Good Morning. It's Friday 23rd October, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road Late team news and expected line up Leeds have been boosted by the news that Kalvin Phillips shoulder injury was not as bad as first feared, as is expected back in first team action by 21st November when the Whites entertain the Gunners at Elland Road. Unfortunately, that is where the good news stops! Leeds face a Villa side this evening with a 100% league record. This may not be surprising, when you see that Villa Manager Dean Smith has bought in Bertrand Traore from Lyon for 19m, Gunners keeper Martinez, also for 17m, highly rated right back Matty Cash from Forest FOR 16m, Ollie Watkins for 28m and England midfielder Ross Barkley on loan. Watkins alone has already netted five times this season. Like most Managers, the new signings made their league appearances as soon as they were bought - why Bielsa brings them in gradually is beyond me. Leeds will be without Llovente, Phillips and most likely Cooper this evening. According to the Daily Express, Pascal Struijk is likely to be moved to the holding midfield role, and for Luke Ayling to partner Koch at centre back. Dallas would then swap flanks with Alioski being bough in to cover at left back. Villa Manager Dean Smith has talked for the first time about about the incident 16 months ago when Bielsa instructed his team to let Albert Adomah walk the ball into the ER net after Smith and John Terry has accused the Whites of unsportsmanlike conduct having scored whilst a Villa player injured himself trying to bring down a Leeds player. please log in to view this image Smith opens lid on fair play decision 16 months ago Smith said: "I had the utmost respect for him anyway. "We'd qualified for the play-offs, as had Leeds. They still had an outside chance of getting automatic. "There was a lot made of the incident, but there wasn't once it had been done from myself and Marcelo. We just felt it was the right decision. "A lot of people forget that just before, one of their players had gone down, we were attacking and Conor Hourihane put the ball out. He felt it was the right thing to do, and we did. "Obviously when Jonathan Kodjia went down we expected that to be reciprocated, it wasn't, and we all know the rest. We were very thankful Marcelo felt he wanted his team to give us the goal back for the integrity of the game. "You certainly don't always see that sort of thing. There was an awful lot of emotion on the pitch, from our bench, because of what had happened four minutes previous. It takes cool heads in those moments and he (Bielsa) certainly showed that." "The three games I've had (against Bielsa) have been really competitive, and I expect the same again." "I think our role always as head coach, as players, is to try to create history for the club," "There'll be people that'll say 'they've won four on the spin, they're not going to win any more', and 'they're not going to up in amongst the upper echelons'. The game, and life is always about looking to prove people wrong." "He (Phillips) was on a list of players we were interested in but as far as I was aware it never got past initial talks stages, with the price I think they wanted – and rightly so," "It upsets our planning. We still don't know when the Arsenal game is going to be yet, which is only a couple of weeks away. "I'm not sure if the live games have been chosen yet for November, and then there's this new pay-per-view fixture listing as well. Unfortunately we have to sit and wait to find out when it is." please log in to view this image
Morning all... I hate how we swap so many players around when Phillips is out. Ayling has been vital at RB this season in starting attacks. I can’t see us keeping a clean sheet so it depends what sort of a game our attackers have, we might need to score 3 or 4 to win this one.
I hope Amigo springs some surprises to freshen the team up, Harrison and Costa rested, Poveda and Raphinha to start, Shackleton in for Phillips, leave back four as it is, that knob jockey Smith will be setting his team up as for the usual, time to swap it around Amigo and confuse Vanilla, it would take him the first half to try and sort it, cos gay boy Grealish hasn’t the brain to sort it on the pitch. Going back to Monday’s match it reminded me of the Rumble on the Jungle, we pounded them.... they held out them turned on us and mocked the goal, hope we learn from it.
Yep. Way too many changes when Philips is out. Horrible memories of when White got moved about with the rest of the defence.
Morning all Calm head needed here so here I am Maybe Bielsa doesnt worry too much and maybe Bielsa has decided to play Cresswell or Casey alongside Koch so leaving Ayling and Dallas in their full back roles. Struijk was MoM the last time he started as DM. Hoping he does a job breaking up their midfield.... Every game is going to be a tough game. This is the best league in the world and every team is better than a Championship team, so lets just enjoy it and stop worrying
Morning all. Will be delighted if we get anything from this. As Matt says, 100% record, great signings seemingly and a side who put seven past Liverpool Ive watched most of their games and not one we wanted injuries for, especially in defence. Expect Meslier to be busy but he's well able for it, best keeper we've had in many a year by a long way
I fecking will and he's paying for it . Ive an essential job on a mile from their house for a TD so doing it this evening and Ill slip home by their place and sit outside window
We were very thankful Marcelo felt he wanted his team to give us the goal back for the integrity of the game. A pity that some time later Smith's team didn't do that. 21 Sep 2020 — Aston Villa goalkeeper Orjan Nyland appears to carry the ball over ... Speaking ahead of tonight's visit of the Blades, Smith described the error as 'one-in-a-million'. ... So maybe he just wanted to play a bit of a trick that day?”.
Just looked into the box office thing for tonight. Going to make the social distancing thing a bit tough watching from one TV isn't it! (Only joking)
Can't stand Dean Smith, he's a bleeding hypocrite I was at that Leeds v Villa game at ER, the Villa players spent most of the 2nd half feigning injury in a effort to disrupt our play, the incident in the middle of the park where one of their players fell over & played the injured party was embarrassing, the ref saw it & allowed play to continue as it wasn't a serious injury, we went onto score which would have given us a well deserved victory until Smith made a big issue of it with the gentlemanly Bielsa relenting to give them a goal. Never seen anything like it in all the 57 years of watching Leeds. It still riles me today! Left a sour taste in my mouth, Pontus didn't like it too!
Hate it when he's involved with England - comes back half the player he can be for some reason. That reason probably being the influence of the idiot Southgate and his complete incompetence.
Its like Bielsa teaches them how to be brilliant and Bielsa rings me up and say “ hey Doc do me a favour and teach Kalvin some of your your stuff for a couple of weeks”. So I take Kalvin lap dancing, drinking and teach him how to smoke. “there you Kal back to Leeds and make sure you use what I taught you
Another potential problem down the line is how often have we heard of players being influenced by international colleagues or tapped up if you like to consider switching clubs. Don't need anyone unsettling Kalvin, doubt if he'd let it anyway hopefully