Leeds Utd v Aston Villa Match Thread

[ristac]

As Milky says. Its not black and white with me.

To be clear, I think Farke gets more stuff right than wrong. I like his system although I'd play slightly different personnel. I'd like to play a bit more directly. I don't mean long ball but if a wide man has the opportunity to take on his full back then he should. I think filling your team with 6ft plus players and then playing short corners is idiotic. I think with the high intensity we play at that the fresh legs should come on 10-15 minutes sooner.

However, the players are running and fighting for him and thats a huge positive. We aren't getting outplayed that often on the whole. We've not been lucky at either end. Individual PLAYER errors have cost us lots of points. I think the referees have gone against us for the most part.

There's alot to like. There's also bits that I don't like. I'm a bit of a glass half empty kind of guy when it comes to football. Maybe it's because I played alot when I was younger and I always looked to improve my weak points rather than pat myself on the back about my strong points. I tend to focus on the bad bits more than the good bits because improvement is the only way to get better.

He can answer for himself, and i'm offering unsolicited comment but i get the sense Emu sees the world in shades of grey not black and white.

Football managers strengths are often also their weaknesses. Farke has a preferred style of play, like Bielsa did. Neither vary much from their core beliefs. Farke's brand of football has kept us competitive in games against far better squads. Howe and Slot are having much worse seasons relatively.

I'm sure Farke did sign off on the signings... but then i'm sure he'd have picked different players if we had a bigger budget. Genuinely, I think if Farke managed villa and emery managed leeds, villa would likely still have won today. When the game slowed down, as they do, their better individual quality started to show. But we still more than held our own by pressing high and forcing errors. Do people ever ask why these better squads with apparently much better managers aren't wiping the floor with us every week? Surely they should be. With a different manager they might.

Emu and I were on the same page re Marsch. It's possible to not love a manager's football, to see some obvious weaknesses but still see some positive attributes, to recognise that maybe we played well but lacked the quality and a bit of luck to get the result. What some see as apologist, I see as balanced.

I don't mind if Farke goes, providing we have a quality replacement lined up. I'm a leeds fan not a manager fan. I just think the grass isn't always greener and expectations aren't realistic.

Do you believe Farke will steer us out of relegation and avoid it.

If not we might as well roll the dice.

With some very hard games approaching, it is not an ideal time to bring in a new guy

 

[milkyboy]

Do you believe Farke will steer us out of relegation and avoid it.

If not we might as well roll the dice.

With some very hard games approaching, it is not an ideal time to bring in a new guy

Understand your point. I honestly I don't know whether he will steer us out. I always thought there was a good chance we would go down, our recruitment did nothing to make me more optimistic. If anything slightly less so. So i've been pleasantly surprised how well we've played. We 'deserve' more points than we have. But we didn't get them and that ramps the pressure up. We're workmanlike and well organised but I think we lack the quality at both ends of the pitch. That won't change if the manager changes.

There's no point changing now. If we roll over without a fight in this tough run of fixtures... notwithstanding we'd expect to lose them all anyway... then there's an argument that fresh ideas/a new voice might pick up the dressing room. But rolling the dice is what it will be.

 

[BillysStatue]

That comment on Nick Hammond is the crux of all the issues. Why Kinnear and he left when they did probably because the owners employed Steinsson who also then left and all the recruitment team. Was Steinsson contract expensive to get rid of and why he got promoted to head of global football when the 49ers don’t have a global football operation. Why was he not involved in our window. All stinks and then putting the head of the academy in charge wtf? That fiasco is key and would love to know what happened

Steinsson and Hammond were both on short term contracts, neither were committed to staying long term as they had other projects lined up

Kinnear left because Everton offered him more money, and he felt they had a better chance of staying in Prem with their new stadium

 

[Doc]

Steinsson and Hammond were both on short term contracts, neither were committed to staying long term as they had other projects lined up

Kinnear left because Everton offered him more money, and he felt they had a better chance of staying in Prem with their new stadium

I always remember an argument or disagreement with Marathe and Kinnear when he told Marathe that it was useless trying to buy half a team of not very expensive players and hoping to stay up. He said you need to spend on 4 very good players in the £30m to £40m price range to stand any chance. Think that’s one reason he walked,and still don’t get why before Hammond and Steinsson left there was no target list for Underwood?

 

[Brizzlewhite]

Understand your point. I honestly I don't know whether he will steer us out. I always thought there was a good chance we would go down, our recruitment did nothing to make me more optimistic. If anything slightly less so. So i've been pleasantly surprised how well we've played. We 'deserve' more points than we have. But we didn't get them and that ramps the pressure up. We're workmanlike and well organised but I think we lack the quality at both ends of the pitch. That won't change if the manager changes.

There's no point changing now. If we roll over without a fight in this tough run of fixtures... notwithstanding we'd expect to lose them all anyway... then there's an argument that fresh ideas/a new voice might pick up the dressing room. But rolling the dice is what it will be.

I think that you're bang on the money with the view that we are not getting hammered by teams who have better players all over the pitch and luck and individual mistakes costing us points.

 

[Leedsoflondon]

I always remember an argument or disagreement with Marathe and Kinnear when he told Marathe that it was useless trying to buy half a team of not very expensive players and hoping to stay up. He said you need to spend on 4 very good players in the £30m to £40m price range to stand any chance. Think that’s one reason he walked,and still don’t get why before Hammond and Steinsson left there was no target list for Underwood?

I think there was a target list unfortunately they all signed for Sunderland!!

 

[BillysStatue]

I always remember an argument or disagreement with Marathe and Kinnear when he told Marathe that it was useless trying to buy half a team of not very expensive players and hoping to stay up. He said you need to spend on 4 very good players in the £30m to £40m price range to stand any chance. Think that’s one reason he walked,and still don’t get why before Hammond and Steinsson left there was no target list for Underwood?

Thing is, Kinnear was always very cautious, always keen to lick Radz's bum, and his refusal to back Bielsa in second Prem season was diabolical ... he publicly stated that Bielsa was good enough to get more from the squad, even though Bielsa warned Kinnear that a lot of the players were older and would break down ... well, players broke down, and I refer you to the team Bielsa was forced to select for Citeh away:

GK Meslier

RB Shackleton
CB Ayling
CB Llorente
LB Firpo

DM Dallas
DM Forshaw

RW Raphinha
AM Roberts
LW Harrison

CF James

Subs: Klaesson, Gelhardt, Cresswell, Drameh, Summerville, Greenwood, Klich (rushed back from injury), McCarron, Jenkins

That team was on Kinnear and Radz, they badly hampered Bielsa in that season and Leeds were fortunate to escape relegation

Our current team would easily beat that lineup, so Kinnear going to Everton isn't a big loss ... he was also quick to support the sacking of Bielsa to paper over his own failures, so fk him ... he's a proper money grabber, and if it wasn't for Orta insisting on going after Bielsa, we'd probably be in League One now with Radz trying to sell the club for a profit

 

[Leedsoflondon]

Thing is, Kinnear was always very cautious, always keen to lick Radz's bum, and his refusal to back Bielsa in second Prem season was diabolical ... he publicly stated that Bielsa was good enough to get more from the squad, even though Bielsa warned Kinnear that a lot of the players were older and would break down ... well, players broke down, and I refer you to the team Bielsa was forced to select for Citeh away:

GK Meslier

RB Shackleton
CB Ayling
CB Llorente
LB Firpo

DM Dallas
DM Forshaw

RW Raphinha
AM Roberts
LW Harrison

CF James

Subs: Klaesson, Gelhardt, Cresswell, Drameh, Summerville, Greenwood, Klich (rushed back from injury), McCarron, Jenkins

That team was on Kinnear and Radz, they badly hampered Bielsa in that season and Leeds were fortunate to escape relegation

Our current team would easily beat that lineup, so Kinnear going to Everton isn't a big loss ... he was also quick to support the sacking of Bielsa to paper over his own failures, so fk him ... he's a proper money grabber, and if it wasn't for Orta insisting on going after Bielsa, we'd probably be in League One now with Radz trying to sell the club for a profit

No disrespect but what’s your point? Bielsa has gone and won’t be coming back so given where we are now, I’m not sure how this impacts on the current situation?

 

[BillysStatue]

No disrespect but what’s your point? Bielsa has gone and won’t be coming back so given where we are now, I’m not sure how this impacts on the current situation?

My point was about how culpable Kinnear was in our failure to stay in the Prem last time around after a stellar first season, that's it, nothing else ... hope this helps

 

[NostradEmus]

Do you believe Farke will steer us out of relegation and avoid it.

If not we might as well roll the dice.

With some very hard games approaching, it is not an ideal time to bring in a new guy

There is a very narrow chance of improving under a new manager.

If we went down with Farke, I reckon we'd come straight back up again.

 

[Leedsoflondon]

My point was about how culpable Kinnear was in our failure to stay in the Prem last time around after a stellar first season, that's it, nothing else ... hope this helps

Not really

 

[BillysStatue]

Not really