Good Morning Everyone, please log in to view this image Whoop, whoop, the Leeds express is back on track. A (comfortable in the end) home win v Wigan was enough to put us within touching distance of the play offs. Goals from Ross (again) after 15 minutes and the faintest of touches from Pearce with 15 minutes to go was enough to elevate us up to 7th position. Here are my questions though? Is our away form good enough to keep us in the play offs? If we lost Ross to injury, would that be season over? Anyone that went to the game, was Smith an adequate replacement for Blackstock up front? A home crowd of 25,888. Good enough? How much strengthening in the January transfer window needs to be done to keep us in the mix? Don't you just love the all white kit? Which home kit was the worst?
Top scorers 14 McCormack (Leeds) 11 Ings (Burnley) 11 Rhodes (Blackburn) 10 Vaughan (Huddersfield) 10 Vokes (Burnley)
Whichever way the rest of the season goes, you can clearly see a pattern developing. Unfortunately we have the worst goal difference of teams near the top, and have the worst loss ratio. QPR and Burnley have only lost 2 whereas weâve lost 7, so based upon this data you can really only see a top 10 finish unless we do manage to go on a good run and other results go our way. Weâre still not able to do what QPR can do and be boring, solid and pick up results. The difference between us is that QPR drew matches that we lost. Anyone down to 14th can still make the top 6, and thereâs a lot of football to play and some crazy results to happen, so anything can happen. Yet I fear we will fall short this year, although Iâm chuffed that progress has and is being made behind the scenes. This season is the first time we can say that since we came up. Can Smith replace Blackstock? I suspect he could in a year or 2 but not right now. However he does provide something different and on his day be unplayable, but he will not be as consistent as Dexter. I fear that we will not be signing Blackstock due to this injury. We do need a couple of players and I still feel a Chris Burke/Tommy Rowe is needed to give us something different. We need to be able to change things around so that we dont rely on Ross goals
Good morning all Was going to have my daughter this morning but the weather has put an end to that plan I don't think at this point you can talk about play offs and having play form at this point in the season. There always seems to be a team that's lurking in the back ground and makes one final push during the last few games. I don't think 25000 is too bad for a Wednesday night. I think that January will see a lot of movement in and out of the club. As for strengthening McDermott knows what we will need a hopefully buys accordingly. £8 million for Rhodes seems a bit pricey to think we only paid £500,000 for McCormack
WW I would love for us to get Rhodes as he's a natural scorer and even in the prem he would do well. Would Ross be capable in the prem? I dont know. The £8m was a stupid price tag paid by the noideaaboutfootballVenky's and dont think there are even prem clubs that would pay that for him.
Don't get me wrong Doc, I'd love to see him at Leeds. Was a bit upset when Blackburn got him but Ross is looking the better deal at the moment.
Morning all. Nice warm feeling after that comfortable win. To answer a few questions. Is our season over if something happens to Ross YES. 26k crowd ok but remember GFH gave away 12.5 k free ones and fair play to them. Id imagine probably only a couple of thousands were availed of with the game being mid week. As for Blackstock, look at it another way. Glad he picked up the injury now rather than in January maybe after wed shelled out a good whack of our transfer kitty on signing him. How sickening would that be. Our away form is not good enough and neither is our squad. Its all about staying in touch till January and hopefully serious squad strengthening. Still a little worried about Byram. When is he going to play a proper part in proceedings, like start and finish four games in a row. If he can't take a more significant part ongoing, we might be as well cashing in
WW it looks fairly good on paper for Strachan as Rhodes, Ross and Vaughn are all scoring plenty this season. I wonder whats happening with Craig Michel-Smith's injury, because he could be a great buy in January as Brighton dont seem to fancy him, and yet another Strachan player
Id never buy a player with injury problems Makail Smith fits that bill Andy Carol another they play a couple of games and get injured . Yes I would go for Burke Rowe maybe not since Pugh has done so well MacKay Stevens could be another good aquistion How did my boy Smith play last night ?
Afternoon all Not around much today as I am working in Brighton. Great win yesterday although it didnt look like we had much of the ball. We managed to keep a clean sheet as well and contain Grant Holt once he came on, and we usually struggle with the big centre forwards.
Afternoon all. Our main target from now until the end of January has to be to get Blackstock on a permanent or find that Hunt can have an impact using this new formation. If Ross got injured and was out for a month, would a front two of Poleon and Smith (because we couldn't get Blackstock)? Not sure, but if we had some behind closed doors games, we need a plan B to cover for a Ross injury. Not sure we have that yet. Which ever way we shake it, another good 3pts last night.
Morning all! happy with the 3 points, ross is on fire at the moment. Just feeling so much more positive about the way things are moving right now, and who knows in January with a couple of shrewd acquisitions we can be right in the mix, to have lost 7 and only be 9 points from top, and 2 from a playoff place, anything can happen, and tying down our home grown talent will only help, an academy spine to the team, can Lees, and mowatt be our equivalent of a Carragher, Gerrad partnership? What is everyone's thoughts on Platini's call for a sin bin over a yellow card? I have played rugby all my life and personally think it would be a great change to the game, a quote stood out for me in the article "if a player picks up a certain number of yellow cards spread over several matches they will be suspended for future games, and it is this aspect that most concerns PlatiniHe believes a sin-bin would be a fairer punishment because "that way, the benefit goes to the team he is playing against, in the same match, instead of a sanction by cards which is carried out against a third team, the next on the calendar". http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/25235277
Doc, the Scots strike force is looking pretty good. I've got agree with getting Burke and Rowe. Wingers are a must this transfer window. I'm not sure but I think we could get Burke really cheap as well he's contract runs out in the summer and i have a feeling he's worth half the price he was back in August
Trouble is if it's an unjust booking. For example if McCormack was booked for a dive in the area and it was actually a stonewall penalty we'd be punished twice over in the same game. Instead of him picking himself up and taking the penalty he'd be in the sin bin!
Leeds in Essex, football is definitely a faster game than rugby, but the use of a "TV Ref" to call on big decision or on actions the ref missed could rule out your concern. I don't think it slows down the game too much, and even though wrong decisions tend to even themselves out over the season, i always seem to remember the crazy decision that went against us rather than for us!
