Morning all I'm assuming that Elland is still unwell and on the treatment table so will sub for him this morning. After a predictable loss in the tainted FA Cup what are peoples views about the team selection. My own view is that we should have just played a mix of the 18s and 23s so that Alioski and co could take a break. You have to be quite proud actually of the way the kids stuck to their task and kids like Kun coming on who Orta snapped up from Barcelona, even though Man City were chasing him. This kid was in the Barcelona U16s and set a scoring record of 30 goals in 30 games and will prove to be a huge player for us. Good to see Pearce back again even though he came on and went off for tactical reasons. A couple of mistakes from Davies cost 2 goals but to be expected. Positives were seeing Pearce back, thought Roberts in the No10 role was an eye opener and as hes only 19 and having Bielsa as manager who knows whats in store for him. Aapo Halme unlucky to come off but great to see him score his first goal. Negatives were watching Halme score because nobody else was up there. Harrison as a No9 didn't work and he vanished in the 2nd half. Clarke was not his usual self and demonstrated why Bielsa hasn't started with him. last seasons set piece coach must have left his handbook in the dressing room. Baker at times was good but second half pointless. On the transfer front all gone quiet again and the only stories around remain keeper which now seems to be Fabri. Winger is Steven Zuber as thats still a big thing and ibai Gomez seems to be out of the frame because he's signing (think) for Bilboa. No back up story about the Swiss striker Albian Ajeti who has a great scoring record even though I hadn't heard of him. Thoughts on O'Connor as many Leeds fans want to know why we didn't bring him back. The facts speak for themselves as he has only played a couple of games and usually either on the bench or not even selected. So guessing that he either doesn't impress Blackpool management or has gone backwards
The U23s play this evening at Hull and Cooper will be starting and we should also see Izzy Brown back in the fold Update on Brown. Its his birthday and his son has just been born today too, so maybe he will not play tonight? Samu Saiz came on for the last 15 minutes of Getafe's 2-1 loss to Barcelona. Saiz should have been playing against players like Flint & Wheater but now he plays against Suarez and Messi who scored the goals yesterday Nessy is on his bike this week to Hearts for the rest of the season. His career has gone backwards this season for some reason
Morning Doc and all. Little or nothing to be learned from that fiasco. Just points out how thin the squad is on the ground. Some did ok it seems against an understrength mid table QPR side missing five regulars, but youd expect them to. Anyway, back to the stuff that matters on Friday and hopefully we can stop shipping goals. Comments made by Kinnear to fans on the train back wouldnt fill you with confidence if true
Good Morning to Doc and and co from a dull Bardsey I do hope Matt is feeling much better I have first hand experience as Moe has suffered with chronic asthma for years.She uses a nebulizer which she bought on line and gets up in the early hours to take it for half and hour the stuff for it she gets from her doctors if this helps Matt So we still await our first signing meanwhile Villa have been dealt a very bad blow by losing Tammy it won't be easy to replace him can't see them reaching top 6 now Nessy ,looks to have been loaned out to Hearts for the rest of the season I think they should send back Baker too
Morning all. Reading many of the posts by our "supporters" you would think we had a poor goalkeeper behind a poor defence with a toothless attack. We are top of the league (in spite of many injuries) with some of the best youngsters we have had for years, being led by one of the worlds top coaches. Marcelo has transformed the club and the team in little over six months, it takes most coaches years to achieve this. The future for Leeds is brighter than it's been for years Enjoy it.
Morning all... I didn't see any of the match, just views and comments on here and social media afterwards, I have to agree with Eire, we learned very little. It was all a bit pointless putting half a team out, you either go for it with the strongest or put the entire reserve team or U23s out there and give them a taste of what it is all abount. Maybe one thing we have learned, an injury to just two more players and we're screwed, our half team of reserves can't match another team of reserves. I'm more concerened that we haven't replaced Saiz or Blackman yet and we have Bamford, Brown, Douglas, Cooper, Berardi, Dallas and anyone else I have forgot on the treatment table.
Put it into perspective, Norwich and Sheff U went out so we know where their focus lies. Derby now have an extra game they probably didn’t want. Just hope this isn’t the usual post Christmas slump. Must win on Friday.
Afternoon all I missed the game due to work but had a feeling we would lose. Need to get back on track Friday. Get well soon El and thanks for filling in Doc
Did you not read bielsas after match press interview. He the coach stated quite clearly we have problems at the back He also clearly stated the team needs twice as many chances to score a goal as the opposition. So i reckon we need a proper goalie some defenders quick and someone to provide and poke the ball into the onion bag.
I dont see derby as a must win game. I want to see us learn how to grind a win out and shut shop. Avoiding defeat is my priority till some defenders come back fit. People have predicted 85 points for autos and maybe so. Our midfield needs rethinking thanks to kalvin getting banned what the hell was he doing. Just cant see baker or harrison doing a thing both are useless to us. Keep playing the way we have been with this squad and teams willwalk all over us. This i believe is bielsas only fault and it showed against forest. We need to be tighter and break with more urgency but against hull we were bloody terrible. Teams will not fear coming to Elland road after last three games. We have no height and no. Muscle. Also no pace at all cause if im wrong please tell me who could beat a man?. As you can tell apart from a few kids who are not ready the cupboard i think is bare. So a goalie by friday please or do we need another month to find one i find it pathetic to think the orta has not found one. Signing a winger will not replace siaz is roberts a ten . How many games does harrison need to show his worth. Time for action is now not end of month lets see who is at the bottim of the bargain bin victor rads wants cheap. And thats another thing money is pouring in from gate receipts yet i have heard we have no money. Villa just spent 4 million on a goalie why cant we.
Can't say I know too much about QPR's usual first team but had a quick look at their forum when their team was announced and they were surprised at how strong the selection was. Loads of first team players played including their star man Luke Freeman (who'd be a great signing for us). It was by no means QPR reserves, and our youngsters were the better side for the first hour or so until they faded. Apart from the result (obviously) I actually enjoyed the game. Shackleton and Halme definitely first team ready, Davis definitely not (yet), and Pearce, probably a bit rusty but he'll be ok till Douglas gets back. Just a note on Forshaw, we all know about his Forest nightmare but I thought yesterday he looked to be back to his classy best. So all in all not a total waste of time, for me anyway.
Let me explain this simply - to get these parachute payments, first you've got to get up there. Now on the more immotive subject of it being "unfair". If it was you that had come down, I doubt you'd be worried one little bit about it. In principle, it does appear to give previous Prem "trap door" clubs a huge advantage, but the financial obligations entered into by clubs necessary to compete in the Prem have to be met whether they stay there or drop out. That's the purpose of them and must be used to supplement the clubs ongoing running costs and cannot be used to reduce debt. If you're in any doubt as to the effectiveness of them in terms of "advantage" over other clubs, just compare yourselves and Swansea who came down with £50M to spend this season.
Its 2019 and the world has moved on and player contracts have changed. Player contracts all have a escalator clause inserted which simply means if we win promotion your salary will increase by x% if we stay up your salary will increase by x% but if we are relegated your salary reduces by y% pro-rata. Parachute payments are now nothing more than a reward for failure. These payments make it unfair because any player they want to keepof prem quality allows them to carry on paying prem wages in the Championship. Simples which means nobody can compete unless they too have parachute payments and half the clubs in our league are on parachute payments
Spot on but youre wasting your time as the parachute payments get rolled out as an excuse virtually every time we get beaten by a former pl club. Solution is sell part share to an investor to bolster the funds
of course it's unfair ya knob. If clubs don't legislate in their players PL contracts that in the event of relegation their pay will be reduced to reflect the fact they're playing at a lower level that's gross mismanagement. They shouldn't be bailed out by the safety net of parachute payments, which allow them to keep the majority of their PL squad intact. As for Swansea, maybe they've just wasted their money on useless signings, haven't really followed what's gone on there, other than they were forced to sell a number of established players for some reason. If that was simply due to relegation then **** happens.
I doubt if there is a coach in the world who thinks his team is flawless, and if you are waiting for such a team you are in for a long wait. In the meantime try to enjoy what we have got. We are on the way back.
