Good Morning. It's Monday 27th September, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road Spirited display ends in defeat Leeds produced their best display of the season, reminiscent of scenes of six months ago; unfortunately, it was not enough, and their brave effort ended in the worse possible way. For a side depleted with injury, the hosts were well marshalled. Their free flowing football, quick counters and ability to close the visitors down as soon as they were on the ball showed the capacity Elland Road crowd that hopefully their slump has finally come to an end. Leeds took the lead on 20 minutes. Rodrigo's cut back from deep on the right wing found Dallas. The Northern Ireland International unselfishly tee'd up Raphinha on the edge of the 'D'. His first time effort, drilled low and hard, beat Fabianski at his par post. It was no more than Leeds deserved. Moments earlier, an almost identical attack involving Rodrigo and Firpo set Dallas up on the edge of the area, but his spectacular effort was matched by a fingertip save. It wasn't all one way traffic, and Leeds rode their luck, but Meslier was a match to anything the Hammers could muster, until two thirds of the way through the match. David Moyes' men drew level on 67 minutes when Jarrod Bowen's speculative effort took the cruellest of double deflections and nestled in the back of the net. On the balance of play, a draw would have been a fair result, but when you're languishing near the foot of the table fairness goes out the window. Michail Antonio silenced the Elland Road faithful with a 90th minute winner after carving through the middle of the Leeds defence. This was especially cruel as the striker was lucky to still be on the pitch having flattened Meslier midway though the second half! All in all, a much better performance, and if f Leeds play like they did on Saturday, they'll climb their way out of trouble - agree? please log in to view this image Bielsa post match comments Is it time to get rid of the dead wood? Leeds fans can be very unforgiving, especially when things are not going well. Once the finger of blame has been pointed, it's very difficult to escape its wrath. Tyler Roberts and Liam Cooper are two players who have received more than their fair share of criticism lately from the Leeds Utd faithful, but are the comments justified? Whilst we have seen Pascal Struijk break through into the first team squad, the gaffer prefers to stick with experience, but with the emergence of players such as Charlie Cresswell and Joe Gelhardt, are the old guard in danger of being replaced? We know that Bielsa has his favourites, with both Cooper and Roberts falling into that category, will the gaffer give the first team a good shake up? It's not normally his way! We only tend to see changes in the line-up when injuries or suspensions occur! How long will it be before the Leeds crowd get on Bielsa's back? please log in to view this image Injury heartache for Forshaw Adam Forshaw's injury nightmare continuous, after it was disclosed the 29yo has once again been sidelined. He joins an increasing number of players on the treatment table as the medical team at Thorp Arch are inundated with casualties. The news was greeted with moans and groans on social media, but hopefully the midfielders latest setback will only keep him sidelined for a month. According to Bielsa:- "He has a tear in the posterior part of his thigh," "With a muscular injury they usually consume a month's time. Forshaw makes enormous efforts not to injure himself but after two years out it is difficult to get back into the swing of things." please log in to view this image
Morning all, So after a couple of days to digest the result in ready to look at the positives and negatives. Positives. A strong display from the whole team. With each game we look more like the Bielsa Leeds we all know. Surely it won't me long before we give someone a tonking? Rodrigo and Raphinia were both excellent. Shackleton. Gets better with each game. Should Ayling automatically come back in when he is fit? I'm leaving towards no. Meslier. He is immense and will only get better. (its great that he keeps bailing us out but a worry that needs to.) Cresswell looks the real deal. We now have five good cb's at the club. Would be nice if we could have more than two of them for at one time of course. The Elland Road crowd. The fact they all stayed to applaud the players at the end rather than boo or abuse. This shows we can see the effort that the team is putting in and appreciate it. The wins will come Negatives. Another game without a win. Still far too early to panic but it would be nice to get some points on the board. Social media abuse of the players. Everyone is allowed to express their opinions whether it be positive or negative but far too many are abusive. There are far too many tagging players in their tweets and that's not right. Klich was a prime example with him being tagged in a photo of his miss being abused for not passing to Harrison. Absolutely no need. Same old abuse for the likes of Cooper and Roberts. I get it, they are not everyones favourite and have their limitations but they are not the sole reasons we are not winning yet. Cooper had a good game again, especially alongside a rookie cb making his first prem appearance. I saw a tweet blaming Roberts claiming that when he came on the whole of the Elland Road atmosphere disappeared. If that's true then there are 33,000 supporters need to have a word with themselves. Firpo. I still not sure on him. It looks like there is a player there. Looks very good going forward and seems to fit in with our play in that regard but very suspect in defence, getting caught out of position far too often.
Morning all… In regards to getting rid of the dead wood, I’m happy that we’re making steady progress in that department. Poveda and Costa out, Summerville promoted and James brought in. Alioski out and Firpo brought in. Whether those brought in are good enough is another debate but on paper they should be. I feel so miffed with those in charge at ER at the moment in regards to Forshaw, did we honestly base our midfield requirements and urgency to fill a void in this position on a player who obviously can’t handle the fitness requirements of a Bielsa team? When I say those in charge I’m not including Radz as the decision was obviously discussed and decided on between Bielsa and Orta. What Leeds fan never screamed sell him whilst he is fit the minute we heard he was free from injury? We all knew the next breakdown was just around the corner. Yes James is in my opinion a good signing but with Harrison and Raphinha already in the squad would that £25m not have been better spent on a CM player that can unlock a defence, that can turn a game, that can handle Bielsaball… I’m also extremely concerned about Llorente, some players are just not physically good enough to handle the kind of game Bielsa has us playing. I watch Bogusz and Joffy hammering home goals for fun and it leaves me scratching my head, I remember Bielsa getting it wrong about Klich at the beginning too. Unless we hear from Bielsa why he considers the likes of Tyler Roberts a better option it’s just a guessing game. Everyone trusted Bielsa when results and performances were good, now in our worst run under him it will be interesting to see if the support starts to waiver. I still back Bielsa but I’d find that task easier if he stopped picking Roberts and gave Joffy a go.
End of the day we have every player till Jan we can't afford to drop or push people out. When Fans get frustrated they start pointing fingers and blame calling. If we had won 2 or 3 and Roberts was doing exactly the same he wouldn't get half the abuse because it would be a happy Fanbase. Hand on heart I'd probably be one of them when your winning you can paper over cracks because you feel good you don't need to push out your anger because you are happy with results. Soon as things are not going right it's human nature to find the reason why and then frustration leads to anger and everything comes out. If we were doing ok and winning honestly I'd prob still say Roberts is not good enough but be happy with him till Jan but without angered words or malice. But we aren't winning and my frustration is spilling out more from anger Im saying things I have bottled up on Roberts. hand on heart I don't rate him even if we were winning or losing. But the bad start has made me single him out even more than I would of if we had won 2 or 3. Strange how the human brain works eh
klich should have put his laces through it and buried it instead of trying to pass it in, but why would he pass to harrison who to be fair had a mare, but for meslier we could have been 2 down before we scored but after that we should have been 2 up by half time and i doubt wet spam would have come back from that.
Looking at Ristacs post you can see a lot of despondency which is a stronger way of looking at the depressing results thing so far. I get it and understand it and Im as frustrated as hell myself, especially when it comes to some of the 23s. Shaks should be a candidate for midfield and have Drameh as understudy to Ayling. Pleased that Cresswell is getting recognition at long last and Summerville. However for me Roberts should be behind Gelhardt. Joffy should be on the pitch way ahead of Roberts especially when Bamford is out. I believe we will get Llorente and Koch back soon, maybe even the next match. Forshaw was never a contender for this season as getting back after 2 years takes almost a whole season as other strains will happen. It would be the back end of the season to be fully match fit so effectively out for 3 season's which begs the question why we never replaced him or Pablo in 3 windows
Klich has missed a few chances in the last couple of games by trying to curl the ball into the corners and yes he should have smashed that in on Saturday. Shaks too screwed up by not clearing the ball before Antonio got on it, he should have either cleared it or cleaned out Antonio. 2 players having decent games make errors that cost the team
Jack Jenkins has signed a contract extension to 2024. I have updated the sticky for him and Liam McCarron too who extended his deal last week
Klich can be a bit nonchalant with his shooting sometimes. Maybe a bit overconfident. I remember a penalty he took at QPR away when we were one down and he nonchalantly kicked it wide of the post. He only had to hit it as hard as he could at the whole of the goal he had to aim for.
Yeah agreed but when you analyse the reasons for our results and remember we are already on the back foot through injuries. Individual mistakes has cost us points and wins. Referee errors cost us a penalty and a win Referee error meant a player wasnt sent off allowing us to get at them more Klich missing t Newcastle and again on Saturday means 5 points lost Shaks not dealing with Antonio one way or the other cost us 2 points We could go on but pointless literally I await a full team before long to sort this season out. The blunts last season were shocking so too were WBA and Fulham. We look like a proper footy team not getting the rub if the green yet
Morning all Does anyone know if James was taken off injured or if it was a "defensive" tactical substitution bringing Harrison on? I think it was the Marcos curse, I said to Ben at Half Time Dan James is set up to shine this half on the break. Harrison simply didn't have the legs on Saturday - maybe a reaction to Covid? The really annoying thing is, you know West Ham are going to feed off corners and free kicks and we gave them plenty in the second half but we never kept anyone on the half way line so they could constantly keep 10 players in our half. If DJ had been on that is two defenders at least pinned back and the option of a real quick out ball (even for Meslier who had to keep waiting for us to get back into shape before releasing the ball). Raph was having his thigh strapped when he came off There weren't really groans when Roberts and Sommerville came on but neither did it lift the atmosphere. Koch hopes to be fit in two weeks, he has an inflamed hip bone so not an exact science. There was a sense of inevitability about their second goal, they are very organised and will win their fair share without being exciting. Cresswell I thought was very good but he was lost 2 or 3 times by Antonio. I thought Antonio was clever with upper body strength, Jammy feels Cresswell lacks a yard of real pace - not sure. Jammy did make one good point, none of Dallas, Klich or Phillips are particularly quick and probably why we get pulled open down the middle so often (I thought the space for their first goal was shocking, on our right, in the centre and then on our left). Firpo impressed me. Victor hates losing - I told him we would be champions next year and he didn't crack a smile, miserable git. Marcos won the guess the line up competition but, apparently Jammy doesn't award any prizes for that even though he was miles off it The scar on Dom Matteo's head was a reminder that this is only footie
So Gold and Sullivan now say WHU are £150m in debt because they spent big in the last 2 windows. They are admitting this because they know FFFP rules are being ignored for last season and this and will not apply next season too. So in effect we were beaten by cheats again Yeah sour grapes I know
More like Victor Meldrew then agree re corners, though I’d keep our 5 quickest players upfield so they have to keep 6 big lump defenders back. That would confuse them and strangely enough we’d probably be less likely to concede.
My heart bleeds for them. Made millions selling Upton Park before moving into their taxpayer-funded stadium where they pay just £2m pa rent. Cheating hypocritical twats.
Behave yourself! Re. Forshaw, it's entirely consistent that a player returning from long term injury will pick up all sorts of niggling injuries. Fact. I for one never screamed "Sell him". Indeed, I've never heard that said at ER. Let's face it, why would you buy a player who's been out for 2 years & going through the recovery's 'niggling injuries' scenario? No, you wouldn't. You wouldn't even take him on a free if you had to pay him. Same goes for a loan - why bother with someone who might not even feature? Such a player will never be a pivot in any team's planning, so he remains untouchable until he produces consistently. Looking at it from Forshaw's point of view, why would you move to a club that at best will offer a pay-as-you-play contract with crap wages, a sub-standard (to Leeds) medical team, coaching staff, training facilities, .... the list is endless? You wouldn't. You'd continue to try to regain 100% fitness, your touch, confidence etc. at Leeds, where all the facilities you require are readily available, plus you gets paid full whack! As for Roberts, I think Bielsa must be getting near the end of his tether. Even someone as loyal as him will eventually get rid. The writing is already on the wall with him having failed as a #9 & #10. Bielsa is now trying him as a #7 again. Tried that before 3 years ago when he failed at that too. Saturday showed us that he's never learned the discipline of hugging the touchline. Time & time again on Saturday, players were looking for the out on the right wing, as per the Bielsaball game plan. Was he there? Occasionally, when trundling back from another failed attack. Generally, he drifted into the middle, which is exactly why his #7 project failed the last time. Has he got the brains to learn new things? I do wonder, as all I see is Groundhog Day personified. And who says Bielsaball fitness is the cause? I have never, ever heard this nonsense mentioned by someone that has material facts to hand.
And let's not forget their cheating that got the Blades relegated instead of them. I'll never forget that injustice. Or the FA's part in it.
I've always said that we should have our 2 smallest players hugging the touchline on the halfway mark for corners. They're generally useless for a cross ball anyway. But how do the defending team react? I'd guess they'd keep 3 back - 1 in the middle, & 1 for each of the 'wingers'. That would leave 6 of them in the box against 9 of our tallest. Indeed, it would probably only be 5 in the box, as teams generally have someone holding back to recycle quickly if there's a clearance. Really don't understand the current logic.
We definitely wouldn’t be more at risk of conceding a goal, but have more chance of scoring on the break. Even if we didn’t score, we could at least win a corner by virtue of our pacy players running on to a long clearance. Bielsa is an innovative coach, I’m surprised he hasn’t tried it. Or maybe he has, at another club, or in training, and it just doesn’t work. Can’t think why it wouldn’t though tbh.
Sound common sense, even if one was on the post and one left up because our biggest problem is that we defend set pieces fairly well now and clear but because we dont have an outlet the ball comes straight back at us when we could be breaking. How many times did we score on the counter break last season, remember Ayling clearing to Phillips who screwed it out wide to Raphinha who ran 70 yards and laid it on a plate…. Goal
