Are Leicester City going down?
Defeat to the bottom club at the weekend leaves Leicester hovering two points outside the relegation zone. With 13 games to go, are we on the brink of a slump through the Championship trap draw?
Yes
Looking at the remaining fixtures and assuming we need a minimum of 4 wins and a few draws, I can’t see where the points are coming from.
All the teams below and around us are showing more fight and nous than us, whilst we appear to be sleepwalking into a disaster with a squad who should be nowhere near the bottom three.
Brendan Rodgers has run out of excuses and obviously has no idea how to get us out of this. He is now resorting to throwing on all our strikers at once with no attacking plan when chasing games (at the expense of playing Maddison in his best position). Meanwhile we continue to pass the ball hopelessly and sluggishly around the back in everyone’s favourite ‘horseshoe’ pattern.
There is no conviction or confidence to get at teams who we should be easily beating, and the diminishing mental strength and leadership within the squad means that we are relying on one player to carry us to safety. Even he looked despondent and lost at times on Saturday.
Beyond what’s happening on the pitch, there aren’t enough players in the squad who genuinely care if we do get relegated. Many of them won’t be here to pick up the pieces next season and beyond. They (like us) just want this nightmare season to end.
Sacking Rodgers is the last roll of the dice and I’m convinced that we’d see an instant improvement whoever steps in.
Matt Jedruch
Yes. 'We're too good to go down' is the exact mentality that'll take us there. I can't believe it's taken people until now to even start contemplating that we might be relegated.
If you're in a relegation battle you need fight, energy and togetherness, 3 things that would be the last words I'd use to describe us at the minute.
Technical ability obviously gets you some of the way, player for player we probably have better players than most of the teams around us, but we're bereft of confidence and ideas.
When your backs are up against the wall you've got to show you want it but I just don't see that from most of our team. Victor Kristiansen seemed like he had the right attitude, now he's injured it's knocked any hope I had. Brendan has built a 'nice' team and wants to play 'nice football', looming relegation certainly isn't nice!
The only thing that could save us is there are about 9 terrible teams in the league, but I've seen more fight from most of them when I've watched them.
Becky Taylor
No
I've said all season I don't think we'll go down and I'm standing by that, although Saturday's result was a huge blow for us. That said, I thought the performance level was fine and had we taken just one of four gilt-edged chances on another day we'd have taken something from the game.
I didn't think we deserved to lose and created enough chances to win the game, but we have to turn performances into points and on more than one occasion this season we have been punished for our profligacy in front of goal.
Anything more than three points would be a bonus from the next two games before the international break, then we've got a decent run of fixtures especially at home. Realistically, we should score enough goals from the number of chances we create to get 16 more points this season from the remaining 13 games and keep us in the division.
I think it's three from nine up to and including Crystal Palace and I still think there are at least three worse teams than us.
Jordan Halford
Ultimately, our quality up front will win us enough points to survive. Southampton felt like a disastrous result, but this is the Leicester pattern this season: we’re very streaky and we only need one little run to save us. Normally the run kicks off as soon as the executioner places Brendan’s head on the block.
For what it’s worth, the Opta model still only has us with about an 8% chance to go down. Which seems outrageously low, but us getting relegated relies on teams like Southampton and Bournemouth winning four or five games themselves.
Not only do those teams suck, but the nature of a relegation battle with half the league in is that every week teams in the fight are playing each other, so they can’t all pick up points.
I think the real danger is the injury list. As long as Maddison and Iheanacho play most of the games I’m confident we’ll get the 12 points or so we need. If (…when) we lose another key player, we’re struggling.
James Knight
I'm going to say the same thing to the people reading this as I said to my daughter. I couldn't bring myself to say yes when she asked the question and I can't say yes now either.
We will stay up, but we're in huge trouble.
There's no doubt that Brendan is a top manager. However, the way I see it is that Brendan is successful when he's working with players who are at the elite level in their respective leagues, which is what he's done throughout his career. In those circumstances, as was the case in his first two years here, he can give his nuanced tactical plans, retain possession comfortably and rely on superior quality winning battles vs inferior opposition.
The reality is though, for a variety of reasons, we only have a smattering of elite level players in the squad now. Therefore, his tactics and set up simply don't work, especially when a lot of our better players are injured again. Brendan doesn't appear to have a skill set that can wring every last ounce out of a team to make them better than superior (or well organised) opposition. A team in the mire should be horrible to play against, fighting for our lives... but that's not his way and he doesn't appear to want to change.
However, that said, what I think helps us is there are up to 9 teams involved in this seasons relegation battle. Therefore, I'm still confident (hopeful) that we can get a few wins in the next few games to keep our heads above the water.
What I fear the most is us being in a similar situation (or worse) to now with 5 games to go. This team can only stroll to victory (no single goal wins for nearly a year) and we'll only stay up if we gain a few wins quickly and do it at a canter. Let's hope the treatment room clears so the balance of the team tips back towards one Brendan can work with before it's too late.
Iain Wright
