We were crap. Second best all over the park apart from a few periods of pressure. Mccormack sliced an overhead kick that he should really have buried and tommy lees hit the post with a header. Positives are that when we got hold of the ball and went forward we looked threatening and were unlucky not to score. Negatives are that peltier and varney shouldnt be seen in a leeds shirt again. Definitely not the same manner of defeat that we've become accustomed to recently and we shouldnt be too down hearted about it, derby are strong at home and its easy to see why, nothing to do with the crowd, the club make special effort to make travelling teams and fans feel unwelcome.
Varney I definitely agree with, Peltier I think is a decent player, but he's just not a LB. Play Drury, White or even Pugh if we have to. Just not Peltier
If Warnock could role the clock back and knew how good Byram was going to be I wonder what LB he would have signed taking into consideration he probably would not have signed Drury or Peltier, its like he (NW) feels he can't leave Peltier out.
It's surprising how few good, genuine left backs exist. Most are RBs playing on the other side or even CBs moved over.
Now I've had chance to calm down, we weren't that bad, we just werent allowed to play our game. Their pitch was narrow with a view to play through the middle, and that's what they did. They controlled the middle and bullied us. They played with very little width but packed the central midfield. Warnocks mistake not subbing tonge, who never really got started, for brown around 60 minutes to take back control of the midfield. White is useless. Only decent sub was macka for diouf, diouf went a long way to almost getting us back in the game. First indicator that we miss austin today.
First half we were dreadful. Second half Tonge and Norris got into it a little bit more, but the game was always set up for an Austin or a Brown in the middle to take Hughes out of it. Becchio did nothing wrong, it's not his fault he got no service. McCormack was awful as far as I'm concerned, his job is to link the midfield to the attack. Diouf did more in 15 minutes than McCormack did in 75. I'm a fan of McCormack, but today was not his day and I would've subbed him far, far earlier. But alas, we're bound to have off days, the team still isn't quite there yet. Hopefully we'll get back on track next week
Did u see the game? I'm on my way home from derby now. Macka wasnt that bad, similar issue to becchio in that he wasnt getting support, space or service. Not for lack if trying though, derby just controlled the game. Should have been brought off for diouf sooner, and tonge should have been brought off for brown. We sorely missed austin today
£2m for him, goes to show you don't have to spend a fortune for quality. And he scores again might even get a call up for Spain at this rate...
Just looked at Derby's home form, they have only been beat once at home all season, there will be more teams drop points there!
Just got back. We were dire in the first half. Peltier was ****. There young lad bosses it and deserved a standing ovation. Needed a physical player. Ref was poor
Poor performance overall, but I don't think it was all bad. Our main problem was not having a midfield enforcer to actually close people down. They had all the space they wanted in midfield. We didn't dominate the middle of the park, which was a real feature of our win against Huddersfield. I thought Becchio and Hall both did well, and Diouf and White both impressed when they came on. A real test of our character now, if we can recover I think a play-off push might still be on the cards.
Simon, I didn't see or hear the match, so apologies if my question sounds odd - but it is a genuine question ... what exactly did White do to impress? I was only ever impressed with him in his first ever match, but been terribly disappointed ever since.
He didn't get much time to do anything, but I think the first time he got on the ball he created a chance, used his pace to get past the defenders to the by-line and cut it back for Diouf, and played a decent part in a couple of the attacks we had in our spell of pressure at the end. The moment where he made the chance was one of the times I remembered why he was so highly rated in the first place. Were you honestly not impressed with him against Everton? I think he's incredibly frustrating, if he could consistently provide the sort of play he's shown in flashes he would be a great player.
