The #LUFC Breakfast Debate (Monday 22nd February)

Good Morning. It's Monday 22nd February, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road


Meslier's agony piles on Leeds pressure

An outrageous own goal 25 minutes from time saw Wolverhampton Wanderers leaping Leeds and sent Leeds crashing to their second consecutive defeat.

The only goal of the game was orchestrated by Wolves 'beast' Adama Traore. His surging run left Luke Ayling in his midst. Pascal Struijk did his best to rescue the situation but the former Barcelona apprentice struck a sweet right footed thunderbolt cannoning off the upright, and struck a sprawling Meslier on his back. The cruel deflection saw the ball trickle into the back of the net.

Leeds had their fair share of chances. Wolves shot stopper Patricio had to be at his best to keep Leeds at bay.
Minutes after Wolves took the lead, Leeds should have been level. Harrison released Bamford down the left wing. Leeds leading scorer made a bee line for Patricio's goal shrugging off the desperate attempts from the Wolves defenders before smashing the ball into the back of the net.

Unfortunately for Leeds the goal was disallowed. Ironically, VAR told the referee to review the footage, which he did for a few seconds before ruling Bamford's effort out.

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The Leeds No 9 took to social media after the game to vent his anger (and risk disciplinary action with the following tweet:-

"Gutted for the lads tonight, robbed of a point but at least it’s “mAkInG tHe GaMe BeTtEr” we go again Tuesday"

How can the offside rule be simplified to make the decision making easier, and the game more exciting?

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Post match reactions for the Managers


Leeds Manager Marcelo Bielsa

Wolves Manager Nuno Espírito Santo

 

Morning all,

That was a hard one to take in that I would rather we had lost because Wolves had been brilliant and beat us 4-0. To lose to such a flukey goal against a side who were no better than us sticks in the throat.

Meslier can take no blame for the goal despite some idiots on social media criticising him. He put in a very assured display and once again has shown how mentally strong he is for such a young man. After last weeks errors his confidence could have been shot but he did not put a foot wrong this week and pulled off some good saves.




We have now lost twice to Wolves by one deflected goal each time. They have had a lot of admirers since promotion and have invested in their squad over five transfer windows. We more than matched them over two games despite once again fielding a mainly Championship side.

I lost all respect for Wolves due to their time wasting antics. I know all teams do it but they seemed to take it to another level. I swear after they scored there was only 5 minutes football played out of the 26 on the clock.

Prime example being the Coady incident. He headed the ball away and went down as though he had an head injury. The ref had to stop the play when Leeds were on the ball. Despite it being for a head injury Coady stopped the ref from bringing the physio on and stayed off the pitch himself for all of 15 seconds. Laughable. When play resumed the Ref gave Wolves the ball.

I swear Wolves had a free kick at one point and I actually got up and went to the toilet and missed no football.

 

There were a few times Leeds were on the attack and the ref stopped the game because a Wolves player was 'injured', but not a head injury, so why stop the game? And to make it worse, on restarting the game Wolves just carried on. I thought they were supposed to return the ball to Leeds?

Blatant cheating, and teams (not just Wolves) are allowed to get away with it.

And I genuinely think Leeds are too honest to do the same (instilled by Bielsa) which whilst it's the right thing to do gets you no rewards.

 

The Coaady incident was ridiculous. We shoot, he heads the ball away for a corner, he goes down, ref stops play. Drop ball restart but with the ball going to Wolves. They smash the ball down field and chase it down. We end up putting it out for a corner and end up in our corner for 3 minutes. That can't be right.

I was listening to Simon Jordan talking about diving the other day and he wanted big bans for players doing it. Whilst I agree with him let's not forget Poveda getting clipped at Chelsea and staying on his feet. It was a stone wall penalty but wasn't even looked at by VAR. If he went down then it would have been given. If that's not encouraging simulations I don't know what is.

The time wasting thing and the diving thing need addressing ASAP.

 

Bielsa has made this group of players the most honest in the Prem. Ok, they are not perfect ie the Ayling flop but you do not see them doing what Wolves were doing or screaming at officials when they do not get what they want.
Also in games when we are 1-0 up we continue to play and to attack. Do we like our team having this integrity or would you rather they did what others do if it meant a few more points on the board|?

 

I used to love how cynical (professional?) Revie's Leeds were but now I like to see us win honestly whilst most other teams have to cheat for points. Football purity.

Maybe I'm just getting old

 

So what was the matter with the old offside rule of level and your onside ? who thought it necessary to changed it & why ?, good old fashioned decision making by the ref & linesman was best,sure they made mistakes with human error which we all grumbled about but accepted after a whinge, but nothing as controversial as these VAR decisions which seem to be getting worse. When technology was first brought in to the game i was thinking more along the lines of hawkeye just to confirm that the ball went over the line or not.
For me and many others, its time to give VAR the old heave ho, (but keep goal line technology)
Good morning everyone

 

There has been too many stupid changes to the game in recent months that have really screwed up my enjoyment.

• We scored a good goal recently and then allowed the opposition to walk in a goal. Bielsa said then that no more would he allow play to be stopped unless its a head injury. Yet every game in recent weeks sees opposition players go down and play stopped by idiot refs who ignore the rules.
• VAR is a total screw up
• The penalty rules that seem to change every week. Started with keeper stopped from moving, then ignored because too many retakes
• Wrestling in the area for corners. This was stopped at the last world cup because penalties were awarded and it stopped. Ignored again so is like a scrum
• Offsides allowed to play out before flag raised which has caused unneccesery injuries and upset
• The rules of the game are universal, but they are interpreted differently in almost every country because of recent tinkering to VAR etc

 

Morning all...

The result was painful. The VAR lines seem to be made up as they go along. We were very unlucky let’s hope we make Southampton pay for it.

On a positive note, it seemed at first we were lining up with Struijk as the DM but no, he was in the preferred CB role we definitely looked more balanced

 

The new head injury rules are just going to encourage cheating IMO and time wasting.

 

Morning all. I believe some clubs are encouraged by the manager to play for free kicks and the worst are Aston Villa.

 

Christ they will having American football style helmets next , wait & see.

 

I don't have a problem with the bamford offside it was marginal. The palace one was bollox. But I do agree, this line drawing stuff is rubbish. I think the benefit should be with the attacker and they need a complete rethink. I think the 'umpire's call' cricket way of doing this would make more sense. Linesman makes the call, flags or doesn't flag immediately. VAR gives him a foot or so of leeway, so only stinkers get corrected. It could even be that they introduce some form of challenge system... though that would probably slow the whole thing down more.

 

what worries me more is will they use VAR to check if a player actually did hit his head, another thing that would disrupt the game more because players could feign injury to get one of the head injury subs on if they've used up their regulation subs.

 

grealish

rumour has it they're putting in a bid for Ayling

 

After doing some back of a fag pack calculations I reckon we need 40 points at least to feel secure.

Fulham based on last 10 games form would get 36/37 points.
Fulham based on last 5 games form would get 42 points (unlikely)

Newcastle are averaging a point a game for the season and played reasonably well last night at Old Toilet, so 38 points looks reasonable...plus they play Sheff U & Fulham for their last 2 fixtures.

Now is not the time for us to go on a losing run that's for sure.

 

Being a striker in todays game I would have been offside all the time. I always got exited playing footy and when I get exited it would mean the front if my shorts would be offside

 

imagine the frustration of being 2 inches off side all game

 

By quite some way I hear