for Ranieri.

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Mahrez is on the right is because de Laet is a better defender than Schlupp.

Well, we are in hot water then. As Lako has said and i have in previous posts, virtually every team attacks our R/H/S, this must be for a reason.
 
Well, we are in hot water then. As Lako has said and i have in previous posts, virtually every team attacks our R/H/S, this must be for a reason.

I don't think that's necessarily true - at least at home games. There's plenty of attacks come down the left, especially when Schlupp is defending in a particularly esoteric way. What often happens is that, since Mahrez is pretty hopeless at providing cover, de Laet is left more visibly exposed at times. Albrighton is much better at providing a first line of defence, breaking up play early.

Certainly Morgan and Huth spend more time shouting at Schlupp than at de Laet.
 
Mahrez is not the reason RDL was often more narrow than Huth, he was drawn inside so much it was cringe worthy to watch. They just had a free man out wide every time they went forward.

It was like watching the Titanic, you knew how it would end every time it went over to that side of the pitch.

Let's also not start thinking that this is an Arsenal thing, the other sides we have played against have also exposed us time after time in the same ways.

Eventually your strikers lose confidence, not at the fact they aren't scoring, but at the fact that they have got to do the business every single game to dig us out of a hole.

If Mahrez can't defend and attack then we need to use a system that puts him out of the firing line, the obvious answer is to play him centrally, but then we lose the pressing nature of our other forward.

Whatever happens we cannot keep RDL at right back if he has no cover, it is clearly costing us crazy amounts of goals.

For me Fuchs deserves a chance and I would not even think twice about putting him in for young Jeff.
 
If we're going to persist with 4 at the back, which I think we will, I can see us playing Mahrez in the middle, behind a lone striker (Vardy), with Albrighton and Dyer out wide. It would be a bit more of a 4-5-1, but would offer Schlupp and De Laet a lot more protection than one of them having to play behind Mahrez and would still offer us a lot going forward. We obviously couldn't do it this weekend, as Dyer wasn't fit.

I don't think we'll drop Mahrez, so I think it will be a forward (Okazaki, currently), who makes way for this.
 
Problem is we need the two strikers in order to break quickly and effectively.

Without Okazaki on Saturday it is doubtful whether Vardy would have scored the first goal, he drew a defender away from Vardy giving Vardy the space to run in on goal.

With two defenders on him, chances would be smothered out.
 
Problem is we need the two strikers in order to break quickly and effectively.

Without Okazaki on Saturday it is doubtful whether Vardy would have scored the first goal, he drew a defender away from Vardy giving Vardy the space to run in on goal.

With two defenders on him, chances would be smothered out.

I agree to an extent, but I would see Mahrez being given a more advanced role anyway, so this would help. I'm not advocating this for all matches, just against certain teams where they are likely to cause us huge problems out wide, as Arsenal did.
 
Problem is we need the two strikers in order to break quickly and effectively.

Without Okazaki on Saturday it is doubtful whether Vardy would have scored the first goal, he drew a defender away from Vardy giving Vardy the space to run in on goal.

With two defenders on him, chances would be smothered out.

Agreed; to me Vardy isn't a lone striker. He needs someone else with him so he can find space.
 
I don't see there being too many changes for this game. We've started the season well and we need to tighten up, but it doesn't call for wholesale changes.

Next time we play someone like Arsenal, I think he'll change the system to be tighter defensively. But I think he'll look to make subtle changes for Norwich to try and find a way to tighten up. Ranieri is a smart man and a very good tactician, so I think he'll be tweaking subtle things rather than making big changes to shape and personnel.

I think:

Schmeichel,
De Laet, Morgan, Huth, Fuchs,
Albrighton, Drinkwater, Kante, Mahrez
Vardy, Ulloa

That team could also change to 3-5-2 in the game without changing personnel, and that's something I wouldn't be surprised to see Ranieri look to do.
 
Agreed; to me Vardy isn't a lone striker. He needs someone else with him so he can find space.

Vardy would get sent off playing the lone striker imo. He would get frustrated at the lack of ball he would see and lash out.

Even worse than that is he would drop deeper to pick up the ball and then not be effective.

I still think our current system works but I also see Mahrez being better in a more central role.

Our two full backs are the issue (obviously) but I also think Schlupp and De Laet offer a lot going forwards.

Defensively though they are both very poor.
 
I don't see there being too many changes for this game. We've started the season well and we need to tighten up, but it doesn't call for wholesale changes.

Next time we play someone like Arsenal, I think he'll change the system to be tighter defensively. But I think he'll look to make subtle changes for Norwich to try and find a way to tighten up. Ranieri is a smart man and a very good tactician, so I think he'll be tweaking subtle things rather than making big changes to shape and personnel.

I think:

Schmeichel,
De Laet, Morgan, Huth, Fuchs,
Albrighton, Drinkwater, Kante, Mahrez
Vardy, Ulloa

That team could also change to 3-5-2 in the game without changing personnel, and that's something I wouldn't be surprised to see Ranieri look to do.

What do we lose with no Schlupp but a replacement in Fuchs?
 
We did not play badly against Arsenal - they played exceptionally well against us!

Instead of their normal 20 sideways passes, they moved very quickly with fast one-touch passes between 3 or 4 of them. Unlike other games this season, these passes were unerringly accurate to someone moving into space, Barcelona style, and very difficult to play against.

I do not think there will be many teams that can play that well against our pressing game. The only player who looked below par for us was Mahrez, and I think he was just shut down quickly so had no space to work in.
 
Agree with the sentiment that we don't need drastic changes. There were a couple of bad individual performances and we need to improve our defending but I don't think we were helped by some poor substitution choices from Ranieri on Saturday. We were well in it 2-1 down at HT, should have bought Ulloa on from Okazaki and that was the only change needed. However he changed the formation and took off one of our more threatening players in the match.

Personally I'd start Fuchs over Schlupp, maybe Ulloa over Okazaki. Ulloa offers something different up front and also is a good player to have on the pitch defensively, seems to make a lot of clearing headers when defending set pieces. We don't have much aerial presence without him.
 
I would also like to see Ulloa, he looks very good with his feet when he has played this season.
 
Regardless of whether it is of popular opinion or not, Simpson looked far more assured than RDL during the WH game and, in a back 4, is a better option in my opinion. Ulloa has looked very tidy during his cameos as well and should be given the nod against Norwich. It's a no brainer to start with Fuchs at LB but for me, in place of Schlupp not as well as.
 
We did not play badly against Arsenal - they played exceptionally well against us!

If you play a high line with two slow central defenders and no covering full backs against Walcott, you're going to make him look like a sensational striker whether he is one or not.

If you play nobody against Sanchez and let him receive the ball unchallenged, run into empty space and back off him when we are close, he's good enough to take the piss.

The truth is that we allowed those two key Arsenal players to look good against us.
 
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