I think that report ties in with my own views. In particular the lack of any
show of leadership from the manager or captain as the goals were going in.
Nobody dishing out bollockings/encouragement/changing the approach to plug
the gaps. What seemed to finally motivate the players on Tuesday was the
abusive chanting from the crowd “we’re sh9t and we’re sick of it”. Plus the
arrival of Smith.
McCormack and Wickham never looked like scoring against Bolton. They may
have shown their ball skills and done a spot of interpassing but too far
away from goal to worry the Bolton defence. Enter Smith and it’s a different
game-suddenly their defence is unsettled, we start getting chances and the
team is lifted. Fast forward to Tuesday and have we learnt from this? No.
Smith’s back on the bench and McCormack and Wickham are in the Reading
defenders’ pockets. Was it Einstein who defined madness as doing the same
thing and expecting a different result? Again when the game’s lost Smith
comes on and we are transformed. I don’t think our front two had won a
single ball in the air –all the hopeful punts forward from our defence
simply ended up giving the ball back to Reading. After Smith came on we won
most of the headers, they started panicking and our players and crowd were
lifted.
I wonder if we watch and have dossiers on other teams, and pick our players
to suit. Bolton have some experienced players and a big centre forward. So
against this we start with a central defence comprising a 20 year old
goalkeeper who’s played twice for us, 22 year old Wootton who’s only played
a handful of games (and looked shaky in those) and 23 year old Tom Lees who’s
not exactly dominating in the air. They’ve never played together before and
it showed. A disaster waiting to happen. Who had the role of “marshalling
the defence?” It needed Peltier in the centre instead of Wootton , with
Byram at right back. If Smith had been on from the start his height would
have helped defending the set pieces and negating the effect of their big
centre forward. Reading didn’t have any big forwards-but they were very
nippy. So against them we bring in Pearce and Zaliukas who can both be
described as approaching “lumbering”. We had effectively a five man back row
at the cost of thinning the midfield-and no midfielders on the bench. So
Reading ping the ball over our lumbering defence for their fast forwards to
run onto.
McDermott's spent the past year saying all the "correct" things to get the
fans behind him. And now he's blaming uncertainty re the takeover. But he's
brought Hunt, Kebe, Stewart, Wootton, Zaliukas, and Ariyibi to the club all
of whom are draining the payroll for no benefit. Last season Byram and Green
worked well down the right but Green's clearly been told to clear off by
McDermott only to be snapped up straight away by Mick McCarthy who can
recognise a decent player and has done a great job at Ipswich.
Rant over. Back to Lurkdom
-----Original Message-----
From: Nick
Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2014 8:16 AM
To: leeds list
Cc: Nick Allen
Subject: [LU] Reading, or, once more into the breach...
So back to the Fortress again last night.
Pretty much mirrored the Bolton first half – Reading were a faster, and more
slick bunch than Bolton (and than Leeds), but the howler between birthday
boy Butland and Pearce that handed them their first goal, aside there wasn’t
much indication of the likely events of the second half. It was fairly
mundane stuff a bit more zip from Reading, faster into the tackle, but not
causing us to be overly concerned. Our lot were shaky at first before
seeming to settle into the game a little…and a bit of confidence began to
come back. And then we broke out our Keystone Cops routine again. 0-1 down,
from nowhere, and everything falls apart.
Suddenly Reading are at everything…snapping tackles, whipping the ball
about, leaving our lot chasing shadows. And when we do get the ball, we
rarely find another man to pass to. (Except Lees who can pick out some bloke
in the West stand unerringly – probably his dad)
We made it to half time with no more damage done…but what on earth do the
manager and coaches say to the players at half time – for the second game
running we fold like a paper house in the rain and within minutes we’re 0-4
down. Nothing short of shambolic. I don’t see a leader on the pitch or the
touch line who is bollocking – cajoling – organinsing (and this is my
problem with forwards as captains – they’re not at the heart of it…).
I thought we were playing some form of 3-5-2…others thought it more 5-3-2
(which would a be a shameful line up at home)…but it doesn’t matter if
people don’t pick up runners, mark their man, track back, get in where it
hurts…because as Reading showed, they will waltz through and bang the ball
home.
So 0-4 after 52 minutes…that was enough for many (the old guy behind me who
can remember seeing John Charles and Duncan Edwards play, had enough and
left muttering darkly about the M62)…for the first time in my Leeds
supporting life I almost left as well. There really seemed no point. But I
gave it a few minutes while we desperately tried not to concede any more
goals…and Matt Smith came on. Won a few headers, we all pushed 10 yards up
the pitch and suddenly the big lump scored, scrambling the ball in at the
far post from Pearce header back across goal.
Less than a minute later, Rudi picks the ball up, surges forward and plants
a curving 30 yarder into the top corner…and for ten or fifteen minutes they
gave us some hope…THE BASTARDS…Smith came close a couple of times, there was
loads of pressure and some corners and some scrambles…but in the end it
fizzled out.
So another dawn another drubbing; another exodus of fans well before the
final whistle; another clueless performance from the dead man on the bench
and what is to be done…he won’t walk, we can’t afford to sack him,
especially if we are days away from administration again…our best hope is an
Italian caught up in tax evasion investigations…this summer will see Ross
McC, Byram and possibly Mowatt leave…
…when do the Season Ticket renewals go out again?
Again hard to do points for players…the back 4/5/6 were woeful (I think we
probably need to put Brown in front of the back 4 again) – once again Murphy
was probably our most consistent player on the night…although Smith did
well and caused problems when he came on, in his own unique way; Rudi got
fired up for the last half hour. Ross McC mainly invisible throughout.
Sad times.
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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 [email protected]
John 'Grampa' Sykes
Rest In Peace old lad
28th Oct 1938 - 12 Nov 2013
MARCHING ON TOGETHER
