The #LUFC Breakfast Debate (Monday 20th January)

Good Morning. It's Monday 20th January, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road.


Gap between Promotion and the play offs narrows to just four points as Leeds undone at QPR

The gap between automatic Promotion and the play offs has narrowed to just four points as Leeds disastrous form continuous.

The Whites had won once (in all competitions) in seven outings, so the last thing they needed was a trip to London where the West Yorkshire outfit had not recorded a win for over two years.

Unfortunately for the Whites, Saturday was going to be no exception.

The only goal of the game came on 20 minutes when the Hoops were awarded a free kick on the edge of the box. The ball was whipped in, hit Ayling in the face, and was intercepted by an in rushing Nahki Wells.

The ex Bradford City starlet controlled the ball with one hand and then the other before finding the back of the net!

Once again, although obvious to the crowd and the Commentary box, Leeds did little to complain. Most teams that concede a goal will throw their hands in the air at the ref in a desperate ploy of putting doubt in the mind of the ref but for such a blatant error from the officials there need to be 11 players surrounding the ref.

Is this against the rules - yes; but so were the handballs. This is one of the toughest leagues in the World to get out of, and its time to see some Yorkshire grit.

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Leeds best chance of an equalizer came in the second half when Hoops keeper Liam Kelly upended Bamford in the box. The Scottish keeper made amends however, by pulling off a breathtaking fingertip save.

To complete Leeds afternoon of misery Kalvin Phillips was given a straight red card two minutes from time for an ugly challenge on veteran defender Geoff Cameron.

Conceding a goal via two blatant hand balls...

Missing guilt edge opportunities...

Missing from the penalty spot...

Sending off...

This sounds like the Leeds of old!

Bielsa's post match reaction

Alarming statistic reignites burnout worry

Looking through the statistics over the weekend, I was gobsmacked to discover that only 14 players have started five or more games for Leeds this season!

Hasn't Bielsa got trust in his squad?

How long can this continue before burnout!

Leeds best performances this season have been high intensity, hard pressing games. This style of play uses up a lot of anaerobic energy (short length with high intensity). There is absolutely no chance that the players can find that energy over 90 minutes when they are being over used!

Is the squad not good enough or is that that Bielsa has his favourites?

 

Morning! I still cannot believe that the ref didn't see Wells playing Pat-A-Cake with the ball.. Other than that, I still don't think we would have won the game due to our inability to score goals.

Seeing Orta with his head in his hands at the end of game said it all to be fair..

We need a marquee signing to score goals and Bamford has to be demoted to the bench, as despite is qualities outside scoring goals, its clearly not enough at this stage of the season.

Gray on 80K per week, and we are expected to pay his wages? Wow, no one in the Championship is on this surely? The shows the huge gap between the Premier League and the Championship.. Who else is there? Adams isn't on still is it?

Come and Radrizzani, sort it out ASMFP!

 

When Harrison got stamped on in the first half he jumped up and hobbled away. I couldn't believe it, every one of the QPR players would have rolled around screaming and got the offender booked or maybe even sent off. What was he thinking?

And as for our set pieces, we must have had 20 corners and free kicks and Conor Masterson cleared almost every one of them. We may as well have just kicked the ball out for a goal kick. Simply dreadful, and QPR have the worst record for conceding at set pieces!!! When was the last time Cooper got a header on target, and does Ben White even get into the box? I think he got his head to one attack on Saturday.

 

Morning DJ, we've been found out.

Set piece, set piece, set piece.

What I also noticed about Saturday is how easy it was for the opposition to go on surging runs

 

QPR really rode their luck on fouls tbf

 

Morning all...

On day one of the season, who would have taken a gap of 4 points to third with one home game left to Millwall in February. It really still is ours to lose, we are playing some great football, if we sort out the final piece of converting the chances we’ll be home and dry.

I’ll be quite amazed if we haven’t got a signing in or two before the weekend. In regards to Gray and his wages, it isn’t far off what we offered Hull for Bowen, with our £3m to loan offer.

We seem to have such a vast scouting network and it’s hard to believe we cant find an overseas or lower division striker for the kind of amount we’re willing to Chuck at loans.

£3m on Eddie, we offered £3m for Bowen, that’s £6m on loan strikers. Roll the clock back to GFH and Cellino. If we’d announced we were spending £6m on a striker we’d have been over the moon.

Radz said a season ago, maybe the way forward is to loan top players, he now seems to believe that this is the only way to do it. Previously is was Orta and the scattergun approach, I have to seriously question this seasons transfer policy.

We stripped out players to the bare bones, Harrison was a known quality on the loan front, thumbs up, Bielsa wanted him, we use up a loan on a Keeper when we can only play one keeper at a time. We get Eddie who proved to be a waste of time, is he talented, probably, does he fit Bielsa requirements No. we bring in Costa with a big future price tag he has not even got close to expectation, Clarke another waste of time and White who was a Bielsa request so we could sell Pontus.

In all were the 5 loans a success, did they improve last years squad?

 

Several times our set pieces found our own player and they came to nothing. I mentioned a few days ago how we miss Bartley and Pontus in the box and target man Chris Wood. Cooper and White don’t offer a fraction of the threat and Bamford has lead boots, he can’t jump more than 6 inches off the ground.

Wasn’t it Wells that stamped on Harrison, it was a definite booking, he then got away with a few others that were all bookable.

 

Good morning all

Must admit I was fuming over Saturday, in London,January & a turn a blind eye ref, and to me the performance of our so called striker (although the rest of the team did not cover themselves in glory either). Must add I think Bamford would be a great no10.

Also for the very first time I was not happy with Bielsa,it’s been mentioned on here before how he is a one trick pony, I used to smirk at those comments, but on Saturday I was not so sure.

However time has moved on as it’s Monday morning, and so must we. The one thing of good that must come out of Saturday is Blatantly obvious to us all, including Bielsa, Orta & Radz that if we want auto promotion to the promised land were gonna have to spend to get their, sheer determination & hard work alone won’t do it. We still have an advantage of a four point cushion, let’s make it count for Christ sake, get a striker & possibly another quality CM & seal our destiny, as we now have only ten days to do it.

Bottom line RADZ get your hands in your piggy bank NOW.

 

Morning Ellandback.

There has been talk about the squad running out of steam. Watching on Saturday, personally I didn't see this. I saw a team that was playing just OK, apart from the final third.

The only player who stood out for me was Ben White. Pablo looked out of sorts, which surprised me. He is a player though that either has an amazing game or the complete opposite. That usually comes after a rest (the good showings), whereas this time he is back from a rest through injury and didn't perform. I'm not blaming him for the teams performance, as they are all responsible for that one.

Maybe seeing the opposition going on surging runs was a sign of squad burnout. That could also be a sign of lack of concentration, or the opposition knowing how to deal with our tactics..

I could go on forever on this one, but I am now wanting to be positive and I have everything crossed for a form turnaround and a quality signing in the next 7 days (to be available as an option against Millwall).

 

Bielsa will hold his hands up and say plan B is to make A work better and I’m okay with that. I don’t see what other changes he could have made on Saturday, he went more attacking early on with Alioski for Dallas, with injuries and loans returned and not replaced there were no other options. That was a strong starting 11 who should have won and would have with a decent ref and someone who could score a penalty. The ref also failed to give the foul on Costa in the box

 

Morning all. Read enough and wrote enough over the weekend. Checking in more from habit than anything else as Ive nothing to add. Its simple, two or three quality signings required. Fail to land them and season is over, not mathematically of course, but only those wearing several sets of the rose tinted glasses will believe otherwise. So, its sit back and hope for another 11 days as usual

 

I thought you guys were a little unlucky with the goal but to be fair we missed a very decent chance soon after while you created dissapointingly little. You had plenty of set plays which are our weakness but never looked like scoring at any of them.
The ref was poor all round and on another day it could have been a card fest. Wells and Kane got away with niggly fouls while on yellows but you cannot defend that idiotic and nasty challenge by Kalvin Phillips on the old boy Cameron. That could have been a career finisher. He will now miss three games and you can ill afford that with your current shaky form.
Rangers have two ways of playing, ask Barnsley, and you bumped into us on a good day. Now do us a favour and get back on track, we cant have Brentford getting an automatic, it would spoil all the fun of seeing them fail in the playoffs.

 

Remember Bielsa wants a small squad

 

By a one trick pony, I mean his insistence on a small squad, look what’s happening now, any injuries or a player out of form and what options are their, take a look at the bench on Saturday, possibly one of the weakest Leeds benches I have ever seen, his insistence on this and not pressuring Radz into some buys (as far as I know) will cost us, he just needs to see that sometimes a bit of extra help could make all the difference.

 

I'll be totally shocked if Cooper or White score this season, they are as effective as a couple of rice puddings at set-pieces

 

Monk built a decent side until we dismantled it

Pontus, Bartley, Wood, Taylor & Roofe are all better than we currently have, we'd have walked this league by now if Bielsa had this type of quality, height & power in his squad

 

Shooting himself in the foot in other words

 

Kalvin Phillips is my favourite player but I can't defend that horrendous tackle.

Sorry another defeat at Griffin Park imminent we never win there, tbh I'm dreading the trip to Brentford

 

Wouldn't be surprised if Bielsa gets a bonus on profits on player sales etc, something very wrong on his backing Rad all the time, we have 11 real first team players available and fit, no experienced subs good enough at all, no team can or will get promotion with 11 players.