Leeds United Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours 2024/25

Mushy

Vintage

newhouse87

now he brings on gelhardt,

Hijpo

Head is gone... hope is gone... interest is gone...

newhouse87

yessssssssssssssssssssss

newhouse87

supersub, what a manfger hahahahaha

GoldFour4

Same old story. So many chances not finished despite excellent play.

oh my god my stream is delayed and I’ve just seen Phil tweet that we’ve scored

event

Amazing

Seathrun66

Oh fu*king yes!!!

GoldFour4

This team is going to kill us all

newhouse87

**** hell, thats me done for the day, win like that could really get our belief back. dnt agree wilth all the subs but thank **** for joffy 1

10000maniacs

Come on Joffy.

Raph and Joffy, our two best players

Ceist_Beag

That is so Leeds. I'm shattered! Joffy you little beauty.

Carcharodon

I feel sooo sick after that, speechless

10000maniacs

We needed that win. But it barely pencils over the cracks.

whiterebel

Should have done a straight swap, Joffy for Bamford. Nearly lost it by yet again inserting square pegs into round holes.

Mushy

Lol went for dinner after the ....so happy now

NeedMoreGears

That was entertaining if not very convincing. Maybe another day some of those chances would have gone in. We’re still in with a chance of staying up although I think it’ll be down to us or Everton for the third relegation spot

event

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118779355#Comment_118779355

Jesus christ, can ye not just be happy we won?

Hijpo

I would take 9 draws from the remaining games right now.

jacool

Watford escaped a late penalty call too. Table looks, not much, but definitely, better than this morning.

There's a piece of wire out there, and this is gong all the way down to that.

Having watched Brentford yesterday, they won't be doing us any favours on the final day, though.

championc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118779409#Comment_118779409

Everton's run in from here certainly looks more difficult to ours

newhouse87

burnley have the easiest run in, pity watford won today, would have had nice bit of daylight to them

Kingp35

Christ that match was not good for the health! We should have 3 or 4 up by half time, absolutely battered them.

Second half was poor though, some terrible subs by Marsch and we very nearly blew it! What a finish though, great that the players kept their heads and got the winner. Great play by Raph and Joffy.

That win is huge, hopefully it builds confidence in the players now too.

10000maniacs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118779420#Comment_118779420

Of course I am happy we won.

Our season would be over if we didn't.

But steady on, it's Norwich we are talking about here.

downthemiddle

Never in doubt.

quarryman

Watched all of that and i have aged significantly. Unbelievable scenes.

championc

A draw would have been shattering and demoralizing on confidence. They'll also know that they got away with it

Jimmy Two Times

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118779476#Comment_118779476

This. We need to remember that this was Norwich. Worst team in the league by a mile and we scraped over the line.

Can’t help thinking that with Bielsa we’d have beaten them 3 or 4 as we’d have kept trying to score and not tried to protect the 1-0.

Still a huge task ahead but clinging on to the hope that we can do enough to finish 17th but in reality I didn’t see too much today that makes me any more confident than I was after Thursday night.

Some limbs after the winner though.

quarryman

Judging by a few of the comments, how many of you actually watched the game?

We didn’t try “protect the win” or “get away with it”.

The tackles were thrown in from minute one and on another day Ayling could have gone within 10 mins. Rodrigo probably should have had yellow too very early.

There was proper passion out there today and despite being **** opposition it was exactly what was needed and this point of the season in the position they are in.

Leeds stopped a VERY poor run of results today and now have the opportunity to keep the momentum and stay up.

MOT.

Mushy

A 94th minute winner and a Lowry hole in one...some day.

Don't care that it was "just norwich", hideous form and everything off the pitch led to the celebrations. Good chunk of pressure on those below now

Jimmy Two Times

So bringing Koch on for Rodrigo was not an attempt to protect the 1-0 ?

Game should have been over at that point but it wasn’t and we handed them the initiative by making that change, made worse when we went 5 at the back.

Against the worst team in the league, keep your attacking players on and keep going for it. Apparently Rodrigo had a slight injury but that sub handed Norwich the momentum.

You could sense the change in the crowd as they started to get back into the game.

History now and onto Molyneaux on Friday where fingers crossed we can pick up something and put more pressure on the rest of the strugglers.

Think Everton play The Toon during the week so hopefully another defeat for them.

championc

At this point in the season, results from those in the bottom 5 be always become very unpredictable, as they fight for me their lives. Today was what Norwich saw as their real opportunity to put points on the board. They were playing their cup final. In a sense, we were too. There was a massive amount riding on it.

Hijpo

I think Koch could have done a bit more to try cut out that ball in by Pukki, if he ran another three yards instead of stopping he would have been in a better position.

Unreal climb by Gelhardt, fantastic header to find raph and exemplary determination to get into the box.

Meslier prevented ANOTHER equaliser with his face, probably right in calling it a poor miss by Pukki.

The comparison of what Bamford does compared to everyone else that has tried to play as a No.9 shows he's probably the biggest cog in the wheel.

Good to see the press is still there, it works well and with time can be extremely powerful.

Not sure what the craic is with the back four, are they still trying to play man marking or a high press?? This is more noticeable just before Ayling dives in for the penalty that never was, Lorrente follows pukki out and gets caught on the wrong side completely (caught on the wrong side for the equaliser as well actually) at the same time Dallas is pressing with forshaw, Struijk and Harrison on the right. Seems a bit mad.

Ayling looked like he was man marking at times then pressing on his own as well as bombing forward whenever and Lorrente got pulled out right when he went missing. Pukki had five leeds players around him at one point, klich, forshaw, ayling, lorrente and Koch and did them all with one turn. Koch looked as if he was taking up random positions and wasn't quite sure what the reason was for taking those positions.

Norwich had a right spell of pressure before Rowe hit the bar, the ball was outside our box on the left, Norwich had three lined up on the edge of the box and we only had forshaw passed our penalty spot, im guessing they need to get out much quicker than that.

I think a better team will open us up at the back, we really really really need to put the ball in the net, if its two nil going into the last 20 minutes I would not be confident.

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118781430#Comment_118781430

Rodrigo apparently had a tight quad so that sounds like player protection over lead protection and the Bamford move was planned. The problem of it being only 1-0 was a player one, not a coaching one. Some of that is unquestionably down to the low level of confidence in the team and there has been many a similar day. I recall a period of 4 matches in one of the seasons where there were over 100 shots in total and barely 10 on target. It's a real weakness in this team. I'll take 3 points, especially against an all but relegated team.

Meanwhile the next 5 games could deliver at least 5-6 points and that should be safety!

Wolves (a) – Friday, 18 March

Southampton (h) – Saturday, 2 April

Watford (a) – Saturday, 9 April

Chelsea (h) – Saturday, 16 April

Crystal Palace (a) – Saturday, 23 April

event

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118781430#Comment_118781430

Rodrigo had a slight injury. And he must have thought he can push Klich forward to Rodrigos position and have Koch step in. I dont think he was settling for the 1-0. He is still learning about the players, he is going to make mistakes re:selection

But for Wolves, I really want Joffy and Bamford up top.

Ceist_Beag

Now that my heart rate has settled, a couple of comments on the game.

Llorente looked much better to me yesterday, his tackling is excellent. Our pressing and energy was right up there and we never gave Norwich any time until late on in the game (presumably as we tired and also got nervous and sat back more). Our passing at times was shocking. I'm hoping this is more down to lack of understanding of the new system but we gave the ball away a lot yesterday. We were very narrow at times and really lacked options - this probably contributed to the poor passing as players forced passes that were harder to execute. We created lots of chances, honestly we could have scored 5 yesterday. It's clear confidence and nerves contributed to the misses. Even though he is some way off 100%, Bamford offered us something up front that we have been dearly missing. Finally, just how impressive was that 2 minute cameo from Joffy. I mean he had no right to win that header (which he put perfectly into Raph's path) and then to follow it up, dreamland stuff for the young lad. Him and Raph might be an option up front when Patrick is not on the field.

newhouse87

Honestly think some others may have fluffed Gelhardt's chance, some may have hit it over the bar. Hardy little boyo he is.

whiterebel

Raphinha looked back to approaching his best. Rodrigo was influential until he came off. Llorente had his best match in ages. Thank you Meslier's head for that last save. I'm sure I thought it was going to flagged offside or something, I didn't realise it would have stood - it was all surreal. All of them looked a lot more comfortable in their roles.......until we took off Bamford (which had to happen). We should have done a direct swap with Gelhardt. And then Rodrigo for Koch. Inexplicable. We handed over the initiative to Norwich, and they went on the front foot. All of a sudden the nerves kicked in and we looked in trouble. Not good against the bottom team in the league. Harrison and Aarons certainly seemed to enjoy each others company for a while.

Also thanks to the referee, he was pretty lenient on us in the first 30 minutes, we could have had 4/5 players on tightropes. Rodrigo in particular, some refs might have given Ayling a red as well. Whatever he was thinking about when he sat down in the box I'll never figure out.

Jimmy Two Times

Don't want to get into a back and forth over this but by replacing a forward player with a defensive midfield player,when we were only 1 - 0 ahead and still well on top we definitely handed the initiative to Norwich. You could feel the apprehension in the crowd which may or may not have been reflected in the subsequent performances of some of the players.

Agree that a direct swap, forward for forward was needed.

No one happier than me with the result given what I've sat through in the last few weeks but can't look past the difficulties we had in beating a really poor team.Thank Christ for Raphinha,Meslier and Joffy.

event

Yeah thats fair JTT, and with Joffy scoring it does beg the question, why not sooner?

What will be interesting is if Jessie repeats the same mistake or goes more adventurous. An attacking 4 of Joffy, Bamford, Raphinha and Rodrigo would be great to see, Raph and Rod in behind the two lads up top.

When everyone fit this is what I want to see

------------Meslier

Ayling--Struijk--Cooper--Dallas

---------Forshaw--Phillips------

---------Rodrigo--Raphinha----

---------Joffy--Bamford---------

And if joffy needs to drop out or a break, move Rodrigo up and Harrison/James step in

Hijpo

With Bamford playing No.9 the way he does and Joffy just being an absolute nuisance making CB commit themselves I think that's a great shout.

newhouse87

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118783218#Comment_118783218

Dunno about struijk and cooper tbh, llorente is decent most days, feel paschal can be caught ball watching at times. Have issues with cooper wit regards pulling and dragging but him and llorente seem ok. Personally would like ayling replaced, shackleton maybe. Think Creswell will be v good in time too.

Ceist_Beag

Yeah I would definitely start Llorente over Struijk.

whiterebel

If you haven't watched MoTD2, you should have a look. They show perfectly how a good centre forward changes the whole momentum of this team, as we saw in the first half yesterday. I like watching Danny Murphy dissect teams to see how they tick.

Llorente looks very comfortable beside Cooper. It'll be interesting after all the clamour about missing Coops when he comes back and gives a penalty for swinging his player around the penalty area.😀. Ayling Cooper Llorente Struijk as defence?

event

I think Struijk will be better with Cooper beside him. I dont think Llorente is much of a talker or leader but would have no issues with him beside Cooper either.

And yeah, Cooper has his own issues. But he played 15 games and we conceded 23 goals. In the 14 games he has missed we have conceded 42. I know Phillips is a part of that too but still, thats shocking.

Seathrun66

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118783218#Comment_118783218

I like that team, only changes I'd make would be Llorente for Cooper and probably Koch ahead of Struijk, not his fault he's being played out of position nor the fault of either for not having a settled defensive line to be part of. Happy with all four CDs but I'd like some consistency for whoever plays there.

Ceist_Beag

Could this be the moment that saved our season? The leap, the vision and the accuracy of the header, absolute class.

10000maniacs

I personally think the Eureka moment yesterday was Llorente visibly telling Meslier to slow it down and go long.

That could be a Marsch directive and Meslier forgot Bielsa was gone and he had a new coach.

We have lost so many goals this season from Meslier playing it out from the back and Llorente putting a stop to it was a huge moment in yesterdays game.

It takes pressure off the poor defence. And golly we are poor defensively.

I only wish now he would boot it as far up the field as possible instead of chipping it to the wings which we are weak too.

Akin to what David Harvey or Ray Clemence used to do, putting immediate pressure on the opposition defence.

is_that_so

That goal from a different perspective!

https://twitter.com/Dan_Hardy19/status/1503361678389518342

newhouse87

YOUR NOT SINGING ANYMORE WENT QUIET THE SECOND GELHARDT HEADED THE BALL ON.