The Official Leeds United Thread

[DaveyBoyWonder]

I've been watching a lot of the U23s this season and there are a number of players who look almost ready for stepping up - Greenwood and Gelhardt are two obvious ones. Gelhardt looks like a pain to play against and there are similarities between Greenwood and Bamfords style of play and both seem to have a natural ability to find the net. Then you've got the likes of Drameh, Summerville, Cresswell, McKinstry etc who I expect will at least get into some match day squads next year. Caprile in goal as well looks like following in Meslier's shoes. Watched the U18s wallop MK Dons 8-2 in the FA Youth Cup last week as well and they look to be in a similar position...

In terms of the first team, a left back has to be the number 1 priority this year. Imagine someone with Ayling's ability on the left hand side to replace Alioski who I think everyone seems to like but are well aware he just doesn't cut it at this level. He must have given away 90% of the corners we conceded at the weekend...

Sign Harrison permanently, get someone to provide a bit more firepower from midfield to challenge Klich and maybe someone decent to cover Bamford and might be a quiet summer. Definitely no need for wholesale changes...

PS - nice article on BBC about Dallas.

[sim72]

DaveyBoyWonder said:

In terms of the first team, a left back has to be the number 1 priority this year. Imagine someone with Ayling's ability on the left hand side to replace Alioski who I think everyone seems to like but are well aware he just doesn't cut it at this level. He must have given away 90% of the corners we conceded at the weekend...

Yep. Much as I love the Macedonian nutter, he's not a Premiership quality left-back, though he is a very useful player to have on the bench as he can pretty much play anywhere.

[Voldemort]

https://ellocognome.co.uk/

[Drezza]

Voldemort said:

https://ellocognome.co.uk/

I'm actually tempted as a desk paper weight

[Killer2005]

2-1 win but made it harder than it should have been.

[JNW1]

Killer2005 said:

2-1 win but made it harder than it should have been.

Agreed, a two or three goal margin would have been a better reflection of the game. And amid all the (understandable) concerns about Baldock's concussion the fact it was an awful tackle was missed completely by the officials; Roberts could have had his leg broken yet Baldock wasn't even shown a yellow card never mind the red card he probably deserved. Even accepting the referee was distracted by the medical people treating Baldock how did VAR miss something like that?

Anyway, at least we got the three points; however, I'm thinking we might not get any more this month looking at our next three fixtures!

[Pieman68]

JNW1 said:

Agreed, a two or three goal margin would have been a better reflection of the game. And amid all the (understandable) concerns about Baldock's concussion the fact it was an awful tackle was missed completely by the officials; Roberts could have had his leg broken yet Baldock wasn't even shown a yellow card never mind the red card he probably deserved. Even accepting the referee was distracted by the medical people treating Baldock how did VAR miss something like that?

Anyway, at least we got the three points; however, I'm thinking we might not get any more this month looking at our next three fixtures!

We've done what we needed to do - maximized the points against Fulham and the blades

16 points clear of 18th with 24 to play for you would say that the threat of relegation is all but gone (I know, I know - I'm a pessimist). Couple more games and mathematically there is only one place left to play for and I can't see any of the teams putting together a good enough run to overhaul us never mind all of them. Tough for the rest of April but we've taken a point off Citeh already this year and ran Liverpool close. Just want to compete a bit better against Salford this time around!

[sim72]

Pieman68 said:

We've done what we needed to do - maximized the points against Fulham and the blades

21 of our 42 points have come from our seven games against the bottom four.

We have only won two games aginst top-half sides.

This is where we need to improve next year.

[JNW1]

sim72 said:

Pieman68 said:

We've done what we needed to do - maximized the points against Fulham and the blades

21 of our 42 points have come from our seven games against the bottom four.

We have only won two games aginst top-half sides.

This is where we need to improve next year.

Agreed, if we want to become a solid top-half team we need to start winning more games against the better sides. However, survival was the first priority this season and for the most part we've done well against the teams who were always likely to be competing at the wrong end of the table; so to that extent it's job done for 20/21, we now need to build on the foundation we've established in 21/22.

[Zad]

Hovering around mid-table at this point in the season (albeit with difficult opponents imminent) is a very decent performance, and not a million miles out of touch. Crucially, we don't look out of our depth. The lack of supporters at home matches must surely have lost us a few points over the season. A couple of well chosen new players could have quite a big positive influence on the points table.

[sim72]

Zad said:

Hovering around mid-table at this point in the season (albeit with difficult opponents imminent) is a very decent performance, and not a million miles out of touch. Crucially, we don't look out of our depth. The lack of supporters at home matches must surely have lost us a few points over the season. A couple of well chosen new players could have quite a big positive influence on the points table.

I'm not sure we even need too many players. Llorente and Koch have only made 18 starts between them, so hopefully - if we add a left-back - we wil have a defence that actually looks like it's capable of defending a set-piece next year.

[DaveyBoyWonder]

Weird match on Saturday - one of the most unpleasant wins I can remember. Bamford not on it, Ayling poor, their keeper made a couple of amazing finger tip saves to prevent the scoreline being more reflective of our dominance and shots etc.

That challenge on Roberts was horrific. Gets worse each time you watch it. Speaking of Roberts though - he really seems to be settling into that 10 role now I reckon. Still young but getting about a bit and making some great passes (little touch to Raphinha for the Harrison goal).

In the summer, I can see Costa being shown the door and looks like Gianni (who actually had a solid game on Saturday) going. New LB, extra creativity and cover in midfield and maybe another backup striker and a Costa replacement and we're done. Defensively we're looking far better.

[JNW1]

sim72 said:

I'm not sure we even need too many players. Llorente and Koch have only made 18 starts between them, so hopefully - if we add a left-back - we wil have a defence that actually looks like it's capable of defending a set-piece next year.

Yes, I don't think we need to spend lots of money bringing loads of new players in; we seem to have a number of talented prospects in the U23's and personally I'd like to see some of those gradually introduced into the 1st team squad and given a chance to show what they can do.

That said, I agree we have an immediate need for a decent left-back and at times I think our midfield looks a bit lacking as well - I can see Hernandez going in the summer and I think we could do with someone to replace the creativity he used to provide. I also think Klich's been short of his best of late but hopefully that's just a temporary dip in form...

[JNW1]

Well I didn't see us taking the points at City and certainly not like that! Awesome second half performance after being down to ten men; it was like defending the Alamo a lot of the time but we restricted them to very few clear chances and, although we only had two shots on goal, they both finished in the back of the net. The team fought like tigers all the way and, when a lot of teams would have been content to sit behind the ball and run the clock down, they were still prepared to attack and got their reward with a last gasp winner.

Thought the sending-off was a bit harsh as well; Cooper got the ball and, while he caught Jesus with his follow through, there was nothing malicious about it - if challenges like that are straight reds football's heading towards becoming a non-contact sport...

[dxbtiger]

4 points off the best team in the land, that's why he is God.

Would love to sit down with someone in the know and have them explain why that was red when Baldock didn't even see yellow.

fk you Pep

fk you VAR

[Leicester Loyal]

That was fantastic, well done!

[CustardOnChips]

Great result and an unbelievable performance. I'm now 100% confident were are 99.9999999% safe from relegation.

People will compare the Cooper tackle to the Baldock one from last week. Both deserved red in my opinion.
Boldocks was late and clumsy. But, Cooper knew exactly what he was doing, and was trying to leave one on Jesus. Cooper has been much better of late, but is prone to rash tackles and pulling shirts in the box. Once Koch is fit I think Llorente and Koch will be the preferred central defenders.

[GTO-3R]

JNW1 said:

Well I didn't see us taking the points at City and certainly not like that! Awesome second half performance after being down to ten men; it was like defending the Alamo a lot of the time but we restricted them to very few clear chances and, although we only had two shots on goal, they both finished in the back of the net. The team fought like tigers all the way and, when a lot of teams would have been content to sit behind the ball and run the clock down, they were still prepared to attack and got their reward with a last gasp winner.

Thought the sending-off was a bit harsh as well; Cooper got the ball and, while he caught Jesus with his follow through, there was nothing malicious about it - if challenges like that are straight reds football's heading towards becoming a non-contact sport...

You thought this was harsh? Slightly different and he could have snapped his leg at the knee!

[CustardOnChips]

GTO-3R said:

JNW1 said:

Well I didn't see us taking the points at City and certainly not like that! Awesome second half performance after being down to ten men; it was like defending the Alamo a lot of the time but we restricted them to very few clear chances and, although we only had two shots on goal, they both finished in the back of the net. The team fought like tigers all the way and, when a lot of teams would have been content to sit behind the ball and run the clock down, they were still prepared to attack and got their reward with a last gasp winner.

Thought the sending-off was a bit harsh as well; Cooper got the ball and, while he caught Jesus with his follow through, there was nothing malicious about it - if challenges like that are straight reds football's heading towards becoming a non-contact sport...

You thought this was harsh? Slightly different and he could have snapped his leg at the knee!

There was absolutely no need to make that challenge either.

[JNW1]

CustardOnChips said:

People will compare the Cooper tackle to the Baldock one from last week. Both deserved red in my opinion.
Boldocks was late and clumsy. But, Cooper knew exactly what he was doing, and was trying to leave one on Jesus. Cooper has been much better of late, but is prone to rash tackles and pulling shirts in the box. Once Koch is fit I think Llorente and Koch will be the preferred central defenders.

Baldock got nothing on the ball, could have left Tyler Roberts with a broken leg but never even saw a yellow card let alone a red one. Cooper got the ball, caught Jesus with his follow through but got a straight red even though (IMO) his tackle had none of the danger or malice of Baldock's challenge.

So for me Baldock should have had a straight red. With Cooper I'm not even convinced it was a foul but if he deliberately left something on Jesus in my view the initial decision to award a yellow was probably the correct one - a straight red for what he did was very harsh IMO.