The #LUFC Breakfast Debate (Monday 3rd October)

Good Morning. It's Monday 3rd October, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road

Leeds & Villa gave a new meaning to the term - bore draw

Leeds and Villa gave a new meaning to the term - bore draw, during an excruciating 90 minutes of football from Elland Road yesterday afternoon. It takes a lot to silence a packed out Elland Road, but somehow they managed it, surely evidencing why both teams find themselves at the wrong end of the table.

Villa dominated the statistics (apart from fouls), but Leeds for their credit held firm, fortifying their defence when reduced to 10 men, early in the second half. Marsch's men only managed to muster a single shot on target to Villa's seven. Had the visitors been more clinical in front of goal, they could have had a hatful, yet 19 further opportunities went astray.

Following the final whistle, the camera concentrated on Jesse Marsch - a relieved man; though not sure his allayed demeanour was for rescuing a point, or the spectacle was over.

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Hay rips into Attwell

Phil Hay ripped into referee Stuart Attwell after the game, likening the fluency of his performance to the M25 in rush hour. The man in black dished out 35 fouls, 5 bookings and an early bath for Sinisterra during 90 minutes of mind-numbing hell; but the truth is Leeds don't help themselves. Many of the fouls committed were avoidable, but as Brian Deane mentioned in a recent interview, if you're going to get a yellow card, make sure your opponent knows about it.

Sinisterra's red was avoidable. It shows a complete and utter disregard for discipline, especially when you're on a booking already. Is it double standards - yes! In the opening five minutes, a Villa player kicked the ball away when his team didn't a throw-in decision, yet he was only given a stern word!

"Stuart Attwell in the form of his life, a referee giving this Sky Sports Super Sunday’s late-afternoon slot the fluency of the M25 in rush hour. There is one born every minute, they say, and fouls came at a rate of one almost every two. There were 35, seven yellow cards and a red one for Leeds’ Luis Sinisterra at the start of the second half, ultimately born of his own indiscipline but firing up an argument about what exactly constituted a booking on the day."

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There are no excuses

Jesse Marsch had virtually a fully fit team at his disposal yesterday, yet could only muster a single shot on target, against a Villa side that already have their fair share of problems. Is it too early in the season to push the panic button?

At least last season, we could point the finger at our injury list, but what excuses can be made now? Our lack of discipline, and inability to successfully tackle led us to giving away 23 free kicks yesterday, many from dangerous positions. Only frivolous finishing from the visitors afforded us a point. The only difference between the Brentford game, and Villa, was that the Bees took advantage of their opportunities.

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Still numbed by that bore of a game, and i can never ever remember being bored watching Leeds (which was mostly down to the god damn awful Villa tactics) Gerrard should offer the fans at least a 50% refund for what he and his team put them through.

Good morning all
Looking forward to the Palace/Arsenal games whatever the results, at least they go out and play football.

 

Garbage game and Im being kind. Worrying thing is we've now played three anti football sides so far this season, Wolves and Everton being the others and we've beaten none of them. Im afraid it looks like well be hovering just above the relegation mark for a good chunk of the season but so will many more it seems. Awful referee, awful villa tactics but make no mistake about it, we were also dire

 

Controversial opinion perhaps, but I’ve heard it said that it might be an advantage to have more players on the pitch than the opposition. Apparently getting someone sent off may impact a game. Just a crazy thought about the stats imbalance,

Too early to hit the panic button for me, but for everyone else if it makes you feel better, panic away

 

Even in the friendly we had here Villa were slow, time wasting, disruptive, dirty, breaking any momentum of the game up and generally not entertaining. I hope Gerrard takes a really good look at himself.

 

Ref was useless and didn't seem to understand consistency. Gerrard said the ref was good, well he would wouldn't he. The ref lost control, VAR?

Besides the ref Im having problems with Marsch who seems to like a punch up and wants players fighting instead of playing flowing football. Villa are crap, Gerrard is out of his depth and his players have reverted to punch up football and slowing games down to suit them, we just fell in and let them dictate.

if that shot from Rodrigo which shaved the post hadnt turned at the last second we are one up and the game is different and would have been an easy 3 points. However looking at some of our players reactions to Marsch tactics shows me we have some upset in the camp. Roca was fuming again because he didnt deserve to be hooked again. Harrison should have been hooked in tHe first half and would have been good to see Gnonto run at Villa because that ugly fk Mings would have got himself sent off trying to stop him. We are going to be in another ugly war at Palace next and thats yet another game we really need to win

 

erm we did beat wolves.

but we will struggle against sides doing that. Our system is better suited to swarming sides who come to play, and we lack the guile to break down the sides who park the bud.

 

The villa fans for the most part on social media can't stand him. I couldn't repeat what my son in law was saying

 

You are correct, my apologies. Not sure I've seen sides parking the bud though, that's a new one maybe call in shaks to sort that one

 

It's a good thing to have the prescribed number players on the pitch but really that sending off was weak when players in the same game were doing two footed off the ground tackles and smirking when they received no sanction.

 

…When your fingers are thicker than your iPhone keypad all kinds of cliche variants are possible

 

I like roca but thought he was part of the problem yesterday

against sides like this you have to get a goal to make them open up. Otherwise they’ll camp up all day and look to find space occasionally on the counter against our rather immobile defence.

 

Guessing Joffy is another who's upset with Marsch as he was not even in the squad yesterday. Pecking order for strikers was Rodrigo then Bamford then Gnonto and we still have an unfit Bamford who picked up yet another niggle last week in training

 

Time has come for joffy to at least go out on loan. Otherwise his career will stall completely. Doesn’t look like he’ll ever be a first choice for us

 

Morning all

VAR favoured us yesterday, I was convinced Cooper was going to be giving a penalty away for the shirt pull. The referee was poor but Sinisttera only has himself to blame for the second yellow

I can see hope in every player, they’re not bad, we have some great signings but something is wrong in the style of play. They’re not complimenting each other enough

Bamford is a worry with another injury, is it time to put Gnonto and even Joseph ahead of him, I’m not convinced with Joffy myself

 

Any player that isn’t playing will be frustrated. But we all know from last season that we needed a bigger squad. At the moment we have few injuries.

overtraining or luck?

 

More worrying perhaps is an unfit Bamford is still our greatest threat when he does appear

 

When will Cooper learn that if you pull a shirt in the box with a dozen cameras and var watching, it will almost always result in a penalty

 

I get your point but I think in this case the decision was offside so was never going to VAR