My sentiments exactly - there are a few people on WACCOE writing from an
objective view, but not many. Personally I thought this was a decent
performance, a lot better than I had feared. The finishing has however been
woeful. Playing Healy and Moore has given us the kind of mobility up front
that has been lacking when Healy and Blake have played together - but if
they don't finish the chances that they create....it's not only the
forwards, Kilgallon and Carole were guilty of missing easy chances, Butler
of missing a difficult one and Westlake a half chance.
Best move of the match was the lead up to Carole's miss - Douglas bursting
through from midfield, inch perfect pass from Moore, cut back to Carole -
that was the type of thing a team with confidence and belief will do more
and more - so its a pity the morons chose to turn on the team and the
manager at full time.
Wolves came with a big team - watching the two sides come out of the tunnel
it loked as though we were walking in a trench - with the intention of
muscling us out of the game - that they failed was a tribute to Douglas and
Westlake in particular. They got three bookings, they probably should have
had four or five. Their goal was offside to my mind - coming back from an
offside position their player headed the ball back to a midfielder, turned
and ran on to the pass from what was by then an onside position - refs on
the list? They never really looked like scoring except perhaps when
Kilgallon opted to let the ball run across the goalmouth, and it looked like
only a matter of time until we did.
As one of the WACCOE contributors pointed out - if the Liverpool fans had
turned on their team at half time in the European cup final after what was a
thoroughly embarrassing non performance, would they have turned it around in
the second half?
Its been said before, but our 'supporters' are the oppositions biggest ally.
Its bad enough that every team visiting Elland Road thinks all they have to
do is prevent us from scoring in the first twenty minutes to turn the fans
on the team. Much worse is the notion that mob rule may eventually succeeed
in bringing the club down - I have a vision of Rich Walker, a behometh
bestriding the smoking ruins of Elland Road, screaming 'See - I was right
.........'
Chris Wright
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sean Emmott" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Nick Allen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[email protected]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, September 11, 2006 8:34 AM
Subject: Re: [LU] vs Wolves
Nick,
If I'd written a report (Too gutted last night I'm afraid), this would
have been it. I thought it was just me though - reading WACCOE everybody
is very angry and talking about us hoofing the ball up to Healy & Moore (I
thought the long balls were played into the channels for them to run onto
with some success).
This was one of, if not the, best performances under Blackwell. I really
enjoyed it, until the las 120 seconds, obviously.
Difficult to see Black well still here in another month though...
On Sun, September 10, 2006 9:22 pm, Nick Allen wrote:
Here's a sentence I won't type very often - today I felt quite a lot of
sympathy for Kevin Blackwell.
We more or less had the upper hand in the majority of this game, playing
some good, sensible, quick football, with passes to feet, excellent use
of the width of the pitch - particularly from Carole who had a storming
first half and a less effective but still decent second - good support
play, particularly from Westlake and with a bit more luck and composure
in front of goal, we'd have had 3 or 4. But as dear old Brian Clough used
to say, it only takes a second to score a goal and in the 91st that's
exactly what they did. Some backing off in the middle of the field and
the lad wallops it into the top corner, he could try and do it again all
year and never will, that's life. I think its tough on Warner to
criticise him, the bigger problem was the lack of concentration in front
of him - of course if you shove your centre halves forward searching for
a winner in a 0-0 draw against a decent team, you might leave youselves
vulnerable at the back...
The end result of all of all this is that love him or loathe him,
Blackwell now looks like a dead man walking. He's lost the crowd (I use
that word loosely). The team seem incapable of scoring from open play.
The belief is fragile - Wednesday's game will show how many of the
players have been dented by this bit of larceny.
Wolves are a physically big and brutal team - their 3 or 4 bookings were
well short of what they deserved, but they are not top quality, even in
this division. Its certainly true that Wolves had other chances - a
couple of quick saves at the start of the second half from Warner were
important - their number 13 gave Butler a mauling and made a fool of
Kilgallon a couple of times in the first half, before going off on 80
minutes, at which point we all thought Wolves had settled for the draw.
Despite this we had good chances missed or saved from Killa, Healy,
Douglas, Westlake, Moore, Butler, Carole - all in the first half. The
chances were there, they just needed to be taken. There seems to be a
chronic lack of confidence somewhere - got to be down to the coaching.
Our main game plan was to launch the ball out to Carole on the right -
Crainey or Kilgallon - or play it out there through the team - Douglas,
Westlake, Healy and Kelly - let him beat his man, or two and get the
crosses in. Or sometimes he'd skip inside and play it across the box. He
was doing this so well that their left back was substituted after 42
minutes for a smaller faster version - and one that hadn't already been
booked. Its hard to say how all of our pressure and the balls being
pinged across the box didn't result in a goal or two, especially as their
keeper took a severe turn for the shite with about 30 minutes to go -
coming for crosses he had no hope of getting, and twice getting caught by
half-hit shots that dribbled by him only to be cleared off the line or
scrambled round the post by defenders.
In general I was lifted by the performance but that made the gutting of
the result hurt even more.
WARNER - a decent game - looked mainly steady - had composure under a
couple of tricky situations - decent distribution
KELLY - in the main linked well with Healy & Carole down the right - good
running and crossing.
CRAINEY - apart from the barrage of excellent cross-field balls to Carole
- he started mainly clueless and often beaten - needing a lot of cover
from Kilgallon - did gradually improve but never gave the feeling of
security
BUTLER - again a fast, direct striker cause problems - again used as a
battering ram up front for the last ten minutes - again to no effect
KILGALLON - generally good game but still he is maintaining that tendency
to cock-up big style once a game - someone rather unkindly referred to
him as the new Gary Sprake
CAROLE - man of the match by a country mile - caused havoc, created
chances - should have scored, REALLY SHOULD HAVE SCORED - tackled back
and was a general nightmare for whichever 2 or 3 Wolves players were
marking him - one absolutely dreamlike first touch off a high ball
simultaneously controlled it, beat his man and rolled the ball 15 yards
forward to exactly the spot he wanted to cross it from...
DOUGLAS - quiet return - didn't notice him much except when he burst into
the box and collected the ball with a touch that was either too heavy or
meant for a faster player
WESTLAKE - pretty decent midfield performance - tackled, supported,
pushed forward - couple of wayward efforts
LEWIS - v quiet game - save for one free kick and a couple of good
crosses
HEALY - one of his best in a Leeds shirt - which is of course nothing
like as good as in a N Ireland shirt.
MOORE - runs a lot - still shit - could have scored if he was prepared to
take a shot left footed rather than with the outside of his right when
through the middle
SUBS
encouragingly BECKFORD - came on and played some of his best and most
direct football in a Leeds shirt
STONE - came on - did zip
-----------------
CROWD ? 16000 - who's fault is this - is it the quality of the football -
and the results? Or is it the prices? or Both? Either way 16,000 ? Big
Club ? not any more.
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oh alright then :-)
_______________________________________________
the Leeds List is an unmoderated mailing list and the list administrators
accept no liability for the personal views and opinions of contributors.
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oh alright then :-)
_______________________________________________
the Leeds List is an unmoderated mailing list and the list administrators accept no liability for the personal views and opinions of contributors.
Leedslist mailing list
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oh alright then :-)
