So now our captain Naylor's departed, it seems to me that we're sorely lacking in leaders in our squad. Of the current bunch, I only think Connolly (captain at Derby for a while) and Kisnorbo could be valid candidates for captain next season and Paddy might not even be playing. Howson's been a poor captain choice in my eyes, not a battler and not someone who'll keep the team under control or get them raring to go when needs be. Of the players we bring in this summer, I'd say a good two or three need to be proper fiery characters with a few games under their belts. Never seen him play to my knowledge but David Norris who's been linked with us might be a good candidate. Football's as much about mentality as technique and we've had plenty of the latter this season but not enough of the former.
He'll stick with Howson as captain I reckon, although I agree he will continue to make a poor one. Howson escapes a lot of criticism due to the fact he is a Leeds boy and came through our youth set up. If I had my may I would ban Leeds born players from the squad. As well as players who "like to put a foot in" or "put in a good shift". Nothing annoys me more than when we start to applaud a player chasing down a ball he has no hope of catching. ****ing pointless. Leeds fans in general need to appreciate talent more, work ethic etc only goes so far.
The main reason why i think Paddy would make a good captain is he talks to the players you only had to see when he came on at Loftus Road he started to boss people around.Where with both Howson and Naylor you never heard them.But lets hope whoever leads us has a great season.
Eloquent as always Billy rkid. From the current squad I would have to say Paddy. But as you touched upon EastYorks it could be a Rio situation where we cannot count on him even playing
Motisanti Ive been on this new forum for about 7 minutes now, and thats better than any post I read on 606 in 3 years. I too appreiciate the TALENT in a player, not his stamina. I love Somma because he's skillful and is the closest thing we have to Jermaine Beckford. I love Gradel and Snodgrass, because they have quality. I dislike Becchio and Howson because all they seem to do id run around for 90 minutes giving fouls away and chasing lost causes, yeah its nice to have commitment but they are dubbed as heros aroun ER wen they dont really have any talent. I love it wen other fans come to watch how good Becchio and Howson are cos we big them up so much, they must go home laughing
Welcome, hope you stick around. I find myself stuck somewhere in between the 'mercurial talent' brigade and the 'tireless workhorse' crew. I do appreciate the talent of players like Somma and Beckford but when you look at the amount of goals the team scored without Somma in the team, it's significantly higher than when he was in it. A player like that can be a luxury and their greed on the ball (albeit understandable) means that the rest of the attacking players don't get much service and as a result we score less often. For that reason, I think Beckford's departure was actually a blessing - it meant that this season, Gradel, Snodgrass, Howson and Becchio were all given a door of opportunity and they took full advantage of it. With Beckford still at LUFC, I question whether we'd have scored nearly as many as we managed to. I agree to some extent with your point about Howson being overrated but only because I don't think he involves himself with the game enough. Though I'm positive he does have talent - he finishes as clinically as any striker in the division - he's another player in the Somma/Beckford mould in my opinion who needs to a) be on form and b) have a good level of support from the players around him, if he's going to play a good game. And 19 goals and nine assists shows Becchio has talent as well as the relentless donkeywork, the same I think can be said of Gradel and Snodgrass (when he's on form). If Becchio weren't delivering the end product and his chasing lost causes etc. were costing us in some way, it would be a fair criticism but his commitment means we still get as many goals as a Beckford/Somma would get from that position but the other attacking players also get a haul. So really you need players who have both technical class as well as a great stamina, a bit of a generalization it's the poor teams like Doncaster who just have players who are technical but weak and teams like Barnsley who just tend to have players who are physical and unskilful. Look at Norwich, QPR and Swansea. They generally have a good blend of the technical and the physical right across their squads and I'd say while we also had a decent balance this season, we just need to be hunting for a higher quality of player.
