Leeds United Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours 2024/25

10000maniacs

6:0. Nothing more to say.

newhouse87

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118681094#Comment_118681094

They'll be ok, they will pull draws out against better teams while we will just get hammered, so predictable and i said finishing that high in a not true season with fans last uyear wasn't going to help us as many people saw some of our average players play well when in reality we have a very poor squad. How many of our players would realistically start on any top 10 teams.

Mushy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118681346#Comment_118681346

They'd want to start scoring loads though, cos they'll concede a few each match too (like us tbh)

Kingp35

Absolutely woeful stuff. Tactics all wrong.

Look I didn't expect us to get anything tonight but the performance was terrible.

Hijpo

If we get more than two points from the next six games I'll be astonished

newhouse87

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118681391#Comment_118681391

For a man who immerses himself in tactics and studies opposing teams, we seem to very rarely do well against better teams. A tactical genius bielsa is not, we play a nice brand at times as we have all seen but its u10 stuff at times.

10000maniacs

The buck stops with Bielsa for not insisting on reinforcements in January.

He needs to go. I really can't see where Bielsa's next points are coming from.

If we park the bus for the next 13 games, we might survive. That's our only hope.

whiterebel

Sane lifted his leg to make sure it hit Ayling for the penalty.1st was a definite penalty, I don’t know why anyone doubted it.

Seathrun66

That was an expected loss. No need for the utter panic and unbalanced negativity here. Errors by players and management for sure but the incessant whingeing is a bit much. And please don’t say it’s because of passion for the team. I just mostly hear incessant negativity with little to no balance.

We’re in for a fight but we have several things on our side:

-The March and early April fixtures are good.

-We are not as poor as the bottom three.

-We have Phillips, Bamford and others returning.

-Our worst fixtures are all done. Our only remaining away fixtures to top ten teams are Wolves and Arsenal.

-Going by recent seasons we need 12 points from our last 13 games to survive. We’ll get much more.

I think we’ll finish 11th/12th. Getting Kalvin back soon is essential. It just doesn’t work without him and he also raises the level of others. MOT. We will be fine.

Zaph

There's no suggestion that Bamford will be back any time soon. By all accounts he hasn't even started proper rehab due to his foot injury. His absence magnifies the main problem we have at the moment - we can't defend to save our lives. At least if we had someone who could score it would cancel out some of the damage caused by poor defending. But when we're leaking at the back and getting nothing up front there's only one outcome against the sort of opposition we've been up against lately. I agree that a fit Kalvin is the key, he steadies the midfield and gives the defence a lot more confidence. But even if we have him back soon it doesn't hide the fact that right now we're unable to do the most important thing in football, score goals. It's hard to see where those goals are going to come from, and the fear is that a couple of poor results against the "weaker" teams we'll be facing shortly could see us scrambling to simply make 17th place.

newhouse87

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118681708#Comment_118681708

The manner of our loses is the problem, expecting losss against every top ten team is not acceptable but its so predictable what teams will hammer us, free money if you were a betting man.Blind optimism is not what's needed either, unbalanced negativity it is not, we have the worst form in the league over the last 5 games. Painfully obvious how last season wasn't a true season with no fans, did not help us one bit finishing that high as it gave the board false confidence in what is a very poor squad. We very rarely score from set pieces but often concede, bielsa coaching has to be called into question but as i said he has got very average players to play a system so when he goes we are in a very difficult position as them average players will look even worse under new management.

Seathrun66

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118682014#Comment_118682014

I didn't say that Bamford was returning soon, just simply returning. With three months left of the season he's likely to be back, but unclear when. Cooper and Phillips apparently for the Leicester game in ten days.

Seathrun66

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118682187#Comment_118682187

Worst form will turnaround with games that are less challenging. Should we lose several of those then I'll start to get worried.

The repeated mantra that 'last season was not a true season' is absurd. We finished 9th, and deservedly so. Could have been higher. Much of the previous season was without crowds and yet we won the Championship. And deservedly so.

This season we've been routed by injuries and that, more than tactics, VAR decisions or any player's erratic form is why we are where we are. Failure not to realise that is incomprehensible. Liverpool were champions in 2020. A few injuries last season (far less than us) and they scraped into 4th with a far bigger squad.

Bielsa has pedigree with Leeds and before Leeds, but is not beyond criticism. The players likewise but those you repeatedly criticise are almost all internationals, many with significant countries. We can, and will get upgrades, but you're slamming guys who easily won the Championship and were then within three points of a European place.

Incessantly criticising Bielsa and his players offering nothing of any tactical use is what pub bores do. Don't be at that level.

newhouse87

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118682568#Comment_118682568

We have lost to relegation strugglers Newcastle and Everton recently., not exactly top teams. It was not a true season and this season is showing it. Yes we did win the championship deservedly and we havent improved our squad to pl standard since. If we have injuries and nobody to replace them, whos fault is that? Just because a player is an international means nothing so that point is nonsense. Heres a tactic you might share with bielsa, how about giving up the man on man defending against much much better sides who can tear the best defences in the world apart not to mind our defence with awol ayling at center half. Bielsa is simply too stubborn and always has been and its why he never got a top top club to manage. We all appreciate what he done to get us up but failing to adapt to the pl has been a failure on his part. Finishing 11/12th you said a few posts back, il have whatever you ae smoking.

Ceist_Beag

Once again I find myself agreeing with a lot, but not all, of what Seathrun is saying. The fixtures will ease and we will start picking up points. I don't see us finishing 11th or 12th though, not a chance. Right now I think it is likely we will finish behind most of the teams who are currently ahead of us bar Brentford and there is every chance that Everton, Newcastle and Burnley will finish ahead of us.

I certainly don't agree with anyone who says Bielsa must go. Our best chance imho is to stick together and keep doing what we have been doing and it will come good. There are a few reasons for thinking this.

1. As Seathrun said, the fixtures will get easier. We are crap against the better teams and this is something Bielsa needs to address if he stays on next season but our style of play is effective against the weaker teams and when we play well we are much better than some of the other teams around.
2. Players returning from injury will undoubtedly boost the team and the morale.
3. We're currently at our lowest ebb but if we manage to pick up a few points I believe confidence will start to return and we should hopefully finish the season playing the brand of football we saw last season.

I also don't agree with those who say our team is full of average players. A few are in bad form right now and if we had options I am sure they would not be playing. Llorente is out of sorts, Ayling is really struggling, Klich isn't playing all that well and Rodrigo continues to disappoint. Add in the very poor form of Raphinha of late. That's a lot of passengers to carry. If we get Kalvin and Cooper back I would leave some of those out for a bit. We really need Raphinha to sort himself out to have any chance so hopefully he can get his act together. Bamford coming back would be a huge lift but right now you would have to think it's unlikely we will see much, if any of him this season.

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118681391#Comment_118681391

The timing of the match wasn't helpful but there are 13 games to go and at least two of the bottom 6 are definitely going down. It is also an eye on the likes of Newcastle and Brentford and how they fare as Everton may sneak out of this. March is a very important month, with players coming back, some less daunting fixtures and getting a good return of points is vital. Do that and 17th will be a celebration!

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118682627#Comment_118682627

There are one or two players, loyalty aside, who have been found out this season. Whether this is because of the level, COVID or the massive disruption of injuries who knows. Injuries are not just absent players, they enforce disruption in consistency and tactics too. Yeah, Biesla is stubborn and everyone else knows the best 11 and tactics but his system needs all the cogs in place to stand a chance of working. That includes Phillips and Bamford and nobody else on the team can do what they do for the team.

whiterebel

Watched it back last night on Sky. We looked better after the subs at half time, but Liverpool let us play. They could easily have smashed double figures last night. Vast improvement when Dallas goes to midfield, but the biggest beneficiary of that move was withdrawn - Klich. Honestly Roberts on is like playing with 10 men. He went on a run, took about 7 touches and nearly lost it, when 1/2 touches and shift it out was the ball. His header in the completely opposite direction to his team mate was unbelievable.

I thought Firpo was ok again last night, apart from the stupid tackle to get himself booked. It shows the difficulty of a left footed LB playing the best left footed right winger in the world. He was constantly off balance in a 1-1, but we don't get back to cover - this is where Dallas in MF would help. Struijk is starting to make mistakes now, but I can't blame him, you can see the confidence drain out of our defence by the minute. Same with Meslier.

It cannot be that difficult to tell Ayling NOT to go rampaging up the field when we are 3-0 down, and Llorente to stop following his target at the halfway. I'd like to see a midfield of Forshaw-Klich-Dallas-Bate-Raphinha with Rodrigo or Joffy up front. I thought Raphinha chased back a lot last night, but looked totally dispirited. The difference between playing for Brazil and this Leeds side cannot help but affect you, plus if he has Deco whispering in his ear.....The decision not to take vd Beek looks worse with every game.

We need something to change fast. There aren't 3 teams worse than us on current form. Every team coming to us now must be licking their lips, while we look haunted.

whiterebel

Also we have no luck at all. Almost every 50/50 goes against us, there was a ball came out of defence last night, 2 Leeds on 1 Liverpool player, but he got the bounce and the attack stops. Cruel bounce off Struijk's heel in for Mane. The less said about VAR, the better. Funny how borderline offsides are repeated at great length for the top 6, but the linesman flagged James early on Sunday, and people at the ground reckoned he was too close to call. Why didn't he let the play go, especially after letting Ron go despite being 2 yards offside.

event

Am I the only one who thought the Alisson tackle on James was a penalty?

NuckChorris1

It's a crap time and it's not changing in the next couple of weeks but I still fully believe we'll be OK. However if we sacked Bielsa I'd fully expect us to go down. He can choose to go in the summer, if it's what he wants, but the man deserves so much more respect than you see online (not necessarily here). However I think that's just mainly the Twitter/reactionary brigade and actual fans at the games are 100% behind him. He'll be hurting more than any of us at recent form. Decisions like playing Roberts, man marking, players playing out of position are infuriating, but he's put a lot more thought and work into those decisions than us and will suffer/succeed as a result. He can't change things mid-season as he's just put so much into Plan A that you can't expect the same players to suddenly play different.

It needs looking at in the summer (having a Plan B, squad depth/quality, etc) but for now we plough on and pray the injured lads get back asap. Wasn't there a really bad defensive patch in the promotion season and then we had a regroup and didn't concede for a while and were generally much more solid? Can't remember exactly when it was but definitely had something like this before and against much worse opposition. Also 35 points has stayed up since 2017 so wins vs Norwich, Brentford & Watford and only 1 more win from Villa/Southampton/Brighton gets us there. Even if we do that we'll still be miserable as we've lost 7 other games along the way that I've discounted.

Talisman

Tottenham looked pedestrian against Burnley, similar to how they were playing early in the season. If they show the same attitude at the weekend then they are there for the taking but Leeds need to be prepared to give them a game. Leicester are in poor form and haven't won a league game since December. Those two games are crucial because the negative goal difference could be a factor at the end of the season.

whiterebel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118684517#Comment_118684517

Just saw it for the first time (Streams were all over the place last night). If James had done a Fernandes and rolled over 3 times, it's a penalty. Too honest, got up too quickly. Alisson didn't get near the ball. Would definitely have been a penalty in the other box. Oliver being a Newcastle fan didn't help us with that and the Sane penalty.

is_that_so

Llorente now seems to have a hamstring issue according to The Athletic.

Seathrun66

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118682627#Comment_118682627

When you play 38 games against PL opposition you play a season, irrespective of crowds. We finished 9th. That is indisputable. We deserved that (or more). You disagree.

A player being recognised by his country to play internationally is significant. Our first team has six players representing major nations (Spain, Germany, England, Brazil). You are of course free to say those players do not match your standard.

Bielsa has made tactical mistakes. For that he deserves criticism. But replacing him, no. And he has turned down several top clubs. You don't get to manage Argentina and Chile in the World Cup and not get offers. Chelsea twice tried to lure him from Bilbao. Real Madrid also approached him as a potential replacement for Mourinho but he asked to be taken off the shortlist. And not a top club (yet) but he turned down West Ham over (justified) concerns regarding the owners. The thing is, he doesn't like big clubs, not his style. Hence we got lucky with him, and remain lucky to have him. Keep the faith, we'll be fine, my concern is over possibly losing players for next season.

.

Seathrun66

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118683319#Comment_118683319

Great points and I agree with all bar I still think we'll start moving up soon. We're only 6 points behind Palace in 11th with a game in hand on them and a fixture against them in late April.

The proviso is that Leicester and Villa in 12th and 13th have games in hand on us so they'll likely move up also. Points aren't coming easy at present but a couple of wins can set a trend, as happened at the end of last season. Cooper and Phillips for Leicester will rejuvenate us. I don't know where we'll end up but 11th/12th is definitely achievable.

event

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118685012#Comment_118685012

What a shock

Ceist_Beag

Great piece in The Times on the current situation

Marcelo Bielsa has earned right to see Leeds United job through to the end — bitter or otherwise

Leeds could finish 8th instead of 15th under a new manager, but so what? Football is about more than just pragmatism and survival

Rick Broadbent

Thursday February 24 2022, 5.00pm GMT, The Times

God, I hate football. Leeds United get stuffed again so Marcelo Bielsa must go. He’s a myth. No Plan B. No Mick McCarthy. Stop all the clocks, shore up the defence. Buy someone. Anyone. Does Eddie Gray have grandkids?

The worst Leeds team ever? It’s not even the worst Leeds team this year. Marching on in an altogether disjointed, disgruntled and increasingly ugly manner. It’s true. Twitter only sings when you’re winning.

Look, Leeds are in the mire and may even go down — the 6-0 defeat away to Liverpool the latest setback — but the rush to erase what Bielsa has done and expose him as a myth of Pep Guardiola and Mauricio Pochettino’s making (I mean, what do they know?) suggests some fans have taken one too many flying bottles to the head.

I have followed Leeds for nigh-on half a century. The good bits are these: the European Cup Final 1975 (sort of), Tony Currie, Howard Wilkinson 1989-1992, David O’Leary’s babies 1997-2002, the Champions League semi-final 2001, Tony Yeboah’s volley, Bielsa. The bad bits are these: riots, relegation, the National Front, Bowyer-Woodgate, more relegation, administration, League One, Ken Bates, Massimo Cellino, 13 managers in five years, most of it.

Bielsa took over an ailing club and transformed it. It was not that the football was beautiful — although it was, especially last season — but it was the fact that being beautiful mattered. I know a lot of pragmatists out there will think this is wishy-washy bullshit, but if you can enjoy a game when your team loses, that’s entertainment. I mean, what do you want from your team? We are conditioned to think it’s all about survival, about clinging on for dear life so you can cling on for dear life again next season. It’s like going to the theatre and not enjoying Romeo and Juliet because it doesn’t end well.

Of course, it’s not been beautiful or enjoyable at Leeds for a while and they no longer have the fit or form players, or the belief, to really give it a go. But most Leeds fans seemed to say they’d be happy with finishing 17th when the club was promoted, so why aren’t they happy with 15th now? Because Bielsa made them want more.

The myth-quibbling shows the festering lovelessness of football. I think it comes from the fact that your team, other than two or three expensively assembled conglomerates, is generally not great, so you spend half your time enjoying the misfortunes of other clubs instead.

So has Bielsa been found out? He is a flawed, obsessive figure with blind spots — his faith in Tyler Roberts probably surprises the player himself, the small squad concept is way too risky, the inability to defend corners maddening — but his system is not a shambles. It got an unpromotable club promoted. It was good enough to beat Manchester City away, with ten men. That was ten months ago.

Leeds have become a shambles because they have missed their best players, had an injury epidemic, and had too many players suffer a dip. Or they may have reverted to the mean and we have got to a point where Bielsa has mined the likes of Luke Ayling and Mateusz Klich for every last drop of their ability.

Every team suffers with injuries, but Leeds more so. It is because their man-to-man system requires Kalvin Phillips to win his battles. It needs Patrick Bamford to close down that space in the centre, as only he does, so centre halves don’t have acres of room to run into.

Without those two Leeds are really struggling, before we even get to Bamford’s goals and Phillips’s distribution. Liverpool can cope without Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané because of the depth in the squad, raiding Southampton and others, and the spiralling cycle of success. Leeds can’t. Half the team is generally out of position and they can’t win enough of those individual battles. It all falls down and the back-up is a bench full of teenagers. It’s like taking the key players out of the Spice Girls and what you’re left with is scary and babies.

Leeds should have added to the squad but attracting players to a club with no recent history of success is hard, and players in that £20 million market are gambles. People talk about net spend but the gross one is a more significant marker because promoted teams do not have anything to sell and need to build. During Bielsa’s reign Liverpool have spent about another £200 million more than Leeds. And they have a brilliant manager. Go figure.

Leeds did try to get Brenden Aaronson, the United States midfielder, from Red Bull Salzburg. It didn’t happen. Ten players, effectively anyone on the fringes, wanted to leave on loan during last month’s window, which shows how hard it is at clubs fighting for a foothold.

But here are things to like about Bielsa before you call for his head.

He never blames the referee, VAR or bad luck.

He does not allow his team to harangue referees (probably why Dan James did not get his penalty against Liverpool).

His players almost never dive (Bamford’s against Villa was nearly three years ago).

He favours trying to win by bravery rather than scraping a goal from a corner.

He is reckless.

He inspired Felipe Cussen, a visiting poet from Santiago University, to excuse himself during a recital in Leeds and return in full home kit. He then told bemused academics and literati that they were lucky to have Bielsa in their city. Why? “I could talk about Bielsa all day,” he once told me on the phone from Chile. “He does not speak like a poet but he has the same problem of trying to find words to say something very difficult. He talks a lot about beauty in football. You can be effective or romantic and it is very clear he is the second of those.”

Wishy-washy nonsense, you say. Let’s be effective. “Do we think a British coach in charge of Leeds right now would be getting the sack?” tweeted Richard Keys, who does not get this romance thing. Well, Leeds have sacked loads of British managers, and foreign ones too. That wasn’t every effective. Bielsa has earned the right to see this through to the end — bitter or otherwise.

I would love to see how he would do with top players. If a Leeds team largely pooled from the Championship, with a few additions, can play as well as they did last season, what could he do with City or Liverpool? I am not sure players of that class would buy into the project.

We will never know, of course, because he will leave in the summer and, at 66, probably call it a day. Leeds will then get a more pragmatic manager and may even have better league finishes — i.e eighth — but it won’t be as thrilling.

I saw another tweet today saying that Bielsa had no credit in the bank. Jesus H Bremner. The writing is on the Twitter wall before the paint on that mural has even dried.

whiterebel

Good article that. Long press conference this morning, where he was at pains to point out that we have been missing 5 of 6 of the CB/DM combinations. Also said that the Klich/Rodrigo combo which worked in the 2nd half against Man U, didn't again Liverpool. I was waiting for the journal to point out that it worked on Sunday until they ran through us and scored goals 3 and 4.

GoldFour4

Koch and Llorente back for tomorrow at least. Not looking good for Coooer, Phillips or Bamford though.

I’d bite your hand off for a draw tomorrow.

Carcharodon

I’ve done a 16 hr and 13hr workday the past two days, my girlfriend was just telling me to take it easy the weekend and get rest…..Iam like, yea, Iam getting up at 4am to watch Leeds lose in the morning, she thinks Iam insane…lol

Mushy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118695370#Comment_118695370

Gi back to bed afterwards and only call it the weekend when you wake up after that, at least the whole weekend isn't ruined at least...or so can be claimed

whiterebel

I'm off on holidays, so I'm going to miss the game today. Maybe me not watching will bring a change of fortune. Fingers crossed.

xlogo

IMG_20220226_095044_704.jpg

is_that_so

https://twitter.com/Cli5hy/status/1497502169221808128

event

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118691315#Comment_118691315

Cooper and Phillips be middle of March. I have a feeling we wont see Bamford again this season

event

Meslier

Ayling--Llorente--Struijk--Firpo

------Koch--Dallas--Forshaw-----

Raphinha--James--Harrison--

That midfield is strange

whiterebel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118696282#Comment_118696282

It just looks strange because Dallas is where he should be.

event

Yeah but there isnt much creativity (not that there is much with Klich and Rodrigo, tbf)

Ceist_Beag

Happy with that midfield given recent performances, safety first. I would take 0-0.

Mushy

Would've been some start

GoldFour4

Ridiculous that we are just continuously picked apart like that.

Mushy

Normal service has resumed

event

Ah well

GoldFour4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118695370#Comment_118695370

Go back to bed I’d say !

Mushy

That's embarrassing

Carcharodon

Thinking about it, my god, a mess

Neewollah

We can't defend for love nor money at the minute. If things don't change soon we are going down. Simple as that. A lot of blind optimism in this group in recent weeks.

Firpo is terrible. Has no strength or pace. So easy to get past him. He was our only real signing this year. Bring back Alioski quick.

I said after the summer transfer window that if we finished 15th this season it would be a good season. we have a lot of very average players and didn't add any depth to the squad. Few injuries have exposed us and the younger players don't seem to be good enough for this level yet.

event

Koch is not a midfielder by any stretch of the imagination. Constantly caught flat footed

Ceist_Beag

**** me, safety first he thought when he saw the lineup!