Good Morning. It's Wednesday 13th December, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road Bad day at the office for Whites Leeds seven game unbeaten run came to an end after a miserably disappointing performance at the Stadium of Light last night. Gone was the free flowing football, and spontaneous licence to bomb forward in numbers, scaring the life out of opposition defenders in the process. Instead, we witnessed a far more controlled approach (perhaps even cautious), but in doing so, lost their cutting edge, especially in the final third. Leeds were right to be cautious. Former Academy star Jack Clarke was a constant threat down the left channel (just ask Gray), and had the acceleration to get beyond the Leeds defence whilst Bellingham shows a lot of the attributes of his older brother. The Mackems had two guilt edged opportunities in the first half which went begging. Struijk was forced to make a goal line clearance when it looked like Pritchard was going to poke the ball over the line from close distance, followed moments later by an acrobatic save by Meslier from the resultant corner. In-truth, clear cut chances were few and far between, but just when it looked like the game was heading for a goalless draw, disaster struck for the Whites when Bellingham was in the right place at the right time to head past Meslier from close range following a fortunate ricochet. please log in to view this image Can Leeds catch the top two Ipswich stretched their advantage over Leeds to ten points after defeating Watford 2-1 last night. Leicester City host Millwall this evening but it's difficult to see anything but a comprehensive home win. Their unprecedented starts to the season give them a massive advantage going into the New Year. Both teams are on target to smash Readings record points total of 105, set in the 2005/06 season, and with the third promotion slot being somewhat of a lottery, Leeds must decide whether to stick or twist in January. Just like Bielsa, Farke has his favoured XI, and hasn't deviated from this. The only time we saw him rotate the squad (at Stoke), Leeds lost. Are the Leeds fringe players good enough? The likes of Jaidon Anthony, Liam Cooper, Patrick Bamford, Ian Poveda, Joe Gelhardt, Luke Ayling, Jamie Shackleton, Charlie Cresswell and Junior Firpo have all played bit parts this season, but have not been given the game time needed, in order to give the others a break. Do Leeds go for broke in the New Year by bringing in a new left back, central defender and attacking midfielder, and hope the top two lose momentum? please log in to view this image
Morning all. Another inept away performance. Catch the top two? Not a chance in hell, but we will be in autos
I know many disagree with me but not rotating players has bit us on the ass. James was not in the game which is strange, Ampadu having another poor outing and he has been one of the highlights this season, Kamara only did half a job as he forgot how to pass, mistakes from Rodon and Struijk, Piroe not in the game and Rutter was poor. I think FARKE cost us that game and I know most think he’s the new Bielsa but that performance was poor and he changed it too late. lifted from one publication this morning: “Despite a tight turnaround, Daniel Farke opted to make just one change to the side that defeated Blackburn Rovers 2-0 on Saturday, which was an enforced one as Djed Spencereplaced Sam Byram. And unfortunately, this was pretty telling. Farke has gone with the same set of players for almost every game since the international break, which means he just isn’t utilising his squad enough. Leeds have some of the best squad depth in the division, yet players like Wilfried Gnontoare getting 20 minutes at most to make an impact, which isn’t enough.”
Inept is me trying to load the dishwasher correctly, or failing miserably to adhere to Mrs Jammy technical data performance standards as set out in the pre nup relationship contract we entered into 20 years ago. The consequnces for which will no doubt result in legal ramifications at a later date of her choosing. Whereas last night's performance was just us being us as the three 0-1 losses away from ER this season prove. Probably the best thing we can do us stop judging our season by what Leicester and Ipswich are doing and instead focus on where we are compared to what it could have looked like towards the end of June/July. The stability brought by Farke and the new signings is still in it's infancy and if given time to further establish itself as well as the opportunity to improve with future transfer windows we should all be reasonably confident about the direction we're going.
Exactly and why talk of top two is heaping unnecessary pressure. Reading WhatsApp groups and social media elsewhere I despair. There are Many Leeds fans expecting to win every game as if we’re Barcelona in the championship. Not even sure a lot of fans bother following what’s gone on in the summer at all.
Fair comment Doc. Thought Gnonto looked useful when he came on but is lacking a little bit in confidence probably due to being on the bench all season. On the other hand Farke was sticking with a winning formula so it's hard to be to critical when we've been a such a good run of results. Plus if he'd made more changes last night by starting any of Gruev, Anthony, Bamford, Ayling, Gnonto and Bamford and lost then he'd have been criticised for that as well. Further evidence in favour of your argument however is how Newcastle's form recently had dropped massively due to having to pick the same starting eleven for 4/5 games in a row because of their injury situation. Clearly fresh legs and minds are required at some point and the onus falls upon the manager/coach to decide exactly when that is.
We need to recruit in January as this team is too soft. I have no confidence of them winning the play offs.
One of the annoying things for me is not being capable of breaking down packed defences. We mess about wasting time tippy tapping and usually end up losing the ball or playing it back and then back some more when the defence pushes out. Countless times we go all the way back to sweeper keeper Meslier. It’s not working and we need to change it from time to time. If I were a defender and had James, Summerville, Gnonto, Anthony, Spence, Poveda, Rutter running at me I would brick it. We have some of the best attacking players and just a touch on them will earn a penalty, why don’t we mix it up a bit and run at the defence. Even if we don’t get a penalty there is loose ball to pick up and take a shot. We are too predictable at times
Morning all We are 4 points ahead of where Burnley were this time last season. We didn’t play terrible yesterday, it wasn’t like we deserved to get beat 3-0 and a draw might have been a fairer result. Spence looked okay considering he’s been out for so long. Sunderland need credit for how they set out, we didn’t play to our best ability and they stuck to the task well. I find it strange that we loose 1-0 and some act like we’re the worst team in the division James was totally ineffective as they sat so deep he had no chance to use his pace, Summerville was tracked like a hawk, Sunderland set out to draw 0-0 or sneak a win 1-0 and did. My WBA mate was livid last week that they threw the game away against Leicester. At 1-1 away from home they went gung-ho to get a winner in injury time and got caught on the break. I don’t know if our team feel the pressure is on to win every game and catch the two ahead or that our attack is so superior it’s a given we’ll score We have over half a season to go, we should enjoy a better second half of the season, Leicester and Ipswich won’t duplicate the second half and I agree with Jammy, let’s not compare what we’re achieving with the top two.
There's no need to compare us to top two once you accept we're not catching them. In reality were best of the rest or close to so that's probably best place to do comparisons. As Wakey pointed out elsewhere that defence needs serious strengthening. Meslier kept the score down and the defending for their goal was pub standard. Gray is not a right back and dj isn't a left one, dress it up anyway you like
See I just don't understand this attitude, why are we not better than the top two when we have beaten both away from home, if we beat Ipswich in a little over a weeks time, that would be the double over them yet you feel they are better. There are 25 games to go, 75 points, if we were Leicester I guarantee you would be fretting about the African Cup and why do we have 5 first team players who will be missing for a month. If we were Ipswich you would be fretting we can't keep this up and we have no depth. Honestly mate, you always see the worst in Leeds United and the best in the rest I hope the players don't have your attitude and they still believe they can get an auto spot. At the start of the season with all the disruption and with trying to get the sale finalised and getting new players in, we must have threw away 9 points.
Ipswich have a young manager who obviously knows his onions and the Ipswich team are a bunch of nobodies compared to our players. He got them promoted from league one last season and now sitting top of the league in the championship. Last night we faced another young manager who nobody had heard of and he did a bang up job of stopping our so called superstar front 4. FarkeBall is good when the oppposition have no answers to it but we’ve seen it stymied by a few teams, even the young Rotherham coach had our number for a long time….
Just think we played too narrow all night and when we got it wide always came back inside. Gnonto was the only one to try and expoit the space on the outside and if we'd been doing that all match then who knows how it would have turned out. Not exactly rocket science as they were keeping a good shape and we repeatedly made it easier for them by making the pitch smaller. Our full backs also wanted to come inside which often lead to Spence and Summerville getting in each others space.
Were not better than them because were not as consistent as being ten points behind in table proves. Beating a team in a once off doesn't make you a better team. If it did we could call ourselves better than Liverpool last season. I see the best when it's there to see. What have the top two done to even suggest they'll lose eight or nine games in second half of season to let us back in. Ive actually no idea if they're second 11 is better than ours but I suspect not many others have either
Arsenal had 50 pts after half of last season, finished on 84. Wait until that pressure kicks in for Ipswich
Hopefully still in the race after 1st January, otherwise we'll have to target a good run in the FA Cup
Take a look at our fullbacks we don't have any only sicknotes. Archie is a square peg and dj Ed a right back. We have no left backs fit as I pointed out the other day. I can see us being overtaken by Southampton and maybe 2 more. Top six is not a given and by January we could be 7th or 8th.
Exactly, we are not even half way through the season. Leif Davies wanted by West Ham, Conor Chaplin, wanted by several clubs, Ipswich fans fearing the worse as loads of rumours going around that both will leave in January. So much can happen between now and the end of the season
