The Opposition/Rival Watch

Agree they've got a good squad but recent games haven't been going their way. They have won only one of their last six matches.

 

Leeds Mouthing off as usual... A team that have been in the lower league div1/champ for a decade and failed to get promotion.....I expect it will be the same story this season...

 

nice avatar

 

Not long now before we get back to real football and next up at the weekend we get Bristol City visiting us. Not much to say about this team other than they are from a small City which has 2 teams who hate each other. City are the better side but in fairness they cannot compete at a higher level than this and in fairness they are already punching above their weight.

They have one player of note but he seems to have been around forever, in Andreas Weimann and the rest of the small squad is a bunch of names i know little about or have heard of before so in my view we should put these away easily if we have any pretensions of going up this season.

City are in 13th place but thats just below Birmingham as it is geographically But they have 22 points which is only 8 behind us and they have won 6 games to our 8 wins. This shows yet again how tight this league is and a couple of wins could see City up near the top the way things are going. Leeds have to start putting a bunch of results together now and capitalise

 

Ok so we have Reading next and in some respects this is going to be a belter of a fixture as we have a manager who has a big reputation who has yet to prove himself. Paul Clement and some very good players who can cause us damage and under a previous Dutch manager passed us off the park without getting anywhere near goal. This has got to be a priority for us because we did exactly the same against Bristol City, so need to speed up the build up play and do some damage behind their defence or quickly become another pass the parcel team like Reading were.

Players to watch out for are: Gunter, Yiadom, O'Shea, Baldock who can all defend well so we need our A game, plus Aluko who likes to score against us even when he played for Hull City and oh dear one player who will love to hurt us is Mo Barrow

 

So QPR next up and a strange one this as it now means we have drawn them away in the FA Cup too, but this is a league match and we are at home. Shteve Maclaren is really a coach and not a manager but this time around he is using his coaching skills to good effect. QPR a team who have had plenty of parachute money still have a decent squad and on good money, but rather than go through their big name players I am going to look at 2 strikers. Nahki Wells is on loan from Burnley and a player who has been linked to Leeds Utd every year since he was at Bradford. His goals seem to have dried up as he has only scored 3 times this season from his 16 appearances. A danger to us I suspect as he wants to prove he is a premier league striker and justify he big wages. The other one is mat Smith a bloke we all know well and probably a player we never should have got rid of when we did. He's an honest workhorse who can toil up top by himself or can work in a 2 but if he playes BPF will get battered and we need protection from Pontus and Halme. halme will really have his work cut out so we need to keep the ball in their half to reduce the time Smithy gets to hurt us. This season he hasn't scored in his 16 appearances so that worries me. Since going to QPR he has played 57 times and scored 13 goals, which isnt prolific but we know why he gets in the team.

QPR are 11th in the league and still capable of a top 6 spot as they have 28 points. Last season Fulham were in 16th at this stage of the season and we know what happened then. Shteve is a joke manager but a great coach and he has won the Dutch prem league with a small unfancied club, so dont underestimate his qualities

 

On Sunday we visit Villa and although I could spend an age writing about this match I'm not because for me this is another of those matches that should never happen because of an unfair parachute payment system. Villa were recently relegated from the Prem so pick up £20m each year they are not back in the prem. They have a big squad with big wages and there squad is filled with talent. They also have a big mouth manager who is already trying to wind up Bielsa and the players because he was upset that his former team didnt beat us.

This will be Villas Cup Final, they are dezzy to beat us an move up the table and if we get a draw at their place I will be happy but if Bielsa pulls off a win, 6 on the bounce I think we can say its job done for phase 1 of the plan.

 

I so want them to not score against us, I don’t care if it’s 0-0 as their manager was quoted as saying “We’ll score goals against Leeds I can tell you that for certain”...

 

If we start brightly, quieten the crowd, our first class away support will be the usual noisey bunch, we may have a chance, Villa are a very dangerous side and we need to be on our toes, if we score first then we can go on to win and shut the new Championship mouth up, there manager.

 

As we’ve now played all the teams in the league not really any point in me adding to this thread unless anyone has new information or the window throws up any new threats

 

Be handy to add what our rivals (as in top 10?) teams do during January regarding strengthening or losing players.

 

IN

Aston Villa - Lovre Kalinic (GK has 16 Croatian caps)

Middlesbrough - Rajiv van La Parra (Winger On Loan from Huddersfield)

WBA - Mason Holgate (CB on loan from Everton)

 

Gary Monk and his club in the shyte
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/46765090

 

IN

Aston Villa - Lovre Kalinic (GK has 16 Croatian caps)

Middlesbrough - Rajiv van La Parra (Winger On Loan from Huddersfield)

Sheffield United - Gary Madine (6' 4" Striker On loan from Cardiff)

Stoke City - Triggered permanent deals for loan signings Benik Afobe £12m and Ryan Wood £7m also signed Kieran Dow from Everton on loan and Oliver Norwood - Brighton (undisclosed)

WBA - Mason Holgate (CB on loan from Everton)

Neal Maupay being lined up by Villa for the supposed departing Abraham - Not confirmed as yet

 

Seems there’s more bad news on the horizen for Bolton as the new owner has no cash only borrowed cash and he has loaned it to the club as a secured loan so he gets it all back. The EFL are now involved and we could see the club go into administration at anytime. The way things look right now Ipswich only have to get a few points to get into 23rd place because Birmingham and Bolton may have big points deductions coming soon. Birmingham -21 for a start

 

Oh dear. Wish the EFL would get their finger out, though. It's a stressful time for fans & they have the right to be kept up to date & get asap decisions made.

 

Some fans talking about Parkinson walking or being sacked. Massive anger at the new owner who has raped the club basically, and will all blow up soon.

Birmingham have cheated the FFFP system and already had a ban on player trading but brokenthat by conning the EFL. Its now come to light that for every £100 taken in revenue the costs were £234 and they broke the £39m anual rule and then broke it again last year which is like mass murder so thats why 21 point deduction could be levied soon

 

I think the 21 points should be levied for each year they broke it. e.g., in this case, they've broken it twice, so should lose 21 points (or whatever) 2 seasons in a row. Glasgow Rangers thought they were invincible in Scotland, & look what happened to them. Went bust & had to start again at the lowest tier. And quite rightly too!

 

I remember when we got the -15 and Luton were given -30 and finished up relegated into oblivion. Its taken them 14 years to get back somewhere near and remember they had just been bought by a new consortium of well meaning fans and celebs but the EFL didnt give a fk. They punished the club not the previous owners who traded with agents illegally and made money. Thats why its unfair to blame the clubs sometimes as only the fans get punished plus in Lutons case the new owners who lost everything.

Birminghams owner is a bandit so he deserves whats coming to him but the EfL are to blame for Bolton and the fans will get punished seeing their club relegated again because the EFL didnt do their job.

Worth a proper debate this subject at some stage bates should have been kicked out of football for what he did at Leeds but the EFL allowed him to fiddle the system and that meant we got the points deduction we didnt need to have