| Fine Margins ... 10:39 - Dec 4 with 1674 views | Bellevue_Blue |
Whilst yesterdays performance was by no means any good, and we're really struggling going forward I do reflect and think that It's not quite going for us at the minute.
Leicester won 3-1 last night, had 8 shots and conceded 31 shots on goal. In comparison, Palace had 13 shots yesterday to our 9, against Forest we had 7 to their 12.
We have to improve our chance creation but I can't help but we feel we need a little bit of luck to come our way over the next few!
We aren't far off ... |  | | |  |
| Fine Margins ... on 10:42 - Dec 4 with 1631 views | FrimleyBlue |
Im surprised there were 22 shots between both sides last night. Really didn't feel like it lol |  |
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| Fine Margins ... on 10:42 - Dec 4 with 1631 views | bournemouthblue |
Spurs is about the only game I can think of where luck has gone in our favour
I appreciate luck isn't by accident, we do need something to turn
Forest and Brentford particularly come to mind in terms of things going against us |  |
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| Fine Margins ... on 10:51 - Dec 4 with 1574 views | TractorJack |
Don't know how on earth Leicester have managed 3 wins. We were much better than them 11v11 |  | | |
| Fine Margins ... on 10:53 - Dec 4 with 1559 views | Marshalls_Mullet |
| Fine Margins ... on 10:51 - Dec 4 by TractorJack |
Don't know how on earth Leicester have managed 3 wins. We were much better than them 11v11 |
Not sure about that, they have a lot more Premier League experience and a seasoned PL striker. |  |
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| Fine Margins ... on 10:57 - Dec 4 with 1525 views | Wickets |
Lets not forget Palace had three one on ones with our keeper last night Muric did well to save two of them . |  | | |
| Fine Margins ... on 11:15 - Dec 4 with 1470 views | HighgateBlue |
Fine margins is a very fair summation, and I suppose the hope must be that incremental gains can flip those margins in our favour. Lots of fair-minded neutrals (journalist, pundits, other fans) have commented that we have been "competitive" in almost all games, and this is something that Kieran has observed as well. That helps keep our chins I guess.
But last night Palace were not great, and we were still pretty toothless. It's a well-worn idea, but if we can't beat the struggling teams at home, we're surely going to struggle to get those wins (half a dozen minimum, surely?) that we need to be in with a shout of staying up. We're not out of touch yet, but even a draw between Everton and Wolves tonight (which might be the best result for us?) will leave us 3 points adrift of safety, and it's taking us a lot of time to get 3 points these days.
Talking specifically about shots and goals, Leicester won with a clinical trademark Vardy finish, which left them 1-0 at 80 minutes, after which it's always going to be stretched with the opposition trying to chase the game. I love that Delap has a bit of technique about him in addition to his physicality, and he's obviously a great find, a great asset and a great guy. But we don't have the clinical finishing that Vardy brings Leicester, which will be necessary if we're going to continue to create so few decent chances.
Leicester may have ridden their luck or defended well (I didn't watch the whole thing), but they scored 3 goals against an xG of 2.78. They created those 2.78 goals worth of chances. They then scored more than that. Our xG was just 0.47. That is nowhere near good enough at home to a struggling side. This season we're scoring 1 goal a game against an xG of 1.07 so our finishing isn't terrible, but if you're bottom of the league for xG (as we are), you either have to have an incredible defence or absolutely clinical finishing. At present we have neither.
A little bit of luck would indeed be nice, but I really only see Brentford and Leicester (coming close together of course) as the really unlucky games. And holding on to our 2-0 lead until halftime against Brentford would have allowed us to make our own luck. |  | | |
| Fine Margins ... on 11:28 - Dec 4 with 1429 views | Benters |
| Fine Margins ... on 10:51 - Dec 4 by TractorJack |
Don't know how on earth Leicester have managed 3 wins. We were much better than them 11v11 |
The table doesn’t lie ba. |  |
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| Fine Margins ... on 11:28 - Dec 4 with 1426 views | Benters |
| Fine Margins ... on 10:53 - Dec 4 by Marshalls_Mullet |
Not sure about that, they have a lot more Premier League experience and a seasoned PL striker. |
This. | |
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| Fine Margins ... on 11:30 - Dec 4 with 1425 views | Superblue95 |
You say we aren’t far off but the trouble is we don’t create enough chances and we look like conceding every time a team counters on us.
We take our game up a few levels for the better teams (Spurs, Man Utd, Liverpool, Villa, Brighton) but put in flat performances in games we should be targeting points from (Palace, Everton, Southampton, Forest).
Players are possibly struggling with the pressure of knowing they need to get points in them games. Confidence is an issue too, last season when we went behind the players all seemed to believe they could get straight back in the game. Last night it felt like half the players (and the crowd) knew we’d lost the second Mateta scored.
We’ve had bad luck with injuries, officials and individual errors that have contributed to our slow start but if some of the players have started to think we’re screwed then we are already relegated. |  |
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| Fine Margins ... on 11:30 - Dec 4 with 1426 views | Basuco |
I am surprised that Jacob Greaves or others, did not make more of a fuss about the hand on Greaves back to make sure he went down, while it was not a full push, I have seen many goals chalked off for similar. Agree the team are not far away but Delap has been isolated on his own the last two game which means teams can put two CB's on him, we need to get someone else closer to him. Injuries are beginning to really hurt us. |  | | |
| Fine Margins ... on 11:36 - Dec 4 with 1383 views | HighgateBlue |
| Fine Margins ... on 10:57 - Dec 4 by Wickets |
Lets not forget Palace had three one on ones with our keeper last night Muric did well to save two of them . |
Yes, Muric is more credit than debit so far this season for me.
Mateta clearly had a plan for beating him in a one on one (according to what he said afterwards) but he still had to execute it, and Muric cannot be said to be at fault for the goal, or to have a dodgy technique on one on ones. | | | |
| Fine Margins ... on 11:41 - Dec 4 with 1339 views | Bellevue_Blue |
| Fine Margins ... on 11:30 - Dec 4 by Superblue95 |
You say we aren’t far off but the trouble is we don’t create enough chances and we look like conceding every time a team counters on us.
We take our game up a few levels for the better teams (Spurs, Man Utd, Liverpool, Villa, Brighton) but put in flat performances in games we should be targeting points from (Palace, Everton, Southampton, Forest).
Players are possibly struggling with the pressure of knowing they need to get points in them games. Confidence is an issue too, last season when we went behind the players all seemed to believe they could get straight back in the game. Last night it felt like half the players (and the crowd) knew we’d lost the second Mateta scored.
We’ve had bad luck with injuries, officials and individual errors that have contributed to our slow start but if some of the players have started to think we’re screwed then we are already relegated. |
Totally agree, we've not been good enough. The Hirst injury and poor striker planning in August is inevitably coming back to bit us now. Ali is so far off it and we knew that last season when he rarely made an impact in the Champ.
We hold our own in almost every first half and then when the game opens up and we make subs, we get weaker, we lose momentum and we don't have the quality to win these games with not much in them. | | | |
| Fine Margins ... on 11:46 - Dec 4 with 1300 views | soupytwist |
| Fine Margins ... on 10:57 - Dec 4 by Wickets |
Lets not forget Palace had three one on ones with our keeper last night Muric did well to save two of them . |
They did, and Muric made two good saves. However, one of them (second half) was entirely of Muric's own making when he could have come out to claim a ball but left it so the Palace player could chase it down and have a shot. |  | | |
| Fine Margins ... on 11:47 - Dec 4 with 1291 views | HighgateBlue |
| Fine Margins ... on 10:53 - Dec 4 by Marshalls_Mullet |
Not sure about that, they have a lot more Premier League experience and a seasoned PL striker. |
Yes! Vardy is at least part of the answer, and certainly was last night. He's absolutely clinical. Leicester have played 5 of the 6 other teams in the bottom seven, and he's scored in 3 out of those 5 games. Leicester have 7 points from those 3 games alone. We have 9 points all season.
As I've said elsewhere, Leicester had an xG of 2.78 last night, and we had 0.47. Creating four times as many chances and having Vardy on the end of them is a decent recipe.
It's very easy to think that we "look" good or "play nice football". But at the end of the day if there is a large disparity between a person's subjective interpretation of the game and the objective reality, then the most likely explanation is that the subjective interpretation is either plain wrong, or values different factors than those factors which cause a team to have actual success.
We are rock bottom of the league for xG (1.07), and last night we created less than half of even that very lowly average (0.47). I don't have any answers, but I suspect the lowest hanging fruit is a headed goal. We're the only team without one. | | | |
| Fine Margins ... on 12:18 - Dec 4 with 1212 views | Vegtablue |
| Fine Margins ... on 11:15 - Dec 4 by HighgateBlue |
Fine margins is a very fair summation, and I suppose the hope must be that incremental gains can flip those margins in our favour. Lots of fair-minded neutrals (journalist, pundits, other fans) have commented that we have been "competitive" in almost all games, and this is something that Kieran has observed as well. That helps keep our chins I guess.
But last night Palace were not great, and we were still pretty toothless. It's a well-worn idea, but if we can't beat the struggling teams at home, we're surely going to struggle to get those wins (half a dozen minimum, surely?) that we need to be in with a shout of staying up. We're not out of touch yet, but even a draw between Everton and Wolves tonight (which might be the best result for us?) will leave us 3 points adrift of safety, and it's taking us a lot of time to get 3 points these days.
Talking specifically about shots and goals, Leicester won with a clinical trademark Vardy finish, which left them 1-0 at 80 minutes, after which it's always going to be stretched with the opposition trying to chase the game. I love that Delap has a bit of technique about him in addition to his physicality, and he's obviously a great find, a great asset and a great guy. But we don't have the clinical finishing that Vardy brings Leicester, which will be necessary if we're going to continue to create so few decent chances.
Leicester may have ridden their luck or defended well (I didn't watch the whole thing), but they scored 3 goals against an xG of 2.78. They created those 2.78 goals worth of chances. They then scored more than that. Our xG was just 0.47. That is nowhere near good enough at home to a struggling side. This season we're scoring 1 goal a game against an xG of 1.07 so our finishing isn't terrible, but if you're bottom of the league for xG (as we are), you either have to have an incredible defence or absolutely clinical finishing. At present we have neither.
A little bit of luck would indeed be nice, but I really only see Brentford and Leicester (coming close together of course) as the really unlucky games. And holding on to our 2-0 lead until halftime against Brentford would have allowed us to make our own luck. |
Delap is still 5th in the league for outperforming his xG as it happens. He 'missed' his glorious chance against Man Utd, scuffed his decent header last night, but overall he's been very clinical for us. Even his two efforts against the post this season, it was outrageous he came so close to scoring. Vardy is some way down the list, marginally ahead of his xG and behind other Leicester players. His game allows Leicester to create chances from so little, though, and Leicester have a couple of these players. They've been more clinical than us overall and they create more than us overall. I wouldn't like to see how many points we'd be on if Delap had started quietly. 😬 | | | |
| Fine Margins ... on 12:26 - Dec 4 with 1186 views | TIB |
With injuries I just don’t think we have the quality out wide currently to keep on with this system. Would like to see a switch to a back 3, BJ and Davis wingbacks and run with Omari and SS behind Delap.
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| Fine Margins ... on 12:45 - Dec 4 with 1128 views | bournemouthblue |
| Fine Margins ... on 10:53 - Dec 4 by Marshalls_Mullet |
Not sure about that, they have a lot more Premier League experience and a seasoned PL striker. |
Two really if you include Ayew and a fair bit more PL experience through the squad | |
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| Fine Margins ... on 14:15 - Dec 4 with 981 views | Vaughan8 |
| Fine Margins ... on 10:53 - Dec 4 by Marshalls_Mullet |
Not sure about that, they have a lot more Premier League experience and a seasoned PL striker. |
Agreed. We still seem a bit naive and inexperienced at this level.
I do believe Leicester have been lucky with some things, i.e. drew with Spurs when they should have been out of sight, Drew with us, West ham last night. That is probably 5 "undeserved" points on just those.
We just need to win a game however lucky it is. We don't need the "we played ok but got nothing" to carry on too much longer. Really wish we had a plan B (other than personnel changes) | | | |
| Fine Margins ... on 15:56 - Dec 4 with 898 views | BloomBlue |
There are fine margins, but we still need to be professional. J Clarke has a chance against Everton that Mrs Bloom could have at least put on target, but Clarke puts it high and wide. Put that in, different game.- lack of professionalism
People talk about fine margins at Brentford, when you're 2-0 with 2 minutes to halftime and you go in at 2-2 - lack of professionalism. A good professional team boots that ball down the pitch even if it goes out for a throwin before that first goal.
Be professional in those situations and fine margins are irrelevant
You mention Leicester, but last night they were 1-0 and kept it at that to half time.
It doesn't need to be about luck.
On the flip side, we will never if it made any difference but Omar's goal against ManU takes a slight deflection off a defenders head, without that who knows. Fine margin you could argue in our favour |  | | |
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