Missing midfield anonymous players creative vacuum – verdict delivered on Leicester City struggles
These are tough times for Leicester City. Still without a win, they have also seemingly been on the wrong end of some refereeing and VAR calls
in their last few games.
Now comes a run of league games from which they will hope to kick-start their season – Bournemouth at home, Southampton away, Nottingham Forest at home and Ipswich away. But is it just tough opposition which is the problem, or do the Foxes’ issues run deeper than a tricky fixture list?
Supporters have been reflecting on City’s latest setback, a 4-2 defeat at title hopefuls Arsenal, where they looked to be on for a precious point before conceding two injury-time goals.
The post-match shakedown has focussed on some dubious refereeing decisions at the Emirates, but have they just served to obscure the real problems facing Steve Cooper and his ailing team?
Foxes fans have had their say by responding to City writer Jordan Blackwell’s talking points from Saturday’s game – with tactics, squad deficiencies, the players and manager Steve Cooper all in the firing line.
Here is a sample of what they have had to say…
DFox: We seem to start playing once we have conceded. We are struggling to play out from the back and constantly losing the ball, which is having an effect on possession, control of the game and the amount of chances we are able to create.
The players need to take more risks as more games will slowly slip by with more points dropped, and with others around us now winning we could get cut adrift if we don’t get a win soon.
If nothing much is created and we are conceding more than two goals a game then we go into games knowing we probably have to score three goals to win.. That can’t be good for confidence.
Shindit: The biggest problem is the lack of scoring opportunities created in every game and City are poor in the final third. I’m guessing that City have the lowest shot % of any team and they are easy to defend against.
Ayew is anonymous and can’t even hold up the ball, but I think there is a lack of creativity in midfield and we miss KDH, who ran at defenders from midfield and pulled them out of position. Also the continued slow build up makes City easy to defend against.
It takes a wonder strike from a defender to get us back in the game and I think Cooper hasn’t a clue about creative attacking strategy.
EthicalBeeCo: Arsenal are contenders to the title, but we only had three shots. We no longer have a functioning midfield, that’s the real problem. Without KDH and Maddison there is no supply or creativity.