Becchio = goalscorer, so it doesn't matter if we felt he was a lazy diver, he did his primary job very well. Fcuk me, 19 goals by Christmas and Colin says he's sh1t and trades him for an unfit, no confidence player and £200k! WTF? Josh, some great observations about Saturday. Peltier is really poor, and he was helped out a lot by Wendies lack of quality or pace. He is slow and can't pass, and definitely not in Sterland's class. Our successful teams always had superb full backs that added width to our attacks and could cross capably ... Reaney & Cooper, Sterland & Dorigo, Kelly & Harte ... and they could all defend as well. Every time Peltier goes over the halfway line you panic because you know he is more than capable of losing posession, and not quick enough to get back. Watch him closely and see how often he jogs back from a failed attack leaving the centre backs to try and cope. He is making Lees look bad by forcing Tom to pull wider to cover his mess, and exposing Lees to the man cutting inside and running across the box. Good point about McCormack dropping deeper and deeper, and that was caused by Green and Murphy failing to get forward and link up play. Because our midfield was so static, Ross had to drop back into the space one of them should have been occupying to try and build an attack. This makes his role at the tip of the diamond ineffective, because he is now battling against midfielders on the halfway line, and not threatening at all, and even if he does manage to turn and play the ball forward, the strikers are well covered by four defenders. Ross has to be able to stay "in the hole" and receive quick balls from Murphy and Green, so that he can pull a centre back onto him and force a full back inside to cover. This should give him three options every time .. 1) play a pass in behind the centre back into the space he's vacated for a striker like Poleon to run onto at pace ... 2) steer a pass out wide into the space left by the full back covering inside for Peltier or Warnock to run onto and hit a first time cross into the box with the defence a centre back light ... and 3) play a sharp pass back into the path of a midfield runner who is bombing up to join the attack, leaving Murphy or Green to find a killer pass with the play clear to see in front of them, or hit a shot at goal if that's a better option. This is why players like Peltier and Green are liabilities ... they simply can't play a fast, passing game. Our lack of width from the full backs and shortage of midfielders getting forward kills the diamond, leaving Ross out on a limb and working back too often to try and start something.
So why is it ok for Adel Tarrabt to be lazy and not even show up to training half the time because of what he can do with his feet, but not for Becchio who consistently scores goals out of absolutely nothing?
Same complaints were constantly about Beckford. Id say most if not all our fans would give anything to have both Becchio and Beckford back but many wont admit it. Some like to believe we are actually moving forward by ridding ourselves of such lazy plebs and replacing them with Smith and Poleon. Amazing
To be honest I doubt Becchio or Beckford would have done much to the dire performance against Sheffield Wednesday, the only player who looked like doing something, did and he looks like he will be off soon.
Becchio went because Bates refused to negotiate a new deal. All our best players left because according to Bates they were "greedy and selfish" people who cared nowt for Leeds. Warnock simply went along with Bates, except instead of taking £2m for Becchio he chose to bring in Morison as his replacement. Oh how intelligent that was!
They also left because they could smell the stink of no ambition and watched as player after player was sold and replaced with freebie journey men
Some good points there. Must admit that some of Lees howlers were made when covering the FB position, mind you he still manages to make a few elsewhere on the pitch as well, I regret to say.
I went off Beckford after his goal in the cup went to his head and he wanted to leave..yes he scored the goal that sent us up, but his attitude nearly fecked us up
Never said it was ok for Taraabt, I wouldn't have put him in the team to be honest. The guy pissed me off so much, he doesn't deserve a footballing career imo. I know Becchio was effective at scoring goals and I have never argued that. But for someone to go and say he puts a good shift in is completely seperate. He didn't work that hard on the pitch, he scored goals and that was pretty much the only part of his game imo.
why does everything have to be explained really simply to you american lot when I say that is the only part of his game, I mean that as an exaggeration. Meaning that I know that he doesn't just stand in one spot the whole game and kicks the ball goalward whenever it comes to him but that the scoring aspect of his game was the only aspect that was worth noting. Thats not me saying thats not impressive just an observation which is different to Marko's. His help at defending corners for me wasn't worth noting because it wasn't particularly outstanding, rather pretty much what you would expect of someone his size.
Josh You are way off the mark with thinking Becchio didn't work hard mate. You won't find a much harder working centre forward to be honest. I could be wrong though I only watched him live in every game
I never had a problem with his work rate tbh, he always seemed to put himself about quite a bit. The only issue I had was the fact he was constantly on the floor, I guess that's the South American in him.
TOM I agree the only issues I had with him where he was always on the floor and his actual ability with the ball at his feet.
It is impossible to try to reason with someone who has an ignorant opinion. I don't understand why anyone who actually goes to games think their view is worth anything.
I think he put in a trasfer request a few days before that game. But yeah you're right, his attitude after stank and his form suffered dramatically.
