The counterargument

I just don’t see comparisons to last season, other than players have been injured and as mentioned, far more this year, yet we’ve been better equipped and already are showing that we can handle them. If any other team had as many injuries as we have experienced to key players , I’m as near as positive that they wouldn’t be joint 2nd at the moment.

I agree with you both here. There’s no denying we’ve had key injuries and we’ve managed very well this year.

We’ve had spells without Ndidi, Vardy and obviously 1/2 to all of the back 4! Rodgers has adjusted personnel and formation to great effect.

However, if we were to lose Tielemans and/or Vardy for the remainder of the season, we would look in trouble. Yes we’re not reliant on Vardy’s goals, but we’re still reliant on him.

Also, with Praet already out, I just don’t see we have a player who can come in and do Tielemans’ job. Mendy is most similar, but despite TB’s assertion that Tielemans never plays a forward ball, he’s probably the only contender for POTS now Justin is out, and he is our only genuine box to box midfielder.

So we can cope with injuries, but not if they fall to one of our two key men.

I think both of you are correct, but it’s the same for every team probably apart from Man City which, in turn, if we contextualise it, isn’t a specific Leicester City problem - comparatively speaking - compared to the other clubs around us. Probability says it is no more likely that we will have key injuries to key members of the squad in key positions where we have less back up than any other team having the same problem.

There’s a great post going social media of the players been injured this season and how long we’ve been without them yet not been out of top 4 which backs up the case the squad is better this season.


Obviously say if your main and back up right back gets injured then the 3rd choice isn’t going to be as good but we seem to be coping ok

The main worries for injuries are always vardy and ndidi and both have them have been out as well. Any team bar Man City will struggle if they have their best two players out

It's a case of Players being better than on paper.

The traditional Big Teams have greater squad depth on paper but that doesn't always transfer into Reality.

Our squad looks weak, especially when fans are prejudiced against players but in the vast majority of cases they've stepped up this Season where as second string players at other Clubs probably haven't.

Now that comes down to the Team mentality and massive Credit needs to go to Brendan and all his Team for making this happen.

Mendy, Justin, Fofana, Albrighton, Fuchs, Thomas have all stepped up for the Team and done their job when normally they wouldn't have got nearly as many minutes as would be expected, either thrown in earlier than we would have anticipated or returning to the team to help out.

That's what marks us out as different to the others, Brendan has learnt from last Season and possibly been forced into some decisions but they've worked, whether by chance or design.

Well done Brendan.

Brendan and the lads have done exceptionally well given the injuries we've had to contend with, to be in the top 4 is an incredible achievement so far. We'll see if we can keep it up.

In regard to United's reliance on Fernandes, here's a case in point - would we want to swap Harry back for any of Evans, Soyuncu or Fofana? I know I wouldn't.

comment by True Blue (U9486)
posted 23 minutes ago
It's a case of Players being better than on paper.

The traditional Big Teams have greater squad depth on paper but that doesn't always transfer into Reality.

Our squad looks weak, especially when fans are prejudiced against players but in the vast majority of cases they've stepped up this Season where as second string players at other Clubs probably haven't.

Now that comes down to the Team mentality and massive Credit needs to go to Brendan and all his Team for making this happen.

Mendy, Justin, Fofana, Albrighton, Fuchs, Thomas have all stepped up for the Team and done their job when normally they wouldn't have got nearly as many minutes as would be expected, either thrown in earlier than we would have anticipated or returning to the team to help out.

That's what marks us out as different to the others, Brendan has learnt from last Season and possibly been forced into some decisions but they've worked, whether by chance or design.

Well done Brendan.
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Great post, he’s definitely changed tactics as well when playing ‘the big six’ which has helped.. last season trying to out play and pass them, this season using our strengths on counter attack which he wasn’t willing to do previously.

Only Man U to go to have beaten them all this season..

It's a case of Players being better than on paper

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Or in Utd’s case the opposite. Take Pogba for example 😂

To be honest I've forgotten now what point I was making.

I think what I'm saying is that we have to maintain form for the rest of the season and that's something that we weren't capable of doing in 19/20. We've done brilliantly at doing that this season considering the injuries that we've been hit with and I think we can have a strong argument for saying we've got the greatest squad depth in the league in terms of the defensive positions.

Maintaining form for the rest of the season is not just injuries. It's rotating players in and out when there are two games a week until May. I still think the clubs we're competing against for top four have a big advantage here and that our luck probably needs to improve with injuries from here on in.

comment by Jobyfox (U4183)
posted 2 minutes ago
To be honest I've forgotten now what point I was making.

I think what I'm saying is that we have to maintain form for the rest of the season and that's something that we weren't capable of doing in 19/20. We've done brilliantly at doing that this season considering the injuries that we've been hit with and I think we can have a strong argument for saying we've got the greatest squad depth in the league in terms of the defensive positions.

Maintaining form for the rest of the season is not just injuries. It's rotating players in and out when there are two games a week until May. I still think the clubs we're competing against for top four have a big advantage here and that our luck probably needs to improve with injuries from here on in.
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We’ve done well rotating in europe so far however that’s going to get a lot harder to do as we play better teams.

I.e Is he going to play Under in Europe no matter who we play? I doubt it, we will see how much faith he has in those players. He got caned for swapping players when we played palace at Christmas