Good Morning. It's Monday 2nd October, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road Bad day at the office for the Whites Leeds six match unbeaten run came to an end at St Mary's at the weekend, after a dire performance all round from Daniel Farke's men. Expectations were high going into the match, and why not? Southampton had lost all four of their previous games, leaking 12 times in the process. In contrast, with 2 win, two draws and four clean sheets, Leeds had reached the dizzy heights of sixth, and even had half an eye on the top two. Leeds got of to the worst possible start, going behind after just two minutes. Kyle Walker-Peters through ball, sliced the Leeds centre backs wide open for Adam Armstrong to latch onto, and chip the ball past Meslier from an acute angle. Russell Martin's side kept the pressure up, and deservedly doubled their lead on the half hour mark, after Sulemana got the better of Shackleton (as he would continue to do for most of the game). With few options, he passed to Will Smallbone, who was surrounded by six blue shirts. From twelve yards out, the Republic of Ireland International simply passed the ball into the back of the net to open his account for the Saints. Two quickly became three, four minutes later when Sulemana cut inside from the wing, releasing Adam Armstong, wide and deep, within the Leeds penalty area. He danced past Byram (several times) before smashing the ball past Meslier. Leeds got one back just before the hour mark, with Struijk grabbing his third of the season (from all competitions), but never looked like repeating their famous 4-3 comeback of 2005. The Whites got exactly what they deserved from this game; there were just too many Leeds players having off days! please log in to view this image Is Cooper an easy target for the Leeds boo boys For a long while now (especially when on the end of a hiding), Leeds fans tend to reach out to social media and single out certain individuals who they believe are most responsible for a bad performance, and Saturday was no different. Blame culture is nothing new at Leeds Utd, though certain players tend to get tarred with the same brush, whether deserved on not. Last weekend, it was Liam Cooper's turn to be the sacrificial lamb. Whilst his performance at St Mary's was below par, so was everyone else's. In fact, it's difficult to remember a game where so many Leeds players were having an off day. Did the Leeds skipper deserve the criticism or is he an easy target? please log in to view this image Farke feels Leeds were unfortunate In his post match interview, Leeds Manager Daniel Farke defended the indefeasible by insinuating Leeds had been unlucky at St Mary's. According to the gaffer, the opening goal was offside and midfielder Will Smallbone was lucky to be on the pitch after his challenge on Summerville, after he had already picked up a booking. He dissected all three goal Leeds conceded but insisted he couldn't remember Meslier having to make a save:- “Congratulations to Southampton, they were more effective in this game. “With the statistics, we have won more or less each and every statistic, but the result is all that matters and the result is 3-1, so congratulations to them. “Our defensive behaviour was not spot on like in the last games, in the last four games we were there with four clean sheets in a row and we didn’t allow the opponents to have many chances. “Today we needed to be more aware and sharper in the decisive moments. “Apart from the goals, I can’t remember one situation where Illan Meslier had to make a save, so we didn’t allow them too much. “Sometimes tiny little moments can make a big difference. “When we talk about the first goal, yes, normally if you would go to VAR it probably would have been ruled out as offside, but sadly there is no VAR in the Championship, therefore we have to drop a bit quicker in order to defend the run of Adam Armstrong. “The second goal, yes we should have shifted a bit quicker and sharper against the ball, but it was also unbelievably unlucky. “There was a situation where there was a foul by Smallbone against Crysencio Summerville. “You could also argue, he was on a yellow card, I don’t ask for yellow and red cards, but you could at least discuss about this. “Normally we would then play on an overload, but because of this situation, Cry needed treatment and there are protocols where he has to stay for 30 seconds out of the pitch, which meant we had to play an underload. “In this moment, Smallbone, the player who fouled him, was there to score the cut-back. “I don’t use this as an excuse, but to speak about it, we could have been sharper and quicker, but it was one of those days where we were a little unlucky and every mistake was punished. “I can’t argue about the third goal, individual behaviour has to be better against Armstrong. “If you are 3-0 down at half-time, it’s always difficult to return back with points.” please log in to view this image Hay questions Farke's decision not to recall Rodon After the game, Elland Road journalist Phil Hay took to social media to question Daniel Farke's decision not to recall Joe Rodon after his one match suspension. Farke had mentioned in his post match presser that it would have sent the wrong message to the dressing room, had he changed the team, after their performance against Watford. Hay was critical of the German saying that Rodon deserved to start, and the 'Leeds defence was at at sea' without him. The former Chief Football Writer for the Yorkshire Evening Post wasn't the only one to question Farke's defensive line up. Former White, now pundit Jon Newsome insisted that Farke needs to drop Liam Cooper for the rest of the season in favour of Pascal Struijk (to play alongside Joe Rodon). please log in to view this image
Morning all Saturdays game is a typical example of how we all wish someone had hindsight, the truth was, on this occasion we had too many players having an off day together and the team selection/formation wasn’t good enough. Farke makes some valid points but the bottom line is we deserved nothing from the game. I did my finger pointing on Saturday, looking forward to everyone at the club redeeming themselves against QPR
Morning all. One of those game best forgotten about. 2nd best all over the place. There will be repeats over the season just as there will be great performances like Watford. At least there isn't much time to feel sorry for themselves
Morning all, Win on Wednesday and Saturday can be put down to just one of those days. On a more positive note I had the opportunity to watch Leeds women at my local football club beat Posh ladies in the cup. We have some good footballers in that team. Pizzarello is one who is going to be a big star in women's football based on what I saw.
Morning all. Anyone thinking Farke has gone stark raving bonkers please remember the alternative is to throw the players under the bus like a certain Mr Frank Lampard, which is why he didn't make changes at half time and also why he's now defending a bad performance plus individual errors. Hopefully this all pays off on the long run.
there's truth that they didn't create much apart from the goals - though they didn't need to when 3-0 up after half an hour what was more concerning and what farke hasn't addressed was how they pressed us out of the game in the first half... then in the second when we had some ball we never really looked threatening It happens, they are better than their recent performances... and they played closer to their potential. We weren't able to impose ourselves and lets face it - goals change matches. Give a team a head start and its difficult to hit your straps.
I'm not too disheartened by Saturday. These results happen. It wasn’t a surprise that the usual suspects were ultimately the cause of it. We are a young side who I think read all of the hype after recent games and probably got a bit complacent. The real test is how we respond to it and hopefully it's the kick up the arse we need and we don't turn that effort in again. Southampton will be there or thereabouts come May and its a long way to travel. That's a tough away game. A bad day to switch the effort levels down a few notches. Hopefully they learn and we can get ourselves on another little run. QPR are a horrific side and we will get 3 points on Wednesday no problems. We'll prolly have about 75% possession and if we can control Illias Chair then they have nothing else. Ironically we could have gotten away with a Struijk/Cooper partnership against QPR but Southampton were all wrong for those two. We'll be fine as long as the lads respond with a blood and thunder performance. Leeds 4-0 QPR
Morning all On the long way to travel bit, it did cross my mind on Saturday how must Heidi and her chums feel? I mean I was royally fecked off watching it in my kitchen. Many people must have travelled 6 or 7 hours or more and spent their hard earned to watch that garbage
It's ****e. Been there and done that. Southampton was pretty bad. I remember Yeovil away being a ****ter too although I think we drew. Ipswich and Norwich away are the worst ones. We always used to get turned over down there, especially Ipswich for some reason. Now that is a long journey back home.
Still hearing that Rodon SHOULD have played on Saturday, but I'm still puzzled as to how he would have prevented all 3 goals. Can an 'expert' (and there's loads about) please explain how his inclusion would have prevented these goals. Other than having a magic wand, I can't see how, personally.
One bright note from the sarf coast.....Adams out for awhile with anoooooother injury Believe the natives aren't happy with letting Anthony leave and sini in, and Mr Aaron's isn't pulling up the trees neither ....grass is certainly not greener eh
Cos he's better than Cooper. You don't need an expert to know that if you play better players then you become a better team.
No, you're missing my point completely. Read my question again. What could he have done, if on the field, to stop all 3 goals? **** all is the obvious answer to me, but I'm hoping some 'expert' can put forward precise actions he could have made to prevent it as he would have presumably been playing RCB.
I was going to say (taking into account I haven’t seen the goals) but it’s not an exact science. Rodon & Struijk seemed to strike up a decent partnership. Struijk may have felt more comfortable in his usual side of the CB pairing and may have worked better with Byram as they played together more often. Rodon might be better at spotting attacks so that the pair position themselves better when opponents attack. He’s probably much quicker so can cover better. The point is that the defence might have been unsettled as a unit to accommodate bringing Cooper back in. One of the very few criticisms of Bielsa was how he would shift the whole defence around when one player was missing and we appeared to do that this game. For me Rodon should have come back in and a decision between the other two for the left side.
