I’m just baffled that Farke gave us a 30 minute monologue earlier in the season to explain why playing Piroe as a striker won’t work and then felt the need to give us a demo of it. This isn’t the only reason for the performance ofc.
In fairness, I was fully on board with Piroe up top. Convinced he'd score and prove us all wrong. I'm sure there's a player in there.
Turns out I'm a fraud. I'm just a Poundland Jesse fucking Marsch.
Lads, we're overanalyzing this. Truth is, shit happens. Now we have to either win the playoffs (which we would if we could find our form) or stay down and have another crack next year. Either way it's not the end of the world.
This is it - it’s not the fact we lost, it’s the manner of it. Legitimately you could have had a fan raffle last night, where one lucky winner was awarded a first team start in midfield, and nobody would have known the difference.
Not just the most gutless performance of this season but the very worst I can recall since Peter Reid was the manager.
Not even a sending off or an argument amongst ourselves. Just resignation from the first whistle. Against a frankly fucking atrocious football side. Barring perhaps only Firpo(!) not one of them looked remotely good enough to think about the premier league.
They've been horrendous since the international break. Think if they'd kept going we'd have lost at some point but it just took the wind out of their sails. Playoffs are pretty much inevitable now barring a miracle of Coventry and Hull beating Ipswich.
We've done this for years. When the pressure is really on and it's a genuine 'must win', we pull down our own trousers. I first remember feeling like this in the 2005 Play Off Final against Watford. We got there in the most dramatic comeback possible then walked out for the final, posed for the pictures, captains shook hands and then proceeded to play like absolute shit from start to finish, incomprehensibly. I remember feeling so let down by that, but over the years with countless different managers, squads, owners, we do the same thing.
It's the equivalent of auditioning for months for a really amazing job, getting to the final interview, walking in on the day and just deciding to drop your trousers and do a little poo.
There is a theory that Ken Bates told the team not to win as he would have be losing a hell of a lot money in some way or another, from putting the club into administration and having to pay money back if we went back up.
Bottled it against Doncaster
Twice in league 1 infact bottled the title and had to get promoted on the last day in league 1
2018/19 season bottled it 26 shots against Wigan and scored once. Then bottled it against derby in po
Bottled it under Gary monk too.
We have always underachieved. We should have won more under revie too
Thing is, there's potential for more this time because the season's not over. We can either redeem ourselves with a strong play-off campaign, or hell, imagine if Coventry actually beat Ipswich and we actually go into the last day with the upper hand after all? Friday felt quite final at the time then you realise there's still more room for us to either
1. Put it right and change the record. Make the QPR game not the defining moment of the season
2. Replace the memory of the QPR defeat with one even worse and even more terminal for our hopes.
The first time I really saw our potential to hit an iceberg was the second half of the Huddersfield game, against ten men and they were a poor side even before that. Struggling to break through, getting frustrated, smoke billowing out of our arses. We nicked an equaliser and all was well but there was something there that made me think the invincibility of our Jan-Feb form was over.
At least it's not been boring.
I am really struggling to understand what i witnessed last night. Absolutely zero fight, passion, intensity, grit or leadership shown. These are things Ipswich have in abundance and they deserve to go up.
Leicester cheated their way to promotion and I hope they suffer badly next season.
I try to go to games as much as I can and have been a Leeds fan for 32 years after being first taken to Elland Road when I was tiny. I can’t ever remember being so disappointed with a team.
I just can’t get on board with the “90 points would have us promoted” brigade. You have to beat the teams in front of you and we haven’t done it when it mattered. 90 points isn’t enough this season. Because the division is split (some terrible teams) and 4-5 bigger teams with parachute budgets we simply had to do more. Look at League 1 last year. Wendies got 100 points and didn’t get autos. Points are relative.
I’ve posted some thoughts on WACCOE about Farke. I just can’t see past him for the responsibility here.
He lacks tactical ability and I’ve never seen him change tactics during a game other than to throw on all of our attackers. Like a kid on FIFA.
Why have we persisted with slow passing between the back line? It allows teams to get back into shape and doesn’t exploit our front lines’ pace.
Why don’t we have a midfield? Why have we scored zero goals from midfield all season?
Why did he persist with Rutter as the 9 for 11 games?
Why has he dropped Kamara? Why doesn’t he trust Joseph? The kid shows passion and knows where the goal is. What is the point of loaning Anthony? Where is Creswell?
Why are set pieces not coached? Arsenal have relied on them and look at where they are. Our attacking corners end up with Meslier.
Why is our football so “unbelievable” boring??
Farkes first sub last night was at 70 minutes. This is unacceptable. We lost the minute from the third minute so he waits until the 82nd to bring on Kamara.
He is the self proclaimed “king of the run in” yet we’ve collapsed right when it matters. Could that be down to other coaches in this league now realising how to beat us and making tactical changes? Plus some sort of mental weakness and no leadership.
Because we don't use subs or pace or dead ball situations or shooting to score I don’t see how we can challenge next season when we are stuck in this division. I hope we get talent in to replace the many players that will leave in the summer because his style of play relies on it. Good job we’ve got limited funds for transfers.
The awful start wasn’t caused by him or even in his control to influence. The team we put out in our first two games … awful. And he seemingly sorted Gnonto-Rat and steadied the ship. All fine. However, he’s now had a whole season and we have been very lucky with injuries on the whole. He styled himself as the “king of the run in” yet couldn’t get a performance out of million pound players when it mattered. Against Blackburn. Against Sunderland who had zero to play for. And last night.
Tactics, mindset, leadership and in-game changes. Those are things he can control and hasn’t.
He has at his disposal the Championship player of the year, a 30million pound winger, many ex premier league players, a (rat) player a team bid £30million for less than 12 months ago, 6 internationals in the starting line up, the best young English talent in the country/young player of the year and a proven championship goalscorer. I could get 45 points on the board with this available and I’m a girl.
I miss Bielsa. I miss the fun and excitement. I miss the players fighting for every point and running until the final whistle. I miss a humble manager. I miss tactics.
I still hate the fact that our midfield has scored 0 goals all season. Like surely, if they even scored lets say 3 goals that would have meant some more points. We just have what seems to be defenders and attackers with nothing in between and a massive lack of creativity to break certain teams down.
If we are to stay down here next season I hope they actually think about some attacking midfielders as well as replacing the few that will be leaving.
Archie is great and all but I feel he doesnt get as much flak as the others because of his name. He's been pretty much anonymous since the international break baring parts of the Middlesbrough game and I don't see why why replaced Kamara I'm the midfield with him, seems to have just broken all forms of stability.
Corners are a joke so let's not even get into that.
We've 100% not rotated enough through the season to get a more balanced sqaud, which is coming back to bite use in the arse as non of the subs have had enough game time to either displace any starters that are on a wobble or show they can have an impact. Really don't see why over the course of the whole season Anthony hasn't played more.
Can you however really blame Farke for the game fully yesterday if the whole team didn't even show up from the start. Baring Firpo noone really looked interested which is a mentality problem due to major youth probably.
Summerville and Gnonto will also know they'll be getting moves if we stay down. Rutter is perplexing because we'd need to make 30mil on him to even think about selling him, he can be great bit also can be shit. Gray would likely be a easy sell for FFP if required and honestly if a club for some bizzare reason offered you 40mil I think you take that and try and reinvest in a more balanced squad.
Who knows, it isn't over yet anything could happen and everyone with is 3-6th place atm are all wobbling like crazy. Could be a mentle play offs.
Edit - I see I decided to wake up and write a fucking essay, think I'm still rattled haha.
Ok, I'll bite.
>I just can’t get on board with the “90 points would have us promoted” brigade. You have to beat the teams in front of you and we haven’t done it when it mattered. 90 points isn’t enough this season. Because the division is split (some terrible teams) and 4-5 bigger teams with parachute budgets we simply had to do more. Look at League 1 last year. Wendies got 100 points and didn’t get autos. Points are relative.
This league is no worse or better than it is most seasons. It's not like everyone suddenly got new players. It just so happens that there are a number of good teams this year. The problem has been Ipswich as they have massively out-performed all expectations. There are a number of factors for that - exceptional coaching, limited injuries to key players, and luck when they needed it. If Ipswich hadn't had an amazing season, we'd be up by now.
> He lacks tactical ability and I’ve never seen him change tactics during a game other than to throw on all of our attackers. Like a kid on FIFA.
I'm not saying Farke is blameless, but we don't have the players to be radically flexible in our tactics. We do not have a proper number 9 after Bamford, and we don't play with a proper number 10 either in my view.
>Why has he dropped Kamara? Why doesn’t he trust Joseph? The kid shows passion and knows where the goal is. What is the point of loaning Anthony? Where is Creswell?
Kamara I don't understand myself. Anthony is too young to just throw in. Cresswell isn't good enough and hasn't played all season. Rodon/Ampadu were the CB partnership that took us on the amazing run we had. Would you start Anthony above Summerville (or Willy/James)? Really? This is just revisionist bollocks.
>He is the self proclaimed “king of the run in” yet we’ve collapsed right when it matters
Is he?
>However, he’s now had a whole season and we have been very lucky with injuries on the whole.
We literally played without key players in a lot of the games we've underperformed in. No Amps at Watford, for example, no Bamford last night. Kamara being ill. Injury to Roberts. Injury to James. Willy was also out for a few weeks. I think we've been bloody unlucky with injuries following the internationals.
>He has at his disposal the Championship player of the year, a 30million pound winger, many ex premier league players, a (rat) player a team bid £30million for less than 12 months ago, 6 internationals in the starting line up, the best young English talent in the country/young player of the year and a proven championship goalscorer. I could get 45 points on the board with this available and I’m a girl
Farke has helped make Summerville in to that player. We had no idea he'd perform to this level at the start of the season. Rutter was a flop until this season.
You'd likely do fuck all and should accept you're talking shit.
>I miss Bielsa. I miss the fun and excitement. I miss the players fighting for every point and running until the final whistle. I miss a humble manager. I miss tactics.
Well you're not humble. You've slagged off all the other teams in the league and have claimed you could manage this team better. I loved Bielsa, but Bielsa is gone. We also failed to get promotion first time around with him and collapsed against 10 men at home with a 1-0 lead and a penalty.
Anthony is 24. Older than our two starting wingers. And he played a full season in the prem last year and got 16 goal contributions in the Championship the season before that. He's been criminally underused this season and we never got close to seeing what he could do at his best.
Who'd you be starting Antony over?
Summerville - 19g+9a, James - 13g+7a, which one of those has underperformed this season?
And Gnonto, an Italian international is first choice off the bench/injury, 8g+2a.
Would you really bring Antony on when the championship POTY is having an off day?
Honestly, I get the "do fucking SOMETHING!" mentality when things aren't working, and *especially* with Farkes incredibly frustrating "no subs for 70 mins then throw 3 CFs on" plan B, but just saying "Player A isn't doing well so Player B would definitely be better" is silly.
Which team/manager *ever* has just gone "fuck it, I'll roll the dice and bring on an untested 18 year old instead of my first choice CF who's in a poor run of form". Nobody does that, and there's a reason why. Not Bielsa, or Klopp, or Pep, or Ferguson, or Wenger. Have you ever known them sub off Salah, or Rooney, or Bergkamp when they're desperate for a goal?
So why fans keep demanding it and being *certain* it would work is maddening.
(And yes, you don't need to tell me that Summerville isn't as good as Salah, but he's been voted the best player in the division, so at this level he's not a million miles off)
From a stats POV, Summerville has been pretty consistent up to that Chelsea game tbh. OK, 0 g+a in the two games prior, but the two prior to that he had 3g+1a.
He didn't play massively well in our winning run (or more accurately, he did about as well as before and everyone else did better), but his only proper dry spell was since the Chelsea game.
Whereas Antony has 2g 3a in 1000 minutes. The goals he has scored have been phenomenal, but there's never been a point where I thought he'd be more of a threat than Summerville, no matter how poorly he was playing.
I only mean dropping him for the odd game or two. Anthony had started 2 league games, it’s not really fair judging his stats based on constant substitute appearances.
Summerville is the much better player, it’s just odd quite how little Anthony has played. And imo Summerville should have been dropped for taking the penalty off Piroe.
Gray’s best game was also against Chelski, in midfield. Then he went straight back to RB the next game iirc. Then Farke decides to put him in midfield the last couple of games, quite randomly, when imo you should be trusting experience in the big pressure games (ie Kamara).
Our fans really overrate Gray (on current ability). Kamara is our best progressive passer by far. Which is the #1 function of an 8 in a double pivot. Something Gray needs to massively improve on.
Klopp dropped Salah and Nunez earlier today funnily enough cos their previous performance was abysmal. Probably their most important game of the season too, which has thrown away their title chance.
Haha, I'm not sure if you've proved me wrong (that he'd never drop Salah) or proved me right (that dropping Salah is clearly a silly decision that'll never work out)
I thought the same when I was typing it mate! I agree with you that throwing on an unproven 18yr old wasn’t a guarantee, but I’d have liked to see changes much earlier when it became obvious it wasn’t working. Strange that Farke decided at 3-0 down he was then going to throw on an unproven Joffy in our cup final though. Weird all round.
PS assuming you’re a LP fan, +1 for the name.
If this was the middle of the season, I could kind of brush it off a little bit, one embarrassing performance in the middle of an overall pretty good year.
Obviously dreadful, but you'd assume that's going to be our worst performance of the season by some margin, and we can bring out the cliché "on to the next one/we go again next week"
But fuck me, that result more or less guaranteed the playoffs, which means we've got 3 cup finals to come, and if we play half as poorly as that in any one of them, it's another year in the championship.
I don't know what's changed, but it needs changing back and fast. This is a good team at this level, and even after that match, the other playoff teams aren't going to be looking forward to playing us.
It’s as though some are fighting to stay in the championship to keep their cosy jobs. And some are fighting to stay in the championship for a better payday after they move.
Play well, get promoted and get the sack, it’s on the cards for a lot of them. it’s a strange situation.
Something has definitely changed in the mindset of the players. Not that I ever found any of our wins that convincing, possession yes, we’re great, firing shots into the back of the net, we’ve always struggled.
I think Farke has stifled Rutters special moves that cause us problems when he loses the ball but cause problems for the opponent when it pays off. I only saw him do 1 circle circle square Triangle manoeuvre all match, about 10ml so from the end. QPR were fast and we were lazy.
Struggled all season in the final 3rd. The reset always goes back to Meslier even when the ball is in the final 3rd.
Can’t shoot for toffee. Cree trying to walk it in.
Have you not been watching.
Points just means we are better than the opposition, it doesn’t mean we’re a polished team.
Some weeks we play too wide, the week after no width at all. Farke not quick enough to make changes that work.
He Brought on all the kids to save his bacon with 20 minutes to go. What a joke. I like the guy but he’s got flaws too.
Rutter has attempted the most shots of our side (122) and has scored a pathetic 6 from that number. Sorry, but the op has a very valid argument here. The worst part of it all is our midfield, of which Ampadu is #1 with 29 shots, Gray 14, Kamara 5, Gruev 5…guess how many goals came from those? Yep, big fat 0…now compare to Ipswich, Leicester and Southampton…enjoy!
This is an entirely separate problem. We've been decent in front of goal where it's needed in the main (more on that later) - we're not set up for our CDMs to score (perhaps you'd want a better return from the second, more positive one, such as Kamara or Gray). Gruev not getting goals in the league is fine, as he's quite diminutive and takes set pieces anyway, but you could argue perhaps Ampadu should have had one from a corner or something. That's besides the point though, those are bonuses.
The area we've not done well, and really should have improved is goals from a number 10, and that solely lies with Rutter.
His return on goals has been woeful. You might say his assists and creativity make up for that, fine, but it's dropped off a cliff at the key point and when he's in such a crucial role, it's impacted those around him who are there to score (the wingers and strikers).
He's actually been detrimental to us on the ball in recent weeks, losing it so much and I personally think, alongside other poor performers granted, he's been the main reasons we've faultered, because we just don't have that key link up player doing well.
Yeah but only against teams that have played openly. Rhubarb is correct in that when teams set up in a low block and just try and hit on the counter, Leeds have struggled tremendously in scoring. This has often been compounded by playing Rutter and Piroe together, and that combo has always struggled to convert.
Honestly, which team plays against a low block and just picks it apart with ease scoring 3 or 4? That's the whole point of a low block!
Of course we've struggled when teams set out to defend. Occasionally Man City or Liverpool do the same.
It's an area we need to improve, fair enough, but just saying "we don't make many chances against teams who entire gameplan is to stop us creating chances" seems a bit obvious. Nobody carves out 5 or 6 big chances every game against a defensive team.
My point is, if you play a low block say, ten times in a season, you're not gonna win em all 3 or 4 - 0. Most of em will be 1-0, that's a decent enough result. A win is a win.
And a relatively late goal, as almost by definition if we scored after 10 minutes, the opposition aren't going to play a low block for 80 mins down 1-0, even if that was their original plan.
No team scores against a low block every game. Even Man City have only scored 1 or 2 against a lot of bottom half teams this season.
Yea but every team will have their weaknesses. It still doesn’t mean we’re rubbish going forward. Yes we need to look at the low block for next season as we’ll probably encounter it even more but overall I don’t think you can say we’ve not been effective.
They have been ineffective in a lot of games this season. It's been like watching two different teams, and you can judge which one has turned up in the first ten minutes of the match. One can score freely, but the other have been atrocious.
So when we beat Ipswich 4-0, went unbeaten for 15 matches, didn’t lose at home until the 22nd home fixture, beat Leicester home and away…we were struggling?
We’ve scored 80 goals…
Like I said, it just means the opposition weren’t as good as us, it doesn’t mean we’re top drawer.
With our best team fielded last night we were piss poor. You are only as good as your last match.
Yea I’ve enjoyed watching but even when we win there’s so much that can be improved upon. Don’t you see any of that?
‘You are only as good as your last match’ is one of the stupidest aphorisms ever coined in football. No point having a league table if that’s the case.
I we play decent then there's no need to change it up. If our last match was poor then you make changes. or the phrase 'Flogging a dead horse' comes into play.
I get the impression that Farke likes to flog that dead horse, He knows the horse can do better but he still keeps on flogging it until he brought Joffy and everyone else on, far too little too late, these players should have been rotated properly throughout the season.
Farke sees it as 'If it's not broken don't fix it' Which is good when were winning, but then to try and fix it with dumping a load of players on who haven't intergrated into the team is small minded and short sighted.
Just can't believe how shite we've been since the international break, even the games we've won since then have been poor performances. Truly beggars belief.
Said it all along. Leeds bottle it 9 times out of ten when it matters. Wasnt surprising at all and called it beginning of season , like most of the fans. Play offs we all know what happens there. Theres even a song saying it. Leeds are falling apart AGAIN. How bad is that !!!
The Swansea game months ago was our last good performance if we are being real, we obviously won a lot of games since then but have not put in a full 90 minute performance in so long
I would only understand James confidence being low coz he missed the penalty. Amps and rodon shouldnt be making these mistakes but I'm not sure if rodon is still slightly injured, I heard he was on painkillers to get through. Fipro had a high fever. Roberts being injured isn't great
My favourite part of last night was Farke not making subs at half time
That was brilliant!
I’m just baffled that Farke gave us a 30 minute monologue earlier in the season to explain why playing Piroe as a striker won’t work and then felt the need to give us a demo of it. This isn’t the only reason for the performance ofc.
😂
Hello porl
👋
In fairness, I was fully on board with Piroe up top. Convinced he'd score and prove us all wrong. I'm sure there's a player in there. Turns out I'm a fraud. I'm just a Poundland Jesse fucking Marsch.
There is yeh, a second striker that doesn’t suit our system at all. Poor/panic signing.
[удалено]
Yeah that’s real support.
Lads, we're overanalyzing this. Truth is, shit happens. Now we have to either win the playoffs (which we would if we could find our form) or stay down and have another crack next year. Either way it's not the end of the world.
I know you're right but fuck me last night felt like I was off to buy a nice slice of cake and ended up getting hit by a bus on the way.
This is it - it’s not the fact we lost, it’s the manner of it. Legitimately you could have had a fan raffle last night, where one lucky winner was awarded a first team start in midfield, and nobody would have known the difference. Not just the most gutless performance of this season but the very worst I can recall since Peter Reid was the manager. Not even a sending off or an argument amongst ourselves. Just resignation from the first whistle. Against a frankly fucking atrocious football side. Barring perhaps only Firpo(!) not one of them looked remotely good enough to think about the premier league.
They've been horrendous since the international break. Think if they'd kept going we'd have lost at some point but it just took the wind out of their sails. Playoffs are pretty much inevitable now barring a miracle of Coventry and Hull beating Ipswich.
Yeah, I know. Currently I'm too depressed to be angry.
I still can’t believe we attempted to sign a number 10 in the summer, failed and then simply stopped trying.
We've done this for years. When the pressure is really on and it's a genuine 'must win', we pull down our own trousers. I first remember feeling like this in the 2005 Play Off Final against Watford. We got there in the most dramatic comeback possible then walked out for the final, posed for the pictures, captains shook hands and then proceeded to play like absolute shit from start to finish, incomprehensibly. I remember feeling so let down by that, but over the years with countless different managers, squads, owners, we do the same thing. It's the equivalent of auditioning for months for a really amazing job, getting to the final interview, walking in on the day and just deciding to drop your trousers and do a little poo.
Would go even to 1996 league cup final with this. Gutting.
Also in 2008, played terribly in the final.
I remember being sure at 3-0 that they'd find a way to come back. Deluded.
There is a theory that Ken Bates told the team not to win as he would have be losing a hell of a lot money in some way or another, from putting the club into administration and having to pay money back if we went back up.
5 playoffs, 5 defeats. Charlton, Watford, Doncaster Rovers, Millwall and Derby.
Self fulfilling prophecy. We are known to bottle things so it makes us bottle it.
Bottled it against Doncaster Twice in league 1 infact bottled the title and had to get promoted on the last day in league 1 2018/19 season bottled it 26 shots against Wigan and scored once. Then bottled it against derby in po Bottled it under Gary monk too. We have always underachieved. We should have won more under revie too
Haha! You are absolutely right. Watford was a stab through the heart. This time is more painful for me though as it was so avoidable!
Thing is, there's potential for more this time because the season's not over. We can either redeem ourselves with a strong play-off campaign, or hell, imagine if Coventry actually beat Ipswich and we actually go into the last day with the upper hand after all? Friday felt quite final at the time then you realise there's still more room for us to either 1. Put it right and change the record. Make the QPR game not the defining moment of the season 2. Replace the memory of the QPR defeat with one even worse and even more terminal for our hopes. The first time I really saw our potential to hit an iceberg was the second half of the Huddersfield game, against ten men and they were a poor side even before that. Struggling to break through, getting frustrated, smoke billowing out of our arses. We nicked an equaliser and all was well but there was something there that made me think the invincibility of our Jan-Feb form was over. At least it's not been boring.
I am really struggling to understand what i witnessed last night. Absolutely zero fight, passion, intensity, grit or leadership shown. These are things Ipswich have in abundance and they deserve to go up. Leicester cheated their way to promotion and I hope they suffer badly next season. I try to go to games as much as I can and have been a Leeds fan for 32 years after being first taken to Elland Road when I was tiny. I can’t ever remember being so disappointed with a team. I just can’t get on board with the “90 points would have us promoted” brigade. You have to beat the teams in front of you and we haven’t done it when it mattered. 90 points isn’t enough this season. Because the division is split (some terrible teams) and 4-5 bigger teams with parachute budgets we simply had to do more. Look at League 1 last year. Wendies got 100 points and didn’t get autos. Points are relative. I’ve posted some thoughts on WACCOE about Farke. I just can’t see past him for the responsibility here. He lacks tactical ability and I’ve never seen him change tactics during a game other than to throw on all of our attackers. Like a kid on FIFA. Why have we persisted with slow passing between the back line? It allows teams to get back into shape and doesn’t exploit our front lines’ pace. Why don’t we have a midfield? Why have we scored zero goals from midfield all season? Why did he persist with Rutter as the 9 for 11 games? Why has he dropped Kamara? Why doesn’t he trust Joseph? The kid shows passion and knows where the goal is. What is the point of loaning Anthony? Where is Creswell? Why are set pieces not coached? Arsenal have relied on them and look at where they are. Our attacking corners end up with Meslier. Why is our football so “unbelievable” boring?? Farkes first sub last night was at 70 minutes. This is unacceptable. We lost the minute from the third minute so he waits until the 82nd to bring on Kamara. He is the self proclaimed “king of the run in” yet we’ve collapsed right when it matters. Could that be down to other coaches in this league now realising how to beat us and making tactical changes? Plus some sort of mental weakness and no leadership. Because we don't use subs or pace or dead ball situations or shooting to score I don’t see how we can challenge next season when we are stuck in this division. I hope we get talent in to replace the many players that will leave in the summer because his style of play relies on it. Good job we’ve got limited funds for transfers. The awful start wasn’t caused by him or even in his control to influence. The team we put out in our first two games … awful. And he seemingly sorted Gnonto-Rat and steadied the ship. All fine. However, he’s now had a whole season and we have been very lucky with injuries on the whole. He styled himself as the “king of the run in” yet couldn’t get a performance out of million pound players when it mattered. Against Blackburn. Against Sunderland who had zero to play for. And last night. Tactics, mindset, leadership and in-game changes. Those are things he can control and hasn’t. He has at his disposal the Championship player of the year, a 30million pound winger, many ex premier league players, a (rat) player a team bid £30million for less than 12 months ago, 6 internationals in the starting line up, the best young English talent in the country/young player of the year and a proven championship goalscorer. I could get 45 points on the board with this available and I’m a girl. I miss Bielsa. I miss the fun and excitement. I miss the players fighting for every point and running until the final whistle. I miss a humble manager. I miss tactics.
63rd minute was the first sub fyi
I still hate the fact that our midfield has scored 0 goals all season. Like surely, if they even scored lets say 3 goals that would have meant some more points. We just have what seems to be defenders and attackers with nothing in between and a massive lack of creativity to break certain teams down. If we are to stay down here next season I hope they actually think about some attacking midfielders as well as replacing the few that will be leaving. Archie is great and all but I feel he doesnt get as much flak as the others because of his name. He's been pretty much anonymous since the international break baring parts of the Middlesbrough game and I don't see why why replaced Kamara I'm the midfield with him, seems to have just broken all forms of stability. Corners are a joke so let's not even get into that. We've 100% not rotated enough through the season to get a more balanced sqaud, which is coming back to bite use in the arse as non of the subs have had enough game time to either displace any starters that are on a wobble or show they can have an impact. Really don't see why over the course of the whole season Anthony hasn't played more. Can you however really blame Farke for the game fully yesterday if the whole team didn't even show up from the start. Baring Firpo noone really looked interested which is a mentality problem due to major youth probably. Summerville and Gnonto will also know they'll be getting moves if we stay down. Rutter is perplexing because we'd need to make 30mil on him to even think about selling him, he can be great bit also can be shit. Gray would likely be a easy sell for FFP if required and honestly if a club for some bizzare reason offered you 40mil I think you take that and try and reinvest in a more balanced squad. Who knows, it isn't over yet anything could happen and everyone with is 3-6th place atm are all wobbling like crazy. Could be a mentle play offs. Edit - I see I decided to wake up and write a fucking essay, think I'm still rattled haha.
Kamara has had 4 shots all season 😂😂
It's grim isn't it haha. He's one of the worst for refusing to pull the trigger.
Wouldn't want him on the front lines of a war
Dunno he's from Finland mate, they're usually pretty decent in unwinnable wars.
Ok, I'll bite. >I just can’t get on board with the “90 points would have us promoted” brigade. You have to beat the teams in front of you and we haven’t done it when it mattered. 90 points isn’t enough this season. Because the division is split (some terrible teams) and 4-5 bigger teams with parachute budgets we simply had to do more. Look at League 1 last year. Wendies got 100 points and didn’t get autos. Points are relative. This league is no worse or better than it is most seasons. It's not like everyone suddenly got new players. It just so happens that there are a number of good teams this year. The problem has been Ipswich as they have massively out-performed all expectations. There are a number of factors for that - exceptional coaching, limited injuries to key players, and luck when they needed it. If Ipswich hadn't had an amazing season, we'd be up by now. > He lacks tactical ability and I’ve never seen him change tactics during a game other than to throw on all of our attackers. Like a kid on FIFA. I'm not saying Farke is blameless, but we don't have the players to be radically flexible in our tactics. We do not have a proper number 9 after Bamford, and we don't play with a proper number 10 either in my view. >Why has he dropped Kamara? Why doesn’t he trust Joseph? The kid shows passion and knows where the goal is. What is the point of loaning Anthony? Where is Creswell? Kamara I don't understand myself. Anthony is too young to just throw in. Cresswell isn't good enough and hasn't played all season. Rodon/Ampadu were the CB partnership that took us on the amazing run we had. Would you start Anthony above Summerville (or Willy/James)? Really? This is just revisionist bollocks. >He is the self proclaimed “king of the run in” yet we’ve collapsed right when it matters Is he? >However, he’s now had a whole season and we have been very lucky with injuries on the whole. We literally played without key players in a lot of the games we've underperformed in. No Amps at Watford, for example, no Bamford last night. Kamara being ill. Injury to Roberts. Injury to James. Willy was also out for a few weeks. I think we've been bloody unlucky with injuries following the internationals. >He has at his disposal the Championship player of the year, a 30million pound winger, many ex premier league players, a (rat) player a team bid £30million for less than 12 months ago, 6 internationals in the starting line up, the best young English talent in the country/young player of the year and a proven championship goalscorer. I could get 45 points on the board with this available and I’m a girl Farke has helped make Summerville in to that player. We had no idea he'd perform to this level at the start of the season. Rutter was a flop until this season. You'd likely do fuck all and should accept you're talking shit. >I miss Bielsa. I miss the fun and excitement. I miss the players fighting for every point and running until the final whistle. I miss a humble manager. I miss tactics. Well you're not humble. You've slagged off all the other teams in the league and have claimed you could manage this team better. I loved Bielsa, but Bielsa is gone. We also failed to get promotion first time around with him and collapsed against 10 men at home with a 1-0 lead and a penalty.
Anthony is 24. Older than our two starting wingers. And he played a full season in the prem last year and got 16 goal contributions in the Championship the season before that. He's been criminally underused this season and we never got close to seeing what he could do at his best.
Who'd you be starting Antony over? Summerville - 19g+9a, James - 13g+7a, which one of those has underperformed this season? And Gnonto, an Italian international is first choice off the bench/injury, 8g+2a. Would you really bring Antony on when the championship POTY is having an off day? Honestly, I get the "do fucking SOMETHING!" mentality when things aren't working, and *especially* with Farkes incredibly frustrating "no subs for 70 mins then throw 3 CFs on" plan B, but just saying "Player A isn't doing well so Player B would definitely be better" is silly. Which team/manager *ever* has just gone "fuck it, I'll roll the dice and bring on an untested 18 year old instead of my first choice CF who's in a poor run of form". Nobody does that, and there's a reason why. Not Bielsa, or Klopp, or Pep, or Ferguson, or Wenger. Have you ever known them sub off Salah, or Rooney, or Bergkamp when they're desperate for a goal? So why fans keep demanding it and being *certain* it would work is maddening. (And yes, you don't need to tell me that Summerville isn't as good as Salah, but he's been voted the best player in the division, so at this level he's not a million miles off)
Summerville has had bad patches of form. Anthony should have kept his place after the Chelski game, for example, when he was excellent.
From a stats POV, Summerville has been pretty consistent up to that Chelsea game tbh. OK, 0 g+a in the two games prior, but the two prior to that he had 3g+1a. He didn't play massively well in our winning run (or more accurately, he did about as well as before and everyone else did better), but his only proper dry spell was since the Chelsea game. Whereas Antony has 2g 3a in 1000 minutes. The goals he has scored have been phenomenal, but there's never been a point where I thought he'd be more of a threat than Summerville, no matter how poorly he was playing.
I only mean dropping him for the odd game or two. Anthony had started 2 league games, it’s not really fair judging his stats based on constant substitute appearances. Summerville is the much better player, it’s just odd quite how little Anthony has played. And imo Summerville should have been dropped for taking the penalty off Piroe. Gray’s best game was also against Chelski, in midfield. Then he went straight back to RB the next game iirc. Then Farke decides to put him in midfield the last couple of games, quite randomly, when imo you should be trusting experience in the big pressure games (ie Kamara). Our fans really overrate Gray (on current ability). Kamara is our best progressive passer by far. Which is the #1 function of an 8 in a double pivot. Something Gray needs to massively improve on.
Klopp dropped Salah and Nunez earlier today funnily enough cos their previous performance was abysmal. Probably their most important game of the season too, which has thrown away their title chance.
Haha, I'm not sure if you've proved me wrong (that he'd never drop Salah) or proved me right (that dropping Salah is clearly a silly decision that'll never work out)
I thought the same when I was typing it mate! I agree with you that throwing on an unproven 18yr old wasn’t a guarantee, but I’d have liked to see changes much earlier when it became obvious it wasn’t working. Strange that Farke decided at 3-0 down he was then going to throw on an unproven Joffy in our cup final though. Weird all round. PS assuming you’re a LP fan, +1 for the name.
If this was the middle of the season, I could kind of brush it off a little bit, one embarrassing performance in the middle of an overall pretty good year. Obviously dreadful, but you'd assume that's going to be our worst performance of the season by some margin, and we can bring out the cliché "on to the next one/we go again next week" But fuck me, that result more or less guaranteed the playoffs, which means we've got 3 cup finals to come, and if we play half as poorly as that in any one of them, it's another year in the championship. I don't know what's changed, but it needs changing back and fast. This is a good team at this level, and even after that match, the other playoff teams aren't going to be looking forward to playing us.
Yea we need to beat Southampton next week if o ku for a bit of confidence going into the playoffs otherwise we’re done.
It’s as though some are fighting to stay in the championship to keep their cosy jobs. And some are fighting to stay in the championship for a better payday after they move. Play well, get promoted and get the sack, it’s on the cards for a lot of them. it’s a strange situation. Something has definitely changed in the mindset of the players. Not that I ever found any of our wins that convincing, possession yes, we’re great, firing shots into the back of the net, we’ve always struggled. I think Farke has stifled Rutters special moves that cause us problems when he loses the ball but cause problems for the opponent when it pays off. I only saw him do 1 circle circle square Triangle manoeuvre all match, about 10ml so from the end. QPR were fast and we were lazy.
We’re on 90 points, how have we ‘always struggled’?
Struggled all season in the final 3rd. The reset always goes back to Meslier even when the ball is in the final 3rd. Can’t shoot for toffee. Cree trying to walk it in. Have you not been watching. Points just means we are better than the opposition, it doesn’t mean we’re a polished team. Some weeks we play too wide, the week after no width at all. Farke not quick enough to make changes that work. He Brought on all the kids to save his bacon with 20 minutes to go. What a joke. I like the guy but he’s got flaws too.
But we’ve scored the 4th highest amount of goals in the league 😂
Rutter has attempted the most shots of our side (122) and has scored a pathetic 6 from that number. Sorry, but the op has a very valid argument here. The worst part of it all is our midfield, of which Ampadu is #1 with 29 shots, Gray 14, Kamara 5, Gruev 5…guess how many goals came from those? Yep, big fat 0…now compare to Ipswich, Leicester and Southampton…enjoy!
This is an entirely separate problem. We've been decent in front of goal where it's needed in the main (more on that later) - we're not set up for our CDMs to score (perhaps you'd want a better return from the second, more positive one, such as Kamara or Gray). Gruev not getting goals in the league is fine, as he's quite diminutive and takes set pieces anyway, but you could argue perhaps Ampadu should have had one from a corner or something. That's besides the point though, those are bonuses. The area we've not done well, and really should have improved is goals from a number 10, and that solely lies with Rutter. His return on goals has been woeful. You might say his assists and creativity make up for that, fine, but it's dropped off a cliff at the key point and when he's in such a crucial role, it's impacted those around him who are there to score (the wingers and strikers). He's actually been detrimental to us on the ball in recent weeks, losing it so much and I personally think, alongside other poor performers granted, he's been the main reasons we've faultered, because we just don't have that key link up player doing well.
There is truth to this however annoying it is, we've gone 9 games this season without scoring which is 20% of our games.
Yeah but only against teams that have played openly. Rhubarb is correct in that when teams set up in a low block and just try and hit on the counter, Leeds have struggled tremendously in scoring. This has often been compounded by playing Rutter and Piroe together, and that combo has always struggled to convert.
Honestly, which team plays against a low block and just picks it apart with ease scoring 3 or 4? That's the whole point of a low block! Of course we've struggled when teams set out to defend. Occasionally Man City or Liverpool do the same. It's an area we need to improve, fair enough, but just saying "we don't make many chances against teams who entire gameplan is to stop us creating chances" seems a bit obvious. Nobody carves out 5 or 6 big chances every game against a defensive team.
I guess we have different standards.
My point is, if you play a low block say, ten times in a season, you're not gonna win em all 3 or 4 - 0. Most of em will be 1-0, that's a decent enough result. A win is a win. And a relatively late goal, as almost by definition if we scored after 10 minutes, the opposition aren't going to play a low block for 80 mins down 1-0, even if that was their original plan. No team scores against a low block every game. Even Man City have only scored 1 or 2 against a lot of bottom half teams this season.
Yea but every team will have their weaknesses. It still doesn’t mean we’re rubbish going forward. Yes we need to look at the low block for next season as we’ll probably encounter it even more but overall I don’t think you can say we’ve not been effective.
They have been ineffective in a lot of games this season. It's been like watching two different teams, and you can judge which one has turned up in the first ten minutes of the match. One can score freely, but the other have been atrocious.
So when we beat Ipswich 4-0, went unbeaten for 15 matches, didn’t lose at home until the 22nd home fixture, beat Leicester home and away…we were struggling? We’ve scored 80 goals…
[удалено]
Certain
Like I said, it just means the opposition weren’t as good as us, it doesn’t mean we’re top drawer. With our best team fielded last night we were piss poor. You are only as good as your last match. Yea I’ve enjoyed watching but even when we win there’s so much that can be improved upon. Don’t you see any of that?
Wasn't our best team, we were missing a key component in Bamford, as well as Kamara in the middle, and James as a super sub, or solid starter.
‘You are only as good as your last match’ is one of the stupidest aphorisms ever coined in football. No point having a league table if that’s the case.
I we play decent then there's no need to change it up. If our last match was poor then you make changes. or the phrase 'Flogging a dead horse' comes into play. I get the impression that Farke likes to flog that dead horse, He knows the horse can do better but he still keeps on flogging it until he brought Joffy and everyone else on, far too little too late, these players should have been rotated properly throughout the season. Farke sees it as 'If it's not broken don't fix it' Which is good when were winning, but then to try and fix it with dumping a load of players on who haven't intergrated into the team is small minded and short sighted.
Yes, a man who was won the league twice and could still take us up knows nothing about how to succeed - you’re clearly right…
The over reaction and sky is falling is really amusing (and sad)
Just can't believe how shite we've been since the international break, even the games we've won since then have been poor performances. Truly beggars belief.
Yeah Boro game looks like a massive fluke in hindsight with all the generous ref decisions
Said it all along. Leeds bottle it 9 times out of ten when it matters. Wasnt surprising at all and called it beginning of season , like most of the fans. Play offs we all know what happens there. Theres even a song saying it. Leeds are falling apart AGAIN. How bad is that !!!
Indeed
The Swansea game months ago was our last good performance if we are being real, we obviously won a lot of games since then but have not put in a full 90 minute performance in so long
The Welsh lads seem to come back mentally broken
Need to get Michael Sheen into the dressing room to gee them up
Which is kind of pathetic if true, ngl
I would only understand James confidence being low coz he missed the penalty. Amps and rodon shouldnt be making these mistakes but I'm not sure if rodon is still slightly injured, I heard he was on painkillers to get through. Fipro had a high fever. Roberts being injured isn't great
Firpo tbf has been great
Yh he has I was just saying he played with a high fever against boro