Graz
Well-Known Member
A month ago tomorrow - we played 3-5-2 against Arsenal, and the game before against Brentford. Amartey, Evans and Fofana as centre backs in those games.
They're talking about us
- Thread starter Brown Nose
- Start date
A month ago tomorrow - we played 3-5-2 against Arsenal, and the game before against Brentford. Amartey, Evans and Fofana as centre backs in those games.
ThaiSweetChilli
Well-Known Member
Amartey is the issue there.
We can never feel satisfied until we have 3 real CBs in those positions.
Graz
Well-Known Member
Amartey is crap, but he is a centre back as much as he is anything else. I don't think you can blame that on Amartey playing out of position; just the fact that he was unfortunately playing.
ThaiSweetChilli
Well-Known Member
I'm not blaming him necessarily, I just hate the fact that we don't have our strongest players on the pitch.
I don't think CB is his position as it happens. I also believe he is far inferior to Soyuncu (with Evans)
Lako42
Well-Known Member
Yes but it's what she would have wanted
jb5000
Well-Known Member
I've no idea why we're talking about three at the back when between Ndidi and Mendy we have a good choice of defensive midfielders to shield a two. Barnes is fit now to provide width on the left, and we can cobble together something with Perez, Albrighton, even Maddison or Daka, to do the job on the right
ThaiSweetChilli
Well-Known Member
This is also an option.
Brown Nose
Well-Known Member
The problem is we don't have two reliable central defenders.
Also worth noting that Faes has been used to playing in a three.
Having a third is about cover.
M17TT C
Well-Known Member
We're struggling just for 2 decent CBs at the moment so not sure why we would want to try and play 3 of them at the same time?.....
That's before you consider that we usually look awful and create the square root of **** all with 3 at the back as it doesn't allow us to fit our best attacking players into their best positions.
We don't have good enough full backs to play them as wing backs either - they are both (Justin & Timmy) very good at being supporting full backs and helping with the wingers but they are not skillful enough to play out there on their own.
We should just go back to the formation we played when we looked at our best - the 4-1-4-1/ 4-2-3-1 system.
Justin & Timmy as full backs, Evans & Wouty Mc Wout Faes in the middle.
Ndidi holding.
Tielemans box to box.
Maddison further forward.
Barnes on the left
Perez on the right
Vardiniho up front.
That's before you consider that we usually look awful and create the square root of **** all with 3 at the back as it doesn't allow us to fit our best attacking players into their best positions.
We don't have good enough full backs to play them as wing backs either - they are both (Justin & Timmy) very good at being supporting full backs and helping with the wingers but they are not skillful enough to play out there on their own.
We should just go back to the formation we played when we looked at our best - the 4-1-4-1/ 4-2-3-1 system.
Justin & Timmy as full backs, Evans & Wouty Mc Wout Faes in the middle.
Ndidi holding.
Tielemans box to box.
Maddison further forward.
Barnes on the left
Perez on the right
Vardiniho up front.
ThaiSweetChilli
Well-Known Member
I like this, I just think we should be looking for three at the back or two holding especially with the amount of goals we've shipped.
Feriol
Well-Known Member
I know our right sided attacking options are a weakness, but I genuinely think that playing with some attacking width will help our defence. Too often we are being overrun because the opposition full backs or wing backs have the freedom of the pitch, just having someone to keep them occupied defensively will be a relief to the whole team.
Brown Nose
Well-Known Member
From the Athletic:
Martyn Glover: Leicester’s new head of recruitment who appears a perfect fit
By Rob Tanner2h ago
The job of head of recruitment is crucial at clubs like Leicester City. Their problems in this summer’s transfer window, when the role was vacant, has emphasised how vital it is.
With their place in football’s pecking order meaning they cannot generate the revenue to compete dollar for dollar with the “Big Six”, Leicester’s ability to wheel and deal has been at the heart of their success in recent years. The model of selling off one key asset each summer, but reinvesting in up-and-coming talent they can develop into further saleable assets, has served them well.
It has not all gone to the same tried-and-tested plan over the past couple of summers, though, and their woeful start to the season can be attributed to these struggles.
No asset was sold after 2020-21 but a net record of £55million ($63.5m) was spent in that window on what manager Brendan Rodgers now admits have turned out to be only backup players.
This summer’s struggles are well-documented, when Wesley Fofana was sold for £70million to Chelsea just days before the September 1 deadline and one outfield player arrived to replace him, one-cap Belgium international defender Wout Faes.
The club’s concerns over financial fair play rules were at the heart of their problems but what did not help them in terms of getting more done was the lack of a head of recruitment.
After the departure of Lee Congerton, who had been Rodgers’ selection for the role when he arrived from Celtic in 2019, to Serie A club Atalanta in March, the club’s hierarchy decided to choose his successor this time and went for Martyn Glover, who held the same role at Southampton.
However, Southampton were unhappy with this approach for their highly-respected recruitment chief and forced Glover to go on gardening leave until the end of the summer window — a situation that hindered Leicester’s ability to shift players deemed surplus to both create room in the squad and generate finances to bring in the targets that had been identified.
With the window closing two weeks ago, the 55-year-old was finally allowed to take up his new role this week. He will immediately begin planning for the January window and, more importantly, drawing up next summer’s transfer plans.
Leicester have been patient over landing Glover because his background and record show he shares a similar philosophy to theirs.
Every penny counts and at the heart of their recruitment policy has always been the essential requirement that when it comes to operating in the transfer market they have to get it right, because there is not an endless budget to fix things if they do not. Recent arrivals such as Ryan Bertrand, Jannik Vestergaard and Boubakary Soumare have proved that.
Every player has to fit the club’s profile and philosophy. Simply being a good footballer does not equate to being a successful signing for Leicester. It is a view Glover shares.
“My strengths will be my organisational skills and the contacts I have built up over the years,” he told the BBC shortly after being appointed as head of recruitment at Leeds United in 2015. He has now been in the game for 24 years, “hopefully, my abilities to spot the talents that are the right fit for the club to move it forward, in terms of what you actually need.
“It isn’t a case of just getting good players, it has to be players that fit what you are looking for at that particular time. That has hopefully been my niche.”
It sounds familiar because it was a principle developed by Leicester’s then-head of recruitment Steve Walsh during the two tenures of manager Nigel Pearson — the first under the tight financial constraints of the Milan Mandaric years and the second under the much better resourced and more ambitious period following the takeover by the King Power group.
Following Walsh’s departure to Everton in 2016 — immediately after an unlikely Premier League title win that was due predominantly to the ability to unearth hidden gems such as Riyad Mahrez, Jamie Vardy and N’Golo Kante — Eduardo Macia took the reins. Now it is the turn of Glover, a man with a background and history reminiscent of Walsh — he seems to fit the profile for Leicester.
Like Chorley lad Walsh, Glover is also from Lancashire — born and bred in Bury — and just like Walsh, he initially went into education after realising he was not going to make the grade as a professional footballer as a youngster coming through as a forward at his hometown club.
He studied for a degree in physical education and coaching at Leeds Carnegie, living in the Headingley area of the Yorkshire city and during his four years at college also did community coaching with the Leeds Coaching Association.
When Glover graduated, he got his first teaching job at QEGS (Queen Elizabeth Grammar School) in the Lancashire town of Blackburn, a private school with a football programme. He spent eight years there, six as a PE teacher and then two as director of sport.
It was while teaching that Glover got his break in the professional game, coaching part-time and during the school holidays for local club Blackburn Rovers, as they rose to become Premier League champions in the early 1990s. When centres of excellence were replaced by academies, he was offered a full-time role as an education and welfare officer by Blackburn and he later became head of youth recruitment.
In total Glover spent 13 years at Blackburn, working in the academy for a decade, then moving up to the first team, initially as assistant chief scout, assisting Mike Rigg, when Mark Hughes was the manager.
In the summer of 2008, Hughes and Rigg left for Manchester City and after a short stint under Paul Ince as assistant chief scout, Sam Allardyce arrived as manager and made Glover his overall head of recruitment. Their relationship would be a recurring theme.
Glover followed Allardyce to West Ham United in the summer of 2011, following the Venky’s takeover at Blackburn.
West Ham had just been relegated to the Championship and Glover faced a huge task to slim down a bloated squad left by previous manager Avram Grant. Twenty-one players went out that summer while 12 came in.
The overhaul worked as West Ham were promoted back to the Premier League at the first time of asking via the play-offs, but that only meant another busy summer for Glover to build a squad ready for the top flight. Another 14 players departed with 11 being signed.
After four seasons, Allardyce’s contract was not renewed and he left the east London club. Glover moved back to the north to take up the head of recruitment role with Leeds, which was closer to his family home.
He was there just seven months and only oversaw one transfer window, signing striker Chris Wood from Leicester for £3million (he was sold to Burnley in 2017 for £15million). He also landed Stuart Dallas for around £1.5million. Dallas remains a Leeds stalwart, making 72 straight Premier League starts since their promotion two years ago before a leg injury ended his 2021-22 season early.
Once again, it was a call from Allardyce that took Glover to his next destination, Sunderland.
Again, it was a brief stay, just six months, but it was a successful one. Glover oversaw the key January transfer window that transformed Sunderland’s 2015-16 season with the signings of Jan Kirchhoff, Lamine Kone and Wahbi Khazri as they survived in the Premier League, at the expense of their bitter local rivals Newcastle United.
It was after Allardyce left in summer 2016 to take over as England manager that Glover got a call from Walsh to join him at Everton. Although the pair knew each other from the recruitment circuit, the day they met to discuss the position of chief scout was the first time they had spoken at length.
It was a chaotic time at Everton under new ownership following Farhad Moshiri’s takeover, with the club seemingly disjointed and without a clear plan. Glover spent nearly three seasons at Goodison Park and in that time he worked with Ronald Koeman, Allardyce again, with Craig Shakespeare as his assistant and finally Marco Silva. There were also two directors of football with Marcel Brands coming in when Walsh was sacked on the day that Allardyce left in May 2018.
The opportunity to join Southampton came up in 2019 and it was a better fit — a smaller club but one with a clear understanding of their niche in terms of recruitment and a more aligned decision-making process. He was able to make a real impact there as head of senior recruitment.
Glover found Southampton to be a family club where everyone was pulling in the same direction and there was an emphasis on youth development — signing top young talents who could play in the first team immediately but still had plenty of scope to develop, improve and potentially be sold on for a profit.
He brought in Kyle Walker-Peters, Mohammed Salisu and Ibrahima Diallo in his first full summer window, selling on Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg to Tottenham. Ten players arrived last season, including Tino Livramento, Armando Broja and Adam Armstrong, as Southampton went through a squad overhaul similar to the one Leicester now have planned. The most notable sales were Danny Ings to Aston Villa for £25million and Vestergaard to Leicester for £15million.
Glover is regarded among agents and scouts as a good operator and has vast experience. He will work closely with Callum Smithson, the head of technical scouting, and his staff.
Leicester look a good fit for him, too. His family have remained in the north of England while Glover has been based in the south for the past couple of years and he will be working at a well-run club, structured so that everyone knows their roles, and where sensible recruitment is vital.
His knowledge and relationship with Rodgers will be crucial to taking Leicester forward and challenge the established elite of the Premier League again.
Miles Away
Well-Known Member
Miles Away
Well-Known Member
Maddison should absolutely be in the England squad.
Maddison has scored more goals in the league this season than Foden, Bowen, Mount and Grealish combined.
He has more assists than Grealish, Mount and Bowen.
FOX Franks
Well-Known Member
Maddison definitely should.
glyn
Well-Known Member
Especially when people such as Anthony Gordon get mentioned for call ups
M17TT C
Well-Known Member
Without checking, he's consistently out performed all/most of them if you measure it the past 3 seasons too.
It's madness he's been overlooked.
Must be a personal thing between him and Southgate.
The problem for us though, especially whilst we are doing shit in the league, there is pretty much no chance we get him to sign a new contract here.
Brown Nose
Well-Known Member
Maddison would be daft to stay here.
Look at Grealish. He was rarely selected for England whilst smashing it at Villa. He goes to Man City and is terrible but is always selected.
The problem for Maddison is that he doesn't get into any of the 'big six' teams. They either have better already or don't play in a way that would accommodate him.
Look at Grealish. He was rarely selected for England whilst smashing it at Villa. He goes to Man City and is terrible but is always selected.
The problem for Maddison is that he doesn't get into any of the 'big six' teams. They either have better already or don't play in a way that would accommodate him.
Championship
| P | Pld | Pts | |
| 1 | Ipswich | 43 | 89 |
| 2 | Leicester | 42 | 88 |
| 3 | Leeds Utd | 43 | 87 |
| 4 | Southampton | 42 | 84 |
| 5 | West Brom | 43 | 72 |
| 6 | Norwich City | 43 | 71 |
| 7 | Hull City | 42 | 65 |
| 8 | Coventry City | 42 | 63 |
| 9 | Middlesbro | 43 | 63 |
| 10 | Preston | 43 | 63 |
| 11 | Cardiff City | 43 | 59 |
| 12 | Bristol City | 43 | 58 |
| 13 | Sunderland | 43 | 56 |
| 14 | Swansea City | 43 | 53 |
| 15 | Watford | 43 | 52 |
| 16 | Millwall | 43 | 50 |
| 17 | Blackburn | 43 | 49 |
| 18 | Plymouth | 43 | 48 |
| 19 | QPR | 43 | 47 |
| 20 | Stoke City | 43 | 47 |
| 21 | Birmingham | 43 | 45 |
| 22 | Huddersfield | 43 | 44 |
| 23 | Sheffield W | 43 | 44 |
| 24 | Rotherham Utd | 43 | 23 |
