Good Morning. It's Monday 13th March, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road Harrison makes amends in four goal thriller Leeds came from behind twice to grab a share of the spoils against European contenders Brighton at Elland Road at the weekend, but with other results going against them fell deeper in the mire. Over the last couple of seasons, Brighton have been transformed into a quality outfit; with relatively unknown players becoming household names. If there ever were a business model to copy, Victor Orta could have done a lot worse than to replicate what Tony Bloom at done at the Amex Stadium. Leeds battled hard throughout the game, and made life difficult for their South Coast rivals,showing a well disciplined set up, and gritty resolve, but Brighton's superiority was plain to see. The visitors broke the deadlock on 33 minutes. Pascal Groß's deep cross was headed across goal by Mitoma, and there was Mac Allister, unmarked in the six yard box to open the scoring. To their credit, Leeds didn't give up, and equalised five minutes before the half-time interval, when Bamford's effort cannoned in, off the woodwork, from the edge of the area, after good work from Harrison. Brighton's retook the lead in the most bizarre of circumstances. Mac Allister released Mitoma down the left hand side by-line, before cutting the ball back, across the Whites penalty area. Mac Allister or March seemed destined to get on the end of it, but not if Harrison had anything to do about it. The Leeds No 11 nipped in front of March, before stabbing the ball into the back of his own net, much to the annoyance of the Elland Road faithful. He made amends twelve minutes from time. Gnonto's short corner caught Brighton's defence napping. Harrison took full advantage, and bent a long range effort past the despairing dive of Seagulls shot stopper Jason Steele, sending a packed out Elland Road crowd into rapture. please log in to view this image ER faithful starting to turn on the players There was a distinct chilly atmosphere at Elland Road on Saturday, and we're not talking about the arctic conditions. The Leeds Utd faithful have finally had enough, and although sympathetic to their cause, made it clear to the players, that they do not suffer fools gladly. If truth be known, its been simmering for a while, yet the fans chose to direct their anger towards Jesse Marsch, and after he left, the board! Now it was the players turn. Although far from hostile, the frustrations of a few started to consume Elland Road with large sections of the crowd making it abundantly clear that what they're witnessing just isn't good enough. please log in to view this image Leeds just don't look like they're going to win Traditionally, at this point of the season, we see teams from the wrong end of the table, start to find some form and pick up points; and this campaign is no different. Unfortunately, there are no signs of this from Leeds. I can understand Gracia wanting to make Leeds hard to break down, but has taken away their creative influence in doing so. Picking up the odd point here and there will no longer be enough to keep Leeds in the top flight, and it's time to gamble. At this point of the season, I'd rather get beaten 4-0 and had a go, rather then 1-0 and play conservatively. please log in to view this image
You only turn on a player who's not trying and one thing that's still giving me hope is, the players are still busting a gut each game. I think a lot of the frustration came from the system of letting the Brighton CB pair having the ball so long without any press but a few times the tactic nearly worked because of their sloppy passing out, Aaronson unlucky twice, the bounce going the wrong way for him. We were going for it and getting beat by 4 or more under Bielsa Matt and you were calling for his head because of it, so I honestly don't think you mean that last line mate. A point against an excellent Brighton side who walloped West Ham 4-0 last week, we should be pretty happy about. Javi has 4 points from 9 so far, looking at the remaining 12 games we could quite easily keep up that average, which would be enough.
Morning all we may look back on the point earned as see how vital it was. Keep plugging away in every game is all we can do. Brighton like to use their goalie to to bypass our front players and play to space. They did it at Elland rd last season and it worked. We appear to have a more astute tactician in our new coach. We actually gained a bit of ground on three teams so that will do me. We have discussed the need to have a shot instead of trying to walk it in. Were the two goals not belters?.
Fans have had enough of Bamford and Harrison even though both seemed to redeem themselves on Saturday but we can all see a complete lack of sense from both. Firpo the much maligned whipping boy for fans is now changing minds. The tactics on Saturday were not pretty but effective and we will see new tactics against Wolves. Gracie sets up to play the opposition and counter their best tactics, so we need to be patient. If he can carry on getting an average of 1.4 points per league game we will be safe whatever anyone else at the bottom does. Rodrigo and Sinisterra need to be starting as we need their goals. I would also use Georginio ahead of Harrison and Gnonto ahead of a toothless Summerville. Roca was poor so McKennie for me
So a speculative deflection, and a wonder strike. Great they got us a point, but I’d rather see us creating regulation chances. Not much sign of that and reality is they had enough good opportunities to think it was points dropped for them and point gained for us. Frankly at this stage of the season who cares, in principle we know Brighton are a better side than us, and that’s what we saw. So we take the point and move on. As for all this points per game stuff that seems popular at the moment. It’s 3 games. Let’s hope we can get something at an average wolves team next Saturday. Then Javi has two weeks to plan his way through 7 games in April. Given the first one is at Arsenal we’re going to be feeling table pressure when we hit a run of 6 games, 4 at home, where all look ‘winnable’ in principle. Including Forest, palace and Leicester at home.
There are few players this season who have lived up to their price tags, or wages, the majority of which are earning way over 100k a month. Whether thats the going rate for a Premier League footballer these days is irrelevant - I don't care what other footballers are on. The majority of the players this season have not been fit to wear the shirt.
This **** side Southampton we beat , since the new guy took over there, we're the only team to score against them in those 4 league games, 2 of those against the so called big 6.
Having looked at the remaining fixtures for everyone up to Palace, I reckon quite a few clubs have very tough games coming up. Everton may well be fooked by the time they pickup anymore points in my view. Leicester do seem to have the easiest games coming up but Leeds must start winning fast to enable us to move away from the car crash bottom
That's why I'm not panicking, lots of games to go, all have tough games ahead, quite a few games against one another too, lots of twists and turns yet.
Healthy squad will be important… we play twice a week in April… with a couple of 3 day turnarounds. Hopefully less of an issue with javi’s more measured style than Jesse’s high energy game.. but some of our worst performances under marsch, Leicester/Fulham came in a busy week.… which may or may not be coincidence.
Just seems to be Cooper that's unaccounted for and it would be really useful to have him back asap. Well apart from you know who and Dallas of course.
… getting ‘you know who back’ before the end of the season would be like a new signing coops injury is a bit of a mystery… but here’s the question, would you play him and for who?
Coops is needed as a valuable member of the squad. No idea if he would get his place back in the starting eleven but we'll definitely need someone on the left side of defence for the run in. Cooper over Struijk all day long for me.
Firpo put the ball right where the goalie could not use his hands. His only option would have been to stick a foot out deflecting it to the lurking bamford.
Does anyone know if Dallas is actually in full training yet. Last i heard he had another operation and it set him back.
Last I heard he was moving around on the training pitch but not with the full squad after succumbing to an infection in his leg.
