On the one hand a very encouraging performance, on the other a very disappointing result.To deal with the bad things first, it is starting to look like a pattern, and even worse, a pattern that will see us relegated. Coming from the match saying " we deserved more than we got" - already we think we have 'thrown away / lost' a point at Fulham, 2 v Bournemouth and now at least one v spurs. Somehow we have to make our chances count, DCL had 2 good opportunities, one a bad miss , one a decent save, Longstaff had a shot just wide that should have been on target, Rodon thundered a header onto the woodwork that should have gone in, a few crosses into the box, one in particular just needed a touch to score but 3 Leeds players failed to get that touch. So somehow we need to convert these into goals ( I will exempt Piroe from criticism since his chance was really well taken and really well saved ( but on a different day could have gone in) Once again we fell below our xg whilst our opposition did the opposite ( it was 1.6 v 0.5 I think ) At the other end we could perhaps blame bad luck, up to a point, in that both goals took deflections off Struik which gave Darlow no chance. It was not however bad luck that allowed the chances in the first place it was failing to react quickly enough to Longstaff losing the ball for the first and Gudnundsson getting in a bad position for the second We need to rectify these issues and quickly or we will be going down bemoaning the fact that we don't deserve to.
There was also lots to admire as, for the most part, we went toe to toe with a top 6 or 7 team in a very entertaining game, that had spurs ,like loads of second rate Champo teams resorting to time wasting, play acting , moaning at the (incompetent) ref and just generally cheating / using gamesmanship. Gudmundsson , one lapse apart,looked good, so much so that post match we were trying to work out the last time we had 2 good fullbacks, some went for Kelly/ Harte , myself further back to sterland / Dorigo. So real praise coming their way.Calvert- Lewis again proved a real handful, Longstaff put in another real shift as they say, and Amps held it all together, Okafor did enough to impress me ( but not my mate) so lots to be happy about Nmecha looks poor ( god knows how he got Germany caps) and Aaronson continues to do what he does,at least 3 times I shouted " well done Brendy" only to finish the sentence with " oh no "as he fought and won the ball only to then lose it or misplace the pass - his saved shot did get us our goal One last thing the shot from Piroe came from a great knock down by DCL so we mused whether at some stage in the season or in a particular game we shoukd go back to the old big man / little man , target / poacher with DCL and Piroe ( our best finisher) being the new Jones / Clarke or Chapman / Wallace Going forward we need to win our next 2 games really. Looking at the season as a whole we need a point a match to stay up. Given that realistically we will get nothing from 6 games ( Liverpool, arsenal , man City,) we need to win 3 other games to get 9 from 9 - who can we beat ? Well Burnley and West ham have got to be teams in that group. Also it is games against 'rival relgation teams' that will determine our fate So plenty of encouragement but also plenty to worry about as we go into the break Dave _______________________________________________ Leedslist mailing list Info and options: https://mailman.gn.apc.org/mailman/listinfo/leedslist To unsubscribe, email [email protected] Find us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/leedslist/ Rest In Peace Steve "Score one, score one more!" Gillen.
