please log in to view this image Newcastle Utd v Leeds Utd Tuesday 26th January @18.00 | St James Park Leeds are the visitors to St James Park on Tuesday evening, still looking for their first points (and goal) of the new year. It's been just over five weeks since the two sides met at Elland Road, producing a seven goal thriller with Leeds coming from behind to comfortably win 5-2. With four consecutive defeats, Newcastle have slipped within two place of the drop zone. They will be desperate to get points on the board but will have to play better than they did Saturday evening when they only recorded one shot on target, in their 2-0 defeat at Villa Park. Leeds welcome back England midfielder Kalvin Phillips to defensive midfield duties after serving a one game ban. Diego Llorente is fit to play following his positive contribution for the U23's against Stoke City last week where he scored the only goal of the game. Luke Ayling should return to his favoured right back position with Dallas on the left. Pablo Hernandez is pushing for more game time but will find it difficult to dislodge record signing Rodrigo.
I just hope Bielsa makes at least a couple of changes, I can see Dallas and Alioski both starting with Llorente on the bench
Llorente needs to start. I am sick and fed up with Bielsa playing square pegs in round holes. We probably lost 40 percent of our attacks by playing Ayling at centre back. If our U23's are that good, give Cresswell a try
BTW, whats the point in being top of the U23 league when we play as many senior players as development?
Tell Radz you're available & he'll get shot of that fool Bielsa. Then you can make all the right decisions.
Not me, matey - it's Chesh that likes little women dressing as wee boys, if you recall our exchanges. Easy test - next meetup, wait for Chesh to speak to Shako, pop a schoolboy hat on Shako's head & watch Chesh move like you've never seen before. Thinking about it, might be an idea if you got Shako some accidental damage / life insurance first.
You make it sound like we play a lot of first teamers in the 23s, not really. The only time Bielsa uses the 23s for first team game time is when a player is coming back from injury, or when players have had no game time. We have a 23 match today and a first team match tomoz, so he may give Llorente another 45mins, but hope not. He may give Roberts another 45 or Costa, but in fairness there have been plenty if games with no first teamers around.. is it wise having first teamers sat on a coach to Wolverhampton for a few hours and risking injury when we have an important game tomoz? I dont think so. For me we should play Ayling at RB and Dallas at LB with Cooper and Llorente
Is anyone else worried about the terrible run Newcastle are on coming into this game? It would be such a Leeds thing to do to go and get beat, I hope I’m wrong but I hate playing teams that are on bad runs because that bad run needs to end at some point....
It won't be the last time either if we **** it up against them. Wigan twice are the recent games that comes to mind.
Evening all. I'm hoping that Llorente starts and, as others have said, Ayling goes to RB and Dallas LB. With KP back we'll be much stronger than we were against Brighton. We need a result to halt our own poor run.