Starting to enjoy these away days - bags of goals, good atmospheres and wins!
Cracking first half display I thought - had it all with creativity going forwards, stifling the home team in front of a big crowd and for the most part controlling the midfield. The goals have all been seen / described. On top of them Howson (loving his behind the front man role) missed an absolute sitter of a header at 1-0 and Snoddy should have had a penalty when blatantly shoved over at the back post when he would have nodded it home. We looked great every time we used width - Snoddy was a back to form (and gradually improving fitness) and Gradel was effective perpetual motion with actual end product again - he's bang in form. Our fullbacks look to be developing a good understanding with the wingers and there was some good overlaping being done. Faye also looked much livelier in the first half - actually covering some ground so being much more influential. Get a strong feeling he is just going to be an hour performer though - is that enough? The problem is we then look vulnerable for the key last 30 minutes. Second half familiar deficiencies came to the fore. You do have to give credit to Cov - they're 4th in the division, it was a bumper crowd and they flung men forward. But too many of our players went hiding for spells in the 2nd half. Suddenly we didn't seem to have an outball and Becchio looked isolated and pretty dominated by their centre back. Nervousness crept into our play as soon as they bagged a goal (Connolly looked to be playing their man on by being badly out of position to me, though he generally performed well other than that). Where previously we were assertive, hesitancy crept in (especially Collins). Faye lasted about an hour before limping off (not sure if injured or just shattered). Johnson came on and was pretty Johnson type average. That said, encouragingly we still carved out chances. Gradel and Howson combined to win a penalty. Gradel had a tantrum to get to take it instead of Becchio, and dispatched it very well. Gradel went off injured and we weirdly put on right footed Hughes at left back and moved our Prem left back to left midfield. I see Grayson rationale - more strength and height to withstand the long ball barrage - but to me it was a negative move that invited them on to us and actually put us under more pressure, when that is not a situation we are good at dealing with. Straight swap for Sam would have been better. A shoddy 2nd goal for them from a routine punt into the box (Collins hopelessly slow to react) almost immediately after our third put paid to any hopes of a cruise to a win. Some hairy moments as we typically started to drop far too deep, with the ball flying around the box followed with Brown seldom inspiring great confidence - more Casper Ankergren than Kasper S on the crosses, with some pretty limp punches, before Becchio was put through, rounded the keeper and slotted it towards the goal texbook fashion - cue stunning goalline clearance. Unlucky for Becchio who did everything right and looked to score rather than trying to get fouled. The last change Grayson made looked weird (Somma for Kilkenny) but was actually very effective. Becchio was labouring for the last 15 mintues, and Somma gave us an extra outlet and in the last few minutes we actually ran the clock down quite well, mainly through Somma and Snodgrass. Maybe Grayson realised his first change had invited them on too much and he needed to make a change that enabled us to keep the ball in their half. It worked for me. Overall though - cracking stuff. We still look vulnerable under any pressure at all at the back, but we look to have bags of goals in us. This formation really unlocks the goalscoring potential of our midfield. Excellent atmosphere - a lot of abuse for Marlon King which was good to see. Impressive that even with an allocation of 6,200, there were Leeds fans in the Cov end that got escorted into their own section! _______________________________________________ Leedslist mailing list Info and options: http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/leedslist To unsubscribe, email [email protected] MARCHING ON TOGETHER
