Wanted to post in Burnley match thread, but got bored of reading posts about petrol prices ... We have very talented youngsters coming through at Leeds, the two best being Taylor and Byram ... Cook and Mowatt will both become stars, but right now they are still not the finished article and this makes me wonder if they should be rotated ... here's my thinking 1. Both Cook and Mowatt were defensively poor once again yesterday, and didn't get back enough when we lost the ball ... at least one of them needs to be motoring back to help Adeyemeyi protect the defence ... luckily for us Burnley seldom played directly through the middle, with their attacks being either built from wide or having their strikers run the channel down the side of the box ... we may suffer against teams who go more direct through the middle if we don't get at least one more midfielder supporting the defence 2. With our diagonal passes to create flick ons inside to Wood (Byram was superb at this), Cook and Mowatt didn't get forward enough to feed off Wood and apply pressure ... as with dropping back to defend, at least one needs to try and get up to the striker to give him an out after holding up the flick on 3. General play when attacking saw another issue crop up from last season, and that is our central mids hardly ever got beyond the striker ... we look brilliant when a midfielder joins the attack through the middle, as it occupies defenders and allows the far post winger to get in on the blindside, something Dallas and Byram do well ... when Wootton came on to play the holding midfield role, it was interesting to see how Adeyemi pushed on and got forward more 4. Stamina ... Cook and Mowatt both faded badly yesterday, and after we took the lead I expected Rosler to sub them immediately and maybe even go with two holding mids ... for their goal Mowatt got back to help Taylor (no doubt under instruction as Dallas was no longer there to do this job), but he simply didn't have the gas left to get at Darikwa to disrupt his cross, and the Burnley right back had an absolute age to pick his cross for their goal Now please understand, this is not all doom and gloom, as these are all things that can be fixed ... Cook and Mowatt are outstanding talents, and they will become Leeds legends if we don't sell them ... it's how we use their talent as they grow ... last season we lost too many points in the last twenty minutes of games, mostly because our youngsters faded badly towards the end ... there were many on this board who slated Redders for stubbornly refusing to sub tiring young 'uns and therefore hurting our results Luke Murphy will come back into the team when fit because we need his experience and he is a fine player, and with Adeyemi showing himself to be adept at sitting in front of our back four, one of Cook/Mowatt will miss out ... Dallas/Byram on the flanks gives us more balance so they will start most games, and they allow us options to play out to and turn defence into attack, but we still need a midfielder to get up to Wood so he's not left isolated so much ... we played well against a Burnley I feel will be in the promotion hunt for sure ... on yesterday's performance it looks good for us, and we will get better when Murphy and Bianchi are fit again, because both those lads can pass a ball and make a tackle so we'll have good options in midfield to change things up (Cook misplaced a lot of passes yesterday) I watched the Brighton/Forest game, and there wasn't a lot of quality on display ... if we fight hard all season the way we did yesterday, we'll be in with a shout ... Rosler understands that Leeds is still everyones Cup Final, and he gets that teams will be playing their hearts out to beat us, so he's making his players understand that they need to be ready for a battle every match ... rotating Cook and Mowatt may not be a bad thing, as we'll have them fresh for the run-in when we'll need their talent and ability most Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Agree with all that apart from how we used Byram.. He spent too much of the game in nowhere land... Not his fault he ain't a number 10 and never will be.
Great point Glory ... could be because he was asked to drift in for the flick ons ... also, he seemed to be trying to create space for Berardi to get forward by moving infield and playing one-twos ... do we need a Will Buckley to play down the right and send Byram to his right back position again? Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Don't be saying "great point". I know my place I don't contribute anything here. But I do know how to get cheap petrol.
I don't want to see Byram in his RB position again I don't think. His abilities for me are getting forward, he's a bit of a liability defensively and to be honest Berardi (from the games I've watched) has been better in that RB position than Byram has been for years. I'm all for getting another winger but that doesn't mean Byram is definitely picked (or the other winger for that matter). I know chippy has been going on about Byram playing almost a No.10 role but in the first half he stayed quite wide and caused problems. He only started doing this in the last quarter or more of the game (I thought anyway), I think this was a specific tactic to try and get the fullbacks more involved in the attacking so we could get more numbers up the field to try and win the game rather than anything else. I don't think its something Rosler is planning to do all season. And as for your original post, there is some good points. I do think we need to remember we played against a very good Burnley side who have some real quality for this division and almost won. I actually thought Cook did quite well getting back at times but Mowatt didn't really cover him when he got forward so at times there were little support for Adeyemi defensively. To me this is more of an issue because the three haven't played together that much yet, communication will come and it'll help the team going forwards. I don't think its a huge issue although it is something we can work on. And I actually don't know who is gonna drop out of the team for Murphy. Think it'll be more a case of waiting till he gets an opportunity due to an injury/suspension or rest and then having to really take it. I actually think we missed Bianchi more against Burnley funnily enough, I think we would've benefited from bringing him on in the second half.
Interesting to read that Rosler is advocating a sensible rotation policy ... he must see what we see, but of course this will be dictated by squad depth as to how effectively he can rotate players in need of rest Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
