Good Morning. It's Monday 10th February, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road. Same team - Same tactic - Same result Leeds slipped to their fifth loss in 10 games ,(a time when Leeds were 11 points clear of the hunting pack) at the City Ground on Saturday teatime as Brentford, Nottingham Forest and Fulham all moved with striking range of the Whites. Yet again, although controlling 70% of Leeds possession, shots on target were difficult to come by. Out of 8 shots at goal, one was on target! Forest on the other hand recorded 6 shots on target from 14 attempts. Goals from former Bolton striker Sammy Ameobi and an injury time second to rub salt into the wounds from Tyler Walker (son of former England legend Des) saw Sabri Lamouchi's team move within a point of the Whites. The form guide for the last 10 league matches now show Leeds in 22nd place, deep in the relegation zone. Will Bielsa continue to use exactly the same tactic and starting line up (minus Philips suspension) that he has used against Forest, Wigan, Millwall and QPR. Leeds are the only team in the Championship (probably the league) to have used only 14 players on five or more starting appearances. The only other predictable statement was Bielsa taking responsibility for the loss (again). When did things go wrong, and what has been done to put things right. Looking back to where things went wrong, you have to look at the Cardiff game where Leeds were 3 -0 up, and went on to draw. Since then, Bielsa's men have trailed at some stage in eight of their past nine Championship games. The chart below shows where our goals have come from this season! Surely its a lack of height? Not according to Bielsa! Following Leeds League Cup exit at the hands of Stoke, asked about whether he thought about changing his team to counter Stoke's aerial threat, Bielsa said: "The aerial game depends on the quality of the skills that the players who head the ball have from one team and the other team. Do you agree that height has skill levels are more important than height when defending or attacking set pieces, we are equally as poor in both disciplines. Has enough been done on the training ground to strengthen our weaknesses? please log in to view this image Bielsa post Match Press Conference
Morning all. Have decided if Bielsa announces Bamford and kiko starting against Brentford, I’m gonna give it a miss. Fed up watching same old tbh and I don’t give a damn who wants to slag me off for it
Something needs to change. Bielsa was great, starting to think he is a one trick magic pony though. No longer looking forward to games - whatever happens happens, i wont be suprised.
Morning all... Our problem is a Keeper who is lacking confidence and making errors topped with a failure in attack to convert chances. Seriously if you took Kikos mistakes out the equation and the wide open misses by Bamford, Costa, Harrison and a few others we would be miles clear. Liverpool and Man City don’t have a plan B they just go out and play to their best, if we did that we’d beat everyone in the division but when you miss chances at the front and leak goals through a keeper that doesn’t know how to come for a crosses then the result is clear. My main concern is what losing that 11 point gap has done to the confidence and moral of the team. We don’t need a plan B we are crushing it possession and chances created, we’re limiting the opposition to a handful of chances, if Kiko stopped the saveable shots and the attackers scored from the clear cut chances we’d be fine. Bielsa has two of the possible fixes at his disposal, Meslier and Augustin, it’s up to him to use them now, throw in Poveda for one of the other misfiring attackers and we have a chance to fix this.
Whatever the reason, enough is enough and if there are no options for Bamford and Kiko then it really is a sad situation.
Hope do you know Proveda will fix anything. He has never played first team football for anyone to best of my knowledge. He wasn't even on the bench Saturday and Kiko is simply useless, nothing to do with confidence
I don’t think Augustin is capable of lasting 90 minutes, I’d start Bamford and tell him in advance, you’ve got 45 minutes so don’t leave anything on the table. Definitely drop Kiko though
I said “Possible fixes Nobody was saying Kiko was rubbish when we were 11 points clear, I agree he has never been great but his lack of confidence and uncertainty has amplified his inability in goal
The stats yesterday are a bit misleading. The goals, grabban miss aside their shots on target were speculative from outside the box, our attempts were inside the box (and we still couldn’t hit the target!) opposition get their chances in transition where they have numbers so even a side as limited as forest will look dangerous if we give the ball away. They worked really hard without the ball with big physical guys and preyed on the mistakes. Same game plan everyone has. Doesn’t work when we’re good/efficient does work when we’re not. whether bielsa’s Leeds win or lose football matches is rarely down to what the opposition do. It’s usually what we do or don’t do.
I wouldn't say he was a one trick pony - he is stubborn, and a perfectionist. He believes that he can get the result playing his way, and no other obsticle matters.
I never rated Kiko. When we were eleven clear it was because the defence restricted other teams to one or two shots on goals. That was main reason we kept clean sheets. He has cost us valuable points time and again and he's actually getting worse instead of improving. He doesn't do so much charging out of goal anymore, just stays rooted to the goal line
Good Morning to Matt and co from a very windy wet Bardsey Brentford forwards are BMW ours are the Trabant or so it seems to me Kiko needs dropping to many mistakes. Lets see what Povida Augstine and Roberts can do if he isn.t injured again! We need to address this slump now or in the Words of Jonny Mathis its over ! Seems Pontus is not playing tomorrow
Thanks Matt I will let you into a true story Matthis was flying from America with my late mate skippering .He was caught with the first steward and Mike but him in the hold ! the steward not Matthis!
The massive difference with City and Liverpool is they both have an abundance of top strikers,and they don't play with just one.
Such a shame we have one of the best coaches in football who is reluctant to drop players when they are out of form. At least five of the current XI don't deserve their place in the team Fed up of watching players impersonating footballers
I'm sure even you would accept that our players are average and have only managed to challenge for top because of the way Bielsa has organised them? Maybe they haven't the skills for plan B whatever Plan B is that many seem to be screaming for. Bielsa does make subtle changes on the pitch that mainly go unnoticed it might be dropping the DM into a back three or swapping a couple of players around. Because we are having a bad run the results and performances leading up to Christmas have been forgotten by the fans and panic is setting in, who can we blame, lets say Bielsa has no plan B The bottom line is our Keeper letting in sloppy goals and our attackers missing open goals. We're having the possession, we are creating chances, the style of play is exactly the same, the opposition are not creating more chances against us now than they were before Christmas, we're not creating less chances, we're not having less of the ball, it is the attackers missing their opportunities. Milky pointed out on another thread, it isn't what the opposition do to us, they don't out think us, it is what we do to ourselves that depends on the results, when we get it right they can't live with us
Morning everyone! Today I will be mostly pissed off when Bielsa names Bamford and Kiko on the team sheet for Brentford. I will make sure i come back this afternoon for a good old moan and whinge about it then. Now to be more positive.... my house was still in one piece this morning when i left and the river levels dropped overnight so
