You're quite right about the DJ, I can honestly say that in all my years of watching football I haven't enjoyed the pre-match as much as that! My transfer targets during the window would definitely include the Rochdale DJ. Then of course the match started and the day went seriously downhill. A Rochdale fan has taken exception to the comment I put in the match report on my own site that Rochdale found it easy to cope with our tactic of lumping it up to Smith, because that is the sort of football they must face every week. He claims that most teams in League 2 play better football than that. In other words, we were even worse than League 2 standard! Tim W.
________________________________ From: "n...@6haroldplace.co.uk" <n...@6haroldplace.co.uk> To: "leedslist@gn.apc.org" <leedslist@gn.apc.org> Sent: Sunday, 5 January 2014, 10:58 Subject: [LU] I went to Rochdale So I went to Rochdale yesterday…first the good things: - the drive over from our place is lovely, particularly the bit between Haworth and Hebden Bridge - the pies at Rochdale are cracking – only one option, meat & potato, but hey when it is this good who needs choice - the DJ at the ground treated us to The Doors, Stone Roses, The Who, Happy Mondays (and The Smiths – I know some of you like that stuff) - Rochdale played some very attractive football that was great to watch - I’d have their numbers 11, 12 (Lund) and 40 (Henderson) in our first eleven straight away - Paddy Kenny kept us in the game… …and now everything else… There are so many problems apparent at the moment, but this is still more or less the team that was winning 4 or 5 out 6 only a month ago – so what has changed. In terms of man power, we’ve got Byram back (which is a plus), Pugh is in for Warnock and the fella we had from Forest (Tyson?) went and got injured – I think that he had a part in getting Ross on this roll, he was mobile, fast, and linked well. Other than that, it’s pretty much as was. There must be a confidence thing that has happened. Outside of Paddy, the only two Leeds players that gave it a real go were Byram and McCormack (although both became increasingly marginal as the game went on – probably just frustration on their part). At least they tried to move us forward. Yesterday’s defence of Pearce, Zak, and Wootton (I had to struggle to remember who Wootton was)…looked like they’d never met. Lees can feel hard done to being dropped for Wootton. But like Forest did, Rochdale, passed the ball quickly and accurately on the ground, into feet or into the space beyond the defence and had us turning all match. We had no answer to it and it was woeful to watch. Pearce is a heart on the sleeve kind of defender, which works pretty well most of the time, but if you treat everything as if you just have to go at it like a bull in a china shop, then those with a bit of brains will side-step you, and just generally run rings round you…they did – yesterday our left side was ripped apart time after time after time – Pearce and Pugh between them totally passed out of the game by lively, fast interplay and movement into space. Zak and Wootton – rarely seen such a level of misunderstanding or lack of communication since I left the Wrenthorpe U-11s The midfield is a huge problem – 5 guys in there and still Rochdale’s midfield had acres of space…the number 12 and 40…plus occasionally the 4 (Cavannagh)…ran it from the first minute. Byram on a sort of inside right detail ahead of Peltier, was the threat and twice they chopped him down in full flight – both professional, both cynical and both rightly booked. So what did we do? Stopped using Byram…nuts. I lost count of the number of times in the first half that Sam took a ball, laid it back 10 yards to Peltier or Wootton and spun and set off down the line…only to have to brake, double back, because Peltier, Wootton and Austin had got themselves into a little passing triangle just inside our half…6 passes later one of them hoofs it down the line – where it should have gone first time to Sam – and the ball is lost. Peltier and Pugh aren’t even playing the same game as wing backs – Peltier is a right back, playing 10 metres ahead of where a right back plays and terrified of going further upfield…Pugh is playing left midfield and not tracking back. Austin was dreadful yesterday – plain and simple. Murphy is odd, when we got him I thought we were getting a Hoddle type…long passes, conducting the game etc…we don’t appear to have got that yet, but what we have got is someone tracking back between the centre-halfs making crunching goal saving tackles (2 vs Forest and at least 2 yesterday). ..which at this moment in time is needed. Up front – Smith and Ross – simply not working – they are miles apart, do not play off each other – 3 or 4 times yesterday, Smith headed it to Ross…who headed it back…and Smith tried to head it back for a third time…moving nowhere…no understanding between them. Smith is immobile and lumbering, his one “strength” is getting onto crosses from the wing…but we’re not getting anyone to the by-line. So what is the point? Ross needs someone to play off, pure and simple. The Leeds crowd – there were good numbers of us – booed the team off at half time; sang things like, “the crowd turned up, where’s the team”, “we’ve worked all week for this…”, “what the fuck is going on”, “we’re shit and we’re sick of it”…and got pretty ugly at the end. That link on you-tube captures it pretty well. I don’t know what use several thousand people barracking players during a game is to those players. And I worry whether in this day and age this is just going to bring about some knee jerk reaction from the board…I mean are we really any worse off or better off, now than it is probable we would have been if we’d kept Grayson on…chopping and changing achieves nothing. There has to be some consistency, some patience and some time given, or else what is the prospect? I think we have no choice but to stick with BMcD. It was very discouraging – we had a couple of headers cleared off the line or thereabouts, but otherwise Rochdale flayed us alive and could have had 4, 5 or 6 goals. The two they scored were well taken, the second in particular after a lovely move, but I’d wager that neither of those of those would have happened with a proper left midfield and left back in place. One thought about Byram – last season those around us at ER noted how well he linked with Diouf – a footballer, with a brain, whatever else he might be – but now his only link is with Peltier…who is “limited” shall we say, this brings Sam’s game crashing down to earth. We need to sort out what to do with Green, Drury, Hunt (who was feckin useless yesterday as a sub), Varney, Brown, White, Diouf, Tonge, Poleon etc etc…get the money off the wage bill and start rebuilding. For my money, early season Green at holding midfield in front of the back four would have been an improvement on what I’ve watched recently…but so would a 4-4-2. _______________________________________________ Leedslist mailing list Info and options: http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/leedslist To unsubscribe, email leedslist-unsubscr...@gn.apc.org John 'Grampa' Sykes Rest In Peace old lad 28th Oct 1938 - 12 Nov 2013 MARCHING ON TOGETHER _______________________________________________ Leedslist mailing list Info and options: http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/leedslist To unsubscribe, email leedslist-unsubscr...@gn.apc.org John 'Grampa' Sykes Rest In Peace old lad 28th Oct 1938 - 12 Nov 2013 MARCHING ON TOGETHER
