Good Morning. It's Thursday 18th July, and here are the Leeds Utd headlines Manchester Utd lesson may be a blessing in disguise Whilst may, including myself may have pressed the social media panic button after yesterdays mauling against the Reds; having had time to reflect, there are many positives to take from it. Leeds built up some great attacks and only last ditch defending by(and I loathe to say it) one of the best teams in the World thwarted the Whites from making the game a lot closer than the scoreline ..... The Leeds squad only arrived in Australia over the weekend, whilst Bielsa landed in Perth less than 24 hours before the game. In contrast, the Reds have had over a week to acclimatise to the conditions and have already beaten Perth Glory 2-0. The performance will certainly give Bielsa and his staff an opportunity to highlight any weak links which need to be rectified before the season starts. For me, our defence looked fragile. If we are going to stand a chance of going up automatically we need to look at our centre backs. Casilla's performance Much has been said about the former Real Madrid keeper becoming Leeds top earner. It is believed the shot stopper is taking home between £35,000 - £40,000 a week. How was his performance against Manchester Utd? Can he be faulted for any of those goals? Would a better keeper have saved any of those? please log in to view this image Is Cooper a scapegoat Does our Captain receive unjust criticism from the Leeds Utd faithful? I have to say sometimes, like yesterday he brings it on himself when he went sliding in on Chong getting nowhere near the ball! Unfortunately I haven't been able to etch out of my mind the last game of the season when he collided with Casilla in no mans land leaving Derby an empty net at their disposal. Out of respect for our Captain, I'm not even going to mention the needles penalty he gave away in that same game! I have to be honest, last term was Coopers best performance in a Leeds shirt, and when you consider the many faultless displays, does he deserve some slack from the Leeds fans? please log in to view this image Leeds five star display against Tadcaster A mixture of development players, and first team players which were left behind from the trip to Oz made easy work of non league Tadcaster Albion. Gotts, Clarke and an Edmondson hat trick saw the Whites show their superiority against their non league opponents. A short back pass from Davis gave Albion a consolation goal. please log in to view this image
Morning all Lots of unfair criticism of the squad in Oz but pre-season is all about fitness and only having half a first team squad in Oz means fielding a weakened team against a squad of billionaires. No biggy, we did ok. Cooper is a Championship CB who improved no end under Bielsa and is also a key component with the players as they all look up to him and he is their leader on the pitch. He's better than Smalling and most CBs in our league so he will make a clanger from time to time and he will cost us some games/points, but we would pay £10m to replace him. Just keep your eyes on Struijk as he will be the replacement for Cooper at some stage. If you add Klich, Costa, Ayling, Clarke, Edmondson, Struijk, Roberts, White to the oz squad we are not far away. Big thing for me last night was missing keepers BPF and Huffer, where were they? we had a trialist in goal and a keeper we released a few weeks ago on the bench. Looks to me like BPF is on his way to Burnley and wonder if Huffer is injured? Some good performances last night against Tadcaster but Lief Davies, White, Edmondson, Costa in the first half, Klich did nothing in the first but was great in the 2nd half, Mujica, Struijk, Gotts, Clarke and more all played well. Sacko said goodbye to the fans yesterday but we still await confirmation on Ekuban, Pearce, LDB, Saiz, Cibicki, Anita's deal crashed yesterday too so plenty more to go yet
Morning all Bielsa is a great tactician, there will be players playing out of position in order to gain experience when they are called upon. Phillips starting at CB a prime example, does Bielsa see him as a CB or was that just extra practice for when he drops back to cover when someone like White runs forward. Bielsa knows his starting 14, no doubt there will be 8 names straight down on that team sheet on the opening day and I'd imagine no more than three places up for grabs. If we'd have not retained Bielsa it would be a different matter, new coach figuring out their best 11 but it isn't. The preseason is all about fitness and fine tuning, maybe mastering a new formation to call upon when needed. How many PL teams have Man U beaten 4-0? I think they left two days prior to us, they played two teams one in each half, we took 3/4 of a team. No need to panic
Anyone wondering who the trialist keeper was last night v Tadcaster. His name is Max Johnstone. He came through the Manchester Utd academy, fell short and joined Sunderland last season. His older brother is Sam Johnstone, the West Brom keeper!
We will have the same team/squad as last season which did well. Here's an optimistic, glass half full view/prediction. We have lost Pontus, so the team is worse off. We add White which for me is an improvement on Pontus so back on a par with last season We seem to have an improved Harrison another bonus. We have the best winger in the Championship in Costa, so another improvement, as he can play No10 too We have sold Clarke and loaned him back and last night he was back to being Jack, an improvement again. We see the development of quite a few kids which is an improvement again as last season we saw Clarke and Shaks this season there are half a dozen. Bogusz, Edmondson and Mujica will get a chance this season. I'm hoping that a fit Roofe and Bamford this season will score the goals we didn't score last season - To be seen. Pablo will not be expected to play every game this season which means we get the best of him when required. An improvement. Window is still open
I will have a pint of what Doc is having! Seriously though, it doesn't really pay to take too much notice of friendlies. I lived in Oz in 1986/87 and the England cricket team lost their first couple of trial games and one of them was against a bush team. The papers were full of ridicule and said that there was only three things wrong with our team....we couldn't bat, bowl or field. We went on to win both one day competitions which included the fearsome Windies team and won the Ashes for good measure. Let's wait and see what happens!
Orta has just confirmed that Kiko is staying at Leeds and Saiz is close to sealing a deal in Spain Johnny tell me where we are worse off from last season. Whats wrong with being optimistic and actually comparing last seasons squad which had 3 loan players who were not good enough to play for the first team and Harrison hardly doing a job
Well I thought yesterday was very informative - if we play a 1 billion pound squad who were champions league quarter finalists every week then we will be relegated. if we play a non league team every week then we will win the league with a record number of points.
Morning Doc and all. Nothing wrong with being optimistic, but it’s your opinion we are stronger (or not worse off) this year not fact. All we can do is wait for the season to start and hope you’re correct in your appraisal of the players mentioned
There has been a lot of speculation that Bailey Peacock Farrell is on his way to Turf Moor after not being selected in the squad to face Tadcaster Albion last night. What fee would you want for him?
This board wouldn't be the same if you were optimistic mate the board thrives on differing opinions and long may it continue.
More news from Orta's mouth. He has stated that Roofe and Phillips will sign new contracts Cardiff have just agreed a fee with Boro to sin Aden Flint so that means he was available but is he a Bielsa player? Maybe not. So who is Warnock selling to be replaced by Flint I wonder
Morning all if some of the younger players step up and get played in their correct positions it would be good. What i dont want to see is shakleton at right full back etc. Do we have a right back to spare that is ready?. I did not watch the taddy game so rely on others on the forum for info. Is miaszek capable of championship football cos if not we need a goalie pdq. Bpf can go for me as i suspect his head has gone. Cant see us splashing out on a finisher so roberts or edmunson need to find the net.