Leeds United Match reviews Transfer News Shop About Breaking Inevitable. Ross McCormack leaves Leeds United Hockaday's appointment a test of Cellino's judgement Cellino to take the cheapest option? England fans' guide to Brazil 2014 Dismal season ends with Derby County Leeds can fix the defence by signing attacking players Home Leeds United Leeds can fix the defence by signing attacking players TSS July 23, 2014 Leeds United You should never get too carried away by pre-season friendly scores, after all, the fixtures are more about getting players fit than they are about results, but a 2-0 defeat to lowly Mansfield Town serves as a reminder of how bad the remains of last seasonâs squad are and the level of work still to be done. I spent the weekend at a music festival in Spain and arenât back on English soil yet so didnât see the game myself, but reports from those who did attend the fixture pointed to the same problems we spent last season moaning about â a lack of creativity, width and most crucially of all, capable defenders. The first of those concerns (creativity), could be addressed by the signing of Roma midfielder Federico Viviani who was in attendance at last nightâs game and is set to sign for the club on a season-long loan. Heâs said to be a natural playmaker, which alone could make a marked difference on our squad if heâs of decent quality, testament to which is the difference Craig Bellamy could single-handedly make for Cardiff City. Once that dealâs done, the most obvious area to focus on would be our useless defence or the Ross McCormack-less attack, but Iâd focus my attention elsewhere and address the width above all else as Iâve long believed it to be the root cause of all our squadâs problems. Itâs a strange argument to make that signing two attacking players would fix the defence and Iâm not trying to convince anyone we donât need better centre-backs, but our squad has lacked balance for a long time and weâve attempted to address that by having the full-backs push up, particularly last season when we played with wing-backs for a while, thus leaving us vulnerable to quick counter-attacks down the wing. It also created the additional problem of 3 central defenders trying to cover the width of the pitch creating holes and confusion other teams effortlessly exploited. It goes further than that though, itâs often said that the greatest teams defend from the front and Leeds have simply lacked any sort of protection for the full-backs. This has led to central midfielders trying to cover a much wider area of the pitch than theyâre ever going to be comfortable with and created even more holes the opposition can exploit â just think back to how many times you saw Austin putting tackles in on the byline, thatâs not a position youâd expect to see a central midfielder in as often as Austin was last season. Simply put, weâve been trying to fit square pegs into round holes for a while now and it all comes back to our lack of wingers. Every other player on the pitch is suffering because we lack width, our central midfielders are coming wide leaving the centre-backs vulnerable, the full-backs â who have no protection themselves â are trying to push up leaving the centre-backs vulnerable and since weâre so busy trying to fill the holes, the opposition have very little to worry about from our attack so can play a much higher line, leaving just a single man or two back to deal with our striker(s). And that brings me on to my final point â decent wingers of the Snodgrass and Gradel quality give the opposition something to think about. No team in this division is going to risk an all-out-attack strategy against a team with quality wide-players because theyâd get torn apart, which means by simply playing decent wide-players, the defence is already under less pressure. Thereâs the small matter of Matt Smith plus some decent balls into the box too, which could go some way to replacing McCormackâs goals, but I donât need to point that out to anyone.
What's it got to do with Hockaday, he has nothing to do with signing players whether its wingers or not. As he says he's here to coach and that's it. He is quite aware the squad's not good enough and without putting players down has said as much.
Even an ageing D.Duff would have done for a season, I know I sound like a broken record, but we had a chance to get two wingers in, Rowe and Burke, but now it's seems we can't even get the foreigners to sign up.
but he also said that he speaks with the president and tells him where we need improving ergo has he told him that we need width?something we all knew for the last few seasons.
Great post Alf I have no idea why we haven't addressed this lack of width, its been painfully obvious for a while now. The 3-5-2 would actually work with a proper holding midfielder (one of which we don't have) who slotted into the back 3 when under pressure and didn't really venture forwards further than the halfway line. But we don't have the players to play that system either now
Viviani plays that role. Unfortunately someone decided it would be a good idea to let him watch us at Mansfield before actually signing him Put him right off
Fair points Forza, Whitejock. Maybe that's how we'll catch the opponents off guard, by just not turning up!! If only Viviani was at the 16-0 of the schoolboys. I'm sure he'd have bought into the hock more...
How long have I been preaching this I have written to MC suggestingChris Burke Jamie Murphy Dale Jennings but have had no reply
