Pennth was talking about the banning of Glory and how to him it seemed to happen very quickly. My point was that it was going on long before Pennth joined 606.
For those that still have a monk on about Bielsa not playing the new recruits, you might be interested in this article, which appears to be spot on. Another thing I'd like to chuck in - Poveda is 19. So was Jay Roy Grot. Remember what we did to him when he didn't deliver what the rabble expected? https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co...E4M_udAkxdNJ3TeSfnAA6HIqknWNAm8-a32ld6VOS5zPA Faith and principles - why Jean-Kevin Augustin cannot walk in and take Patrick Bamford's Leeds United shirt - Dan Chapman Daniel Chapman has co-edited Leeds United fanzine and podcast The Square Ball since 2011, taking it through this season’s 30th anniversary, and seven nominations for the Football Supporters’ Federation Fanzine of the Year award, winning twice. He’s the author of a new history book about the club, ‘100 Years of Leeds United, 1919-2019’, and is on Twitter as MoscowhiteTSB. The word about Marcelo Bielsa after Leeds lost to Wigan this weekend was ‘stubborn’. Stubborn tactics, stubborn selection, stubborn ideals. But stubborn – unreasonably obstinate, not yielding to persuasion – is the wrong word to describe Marcelo Bielsa. You might as well accuse the Pope of stubbornly believing in God. There have been many centuries of argument to persuade him otherwise, but he’s still not having it, even though the second coming looks about as likely as a Pat Bamford hat-trick. Stubborn is not the word for unshakeable faith, and it’s not the right word for Marcelo Bielsa, either. Without principles, Bielsa is not Bielsa. His idea of football is not confined to the pitch; one of the most important training sessions of last summer was the Thorp Arch litter pick. The cultural change has been as important as the footballing change for a group of what were average players – the long days of training, the commitment to diet, the fitness work – and the benefits have been obvious. Everything has its downside and Leeds were trapped by theirs against Wigan. The first reason why Kiko Casilla and Pat Bamford play is loyalty, a virtue Bielsa places deliberately at the core of his work with such a small squad. He expects the players to trust each other and trust him, but how can he ask that if he doesn’t trust them? The downsides of trust are Kiko flapping and Bambo shooting backwards. But they’re the downsides of something more important and longer lasting than a moment in one game. Trusting Casilla might cost three points against Wigan. Bielsa believes loyalty will win enough points in a season for that not to matter. Jean-Kévin Augustin has entered a system engineered not only to burn off micrograms of body mass, but to reinforce the principles of trust and loyalty on which Bielsa builds his team. You can’t, in short, walk right in and take Bamford’s shirt. Whether he’s scoring now or not, Bamford has been through the process, working himself to fitness and adaptation in the Under-23s, earning his right to replace Kemar Roofe. What would it say about Bielsa’s principles if he decided that what applied to Bamford doesn’t apply to Big Kev? It’s not a stubborn protection of beliefs for the sake of them, but necessary for Bielsa’s belief system to work on the pitch. Bielsa was challenged last season about his lack of a plan B, but to him, that’s not a lack. A plan B implies that plan A might not work, and how can Bielsa ask players to make such extreme sacrifices for a plan he doubts? It’s all or nothing, and Bielsa builds everything towards players giving their all. He’s not alone in this. During the run-in to the title in 1992, Howard Wilkinson was trying to find ways to cover Mel Sterland’s injury and get Eric Cantona into the team. He ended up with Gary Speed in defence, Rod Wallace in midfield, and heavy defeats at QPR and Manchester City. The solution was simple: Cantona on the bench, and everyone else back to the system that had been working for three years. “Trust your swing,” said Wilko; the team knew what to do, knew how to play, had learned it all in long training sessions, long before Cantona arrived. “There was no panic,” remembered Gary McAllister later. “Everybody was calm. But there was belief.” Weakening belief gets mistaken for burnout in Bielsa’s teams. For as long as the system is working, players will make the sacrifices and look forward to the rewards. But it’s hard to sustain against bad results: his teams don’t burn out because they’re physically tired, but because they’re tired of trying without winning, made weary by their eroding faith. Like priests whose belief in God is broken by years of unanswered prayers, they’re tormented, not tired. There is much that could torment them now but, as ever, against Wigan, the gospels were adhered to: it was another match of excellent Bielsa football, suggesting the players are far from losing faith or giving up. And why should they? They’re second in the league, with the fourth-best scoring record and the second-best defence. Once Bielsa has made Big Kev a believer, he can bring his voice to a louder choir, not one trying to sing from a new hymn sheet. “We have operated all season in a certain way,” Wilkinson said in 1992, “and if we’re going to end the season in the manner in which we deserve, we’ve got to keep on playing like that.”
Maybe just maybe Bielsa is waiting for an away game to introduce the new lads away from the caldron of ER In which case he is a bit cleaver than the lot of us
Not sure everyone is saying Augustin has to replace Bamford, they're saying he's not always good enough to do it all on his own and needs help, it's rediculas having 1 striker in the squad, it's like Sunday pub football, where they only have 11 players,we were crying out to have another striker, alongside Bamford for the last 15 minutes, everyone could see it, the same with Costa and Poveda, Costa wasn't working, to do nothing, which is what we seem to be doing shouldn't be an option. And as for age, how old is Nketiah, was Milner, Rooney, Giggs, Owen, Rashford.,If they are good enough they should play.
Marcos wants to come back, got me to ask brb to reactivate his account, brb couldn't find it so said tell him to rejoin, but he's not bothered yet, can those who have his contact details, let him know we want him back, I already have.
