Good Morning Everyone, Goals from Chris Wood and Kyle Bartley were enough to give Garry Monk his first home victory of the season. After a scrappy first half Leeds found their form and dominated the majority of the second half. Sacko found Chris Wood at the far post in space to tap the ball home. Their good work was undone twelve minutes later when Summer target Marvin Emnes equalised. Leeds kept their nerves, and found the winning goal four minutes from time courtesy of a Barkley header. Here are the goals For those of you wondering Roofe has a slight Calf injury but should be okay by the weekend and Bridcutt's injury is also not thought to be serious according to Monk "I don't think its anything major, it's an impact injury. He'll be assessed tomorrow. We've got bumps and bruises. In terms of Liam, I'm sure he'll be recovered and ready for the weekend." Am I being harsh on Chris Wood when I say the pass was delivered straight to his feet. It would have been difficult to score? Will this result kick start our season? Does the 4-2-3-1 formation suit us better than 4-4-2 Would you keep the same team for our next game? Antonssen or Wood? Who's your first choice?
Monk admitting that 4 4 2 doesnt work for him and last nights 4 3 2 1 is what the team set up with and when they do it they play well. Hernandez Sahko Jannson were immense last night with Jannson fast becoming the cult hero the club have needed for ages. Annotonson is a bit lightweight up top on his own but learning. Defending was much better and we look like we know how to clear the ball at corners all of a sudden. Roofe was injured but adding him at the weekend gives us a great base for kicking on. When Wood has no time to think he's deadly
Morning all... Wood first choice, Antonnson had chances and by all accounts did nothing with them but we are happy to call it a "settling in period". Wood right place right time and as Rev pointed out yesterday, 9 goals in last 16 games, can't understand what more we expect. We're a lowly Championship squad, we are not going to attract the next Yeboah, Viduka or Jimmy Floyd, if we did once they bang in 25 they will be looking to leave. We signed a striker for roughly a quarter of what we sold Ross for, he cost half of what we sold Byram for, he is less than half what we want for Taylor, he cost the same as Kemar Roofe we need to put it into perspective, (and taking a leaf from Eire and WJ) when talking strikers what do you get for £3m I don't know if 4-2-3-1 is the best formation, I do know Monk signed the players ready for that and I know 4-4-2 with Mowatt on the wing and two defensive minded central midfielders doesn't work.
Monk said last night that that formation was close to what he wants to do, but my worry is that we will soon be found out as a 1 trick pony and easy to stop. changing to 4 4 2 and playing like we have been? need more practice boys, but well done last night, and plenty of pluses
Morning ristac, Tell yer what. 3m does not get you much for a striker. Let's not forget that Wood is our penalty taker.
Do you think that is a confidence thing not helped by him knowing the fans are getting restless and blaming every non win on him not scoring? The rest of our midfield really need to start chipping in, we have a lot of attack minded players who should be scoring more
For me, wood over Antonsson especially as the lone striker. You have to be there to score. Thinking about Chris Wood. He is a very similar player to Becchio in many ways. Becchio was better in the air, granted but Chris Wood has better technical ability. Both don't contribute too much to build up but get into good positions to score. Why didn't Becchio ever get anywhere near the same amount of flack then from supporters?? I'd say if anything he was lazier. Makes no sense to me
My theory... We had been in the doldrums for so long with bargain basement freebies. Suddenly we sign a Striker for £3m and we expect him to be Messi. When Becchio never scored Ross, Snoddy or one of the other midfielders did and we accepted what we had. Becchio probably got double the amount of chances a game that Wood gets. If Wood doesn't score we usually end up with nil, the rest of the team not chipping in highlights this. Same as Green, I think he should be replaced but... Would Silvestre have prevented the goal, would he have made the double save? We have had the same issue for a while now, a few seasons in fact, we create very few chances.
The other thing is (bearing in mind I'm very much in the green should be dropped camp) but watching that goal I don't think silvestri would've saved it either. Everyone is over analysing Green ever since the first goal against QPR and some comments I have seen seem like straw clutching just to say something negative about him. No one seems to even say the defending is poor leading up to goals now, they just automatically blame Green (and let's face it, some of the defending leading up to oppo's goals this season has been atrocious, yet overlooked).
Wood is a confidence player. Apparently he looks good in training. The stick he gets, whilst understandable that fans get frustrated, is never going to help. Think Doc is right, when he doesn't get time to think, he scores. He wears a heavier shirt than the rest of them.
I think WJ did blame Ayling (and looking at the highlights I too would blame him) but I agree, we concede it has to be Green, we fail to score it has to be Wood. You commented in the other thread too, with the suggestion Wood never meant to hit it goal bound, it is bordering ridiculous.
Morning all. Three games to go to the ten game mark Ive given myself to make an honest assessment. Judging by the reports Ive read, the only real positive to last nights game was the result and thats a big one. We seem to have been dire yet again, this time against the worst team in the league and arguably certainties for relegation. This weekend we have Cardiff, dont normally do well there, but they are also seemingly at their worst for a decade so a positive result is a must. Must say, Im not expecting one. As Meldrew says, last night only papered over the cracks but a big performance agains Cardiff might inspire some confidence
Morning all. Deeply concerned about Monk's post match comments. Apparently he's been his compromising his style to create more substance in the team. Well that compromise came 61mins into the first game at QPR when he brought Antonsson on and he's played 4-4-2 ever since until last night. Why would you do that ? It doesn't make any sense if you have a footballing philosophy to go against it so early into a new job. He's obviously not been thinking straight as exampled by his team selection against Birmingham. Second game of his tenure and he goes 4-4-2 which we now know is against his preferred style and plays Mowatt and Hernandez in that midfield four. All this muddled thinking has nearly cost him his job. Fortunately he realized that and made the necessary adjustments for last night.
Hello mate.. No, in fact if you can dig out my first few comments on him I was against us signing him. I said I don't believe he will get us the goals. I actually said we should drop him for Antenucci and I complained he doesn't get more than a few inches off the ground for headers. WJ initially pointed out (directly at me and my whinging) that for £3m you're not going to get the finished article. It got me thinking and at the same time I managed to get to see Wood actually play and I didn't think he was that bad. He scored a couple, he was a nuisance and he attracted defenders to him. They dare not leave him unmarked. He scores some decent goals too when his confidence is there like the overhead against Fulham and this one... Transfer window is closed, he is the best we have, if his confidence is up and he scores more goals I think we should get off his back for the benefit of us all
I think he's winging it(no pun intended) I wasn't one of those who were doing cartwheels at his appointment. Hope he changes it around though and we start getting more wins.
That's fair enough Ristac. It's the chances he misses though. If you play Wood in every game the law of averages is that he'll probably be the top goal scorer. We have a goalie who is a liabilty(yes he saved us last night) we have a defence that are probably nervous playing in front of him, we've a 3 million pound forward who has to be conjoled because he's no confidence and a manager who probably realises what a huge job he has on his hands. Now don't get me wrong, I want this team to starting winning more games, but we have to be realistic and remember we just about beat a very poor Blackburn team.
