Good Morning Everyone Leeds suffered their first league defeat of the season against Birmingham at the weekend courtesy of a Che Adams first half brace and although Alioski grabbed a goal with five minutes remaining, Leeds were unable to find an equaliser. Phil Hay makes an interesting point in the Yorkshire Evening Post:- 'When the bus carrying Leeds United’s first league defeat arrived, the question was who would be thrown under it?' Answer: Bielsa threw himself under the bus (bucket first)! Speaking at the post match presser Bielsa said:-"The proposal I chose for this game at the beginning was not the right one," Bielsa said. "We could not make the link between defence and attack because [Kalvin] Phillips could not receive the ball. "Phillips had to assume the consequences for the mistake I made. When I corrected the mistake, the rival had already scored two goals. It is a high price to pay for a tactical mistake." Considering both shots were taken from distance, should Peacock Farrell have done better in keeping them out? Was the Ref bias towards Birmingham? Bielsa doesn't think he influenced the result. “The referee can sometimes take the right decision, sometimes the wrong one, but I don’t think he influenced the result.” Bielsa said. The stats don't lie. Leeds had 72% of the possession and 17 shots at goal, compared to Birmingham's 4. Were Leeds actually that bad?
Morning all.. I just posted on another thread, those two shots should never have gone in, it was just an unlucky day at the office. Had the keeper kept them out or at least the first one it would have been entirely different. Bielsa has said he can see what went wrong tactically and he’ll fix it. It just shows what an important role Phillips plays in this system, Monk having worked with and regularly selecting Phillips probably did his homework on him, well he probably got Pep Clotet too. We’re still top of the table, we’re not going to play fantastic every game and we’re not going to lose many games with 72% possession and 17 shots to 4
Morning all On the game I will say that BPF was poor for both goals, redeemed himself a bit but will Blackman get the nod or will Bielsa stick with BPF until his next booboo? 72% possession is scary but you have to do something with it. Reading liked to play with the ball without doing damage and we took the pee out of them. Our tactics were slightly wrong in the first half as we tried to go through the middle but had pass after pass intercepted. Once we went wide we had better results. bad day at the office and hopefully rectified on Friday.
We got a few tough games coming up as well. This could well define the season how we deal with this defeat
Striker talk is off and running again especially for 2 players which have been linked plenty recently. Mbaye Diagne was due to come to Leeds in the Summer but due to work permit problems it was left alone. The player has applied for and received an Italian passport now and so Orta has supposed to have spoken to his Turkish club again? One striker who has been on our radar for 18 months is Alex Prijavic. Orta was in discussions first right back in January 17 but his club wanted £6m and wanted to sell him to AC Milan as they were in the hunt too. Prijavic had a fall out because he wanted Leeds Utd. Then in the Summer we looked at him again but again through the Hernandez, Vydra soap opera and left it too late but got Bamford. Sources now saying its back on again? Prijavic is a Serbian International and his stats for 17/18 are: League: played 28 games scoring 19 goals = 68% scoring average or a goal every 1.4 games. Cup: played 8 games scoring 6 goals = 75% scoring average or a goal every 1.3 games Europa league: 4 games scoring 2 goals = 50% scoring a goal every other game Overall for season: 40 games scoring 27 goals = a goal every 1.48 games. Stats for this season: 4 leage games scoring 5 goals = a goal every 0.8 games Champions League 6 games scoring 4 goals = a goal every 1.5 games 10 games and scored 11 goals so far this season so a goal every 0.9 games. Some will remember that I have raved about this player before but if it comes off I will be chuffed.
Good morning Matt & everyone Typical of the great man deflecting any blame from his players. I don't hold Bielsa or Philips responsible for that defeat. I just think it was one of those days, a bad day at the office! Yes BPF should have done better, he's still raw & he'll learn from his mistakes Poor referee who never got to grips with all the blatant time-wasting, he stopped the game several times as the Brum players in rotation deliberately fell to the ground feigning injury to disrupt our game, we were on a breakaway twice when he blew his whistle to halt play, neither incident were head injuries. It's call gamesmanship, I call it cheating. It would never happen in Rugby League as play is allowed to continue whilst injured players are being treated on the pitch. FIFA rules have given a license for players to flaunt & cheat at any given opportunity, not good for the game or the watching fans. We were nowhere near as fluent as we've been previously, our passing was woeful & we created probably three decent chances to score. Time for the bounce-back factor. Lets go stuff the Owls on Friday night
Morning all, oh well it was going to happen at some point. Lots of good points made already but like Doc says, having all of that possession is only meaningful if you do something with it. For all of the “shots” and “shots on target” I can’t say it was heart in the mouth stuff, we looked quite blunt to me. On the ref, what is he supposed to do? If a player is really injured he would have been crucified in the press if he just let the game go on. We got 8 minutes of added time but didn’t make the most of it. Only once did I think he got it blatantly wrong. Brum corner second half and one of their players went down injured, allowed play to go on with Birmingham attacking, we won the ball and broke out and then he stopped it. Surely if the game needs stopping he just does it not wait until their attack comes to nothing? Big few weeks coming up, respond and lay the gauntlet down again or fold like last season and we could be out of the top six within a couple of weeks - come on boys!!!
Morning ristac, such a shame Izzy Brown is not fit. Suppose we need to take every game as it comes. Once Brown, Hernandez and Roofe are fit, I wouldn't be scared of anyone in this league.
Morning Doc, I can't see Bielsa giving Blackman the nod. Its not his style. I'd love to see what Blackman can deliver for the first team. He was great for the blunts last season.
Morning Doha, that would be nice. One of my favourite games was the 6-1 result against the Wendies in the 90's.
Hi everyone (A good morning it ain't) Still reeling from saturday,new a defeat was coming at sometime,but was not expecting it at all against Birmingham.I like BPF and will make a great keeper for the future but at the moment should be on the bench IMO,he is still young and learning, however he must shoulder the blame for that defeat as part of that learning curve,how he reacts to that will tell us a lot,to me a top keeper is more urgent than any other position,for if we had a more experienced keeper we would be three points better off,to me a keeper makes or looses points,i hope BPF is not affected by saturday,because if he loses some confidence (this is my worry being so young),so will all likely the defence around him,and we have no quality keeper as back up,Blackman no better imo.when felix confidence was shot last season,it filtered to the rest of the team,i am not saying it will happen again as Bielsa will have addressed this.Best tonic for everyone is to not lose two in a row,and get three points from the wendies on friday to get us firmly back on track.
Morning Leon, what kind of reception did Monk yet? I was amazed to hear Leeds fans speaking up for Monk on social media saying what a great Manager he was for us! No hostilities towards Clotet or Beattie tho!!!
Morning all. Had a read of Marcos post and it saves me a Load of typing as it’s basically what I was going to say. Roll on Friday. Big Night at the tv between the Ryder cup and wendies game
Morning Marcos, to me, we broke forward too slowly! When we were attacking, it was like they had 11 people behind the goal!!! When they were on the counter attack their pace scared us!
Morning all...disappointed with the result but we were going to lose a game sometime, probably best thing was getting it out of the way when the other results went our way and our league position was unaffected . Onwards & upwards to Friday and the wendies......MOT...
We had had plenty of seasons where 13th was deemed a good league position and Monk sorted that out and we finished 7th. So you have to say thanks for that, without him and Beattie Wood wouldn't have scored those goals for us either as it was time with Beattie that sorted Woods head out and gave him confidence. Clotet was great for many of the players so all in all we have to say thanks. Yes Monk isnt as good as he thinks he is and his treatment of a few players post Christmas cost us a play off place, and he handled Radz badly and should have waited, but he did what he did and right now I'm glad he did it because although we went back to 13th place last season we now have Bielsa.
