Posting a bit early as Ell is not well today. Hope you get sorted out soon mate Well a happy New Year to everyone and lets hope we can start putting some points on the board because I’m starting to worry again. In the Championship I note that last night Poveda started for Blackpool in a defeat and was subbed off on 82 minutes. Tyler Roberts managed to start for QPR in a 3-0 defeat and was subbed off on the hour mark, so guessing we won’t be getting much cash for these two. However it’s nice to see WBA who were in the relegation zone before Carlos Corberan took over and after winning 7 from the last 8 games now sit a point outside the top 6. He took Huddersfield into the play offs too let’s not forget before walking out and Huddersfield are in real relegation danger now. That’s how you want a new manager to perform and it’s nice that he’s one of our own. Speaking of which Mark Jackson did the biz down at MK Dons and got them a win which took them out of the relegation zone. Some interesting stats about Eddie Howe and Newcastle, who you will remember this time last year had only 12 points and in real trouble, but Eddie Howe has taken over 70 points from the last 35 games, whereas we have managed only 31 points. This isnt all down to money either, this is down to coaching and moving some players into different positions. Yes some serious money has been spent on a few players but they are a well drilled unit now and it’s going to be a tough ask for Leeds this weekend. Are they a top 6 team? Their results suggest they are. No they wont trouble the likes of City, Liverpool or Arsenal, but will compete with Chelsea and Spurs and if they splash the cash in January maybe it’s a good time to play them because they may be a lot more formidable for the rest of the season. Newcastle shows us what can be done with a good coach and a few quid which makes it all the more frustrating that the wheels seem to have come off the Leeds bandwagon. After the debacle of the City match where we basically surrendered and went out there with a lack of ambition, I found frustrating. I don’t even know what our style of play is anymore. Its almost like Marsch has been trying to move further and further away from the identity Bielsa gave us to this tepid, grey insipid style we have now. 11 months ago we were told that we had been going for Jesse Marsch because he had some similar traits in the way he set his team up. He would be getting rid of the man for man tactic but would still be high energy rock and roll high pressing football. We are about to break another record for the Premier League which will be the first team to average conceding 2 goals per game in a calendar year. We have shipped as many goals under Marsch as we did with a depleted Bielsa team last season. So in real terms we can say we have an improved team due to the players brought in, but our defending is just as bad as it was. We have a similar number of points as we had at this time last season when we thinking about sacking Bielsa. Yes the club havent done what was obvious by buying a LB and a new striker, and yes Bamford has hurt us badly for the last 18 months and in a way so too has Sinisterra as he was flying and looking like he was going to be the difference, but a pre season injury and then a foot injury has damaged that. Hopefully the LB situation is going to be resolved a few days and we get both Sinisterra and Bamford back and scoring which in fairness should save the season, but I have little confidence in this Board of Directors now as I think they have taken us as far as they can. The transfer window opens in a days time and there are only two serious moves in the offing and both for a LB. Max Wober seems to be a thing as well as Kai Wagner. Myself I would prefer Wagner simply because it’s only going to costs us £4m and probably cheaper, plus he is real LB. Wober will cost up to £13m and although has been playing as a LB this season is a proper left side CB. If its going to be Wober maybe there are moves to offload Cooper and have Struijk as his back up next season? Not much news on a striker so hoping the club are being shrewd and keeping sh tum but about announce a worldy…. It would be interesting to have a look at the thread where we all took a guess at where we thought we would be at the end of the season because I think many of us would want to change our predictions
This was posted by the club on 28th February last year. Can someone please explain to me how we bring in Marsch because of his tactics and style of play aligning with our style and our players? “Jesse is someone we identified a number of years ago during his time at Red Bull Salzburg and we believe his philosophy and style of football aligns with that of the club and will suit the players very well. “We have a long-term plan and firmly believe he can take Leeds United to the next level and are excited for what the future holds.”
When Marsch joined we had Harrison James, Raphinha, Poveda, Summerville all wingers. We dont use wingers as wingers now we also went out and bought Amari Miller.
I’ll let you into a little secret Doc. Jesse didn’t ask for much. We enquirer into that Howe fella and he wanted a small fortune
I won't partake in Jesse bashing. He's not perfect but he had his best two players sold from underneath him and wasn't given any extra funds to strengthen. Did we expect to be better off this season after Phillips and Raphinha left. He's not the best coach but give him a bigger budget and a couple of hundred million before comparing him to Howe. It's a ridiculous comparison at this point.
Emu defensively we are worse than last season, simply because we were shafted by injuries at the back all season long. Cooper injured and suspended, Ayling injured and suspended, Firpo injured and I’ll, Koch injured and I’ll and Llorente injured and I’ll. we have a regular right back now plus Ayling is now back. We have had Koch all season so far, still no Firpo but Struijk given the nod over a fit Firpo and Cooper now bad. My problem is our defenders are exposed and overrun too often, so a year on we are worse at the back or at best no improvement….. last season under Bielsa we only had Phillips playing a few times protecting the defence and then either Klich or Forshaw which didn’t work. This season however a very good Adams and Roca now doing the Phillips role. Sorry Emu but show me where we are better at the back after a year?
We need a proper LB but if we can get both and they are improvements let's hope. My concern is the new contracts for Stuijk, Llorente and now Koch, we're just flooding ourselves with CB's not up to the task
Think Jesse was trying something different against City which was his version of parking the bus. Probably a one off to try and nullify the best team around and fair play for mixing things up. Even though City won comfortably and had many many chances it was probably the right game to give such tactics a go and it's unfair to slate him for actually having a plan B. Also could be that he might switch to that more defensive shape and formation when trying to see games out, rather than the 5 at the back against Spuds which unfortunately didn't work.
YES I expected to be better off, KP is excellent in a Bielsa team, in a Jesse team he was pretty average for the games he did play. Raphinha, yes a shame we sold him but I can go back through posts and find you a three month spell where everyone was saying drop him, cash in on him, his head has gone. I can dig you up plenty of fans who didn't actually like KP and they feel Adams is better. We lost two players and signed seven, I expected us to be better
I've been honest all along, I can't take to Jesse, my views on him are clouded, I find it extremely difficult to give him any kind of credit but one fact that you can't get away from, it's at that stage now where he is dividing the fan base. There are going to be a flood of managers losing their jobs in January, lots of clubs looking for new coaches, I just hope the board get what ever decision they make right.
I've not said we are better at the back. Our current situation is that we have sub standard players, question marks over the coach, limited funds. We get beat by the best team in the world (imo) and its panic. Sack the coach. Sack the board. We are where we are. I asked @ristac the other day which coach we could get that would make us better and he basically said he doesn't have time to scout a global network to find one. That's fair enough but who would actually want this job under the current circumstances.
Hindsight again, we could have attracted virtually any coach at the end of season one in the PL. I nearly said in my previous post, you only really sack a coach when you are in relegation trouble. Where does that leave you, best case scenario a good up and coming Championship coach who looks like missing out on promotion
As we've only 4 League games before the end of January hopefully we can pick up a few points and get Sinisterra & Bamford back on the pitch. Newcastle (a) 31st Dec West Ham (h) 4th Jan Villa (a) 13th Jan Brentford (h) 22nd Jan
The Jesse in/out debate is over and done with for now simply because he had a great performance against Arsenal and Liverpool plus the earlier Chelsea result. We then said hopefully he will get some results in January and to be fair to him he could still pull it off. However he has had 6 weeks with 80% of his squad whilst the WC was on and we were worse than ever, but it was against City. Either he is going to be sacked in February and people like Ristac will be proved right as we should have sacked him before the WC and given the new guy a transfer window, or Emu and Milky will be right and Marsch manages to give us and the players a proper coherent strategy that gets results and saves the season. I hope he pulls it off as replacing him in February isn’t ideal. I am just worried we don’t seem to have progressed at all in defence and our saving grace this season to last is that we are scoring more otherwise we would be bottom of the league
Well done Jammy bringing the prediction thread back. Just been looking through it and the consensus seems to have been a finishing position between 10th and 15th. Me I would be happy right now with 17th
Wrist slasher ristac was the one who revived it so he can boast that he predicted 17th right from the off. Although that was my preciction as well If we can get Bambi & Sinisterra back we'll be ok...err hopefully.
This is the main issue Emu whatever side of the debate you’re on as Jesse has been in charge for 11 months of the 12 Leeds United are set to break a 38-year long top-flight record by becoming the first team to play a full year in the top-flight and concede at least two goals per game on average. The Whites have conceded 72 goals from their 35 matches in 2022 and not a clean sheet in their final game of the year at Newcastle United will prevent it.
My worry is that his system just doesn’t work in the premier league. It didn’t at Southampton or at scum. So does Jesse play any other way? 4-2-3-1 apparently is his other formation of choice.
