Just got back. We missed a series of good chances throughout the game and one of McCormack's was an absolute sitter - on the bounce with an open net but he skied it. Gutted. But mainly it was Rachubka's fault that we conceded so close to the end. As usual on a Tuesday night, our players got tired and we ended up with a lot of Coventry pressure on us. But despite that, O'Dea and Lees defended well and it was a high ball into the box which Rachubka spilled straight into the path of that Wood fella from Coventry. Stupid goalkeeping error and it cost us. So a few individual errors rather than a team performance. Regardless, we got a point out of it and hopefully we've still got the form behind us to get four points from Brum and Cardiff which should establish us in the playoffs.
Grayson messed up, aimless subs and deciding to "hold on" against one of the worst teams I've seen at Elland Road in years.
The main culprits were McCormack and Rachubka, surely? Grayson can't be blamed for players' mistakes. He should have brought Vayrynen on earlier, fair enough. But did the men on the sideline really facilitate that late equalizer? I don't think so. Not to any notable extent. It was just an off-day due to the unfortunate injury of Lonergan and our sharp-shooting somehow going out of the window.
Grayson was totally at fault He made awful substitutions the 3 players that we had attacking them where taken off replaced by 3 players who didn't touch the ball inviting the pressure onto ourselfs. McCormacks miss is just as bad as Rachubkas **** up!!!! and a Leeds fan from Ossett scored their equaliser (pretty good fan )
He's dropped the ball on this one, but the players have as well. The substitutions weren't great. He could have stuck with just bringing Becchio on and we'd have managed better. Every time we went forward past the 70 minute mark the majority of our players hesitated, sitting back expecting another attack. Where does this attitude come from? Who gives a **** if we go forward and they come back at us, they were ****ing terrible going forward! At least if you attack you don't invite constant pressure. Pressure causes mistakes and that's what happened.
Exactly Now we gotta forget about it and move on swiftly to Peterborough win our game in hand and we will be joint 2nd, not a bad position to be in tbh
We should be in a much better one though. This is the ****e that cost us last season stupid poor mistakes that were easily avoidable.
So Grayson made positive changes and that invited pressure on us? He wanted us to get the second and nail it - our defence was holding up well until the 93rd minute and even if they came back into it, they never looked like getting past Lees and O'Dea, let alone scoring. Who should he have brought on that would have saved us the match, stopped the cross coming in and managed to telepathically control Paul Rachubka into not making a **** error?
Spot on-exactly what I think. We're gonna end up in 7th again if we draw to teams like Cov at ER when they're playing that badly.
Cannot make comment as i was not at the match......but was listening on LUTV, and usually the commentator says the name of whom ever gets the ball, passes the ball, take a shot etc. an observation i had was Howson playing last night as he wasnt mentioned for BIG spells, he is the Capt. and Captains sort things out on the field if/when things go wrong, sorry Howson is not a Captain and does not get involved enough for me.
Becchio and Forssell were not positive changes, they where put on to hold the ball up McCormack Keogh n Snoddy where attacking Coventry!
You're right, they were attacking and they were also failing to take their chances. Since we don't have any pacy forwards to bring on (Nunez aside), Becchio and Forssell were our only options, and both of them have looked capable of attacking rather than just holding it up from their brief appearances so far this season. I think it's easy to overanalyze this as a managerial screw-up when in fact it was just poor concentration towards the end and some poor luck in front of goal. Like I say, maybe bringing on Nunez and Vayrynen would have tightened things us better and given us more going forward, but I don't think they'd have made a huge difference on a scrappy game. Howson looked neat last night and I think he looks five times the player he did at central mid last season, but I agree with Doha that we need a captain or at the very least a leader on the field. Someone who will make sure that everyone stays focussed. Most promotion chasing teams have characters like this, but I see our team as lacking in that regard.
The changes took the sting out of the attack. All three of the players that came off were missed as they were determined to get forward at every opportunity. The entire mentality of the team changed after that because Forsell is too slow and Varynen looked lost. Becchio appeared to not be fully fit. Lack of players willing to surge forward with some real determination was what caused us to invite pressure onto ourselves.
I'd rather have 1 pacey forward and one reasonably pacey forward pushing at every opportunity and missing chances than 1 slow bastard and 1 unfit forward failing to get anything at all. The point here was that the changes weren't really necessary. As for Howson, great player, poor captain. From the gaffers mouth "he leads by example" so when howson loses a grip on the game the whole team does. And we've seen it time and again. He lost focus last night, as did the entire team. They looked completely dumbfounded by Coventries attack last night when it wasn't anything special if anything at all. They weren't doing anything they didn't try to do earlier on, they were just being allowed space to do so. They even had a couple of players who were providing no impact at all on the game. When the opposition has players doing **** all and they are still getting that much time and space, it's down to our team.
Howson isn't a leader. We all know that. But I don't know why people are criticising his performance cause they didn't "hear his name much on the radio". I listened to the game, and tbh, I didn't hear that much about Clayton either. Simply because as against Doncaster, these two are sitting deep, letting Snodgrass and Pugh support the strikers, and allowing the fullbacks to overlap. They can't all going GungHo attacking! The players who don't stand out as much can often be key to a result. However, yesterday, judging from the comments I've seen, Coventry were there to be attacked. Both CMs didn't need to sit deep, and should have attacked more. Whether the reason they didn't was because of SG's tactics or their own judgement, we don't know. I think it's more likely tactics. Grayson's tactical changes during a match aren't great. He doesn't and hasn't ever struck me as someone who sees when or where a change needs to be made. Hence the substitutions. I don't think they were tactical, more that he wanted to give some game time to these 2 players, and he thought we'd see the game out. However, this backfired with the 2 strikers changed, we came under more pressure and that led to a mistake. Whilst he can't be criticised for Rachubka's error, if you invite pressure, it's more likely to happen than not. Why weren't either Nunez or Sam on the bench? They'd provide pace and direct attacking from midfield. With a 5 man bench, we don't need 2 strikers. I questioned the Forssell signing at the time, and I still think the same. We don't need him. I wouldn't feel much differently about Paytner being our 4th choice striker until Somma's back, because with Keogh, McCormack and Becchio we have 3 quality strikers, and don't need to have the 4th choice on the bench. Nunez/Sam are the kind of players that are great to bring off the bench. I think this result was directly Rachubka's fault, but Grayson's tactics and misjudgement are the reason why this type of result happens.
