Good Morning. It's Monday 17th April, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road. Magpies ready to swoop for Drameh A host of top flight clubs, including Champions league hopefuls Newcastle Utd are preparing to swoop for Leeds right back Cody Drameh. The 21yo right back is currently enjoying life in Bedfordshire for Championship outfit Luton Town, Since joining the Hatters on loan in January, no Championship outfit have picked up more points! In twelve appearances, they have kept eight clean sheets, and have risen to third in the table, five points away from an automatic place, currently occupied by the Blades. The former Cottager has just over twelve months left on his contract, and is desperate for first team football. He was considered third choice at Elland Road at the beginning of the season, behind both Ayling and Kristensen, yet both continue to struggle for consistency. Since arriving in February, Gracia has opted for the elder statesman to occupy the right back berth, knowing his capabilities are limited, and his lack of pace will no doubt continue to get exploited over their final eight games, but it's the best we have at the moment. please log in to view this image Statistical data show encouraging signs for Leeds Statistical data, compiled by the boffins at 'The Athletic' show encouraging signs of optimisity for Leeds, ahead of their fight for Premier League survival. Given their lowly league standing, you'd expect them to be way down the pecking order; but nothing could be further from the truth. Whilst there's definitely room for improvement, especially when it comes down to the final product (both attacking and defending), the overall figures are encouraging. Bearing this in mind, why do Leeds find themselves, in this predicament. * PPDA (passes per defensive action) measures the pressure that the defending team puts on the opposition players when they are in possession of the ball. The PPDA metric is calculated by dividing the number of passes allowed by the defending team by the total number of defensive actions. * xG (or expected goals) is the probability that a shot will result in a goal. * Attack speed The speed in which the team moves up field in metres per second * Field tilt Describes the percentage of all final third passes belonging to a team in all of their matches, giving a measure of territorial dominance. please log in to view this image Where are Leeds going to find seven points from? There are 24 points up for grabs between now and the visit of Spurs, and Leeds only need 7, but where are they going to come from. Will it go down to the wire, and more importantly, can Leeds keep themselves afloat? please log in to view this image
Morning all. Im not sifting through that technical stuff. Far too complex for my limited brain. Have a good feeling about tonight so that's likely jinxed that
We have made 2 big booboos with our full backs: Drameh was always better defending than Ayling and also much quicker in attack and getting back. He was shat on by the yank so went out on loan. If he isn’t promised at least to be back for Kristensen if he is going to be our RB, then Drameh will be sold and sold way too cheap but last year of contract and he wont sign another. The yank got rid of Leif Davies who Bielsa loved (Very good Davies) the kid went to Ipswich and has been involved in 15 goals this season taking the club into the auto promotion places, not bad for a LB. Yeah only League 1 but on target to be player of the season. We had a failing Firpo and Struijk
Those stats are very much marsch era dominated. Both our xg for and our xg against have actually got worse since he left. We’ve played some nice stuff in patches but we’re arguably easier to play against now. Some might say the aggressive press that’s directly or indirectly responsible for most of the stats shown, helped protect our pedestrian defence and now that it’s exposed…the players are showing their level defensively. Main difference, points wise has been having home games against the bottom teams and riding our luck against wolves and Brighton. But hey, we still create chances. Need to take them tonight and hide behind the sofa when they have the ball.
Morning Doc Ben went to watch Ipswich last weekend and said Davies was decent but no way a Premier League player. Also, you have to remember, it was Bielsa that brought Davies to the brink of the first team but it was also Bielsa that froze him out again. Don't know if it was attitude or Bielsa saw something missing in him but he dropped him like a bomb. My heart says I would love to see Drameh become our first choice Right Back but, in the limited appearances I have seen him make at first team level he has never shone for me. Think it was Milky that pointed out a while back, Djed Spence was the stand out full back in the Championship last season but hasn't had a sniff at Spurs.
Appreciate you’re not happy with the treatment of klich and gelhardt Doc, but the drameh situation is more nuanced than that. Kristenson seemed a strange signing under the circumstances and hasn’t worked out which makes it look worse in hindsight, but drameh fell out with bielsa over game time and fckd off to Cardiff against the clubs wishes. It’s fairly well documented that there was discord when he returned. Ayling was crocked. So marsch could have gone all in on Drameh… who’d had half a season looking good as wing back in the championship… But it would have been a risk. I like Cody. He wasn’t good for us in a 4 at PL level but doesn’t mean he wouldn’t/won’t be. The root problem here though wasn’t of marsch’s making. As for ‘very good Davis’ he plays in the best attacking team in league one. Personally, I think it’s criminal that we started the season without at least a backup left back and hold marsch/orta jointly responsible for that. Whether that should have been Davis is another matter.
All the talk about XG etc made want to have another look at why we are not higher in the table. Rodrigo not being played ahead of Bamford, why? Rodrigo injured right when we needed him due to playing a nothing cup match. Harrison having a poor season by his standards as we usually get more assists and more goals from him. Gnonto having reduced minutes on the pitch. Aaronson not getting the goals he should have Not enough goals from our CBs Still need Sinisterra to come good again after long lay off
I thought at first Rodrigo was being rested, ahead of Bamford, but obviously not the case. I do recall reading a few weeks ago that Rodrigo was struggling for fitness. This was a good 2-3 weeks after he returned from injury.
All fair points doc, excepting maybe harrison's assists which are actually pretty good. Think those figures included cup games, if you focus on PL in terms of league position the primary issues have been Paddy and Jack's chance conversion... though Jack's has improved recently at a crucial time... and, as you suggest, a lack of people chipping in elsewehere. There's no one route cause. Lack of efficiency in front of goal... and regular catastrophic errors defensively. It's fairly simple, we've played 'mid table' football in terms of most of the measurements you can use to assess these things... BUT with relegation standard finishing and relegation standard defending. If we'd played like forest and finished and defended like leeds we'd have been relegated months ago. If we'd played as we did with just average performing back 5 and strikers we'd be 11th/12th
Seems Diego Llorente is having a great time in Rome. Started this third game on the bounce and got Mom with another flawless performance according to Italian media. He was used in a back 3 of Llorente, Smalling and Mancini. He is also used as a back up CB when Jose’ uses a back 4 but now getting some rave reviews. The buy price of £15.8m was mentioned again and the counter offer from Roma of £10m seems to be a good deal for both parties
Gnonto is wasted as an impact sub. Looks like he likes of look of Sinisterra, playing as an inverted inside left. I haven't been overly impressed since Sinsterra's come back from injury. He's grabbed himself a goal or two, but hasn't had the amount of impact I'd have hoped for.
Gracia mentioned that he was having to manage Bamford and Rodrigo who were coming back from injury he said he also now needed to manage Sinisterra who was a week behind them. Since then it’s Bamford starting and Rodrigo getting minutes later in the game. Sinisterra is now able to play 90 minutes but Bamford isn’t and I bet Rodrigo is also able to play a full game. Gracia has said his No9 is Bamford and for me that’s his worst judgement call because he ain’t getting the return he was expecting from Bamford
Not really, we are short of scoring goals and conceding too many. To put that into context , whoscored.com (same site that you used for the figures you posted) show that Brentford players have scored 46 goals (presume someone scored an own goal for them, as they have scored 47 goals) and that they have a total of 28 assists. So 60% of their goals are assisted by a teammate, meaning 40% are due to other means. Where as the figures you posted show that our players have scored 37 goals and we have had 27 assists from players. So 72% of our goals have been from player assists, and 28% from other means Palace and Liverpool have 82% of assists compared to goals scored Villa and Brighton have 69% of assists compared to goals scored Wolves have 41% of assists compared to goals scored Fulham have 63% of assists compared to goals scored Didn't bother looking at the other 12 clubs as I felt that the above gives a reasonable reflection. We all know that we dont score enough goals from the chances created, without even having to talk about our defensive issues. Brentford create the same amount of assists per game as ourselves 0.9 and yet have scored 8 more goals than us and conceded 12 less and thus have 14 more points than ourselves. However Brentford average 10.3 shots per game and score 1.5 goals per game. We average 12.2 shots per game and average 1.3 goals per game According to WhoScored.com we average 0.9 assists per game. Fulham average 0.8 assists. They have scored only 3 more goals than us, but conceded 13 goals less, which is why they have 13 points more than us. Fulham average 11.9 shots per game and score 1.4 goals per game. So in theory yes, we need our players to create a lot more assists, just so that our forward players can be comparative to the forward line ups of other EPL teams. Alternatively we could let our attacking midfield players continue to create the same number of assists, and find an attacking line up that is able to convert more of those chances
Aski writes “ “Alternatively we could let our attacking midfield players continue to create the same number of assists, and find an attacking line up that is able to convert more of those chances” Looking at Rodrigo stats you would hope he was on the pitch and not on the bench, whereas the chances wasted by Bamford……… the difference is stark and suggests that Rodrigo would be close to 20 goals by now if he hadn’t got injured in the cup game and wasn’t playing 2nd fiddle to Bamford now. That should have given us more points and had us out of danger at least.
