Match Day Thread Leeds Utd v Fulham

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Leeds Utd v Fulham
Sunday 23rd [email protected]:00hrs | Elland Road

High-flying Fulham are the visitors to Elland Road on Sunday lunchtime as Leeds try desperately to stop the rot. With wins already this season over Brentford, Brighton, Forest and Villa, Marco Silva's team have hit the dizzy heights of ninth, scoring nineteen times in the process (eight more than Leeds). Much of their success in front of goal has come from Aleksandar Mitrović, who has found the back of the net eight times already this season, ranking him joint third in the list of top goal-scorers this season. In comparison, Rodrigo has four goals under his belt, whilst Bamford and Gelhardt have yet to register.

After three defeats in a row, or two points from their last eight games, Leeds Manager Jesse Marsch has his work cut out to raise team moral. There are few changes he is likely to make, but has an almost fully fit squad to pick from. Pascal Struijk is rated at 50/50 after taking a knock in training, whilst Forshaw (ankle), Dallas (leg) and Hjelde (recoving from appendectomy) are all sidelined.

Luke Ayling may get the nod over Rasmus Kristensen at right back. Whilst the Dane won ten out of his eleven duels against the Foxes midweek, his passing was woeful. 'SofaScore' disclosed that he gave the ball away on 23 occasions. Surely, that's unacceptable. Captain Liam Cooper is expected to return to the starting line up after being rested for the first half at the King Power Stadium.

 

I bet Fulham are looking forward to this game with relish

 

It’s a weird one, it’s obvious for all to see that the high press isn’t working. A win would be great but it will be like putting a sticky plaster on an open wound.

Mitrovic vs Our defence, oh dear

My bigger concern is we’re broken, we’ve been broken for the best part of 18 months. Do we have funds for the transfer window, if so do we throw more money at Jesse’s system and players?

Many said Bielsa hadn’t got a Plan B does Jesse? He seems to just rotate 2-3 players thinking that’s the fix when in reality he is simply being out coached

Bamford or Rodrigo or Joffy up front, does it matter? They’ll get little quality ball they’ll squander chances.

Koch, Llorente or Cooper at CB and again does it matter? They’ll be under pressure leave gaping holes and make errors.

For what it’s worth I’d go back to basics with Ayling and Cooper included. I’d drop Roca and play Klich, Id throw Gnonto in simply because he’s different.

Sinisterra or Summerville not both

 

Looking forward to the weekend, dreading the game to be honest. We're awful the majority of the time and you can mix and match the squad and alter tactics but it'll still be a poor team that can't defend or score

 

Yorkshire relish it's the best

 

Lokking forward to a day out and the game. The atmoshere is sure to be interesting win lose or draw. I wonder if rads and his bunch of chancers will turn up. The crowd is ready to turn and no one will be safe.

 

We've been good at home so far this season Eire.

Ok not enough goals (5 in 5) but we'll give them a game for sure

 

We’ll win 3-0* and everyone will ask why we can’t play like that every week.


* unless wakey’s going as he’s mr jinx

 

nah their away form is cack and they’ll be fearing a pasting

 

not obvious to me… we have one of the cheapest squads in the league but our stats for pretty much everything (except the rather important one of number of points) are those of a midtable side. What’s not working are stupid school boy errors defensively and attackers who couldn’t hit a barn door with a banjo - the combination of which is gifting head starts to sides and impacting the flow of the game. None of which has the square root of ****all to do with ‘the high press’.

just my opinion, risty, respect yours

 

It will be like the coliseum

 

coliseum/mausoleum one of the two

 

Take your pick

 

Couple of decent strikers and a left back and no one would be complaining. No coach can win with what we are starting up front with.

 

Stick your chin out and we’ll I’m sure you know the rest

 

Trident for me

 

Either i will enjoy it's matchday and I'm going.

 

Whilst I'm sort of in agreement I'm reminded of Everton's away form last season. First 15/20 mins of every game they pressed and looked half decent, after which they'd concede and then lose by 3 or 4. Fat Frank finally gave up on the pressing style and switched to a turgid 2 banks of four which utimately helped keep them up.

This is away form remember, so not relevant to Sunday

 

yeh some games we’ve faded badly… don’t see that home or away ‘should’ matter if it’s a fitness thing.

last sunday Everyone marvelled at the marsch press and how we battered the best team in the league in the second half.

I genuinely can never get my head round why fans are surprised at the variance in performances of teams. Outside the top few sides everyone is consistently inconsistent. Villa absolutely battered Chelsea last weekend, then meekly surrendered to Fulham, who previous match couldn’t beat Bournemouth and the match before got battered by West Ham.

It’s normal. There’s nothing to choose between most of these teams. Mistakes and pieces of quality decide the games, and we’re doing one and not the other.

 

Expected lower half teams that perform better at home;

Southampton
Brentford
Fulham
Bournemouth
Palace
Everton

We've now become one of those teams as shown by the first 10 games;

Home P5 W2 D2 L1
AWAY P5 W0 D1 L4

Plus we haven't played any top teams away yet.