Good Morning. It's Monday 31st October, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road A win at last, and well worth waiting for The noose around Jesse Marsch's neck loosened, as Crysencio Summerville's 89th minutes strike destroyed Liverpool's impressive home record, sending 3000 jubilant Leeds fans into ecstasy in the process. Liverpool have already secured maximum points against Newcastle, Ajax, Bournemouth (9-0), Rangers, Manchester City and West Ham this term. In fact, the only team (until last weekend), are Brighton. A mauling seemed to be on the cards, when just 37 seconds in, Cooper headed past his own keeper. Fortunately, Struijk's goal line clearance (from Salah's resulting effort) spared Leeds blushes. Minutes later though, the Whites went ahead. Gomez intercepted Arronson's surging run down the left flank, and passed back to his keeper to clear. Unfortunately (for him), the ball was loose, and rolled across the six yard box for Rodrigo to grab his sixth of the season. Leeds slender lead would only last ten minutes. Leeds failed to clear Trent Alexander-Arnold's cross, and when Robertson hooked the ball back into the danger zone, Salah made it look easy from close distance. Leeds more than held their own during the remainder of the first half. Arronson rocked the woodwork (from Kristensen's cross), whilst Alisson did well to deny Harrison. The hosts should have taken the lead early in the second half. Cooper's air kick gave Salah a one on one chance with Meslier, but opted to pass to Nunez. Fortunately, the Leeds shot stopper pulled off a blinding save. Meslier continued to pull off save after save, as Liverpool ramped up the pressure; but Leeds last line of defence was in spectacular form. Just as it looked like Leeds had secured a well deserved point, Leeds delivered a deadly blow. Gnonto's low cross was picked up on the edge of the penalty area by Bamford. He squeezed the ball to Summerville, who turned, and stabbed the ball under the despairing dive of Alisson to give Leeds their first victory since 21 August when they beat Chelsea 3-0. please log in to view this image Do we need a solid centre back in January Whilst a goal scoring forward has to be top of the agenda come January, I can't help but think we need better defenders. Christensen has been earning rave reviews recently, and whilst Struijk has been solid down the left, both are struggling with Jesse Marsch tactics going forward. To make his narrow formation work, it requires both wing backs to overlap Sinisterra and Harrison, and get crosses into the box. It's a big ask of them, and unfortunately may be beyond their capabilty. Our biggest defensive problem are our centre backs, and the amount of individual errors they make. The Premier League is unforgiving, as we learnt last season - mistakes are punished, and only the strong survive. please log in to view this image Is Summerville ready for the big time When the going gets tough, it takes a special talent to buck the trend, but that's what Summerville did on Saturday night on the eve of his 21st Birthday. His 89th minutes winner dragged Leeds kicking and screaming from the drop zone, to the dizzy heights of 15th. Having been given proper game time over the last couple of games, 'Jimmy' has netted in successive games, and whilst he is far from the finished article, there are visible signs of improvement. please log in to view this image
Fantastic result on Saturday but I'm not getting carried away until we at least back it up with a win against Bournemouth. I reckon a point against Spurts is a reasonable hope but forget the City game. If we can get 4 points from the next 3 games then I believe we are going in the right direction.
Morning all, That felt really good Saturday. Just what was needed. I still have my doubts about Marsch tactically but one thing that can't be doubted is the players want to play for him. The way they celebrated with him showed that there is a good relationship there. I have said previously that I believe we have good players. There is clearly desire and passion. If Marsch can get the tactics right then we will be OK this season
A near perfect away performance on Saturday and I thought we were good value for the win. Yes Liverpool had lots of shots, yes our keeper was MOM but we created plenty of big chances ourselves. The players and coach produced a near miracle performance given the criticism and pressure they have endured. Hopefully this is a turning point. Regarding centre back signings. We need a left back first and foremost. That releases Struijk to possibly play centre back so no we don't need a centre back. We have 4 in the squad (Cooper, Koch, Llorente, Struijk) backed up by Hjelde. We also have Cresswell at Millwall. It might be that the likes of Llorente and Cooper leave at the end of the season to be replaced by someone better. Summerville is a star in the making. Marsch has said a couple of times that his limiting factor will be his professionalism and his effort. It would be interesting to hear more on this. Does he have issues at training or off the pitch? I've been singing his praises for a while now and I'm happy he is getting a run in the team. Seems to be gaining confidence at this level and he could be our best player this season.
He got the tactics bang on Saturday. We need a bit of luck breaking down teams who park the bus. We struggle to beat those teams. They always seem to score with their first shot at goal and it becomes an uphill battle to get back in the game. Fulham game was infuriating as we actually got ourselves in front for once. I thought that would make Fulham try and get at us allowing us to pick them off on the break. I didn't factor in that Ayling would decide that Mitrovich wasn't worth the effort to mark from a corner or that Meslier would try and make the save whilst doing "jazz hands". please log in to view this image
Fans of notts forest may dispute this but in my view Bournemouth are the worst team in this league. As other sides have found out, that doesn’t mean we or any other side should assume it’s an automatic 3 points. They’ll set up to be hard to beat, and we’ll have to break them down and deal better with counters than we have so far this season… and watch out on set pieces if Moore plays.
Bank holiday here but have to work. Still, made a hell of a lot easier after Saturday night. Will live long in the memory like vicuñas four against them, the yeboah belters and becks wonder winner against scum. Can we please replace Bamford and Cooper in January. Neither are even decent championship standard and their mistakes are proving costly. Could have cost us dear again on saturday
As usual, I agree. Bournemouth are super weak but they keep scoring and winning games so maybe I'm wrong on that. We should have signed Kieffer Moore in January. Bournemouth only paid 6 million for him.
marsch made comments last season about no problems with egos in the first team, but had a few in the 23s. Given drameh was at Cardiff and the rumours of Summerville wanting away last Christmas - I think most of us thought Jimmy was the likely suspect. this is just a hunch but you get the feeling marsch has said, knuckle down and you’ll get game time under me. Jimmy gets a new contract and he’s getting his game time. Maybe Jesse has played this one well or maybe it’s just ‘happened.’. Whichever it’s good news all round.
Fantastic win on Saturday and a a good performance. Must admit I was a little worried at half-time at 1-1. We'd been good when we had the ball but we were giving it away far too frequently and I was afraid that Liverpool would punish us in the second half. But Liverpool are not the side they used to be and it showed. Superb from Meslier, MOM well deserved.
Jeez Emu what on earth would we want with a donkey like that. You'll be saying next we should bring Dyche in. Morning all by the way.
Marsch did get the tactics spot on and results, and performance against arsenal, suggest they work against teams that try and play. Problem is there are more sides in this league who will play the other way and just try and shut up shop, time waste and basically try and stop us playing. If Marsch can find a way to figure out how to beat these teams then we will be in a much stronger position
He needs to look at how we play these sides at home for sure. Away from home where typically these sides are obliged to play a bit more - it’s less of an issue… although until Saturday results suggest otherwise.
As our head of xg under the Jamager I can confirm that Bournemouth are bottom of almost every statistic except points. They’ve now lost 3 on the bounce… and although Leeds specialise in ending other teams bad runs, let’s hope we stick a knife in them. If we finish below Bournemouth we’re relegated.
My opinion is we will inly sign a left back in January. There was some rumour about a signing from the states. Plus you can bet we will be out bid for a striker. Rads will come out with his same old well we tried excuses. Why do we say out two u21s strikers are too young yes jimmy at 20 on saturday and gnonto 18 is ok. Surely it is time to try out some in the league cup. It's not as if we will win it so use the game as a tester. Please do not play Bamford it will gain nothing.
At the time we were playing the legendary Dan James as a striker. 6 million was a snip for Moore when we literally had nobody else.
Have to agree with Orta and Bielsa on this that there's no point signing inferior players just to fill a gap whilst giving them 3 year contracts. Moore is just a big lump with zero mobility, yes he's good in the air but so was Matt Smith and his career didn't amount to much did it. You'll now surmise that Moore would have kept us up, when the fact is no one knows and we might have been relegated with him leading the line.
