Good Morning. It's Monday 20th December, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road Injury plagued Whites hammered again Mikel Arteta's Arsenal took full advantage of an injury ravaged Leeds team, made up of an assortment of players as young as 15, as Marcelo Bielsa struggled to put together a starting XI. In the end Luke Ayling (who had being suffering from illness) was well enough to participate, alongside an unfit Robin Koch who hadn't kicked a competitive ball since the opening game of the season at Old Trafford. Charlie Cresswell had been pencilled in to partner Ayling at the heart of Leeds defence, but a freak shoulder injury in the dying seconds of training on Thursday put pay to that. In total, the Whites were without ten players, nine from the first team. To rub salt into the wound, the majority of top flight fixtures were postponed due to Covid. Although numbers are not available, I doubt their squads had been decimated to the same degree, yet Bielsa, a man of moral stature would rather fall on his sword than ask for a postponement. Leeds were literally the only team in the Football League with no players, that actually played at the weekend. Any hope of a fairytale miracle were diminished during the first 45 minutes where the Gunners ran riot over the Whites. Only last gasp defending and a solid performance from Meslier kept the scoreline barely respectable. Fortunately, Arsenal took their foot off the excelerator in the second half, and Leeds found some rhythm. There was a glimmer of hope fifteen minutes from time when Joe Gelhart was upended in the penalty area by Ben White. The ref pointed to the spot, from which Raphinha bagged his eighth goal of the campaign. Any hopes of a late revival were soon put to bed when Emile Smith-Rowe restored the Gunners three goal advantage. please log in to view this image PL Clubs to discuss festive lockdown Premier League clubs are meeting this lunchtime to discuss whether to postpone the festive Soccer calendar in light of six out of the 10 of last weekends top flight games being called off due to a spike in covid related cases. Poor Chelsea were only able to name six players for their bench as they were held to a goalless draw at Molineux. Would you like to see the festive Soccer calendar put on hold until some point in the New Year? Should there be any postponements where teams don't have the majority of their players immunised against Covid, or should everyone be afforded the same courtesy? please log in to view this image Fans rave about Gelhardt Hundreds of Leeds fans took to twitter at the weekend to demand that Joe Gelhardt be given more game time. The 19yo has played 270 minutes of PL football, 230 of those against Spurs, Chelsea, City and Arsenal and has won two penalties and netted once. Although only young, other top flight clubs are utilizing players younger than Joffy week in, week out. I respect the necessity to protect the player, but surely he's good enough? please log in to view this image
Morning all…. Joffy is decent, he’s a good prospect, I could see against Arsenal why he isn’t quite ready but that could be our failure to play to his strengths. Saying that I’d rather him up front than a fit Rodrigo or Tyler Roberts. I usually love football over Christmas but I’m hating it at the moment, I’d love it to be scrapped for two weeks. In regards to us continuously complaining about VAR and Ref decisions, Kane should have got a red yesterday not yellow so it’s not just us. It’s magnified as we see and feel every decision just as other supporters see it for their respective clubs. Chelsea tried to get their game called off for Covid, I think it was 7 or 8 players. Where does it cross the “okay it can be called off line” and should it be the same when you’re hit with injuries? I think if you’re expected to play and field a team with 10 injured players then players missing through Covid is no different, they should play with a team of players available who tested negative.
I see we’re being linked with a £20m move for Juventus midfielder Weston McKennie. Spurs are also interested, it’s been questioned would he feel comfortable joining a club in a relegation dog fight. Is the rumour true, are we looking at him? Point is after the last two results and possibly a third successive stuffing against Liverpool round the corner this is the problem we’re going to have in January
Is anyone surprised that Lewis Bate hasn't had a kick in the first team. Koch looks lost at Sea, and his body language when substituted on Saturday indicates all may not be well inside the Elland Road dressing room?
I have been singing the praises of Joffy for ages and believe hes good enough. One thing about him is that he wins penalties because he runs at defences and has fast feet. He is a player that always makes something happen. 1 goal and 2 assists is pretty good for the kid who has only been involved in 5 games and not completed 90 minutes yet. He has also had more shots on target than anyone else except Raphinha. Chelsea crying because they had 3 players out with covid, yet we play and cant even put out a fit first 11, so have to play kids and have a bench full of kids including a 15yo. What do fans expect, what do pundits expect to happen when you put out a team that stands no chance against top 4 clubs? Leeds have Phillips Bamford Llorente Meslier and Bamford as the only players standing any chance of making it into some top prem teams, but we have only had Meslier available, so how the hell can we be expected to compete. Yes Bielsa is to blame for not having a bigger squad, but how can you account for lady luck who has crippled our squad with injuries. I just want the Liverpool game to be over and this awful period gone. By the way Llorente has had covid twice already and has had triple jabs, yet contracted it again on Saturday. So what is the point of vaccine passports for fans when jabs prove pointless.
Summerville and Drameh, both were out of their depth, I’d assume Bate is further behind. Sorry our U23s are not as good as we’d like them to be.
We all expected nothing from December, but we didnt expect to be embarrassed by City and Arsenal and will get more of the same with Liverpool. Finding it harder to take than I expected, but pretty pointless slagging off Bielsa. Some would want him to play a team of players out of position and kids and just park the bus trying to keep the score down. Thats the only option he has with whats available, what do you want him to do. The players are getting slagged off from all points and Koch only played because he knew we were in trouble Klich and Koch looked unhappy being subbed but I bet it was because they were upset at the teams performance and frustration. Our goal difference is shagged and has us in the bottom 3, yet our points still has us 5 points above the drop zone.
I expect him to play to their strengths and realise they are out of their depth trying to man mark the quality they face in Arsenal, Liverpool and Man City. Souness said it’s like kids playing football in a park, Neville was equal in his criticism, sadly I agree with both. Harrison, Klich, Raphinha, Koch, Meslier, Dallas, Ayling, Forshaw, Roberts - That’s still nine first team players. BTW Chelsea have 8 players with Covid
Leeds United Have lost momentum from last season, as well as Patrick Bamford and Kalvin Phillips for key periods. Squad is not deep enough. It could be Marcelo Bielsa’s last season at Leeds. Star man Raphinha Must improve Junior Firpo Predicted finish 15th Alyson Rudd Saturday December 18 2021, 6.00pm, The Sunday Times
People keep calling them kids winds me up. Most of them are men and been coached to play football for most of their lives. If they don't get it by the time they are 20 they are not as good as some on here think they are.
Exactly, when you compare just their three goal scorers of similar age the gap in quality is vast. Mason Mount, Reece James, Declan Rice, there are another 20 top drawer players who were all playing regular PL football at 19 years old
Pointless? How ill would Llorente have been without the jabs. People are fighting covid off because they had the vaccine. Some people are lucky and have a great immune system but others can't take it.
Last season, Spurs got a bye in the EFL Cup, because Orient couldn't field a team because of covid, if memory serves correctly. Will the same rule apply now we're at the QF stage and if these team can play so called lesser players from their squads for this, then shouldn't they be playing them in League games too, what's the difference in having 5 out with covid and 5 out injured, should they have to cope?
Given that we are unable to compete for top drawer players of any age at present, what makes you think that we can attract top drawer young players. At best we are most likely to attract decent premier league prospects, with one or two becoming regular first team players, however we do not have the pick of the crop. I always take the various posts on here about the quality of our younger players as a pinch of salt, we have heard so many times about how so and so is quality, only for them to disappear with hardly a trace. The only way to judge whether our younger players are of any quality, is whether our coach selects them for game time by choice not by necessity. There have been numerous posts on here from various posters about why do we not play our u23's, why does Bielsa insist in playing first team players out of position instead of putting our younger players in. Well maybe now we know the answer. Of course now that he has had to play those players, it would appear that portions of our fan base are writing them off already, despite the fact that as soon as the fixtures were announced, we knew that December was going to be a difficult period. Add in the fact that we as a team we are going through a very tough period anyways, and is it any wonder that individuals will struggle when the team as a whole is struggling. Of course we are Leeds United, so we should be judged together with the likes of City, Scum, Chelsea, Spurs, Liverpool, Arsenal. Let's ignore the fact that except for the last 3 years we were at best an average Championship team. That until 3 or 4 years ago our youth system was poor. We are back in the Premier League and so we should be producing world class youth talent, just like the top 6 clubs are doing, there is no need for us to play catch up. Let's ignore the fact that Howard Wilkinson set in a 5 year youth development plan when he was at the club, that O'Leary was the benefit of when he was in charge 4 years later. So far this season 37 players aged 21 or under have played 5 or more games in the Premier League Norwich 8 ( 3 players in total on loan from Scum, Chelsea and Schalke) Newcastle 0 Burnley 1 (developed at Stoke) Watford 2 (1 developed at West Ham) Brighton 1 (developed at Chelsea) Aston Villa 1 Leicester 1 Southampton 2 (Both on loan from Chelsea) Everton 1 Brentford 0 Crystal Palace 3 (2 on loan from Chelsea) Wolves 3 (1 developed at Liverpool, 1 on loan from Barcelona) Spurs 1 Scum 2 (1 developed at Dortmund) West Ham 1 Arsenal 4 (1 developed at Benfica) Chelsea 1 Liverpool 1 Man City 1 Leeds 3 Yes those clubs have 22 and 23 year old players who have come through the youth team and are now first team regulars, but most of those clubs have maintained their Premier League status for a number of years, and thus have both the finances and pulling power to attract the talent that we wish to. Despite the fact that this is Leeds United we are talking about, we are playing catch up, not with the likes of Liverpool, Chelsea or Man City etc, we are playing catch up with Southampton, Everton even Burnley both in terms of finances and development and as much as we may wish for a quick fix, reality says it is unlikely to happen any time soon. We had our quick fix period 3 1/2 years ago, that eventually got is back to the Premier League, when the hard worked started. We have an advantage over some of the more established Premier League teams, in terms of marketability etc, but it is still going to take some effort. Just as an addendum to this already long winded post. If we want our younger players to develop in a similar lines to Man City etc, then it should be noted that in 2006 prior to being taken over by the Arabs, Man City had 6 players aged 21 or under that played 10 games or more in the Premier League. Thus they have had a stable youth development system in place for over 15 years, so not sure how we are meant to compete with that, when 4 years ago we had virtually no youth development system in place.
Of course I could Wakey, but I wanted to keep my points simple, as I appreciate that these days people's attention span is short
Twice before ? I remember him getting a false positive test that would have ruled him out of the Euros but was able to return to the Spain squad days later after two or three negative results. Don't recall any other time he got it, so is this not the first time for him ?
