Leeds Utd v Sunderland Saturday 7th April 2018@3pm Streaming links to follow. Please note: We would respectfully ask posters to keep Match threads on topic. Please restrict banter to any other threads Good Evening Everyone Sunderland travel down to Elland Road on Saturday hoping to close the gap on Birmingham, Bolton and Reading who are 8 points above them with 6 games to go. Leeds hopes of a top half finish to the season have been further hindered after hearing that Matthew Pennington has picked up a calf strain during their 2-0 loss at Craven Cottage midweek. This leaves Heckingbottom in a quantry as we only now have one fit central defender in our entire squad. Thank goodness we picked up the points we did before Christmas.... O'Kane is also doubtful after a reaccurance of a thigh strain. Phillips is ready to deputise. Lasogga will be wanting to impress future employers by getting on the scoresheet; thasts if the gaffer decides to play him. surely he won't start with Ekuban?
Second half display and not starting with the injured O'Kane and I have to agree with Shako, we can win this one although the defence looks like being even more patched up. My heart wants a win, my head tells me a defeat won't matter as it might force Rads into making drastic changes before next season starts.
In the no-mans land we are in I unfortunately can see Sunderland wanting and needing the win more than us. Still, I hope some in the team will be wanting to play for us next year and put in a performance 2-1
Well on paper the 3 worst manegerial appointments this season are Coleman, PH and Pardew. One has been sacked and will the other two survive? I am losing confidence in the manager so am not expecting a great performance even though we play the worst team in the league. My season is over I’m afraid and can only hope we get to see Sam Dalby, Ryan Edmondson leading the attack, why carry on with Ekuban or Lassoga or Grot we also have an ideal opportunity to play one of the several U23 CBs
I have a lot of sympathy with Eck. He's been brought in to take over a squad that's been fashioned to play attacking 4-2-3-1 football, so his hands are tied in that respect. He's also inherited a dispirited squad and a lot of injured players that are unlikely to play again this season. So not only has he got a small and dreggish-looking squad, but they're really down in the dumps. Any of the real great managers would struggle in these circumstances. Now, having expressed this sympathy, I do have a criticism. Given the circumstance he's in, he is right to examine each player in the squad to see if they're part of next season or not. And to an extent, he's doing this. But why has Anita not been tried as a DM, for instance? Or Ruth as part of a 4-4-2 (ok, recent injury acknowledged). Or a 3 tried at the back? Lots of stuff he should be doing IMO, but the most criminal thing, which you've mentioned, is not giving game time in a dead season to the youngsters. When exactly do these kids get a chance? Are they totally reliant of a few of them being blooded in the League cup? I bloody hope not. Never was there such a great opportunity to let them express themselves. And yet .... I get the feeling that Eck is concentrating on reasons to get rid of players, rather than finding out who he might be able to include. That's a huge disappointment for me. Either that or he's already made up his mind that we have no prospects in the Development squad, which is an even greater disappointment, if true.
We do better against weaker clubs so think we’ll win this one. Mainly because they tend not to find us out, unlike better teams. Morning, btw
Agree with everything you have said there WJ, dispirited poor players would have been a big ask for any manager and would love to see some more kids given a chance. The problem is PH gets slated daily already, if he bloods a load of kids and we lose against the likes of Sunderland it will only get worse. Only ten posts on here and already described as one of the three worst appointments of the season by one of our own fans, he is likely trying to save his job and so sticking with experience.
Marcos the stats show who has been good and bad in the managerial stakes when new managers brought in to save a clubs season. Big Sam, Pullis, Roy Hodgson, Moyes etc yet Pardew, Coleman and PH are down at the bottom as they have not stopped the rot, done anything that looks halfway sensible on the set up front. So my personal view has nothing to do with this. What you are saying in reality is that it was pointless sacking Thomas because the damage was already done. This appointment which cost us half a million has knocked us for 6. My own view is that I had hoped to see something, a flash of inspiration, some kids given a chance in a dead season with half the players out injured. I dont see a reaction from any player, indeed many of them are worse than ever. 3 Players brought in January are all out injured and have never been on a winning Leeds team. If we get beat by Sunderland there will be a groundswell calling for his head, its just a fact. Yes I would love for him to succeed but from what we've all seen with his team selections, tactics it cant happen. WJ mentioned Anita who was played out of position who is never a right back but he stuck him there twice to be mauled. Anita is a DM and not given a chance even when our 3 DMs are all out of sorts. Would much prefer to see Dallas ranging forward instead of being a full back, especially when we have specialist full backs in the U23s. We played Milner at 16yo but apparently our players over 20 are not good enough for this manager. Every week its 10 games to save our season, 9 games, 8 games now 7 games to show something. Sorry hope I'm wrong but 8th when he came 14th and falling still.
Morning all. We can expect a scrap on Saturday but if we play as well as we can we should win. If not we must know why?
Well it wouldn’t surprise me actually, but I still think we will beat them I don’t see the team not trying, the problem is simply we have too many weaknesses and better teams can exploit them. Hence we ‘nearly’ got a result v Fulham but in reality we never would have imo - we threatened them in the second half but they were always going to have too much for us But against a bottom 3 team the positive side to our game (and there is one) is more likely to hold sway
Not disagreeing with anything you have said or having a dig, simply saying he is in between a rock and a hard place in terms of experimenting. What I do know is, Monk must be our longest serving manager in a long time and twelve months is nothing if you want to build. Patience is running out in many quarters with PH after two months and no transfer windows and that will just never work. Let’s hope he gets lucky, the board stick with him and some of the kids turn out to be excellent or it will just be more of the same.
Unfortunately, Heckingbottom said he hated Leeds many years ago and football fans are unforgiving. He also took over when you had lots of suspensions/injuries and were on an awful run. Not sure how he was supposed to improve things, but his record at Barnsley was shocking in the last 3 months so maybe he is doubting himself too.
Good afternoon folks Hecky was left with a poor team at Barnsley, then he inherited a poor squad at Leeds, now he has nine players unavailable to him due to injuries although only Forshaw is good enough Radz/Orta are to blame for the whole fiasco, a complete & utter shambles My heart always says a win so hope we can beat the Mackems even though our defensive options are looking more & more fragile as the season goes on
All true in PH’s defence, but all he seems to be is a manager who delivers the performance a squad like this should be expected to deliver. Given we are average in terms of player budget (it appears), we need a manager with track record of delivering from a cheap squad. Like Harris at Wall, MM at Ipswich and Warnock at Cardiff - as examples Seems to me PH is bang average, if we spend £30m on players (ho ho) he might get us up but otherwise he won’t
He's worse than average statistically Points per game Barnsley (excluding caretaker stint) 1.11 Leeds 0.90
Hi lads, Having read all of the posts above, all that I can think about is what an absolute disgrace that we find ourselves talking about how bad we both are It doesn't actually seem to be that long ago (even though it is) that we were two of the biggest and best clubs in the U.K. and we should be talking about competing at the highest level ! Leeds are 'on the slide' so it seems, and Sunderland are ****ing knackered and heading for the abyss that is the third division Saturday's outcome is 'anybody's guess' and probably so unimportant to either team in the long term, 'cos Leeds have got now't to play for and it's (probably) too late for Sunderland, but we all live in hope. Anyway, after analysing what's been said above, via a proven system, Sunderland will win 3-1 p.s. don't take too much notice of 'analysing' and 'proven system' p.p.s. good luck for the rest of this campaign
