That's not right for Colback in my opinion - your midfield don't ever dictate where you are as a team on the pitch or the gaps between the lines. Your centre halfs decide that. I know it's easy to scapegoat Colback as it coincided with the retreat. However lascelles and Mbemba **** their pants and went 18yd box. Always fatal
Fair point ..But ....Hayden or Shelvey ...ball tends to go forward Colback the ball starts going backwards the momentum and dynamic changes within the team (hang on to what we have lads). Leeds have more space (they were penned in their half for most of the 2nd half) which results in our CB's facing fresh leeds legs (they made good subs for the situation they were in) Not really intending to scapegoat the ginger polo .I mean pirlo ..just thought that he was a poor sub in my eyes. He did what he was asked to do.. and what he is capable of doing..ie ..take one for the team, dither about a bit before passing the ball backwards (he failed to give away a needless foul just outside our box mind..but he only had 15 minutes on the field) Murph on for Mitro would have been my 1st sub. Mitro was shot ..keep the pressure on ..fresh 'bruiser' against their booked and tired CB's Yedlin for Ritchie ..2nd sub..good shout 3rd sub Colback or Mo for Hayden or Atsu for gouf ..depending how the last 10 15 mins had gone (I assume Hayden going off 1st was was due to him being recently injured..as he didnt seem 'that' knacked)
Team plays well hammers Leeds for 80 minutes. Then two changes colback and Diame and all of as sudden we completely go to ****. That's what I seen. We lost the points because of the two subs. I'm sorry but all season colback has been utter gash and Diame not much better. We looked so much more in control with Hayden in midfield.
I would have expected Hayden to be subbed since he won't be fully match fit. Ritchie also as he'll be starting on Monday and Rafa will have wanted to save his legs since he plays a lot of minutes and we rely heavily on him to make things happen. I'd probably have subbed Mitro rather than Perez but I don't think it was a bad substitution tactically. The problem we have is we lack real quality in depth so the manager is having to bring on crap like Diame and Colback. He doesn't really have any choice since he wasn't allowed to bring in a CM in January. Back to the training ground for Lascelles and Mbemba and some drilling on CB positioning as both were poorly positioned for the Leeds goal. This is the main reason we dropped points unfortunately. Well that and we lack a bit of quality at the other end to get the ball in the back of the net with more consistency. Lots of chances again so the system is working and the performance was good, but only 1 goal to show for it.
We need to give Leeds some credit for it being a well worked goal. They didn't get a sniff all second half but took their chance when they got it - a lesson we need to learn. There's no doubt the centre backs should have been better positioned, but it was a good ball into the box. The ball should never have got into the box though. Diame was caught badly out of position in the build up. Diame has to take most of the blame for that. However, I also think we made too many subs too close together. Even the best players (which Diame isn't) can take a little while to get up to the speed of the game. I understand why we made those three subs at the end, but if we hadn't changed so much in such a short space of time we would probably have been looking back on a win. Hindsight is a wonderful thing though......
the changes for me would of been perez for murphy and atsu for gouff yes the c halfs of leeds done there best , but our woeful end product was the main reason why we did not get the win ...
Rafa got it wrong for me. Yedlin for Gouf and Murphy for Mitro was the changes. Forget Monday we needed 3 points on the board. Worry about Monday on Sunday. Hayden was going well and having a good game. Putting a guy like Diame on was suicidial. He is maverick at the best of times. Mitro was wasted having put his heart and soul into the game. Regardless we lacked a cutting edge again due to how we set up and approach home games - however once you want to see a game out then lascelles and Mbemba are 100% culpable. You can't retreat to the 18 yd box.