The very last line from Nicks report sums up the whole situation perfectly
"thing is we don’t have any settled idea of how we want to play or who is best
suited to carry out that plan for us2.
And therein lies the problem. We change the formation and the personnel but
there does not appear to be any real 'plan' - we do not know what we are, a
passing team, an up and at them team, a hoofball side, a try and keep it tight
team or we will score more than them team etc
Yes we have now had 3 fairly solid performances on the bounce (inc Sunderland)
but only have 2 draws and a defeat to show for it. One plus is that we have not
conceded from open play or even a set piece for 2 games - both goals against us
have been (dodgy?) penalties and we have now scored ourselves from open play,
so some positives there
Somehow though we have to get 3 points on Tuesday - various things are against
us -1. They are top of the League 2. We beat them at their place in a game we
should not have won so they will want revenge. 3 We are awful on Tuesday nights
4.The crowd will be v small (not helped by the OS still showing it as 'tbc' in
the fixture list as of Friday)
We do have one thing in our favour though 1. WE ARE LEEDS !
Come on lads - do it for Redders
Dave
From: Nick <[email protected]>
To: leeds list <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, 18 January 2015, 11:58
Subject: [LU] Brum
WE WUZ ROBBED
It is undoubtedly a better feeling to come out of a 1-1 having come from behind
near the end than the other way round but despite the “feel good” ending, this
a pretty unsatisfactory result; two poor teams not making much of a show of
football – there was a reasonable amount of incident, but that doesn’t mean
that either team was any good.
The things to feel good about include the fact that we scored from open play
for the first time since Ipswich; that we didn’t buckle after going one down
and fought our way back into the game and that we could and should have had the
winner after all that pressure in the last 10 minutes. It is a good thing that
we made a decent few chances, but a bad thing that again (like Wigan) we
couldn’t close the deal.
After a steady start they got a penalty 5 or 6 minutes in – I’ve only seen the
incident “live” but it seemed like a clean tackle to me, nor was there much
appealing from the B’ham players. Still, the ref gave it and we were one down.
For the next twenty minutes B’ham’s midfield strolled around pinging the ball
like fun between themselves – no Leeds player was at the races at this time,
with the possible exception of Silvestri – and every now and then they’d bang
off a pretty decent shot from outside the box which our keeper did well to
save. They obviously practice shooting from distance – why don’t we?
During the opening spell our best chance fell to Morrison – 10 yards out,
having chested a crossed ball down really well to his feet, he let fly a left
foot shot that swung high and glorious into the south stand. Antenucci carved a
similar opening, dropped his shoulder and went round his man almost to the
by-line, he hit the target and forced a save, but he was never likely to score
from there. Cooper (?) had a header that flew just wide, but he should have hit
the target.
The thing was that all of this happened more or less by chance – the weather
was poor and the ground heavy and wet – but neither team looked comfortable and
there were loads of aimlessly hoofed balls down the wings or just punted over
the other sides defence.
At half time, struggling to think what to say, someone in our group said “well
OK, who do we think had a shit first half?” and without missing a beat, the
others in the group all said “Morrison!” simultaneously. He did get better in
the second, where we seem to have decided that the thing to do with him is
plant crosses beyond the back post for him to win and nod back across goal – he
did this to pretty good effect – although no one really read the knock downs so
it came to nothing. He flicked one header onto the inside of the post in the
second half, the rebound eluding everyone, including the in-rushing Byram and
the thing bobbled away.
The game became more and more us attacking and them defending – although on a
break away they did hit the post in a similar way to Morrison’s earlier effort.
We had two pretty decent penalty shouts ruled out until eventually Murphy drove
home a poorly cleared cross from about 15 yards. It was on the half volley and
there was a crowd ahead of him, he did well to keep it down and pick the gap.
We also had a weird bouncing “goal” disallowed, the ball sailed over Doukara
and their keeper after bouncing on the 6 yard line, but there had been an
infringement in the build up apparently.
One thing I really don’t get is the crowd cheering for Antenucci being subbed
off and Sharp being brought on – Sharp offered nothing different. Ah well, folk
are strange, as Jim Morrison might have mused had he come from Barnsley.
SILVESTRI – did exactly what was asked of him. He is a good keeper, but I think
he’s in a mild state of shell shock at the moment
WOOTTON – was steady at RBack – but I don’t see him as an answer to anything
much – he had far too much of the ball going forward, and he simply isn’t very
good at attacking play
BELUCCI – you got what you get from him – decent reading of the game, some good
interceptions, good carrying the ball forward and some reckless challenges,
mixed with woeful positional sense at times, and looking really exposed for pace
COOPER – much better than his first half against Wigan which was as bad a 45
minutes as I’ve seen from a CHalf for a long time…steadily won headers and
tidied up behind Belucci
TAYLOR – I think this kid might be OK – he has good touch, can cross a ball and
gets himself stuck in when needed. He needs more experience and more bravery in
making decisions – that’ll come with experience
BYRAM – well we got what we’ve all been wanting – Sam in midfield – and in some
ways it worked just as we hoped it would – he adds pace, directness and causes
consternation amongst defenders…he needs to learn when to cross/pass the ball
and he needs to get better at it cos some of his distribution was poor…I
thought he was chopped for a penalty near the end.
AUSTIN – you either like him or you don’t. It was a typical Rudi performance –
stuck in tackling, running…mixed with pretty poor passing at times. I think
he’s worth his place.
MURPHY – a muted performance, just tidying up doing the tracking and short
passing…which every team needs and shouldn’t be underrated at all. His goal was
well taken when under pressure…he almost got another a couple of minutes later.
Decent showing from our most expensive team member
COOK – all the promise and verve and commitment you expect, plus all the
running up dead-ends and not releasing the pass, all the poor distribution and
it looks like putting him on the left is an increasing odd decision – he
doesn’t have a left foot, every time he cut in onto his right…he is worth his
place but he needs to be central
ANTENUCCI – lots of buzzing around…sometimes takes too many touches before
cracking a shot off or passing it…at the moment he is simply getting rubbish
service for the type of player he is. There is no use lobbing high balls at
him, he’s not big and its not his game. Pointless the crowd getting on his back
in those conditions.
MORRISON – bad miss in the first half, but once we’d decided how to use him, he
was effective – in the air – he is shit on the ground.
Subs:
Sharp – came on, buzzed around and made a couple of half chances, he is lively
but ultimately no more effective than the other forwards.
Doukara – muscled into one or two situations, threw himself bodily into a
couple of tackles…but I don’t think we know what to do with him either.
Sticking him a left wing/midfield isn’t helping him or the team.
The team and coaches need to concentrate on the positives from this and try and
build for Tuesday, which is looking increasingly difficult…thing is we don’t
have any settled idea of how we want to play or who is best suited to carry out
that plan for us.
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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
