The #LUFC Breakfast Debate (Wed 24th June)

Good Morning. It's Wednesday 24th June, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road


Ref blow for Leeds

Leeds have been dealt a blow after it was revealed that the EFL have chosen Cleveland based referee Tony Harrison to referee Leeds crunch match against Fulham on Saturday afternoon

A win for either side will have devastating results on the other as both sides look to return to the Premiership.

Harrington took charge in Leeds home loss against Wigan Athletic, was fourth official against Millwall the week before and was the man in black during Leeds’ 3-3 draw with Cardiff City.

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Thompson - If Leeds beat Fulham - that’ll be them home and hosed

Former Liverpool Star, now Soccer pundit David Thompson has revealed that he would be 'mortified' if the Whites were not promoted and admitted that Leeds have become his second team!

“I’d be mortified if it happened to Leeds again and Bielsa," he told BBC Radio 5 Live's Daily Podcast.

"I’d be sick for them because the position they’ve been in all season, I want Leeds to go up. They’ve become my second team. By all accounts, today I read the BBC report and they were very unfortunate. I hope it doesn’t happen to them again.
If they win that, that’ll be them home and hosed," "Ten points will be enough for them. Leeds will be okay. I think it might help them, this not playing in front of a crowd at Elland Road for some of the players.

"Cardiff are on a fantastic run under Neil Harris since he’s been in there so it is a shock because it’s Leeds and they’ve done so well, been at the top all season, but Cardiff are just outside that play-off position, level on points with Preston, so they look like a team that could maybe push into the play-offs. But for me I think Leeds and West Brom will be the teams to go up.”

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Worse Case Scenario

In the unlikely event that Leeds do not gain promotion to the Premiership, would it be (in your opinion) time to part ways with Bielsa, even if the Argentine were prepared to give it another shot?

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Morning all. At this point Ive watched bits of maybe eight games since the restart. Have to say, its absolute muck. No team up to match fitness or remotely near it. If remaining games are no better, I suspect football will lose fans as a result of this attempt at finishing the season. On a positive, maybe Im being biased, but Leeds looked as good as any sides on Sunday. Unforced errors were costly but every team is making them. As for Fulham game, its a must win game, no point in beating around the bush. Defeat would be a catastrophe. Fingers crossed Pablo returns and Roberts shakes off his injury

 

Good morning,

If we stay down and Bielsa, Phillips and White leave then I fear we'd fade into mid table mediocrity. This squad was a mid table side before Bielsa arrived. We had one season with a 30 goal a year striker and managed to scrape 7th.

 

After having time to compose myself Eire, although it was a bad defeat, I think it's good that we've got the first game over and done with. No harm done a part from Brentford picking up 3 points. But we've still got two games that we can afford to lose. 6 wins and we are up, regardless of other results, but I think if we can get 4 good wins that we'll be there or there about's.

 

Good Morning to Matt and co from a very hot Bardsey
I think that the crunch game will be on Sat if we win this we are practically home and dry

 

I just hope we've learned from losing the 2 "must not lose" home games last season (Norwich and Sheff Utd). I thought we'd beat Cardiff as we usually come back flying after a break but I didn't account for the lack of "pre season". It was easier for Cardiff as they didn't play much football, they just blocked everything (although they took their two goals well). Fulham will come out to play so it's going to come down to putting away our chances. I wish we had Mitrovic. If we don't go up I can't see Bielsa staying, but if he offered I'd defo say yes.

 

That's what you call a plan, whether it be plan A, plan B (apparently Bielsa doesn't have one) or even plan Z.

The secret is being able to morph into a different one is it's not working - we didn't need to, and you apparently couldn't.

 

Morning all.

The EFL will announce the results of the latest round of covid-19 testing today. (noon I think)

Will be interesting to see how many have tested positive in the last week.

 

Morning Sparkey et al.

No need to change any plan if it’s working, which it clearly was - problem is, it doesn’t matter what plan you morph to, if you can’t kick the ball into the net you ain’t gonna win the game.

 

My only worry is every time we were faced with a must win game last season we seemed to blow it. Hope that mentality is gone

 

Watch us morph into the Premier Sparkey...

 

Me too Eire. Losing puts doubts into players heads and some will make mistakes because of it. Although I'd say there is just as much pressure on Fulham as there is on us.

 

That's why we should stop using terms like 'must win' as it's not the final match that will decide things.

Take it one match at a time and try to keep the pressure to a minimum. Focus on repeating the type of performances shown throughout the season and don't be sucked into the hype about the game. If you play well, then more times than not you'll win the game as has been proven this season.

Plenty more opportunities remaining if things don't go as well as we hope on Saturday.

Keep the faith and keep calm.

 

Well said Jammy. It's difficult to stay calm as a supporter though because we are so close to getting promoted. You're right though we must take each game as it comes.

 

We should retain Bielsa at any costs as over the last two seasons we've had the pleasure of watching the best football by a Leeds team in decades.

Managers/coaches are always blamed for failure, we should be looking at our top management should we fail this time as the writing was on the wall last May.

 

Nowt on their website yet.

 

EFL anounced on Wednesday the 10th June that;

Test results will now be released every Wednesday at midday...

We await with interest the reasons for the delay.

 

It's not a must win game this weekend. It's a must not lose game.

Very much in the mould of Sheff Utd home game last season. A game we dominated by the way until Cooper made a mistake.

Also, Derby at home was a must not lose game in the play offs. We were dominant again only for Cooper and Casilla to make a mistake.

Last week was again a must not lose game and we were dominant in most areas and looked like we were going to get something out of the game until Cooper passed it to one of their lads and they scored to put the game to bed.

I'm not saying Cooper wilts under pressure........ well, actually I am saying exactly that! Watch this space!

 

Didn't Beradi get sent off, that didn't help and also wasn't it a pass from Philips that put Coops under pressure. Just saying.

 

Berardi was fouled twice before he jumped in to that tackle. That's on the ref.

As for Phillips, maybe LL is on to something! He's had his fair share of f**k ups the more we dig!