Back from the Game (or Watching TV) Leeds Away

[Carlos]

Pretty average performance and bailed out by Mccarthy on numerous occasions. The only weakness seems to be he flaps alot of balls in the box. 3 out of 4 of our midfielders had an off day. Leigertwood looked good. Strong in tackle and good going forward but karacan is looking more and more like harper as he only ever plays the ball back. Less said about Mcanuff the better. Never took on his man (who was a right back playing left back) and his final ball was comical at times. Felt Kanu was hard done by being taken off over Mcanuff.

Defence was good, and zurab looked very assured. Mills was a rock and harte was good on his return to leeds. Long was running around all game as usual but felt Hunt was lacking any kind of quality. Pointless bringing Church on and then sticking him on the wing. He is absolutely atrocious. His first two touches were back to the goalie and the other one was to kick the ball out of play. Manset was good coming on.

Overall good atmosphere, especially in the concourse before the game. Lots of police which was abit pointless, but was able to stand all game which was fun. Disappointed we didnt sell out, but im sure people had 'good' reasons not to be at such an important game.

[MmmMonsterMunch]

Pretty average performance and bailed out by Mccarthy on numerous occasions. The only weakness seems to be he flaps alot of balls in the box. 3 out of 4 of our midfielders had an off day. Leigertwood looked good. Strong in tackle and good going forward but karacan is looking more and more like harper as he only ever plays the ball back. Less said about Mcanuff the better. Never took on his man (who was a right back playing left back) and his final ball was comical at times. Felt Kanu was hard done by being taken off over Mcanuff.

Defence was good, and zurab looked very assured. Mills was a rock and harte was good on his return to leeds. Long was running around all game as usual but felt Hunt was lacking any kind of quality. Pointless bringing Church on and then sticking him on the wing. He is absolutely atrocious. His first two touches were back to the goalie and the other one was to kick the ball out of play. Manset was good coming on.

Overall good atmosphere, especially in the concourse before the game. Lots of police which was abit pointless, but was able to stand all game which was fun. Disappointed we didnt sell out, but im sure people had 'good' reasons not to be at such an important game.

Hardly surprising the crowd was low - long way, bank hol weekend so traffic is 5hit & it was on Sky. The Leeds fans hardly came out in their numbers - I saw shedloads of empty seats in the home end. Given they are desperately trying to cling on to 6th & haven't lost at home for 6mths I was surprised to see that.

[Royal Rother]

On last night Karacan >> Legs and HRK >> McAnuff.

[Upper West Ginger]

HRK = Hardly a Replacement for Kebe

[Optimist]

Can't really blame McAnuff for not really setting the game alight, as he was playing out on the right for most of the game and although he and Kebe have been known to alternate he is naturally left sided. Shows a lack of diversity on HRK's part, as he can't come in to directly replace the missing player but others have to be shifted around to let HRK in.

Surely then that also shows a lack of diversity on McAnuff's part too as he can't switch to right effectively

That would be fair to say if McAnuff hadn't been switching sides mid-game with Kebe numerous times to good effect during the BMc era. And Leeds would I'm sure have been expecting to face Kebe down that wing and deployed their best marksmen to stop him, instead they came up against McAnuff on his weaker side, and it probably became too much to ask of him.

[AthleticoSpizz]

A brilliant point at Elland Road needless to say


Mac in goal 7/10

Harte 6/10

the rest......................poor ball retention, poor second touch etc etc........ 4 maybe 5 out ot ten

Griff sometimes world class...sometimes compromised

Leeds did their perfect job on us ....yet to no avail to them

Not at our most incisive, yet a point at Elland Road...nuff said

[loyalroyal4life]

HRK = Hardly a Replacement for Kebe

[St Pauli]

Just got in. Not sure, but I don't think that game was very much fun.

Match entertainment - 3/10
Pie - 2/10 for burning me
Facilities - 7/10, very nice seated area in the concourse made me feel as I did in a college refectory
Paps/Pauli Beef - 1/10, shared a taxi before St Pauli bottled it and ran away
Papes' mum - 10, very nice lady who very plainly loves her son dearly
HNA spotteds rating - 6/10, got a look at the back of Handbags' head in Leeds centre
Leeds rating - 2/10, still a grim-faced city with horrible pubs, didn't even get to check out the emo J.L.b8 in Hyde Park

LOL Me and Porter had been drinking in Leeds since midday, if me and paps had beef I had no idea. We went into the ground because we didn't know you were buying a ticket, if anyone was 'bottling' it it was the nathan barley extras who shared a taxi with us and whined because they couldn't find a traditional+non station+non dodgy+non united pub in a post industrial gentrified city center they didn't know 45 minutes before kickoff.

Anyway, good point, good atmosphere, the heat and density of the weather and large Elland Road tiers gave it a kind of meditteranean/south american feel which was great. Complete overreation by the stewards and police throughout the game.

[LoyalRoyalFan]

Felt we used the long ball system too much.

More like the post Premiership Coppell era. Became too predictable at times.

[Muskrat]

Haven't got to many games this season due to university 'commitments' but have followed at a distance and decided to make the trip, unsurprisingly this coincided with the end of the amazing winning run. Leeds obviously played a fairly effective pressing game which drove us in the direction of hoofball, which was a little frustrating as we were clearly capable of much more composed passing even in a game when we were seemingly far from our best; maybe someone like Howard who has the ability to keep the ball well could've played in place of Hunt who was peripheral. That said, we weren't exactly battered by Leeds. Thought the first half was fairly even although they had the better chances, the second half was more one-sided but it didn't need a string of wonder saves by McCarthy to keep Leeds at bay (though it was of course a very good performance by him). It was obviously a difficult game for some players to get into and Karacan in particular seemed a bit disappointing, especially compared with a solid performance by Leigertwood, but overall it was far from a disgraceful away performance against a good and physical team in a potentially intimidating atmosphere. Some of the criticism on here (and some of the frustration in the stands after misplaced passes etc) seems a bit extreme. Excellent atmosphere in the stands although I doubt it filtered through on Sky.

I guess the only worry from today is that a strong reliance on Kebe and Long seemed pretty obvious - Long was a constant threat up front and we looked for him all the time, and we lacked dangerous wide play in a game where Kebe's ability to beat his man could've made a huge difference. I imagine that losing those two in the summer might expose an over-reliance on them, but those of you who have seen more games would be better placed to judge. Hopefully we will smash Cardiff to pieces in the semis and then beat anyone else in the final, and not have to worry about that.

I like the Cut of Your Jib. I shall look out for your reports in future.

[prostak]

if anyone was 'bottling' it it was the nathan barley extras who shared a taxi with us and whined because they couldn't find a traditional+non station+non dodgy+non united pub in a post industrial gentrified city center they didn't know 45 minutes before kickoff.

Tbh I think when even the police look intimidated by a pub, it's fair to assume that 'not away-friendly' is a hopeless understatement.

[Platypuss]

I think we got this one wrong tactically in the absence of Kebe - if ever a game was crying out for 4-5-1 it was this one.

[Woodcote Royal]

One thing's for sure, in his current form the answer was never going to be Simon Church

Things won't always go your way in games which is why you need a plan B and, unlike Coppell, Brian usually has one but whilst a point was a decent result we never got going. We are capable of much better these days.

4-4-2 only works nowadays if it produces some offensive threat...................we didn't.

However, I would presume that he sees Hunt and Long as part of a 4-4-1-1 but with us offering next to nothing in the final third surely he should have either, bought on Tabb for one of his ineffective wingers and gone 4-5-1 or, introduced Manset far earlier than he did.

I still believe Simon Church will be a decent player one day but right now he should be way behind Manset in the pecking order and the latter could so easily have made the difference in a match we desperately needed to win to stand a chance of automatic promotion with a point offering little over a defeat when we are almost assured a place in the play offs.

IMHO, if there was a day in this season for us to take a chance and go for it in the last 20 minutes this was it but we didn't.

[brendywendy]

except of course for the last twenty mins we made 3 very attacking substitutions and finished with three strikers on the pitch.



FWIW Mcarthy>harte>griffin>kish>Long>everyone else.


jobi in particular had an appalling game, not really surprising since he had a decent game last time. though.

[West Stand Man]

I just love the excessive use of appalling and brilliant on this board. Is it not just possible that all of these performances were just a fraction either side of the acceptable/mediocre line. Sometime they perform slightly below and sometimes slightly above it (and bear in mind that the lone is set at different levels depending on which league you are in and where in that league.

I have little major variation in player performances this season (or in most others to be fair). In what I saw on Friday no-one was appalling - just not as good as usual. Equally, they are rarely 'brilliant', simply better than usual.

[dantheloyalroyal]

Hardly surprising the crowd was low - long way, bank hol weekend so traffic is 5hit & it was on Sky. The Leeds fans hardly came out in their numbers - I saw shedloads of empty seats in the home end. Given they are desperately trying to cling on to 6th & haven't lost at home for 6mths I was surprised to see that.

It's the first time I've driven over a long distance on a bank holiday since I've been driving and honestly, the traffic was absolutely fine. Not a problem whatsoever! Agreed about the Leeds fans. I was even more surprised that they were advertising their game at home to Burnley, yet they've already manage to sell that one out!

[bcubed]

One thing's for sure, in his current form the answer was never going to be Simon Church

Things won't always go your way in games which is why you need a plan B and, unlike Coppell, Brian usually has one but whilst a point was a decent result we never got going. We are capable of much better these days.

4-4-2 only works nowadays if it produces some offensive threat...................we didn't.

However, I would presume that he sees Hunt and Long as part of a 4-4-1-1 but with us offering next to nothing in the final third surely he should have either, bought on Tabb for one of his ineffective wingers and gone 4-5-1 or, introduced Manset far earlier than he did.

I still believe Simon Church will be a decent player one day but right now he should be way behind Manset in the pecking order and the latter could so easily have made the difference in a match we desperately needed to win to stand a chance of automatic promotion with a point offering little over a defeat when we are almost assured a place in the play offs.

IMHO, if there was a day in this season for us to take a chance and go for it in the last 20 minutes this was it but we didn't.

Tactics (unusually) were badly wrong in this one

We didn't threaten too much with Long and Hunt and it was definitely time for a big change at half time. Howard has shown in last few games how effective he can be in 451 and was worth a go. We were also getting knocked off the ball a lot and Manset seemed the obvious option - when he came on (eventually) he created mayhem in the Leeds defence by his physical presence alone in only a few minutes.

Sometimes you get tactics wrong - let's hope we are back on track tomorrow and as someone else said I hope we haven't peaked too soon

[Compo's Hat]

Game was quite enjoyable, we didn't really create anything of note, but then again like others have said a point at Leeds is a GOOD thing not a bad one. Our fans were great, the blonde copper was easily 8/10, the two 10 year old stewards were lolzworthy. Got back at 3.30 last night, decided to sleep in the car for a couple of hours.

Spotted: Compo - telling everyone not to sing Griffin for England and this a shit hole i wanna go home. RobRoyal, FRF, Handbags, the person who was next to handbags who is off hobnob but can't remember

The girl stood/ sat and inching away from Compo was lurvely.

Where's the photo!?

Talking of shit chants, the dead heads to the left starting that awful chant sung by Palace. Literally the worse chant i've heard on the terraces!

If 'ding play like that in the play offs then it'll be another season in the Championship, although to be fair we haven't done well against many of the top teams this season. Can't be arsed to write a whole essay on everything that was wrong on Friday night (including the stewarding).

[LWJ]

Game was quite enjoyable, we didn't really create anything of note, but then again like others have said a point at Leeds is a GOOD thing not a bad one. Our fans were great, the blonde copper was easily 8/10, the two 10 year old stewards were lolzworthy. Got back at 3.30 last night, decided to sleep in the car for a couple of hours.

Spotted: Compo - telling everyone not to sing Griffin for England and this a shit hole i wanna go home. RobRoyal, FRF, Handbags, the person who was next to handbags who is off hobnob but can't remember

The girl stood/ sat and inching away from Compo was lurvely.

Where's the photo!?

Talking of shit chants, the dead heads to the left starting that awful chant sung by Palace. Literally the worse chant i've heard on the terraces!

If 'ding play like that in the play offs then it'll be another season in the Championship, although to be fair we haven't done well against many of the top teams this season. Can't be arsed to write a whole essay on everything that was wrong on Friday night (including the stewarding).

Don't think there was a photo, but the blonde literally next to you. though she could of been verging on underage

[biscuitman]

verging on underage

Potential*