The #LUFC Breakfast Debate (Tuesday 3rd November)

Good Morning. Its Tuesday 3rd November, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road.

Cunning foxes clinical finishing costs Leeds

The devastating duo of Jamie Vardy and Harvey Barnes, left Leeds defense chasing shadows for long periods of yesterdays crunch league game at Elland Road that saw the Foxes sour to second place in the Premiership table, a point from the summit.

Things could have taken a completely different turn had Patrick Bamford headed past Schmeichel from three yards. Unfortunately, his header was directly at the former Leeds shot stopper.

The thankful Dane bowled the ball out quickly to Wesley Fofana. With Ayling missing in no mans land, the U21 French International wing back found Koch. Pressure from an on rushing Vardy forced a mistake from the German, whose under hit pass back to his keeper was poor and sat invitingly on the drenched Elland Road pitch for Vardy to intervene. The England hit man unselfishly squared pick out his strike partner who struck the ball into an empty net.

Youri Tielemans doubled the Foxes advantage half way through the first half. Albrightons cross was too deep for Cooper. Vardy and Koch both dived disparagingly to get their head on the ball first. Unfortunately for the Whites, Koch was second best. Vardys slight contact forced a diving save from Meslier. The rebound landed nicely for the Belgium international who stabbed the ball home.

If the first half belonged to Leicester, then the second very much belonged to Leeds, well at least for the first 30 minutes anyway.

Dallas reduced the deficit three minutes into the second half when the Northern Ireland internationals cross came shot found the corner of the net. For the next 30 minutes, Leeds were dominant, laying Siege, after siege on Schmeichel's goal mouth, though lacking a finishing touch.

The Whites were made to pay for their lack of clinical finishing fifteen minutes from time. Maddison's through ball carved the Leeds defence in two finding Turkish winger Cengiz Under. He squared the ball back to enable Vardy to get on the score sheet.

Leeds miserable night was capped off when Tielemans grabbed his second of the night, this time from 12 yards after Klich bought down maddison in extra time.

Post Match reaction from both Managers

Leeds boss Marcelo Bielsa to BBC Sport: "In the first 30 minutes, we defended poorly and after that we didn't create enough danger. That is one of the main responsibilities of the manager. "I am not taking the blame, just stating the players were not correctly distributed. The players are disappointed. Every game is an opportunity to recover, especially after a defeat."

Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers to BBC Sport: "I thought my players were brilliant. We had to be tactically disciplined and then play when we had the ball.

"If we get to March, April and we are in that position [second], then it will be nice, but there is a long way to go."

 

We had this one coming I’m afraid as we all knew Vardy can rip any defence apart if you dont play well. We struggled playing into the wind to start with as passes went straight to foxes players and they piled straight back at us from these mistakes. We also didnt read the pitch was playing slower due to being soggy so Koch’s back pass never reached Meslier.... but we should have been 1-0 up but Paddy did what Paddy is good at and missed a sitter which Leicester ran back down the pitch and scored seconds later. 1-0 would have been a different game and even 1-1 at half time would have been ok.

Last night we fielded our Championship side (except Koch) and we played like a Championship side who couldn't cope in the big league. Raphinha, Rodrigo and Llorente all missing and boy did we miss Rodrigo in the middle and these 3 will also miss the Palace game so we need Premier League heads on and a Premier League Bamford back

 

Morning all. I think thats the first time this season when we have been beaten by a clearly better team on the day. I know we had several players unavailable but I don't think Leeds played badly.Leicester were very good we wont meet many teams that play as well as they did.

 

Morning all..

Just a night to forget, too many below par performances. Klich can’t play the DM role and Shackleton was missing. Our wingers huffed and puffed, our corners are still poor and we made too many mistakes and misplaced too many passes in poor conditions.

We had a very weak bench too, Roberts really should be allowed to leave, we have better players in the U23s

 

I for one was really disappointing with the Leeds midfield yesterday.

Klich was not the free flowing attacking force we normally see.

Shackleton needs game time on loan.

Costa - Ok, I can't fault him. He was fantastic last night.

Hernandez. That moment of magic where he struck the top of the bar/post was majestic, BUT apart from that , what did we see from him?

We missed Rodrigo, we definitely missed Philips and I can't wait to Raphinha.
We need to blood in the likes of Raphinha and Llorente a lot quicker.
I cannot think of a club that don't try and get their new signings on the pitch!
Obviously, they are both injured at the moment, but we have circa 40m of talent there, and we don't really know how good they are yet!!!!

 

Is Rodrigo confirmed out still? He hasn’t got the virus he’s just been in contact with someone who has so surely if he tests negative he’s good to go no?

 

Rodrigo is out for Saturday. Confirmed last night

 

Bielsa said he wont be available due to covid restrictions. I guess that even if he doesnt have it he wont be with the group until Friday at the earliest andit may even be 14 days isolation ffs?

 

Morning all, actually its not, its ****. Shambles of a performance and a few baffling decisions by Bielsa, he wasn't happy with his own performance. Hopefully there won't be too many of those as it was painful to watch from moment Paddy fluffed his lines

 

I guess we need to start thinking that we will lose players through injury and suspension but also covid. Even 2 players we loaned out couldn't play due to being in contact with people who had it. So we having only a small squad could suffer big time

 

Good morning fellow depressives

Well for the first time this season i am depressed after a Leeds performance, we were totally outclassed for large amounts of the game, which has kinda braught me back down to earth, after our earlier performances which even had me thinking of a top four finish, Reality check! top half which i thought at the beginning of the season is probably more realistic/achievable. However who knows? crazy league results in empty stadiums, big win one match,then a mauling the next, it's happening to a lot of teams. Oh well new game saturday away to palace, answers on a postcard to how that one may turn out.

 

Is it time to try Gelhardt on bench?
Roberts won't ever make it in my opinion and Shackleton made no impression again.

 

Although I can understand Hernandez reaction at being subbed, I didn't like it. He has to remember it's a team game and whatever we or he thinks of Bielsa's decision, it was made for the team. Compare it to Dallas who ran off the pitch because time was running out and showed his support to the oncoming player. Class attitude IMO.

 

I didn't like it either Shaks, petulant reaction from a player who should know better. It's not as if he was having a great game either.

Dallas' attitude is impeccable.

 

Half of the team were playing as if they already had covid

 

I'm not having ago at him because he has done so much to help this club to promotion and has always behaved impeccability, but I thought he let himself down a bit yesterday.

 

The most errors I have seen in one match from us since Bielsa landed. Many ofbthose errors were swooped upon and put the defence under pressure again. Biggest mistake for me and I never critique Bielsa normally was Shaks. Struijk is the only player we had available to take over from Kalvin. That would have put Klich back into his role where we know Pablo and Klich can perform in tandem. Klich struggled and Pablo and Shaks was very bad, so 3 midfielders under perormed and you cannot afford that at this level.

 

Morning all,

My god we missed Phillips last night. Midfield could not cope with Leicester and missed Phillips shielding the defence who couldn't cope with the pace of Vardy and Barnes.

I was personally annoyed with hernandez and his reaction. Apart from his one moment of magic hitting the post he looked too old and slow imo.

 

To see what he looks like on the bench.

You cruel b'stard...

 

I couldn't believe the change nor could Pablo himself, ridiculous substition

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Jack on the left had created absolutely nothing. I suspect the Roberts fans were happy with the decison, one dinky run where he lost the ball in the end is likely to cement Marcelo's love child a place v Palace