Pub breath

Ha ha! Honestly, it would be degrees worse if it was a Leicester fan on Waccoe. There used to be a policy of no fans of other clubs so it was a massive echo chamber. Thanks but I don't mind at all. No sense in being bothered or antagonistic because other folk don't share your ideas. You'd have a life of frustration! Forum rules do dictate that in the face of new and compelling evidence, one should double down hard on your original position.

So you believe if we have that run of games now, we pick up the same points? I don't.

They were four games we should have won and almost certainly would do if we played then now. That's the difference. Not much sense in talking about the rest of the season as we've both dropped points at times. That's normal. We just dropped far more in those games than we would have if we played then now and I'm quire sure you wouldn't argue against that, given present form. I didn't say Leeds would be ahead of Leicester since August either. I said we would if we won on Friday. I also didn't argue that this makes Leeds a better team. The entire discussion was about why some of your supporters have some doubt in their minds. I didn't even start the dialogue mate:D

I didn't see any of of it but dare say it went on. There's always a spectrum of views and attitudes. I suppose there were likely Leicester fans who thought and said similar in reverse. Generally, football fans are blinkered, biased as hell and pretty narrow minded. Love is blind and all that Ampadu and Winks have both been good signings. We didn't make a bad signing last summer....which is almost unheard of for Leeds.

Dunno mate. Were they? I'm not on Twitter/X and never will be. I wouldn't necessarily take a handful of people on Twitter as representative of a fan base of hundreds of thousands mind. Ampadu has been a brilliant singing though.

Our club was sold, much later than anyone hoped. A new manager was recruited, much later than anyone hoped. Players were sold, much later than anyone hoped. Players were bought....you know the rest. We near enough lost 2 months of our close season. Throw into the mix players trying to force moves and going on strike (Gnonto) and other who said they'd stay only to leave us in the lurch on the last day of the window (Sinisterra) and it's not exactly a surprise that these things adversely affected the team and their results. It would have been a miracle not to. I'm not even sure how much of that is fully appreciated outside of Leeds. In comparison, you had your new boss a whole month earlier, no ownership change, half the transfer fiascos and got your business done much sooner as a result. Not everything can be simply black and white, can it?

There are degrees and variances at play. As far as i'm aware, every player who started your first game or came on as sub, is still a Leicester player. Is that right? 5 of ours are no longer at the club. That points to the difference and surely the results show the impact? We had a dreadful start and your results in the first few games were faultless. Isn't that a fair aspect to reflect on?

Touchy!! Honestly, I really don't think that mate and have never suggested (here or on a Leeds forum). If anything, the doubt isn't stemming from me. But isn't the point still relevant, team vs team? We didn't finish signing players until right at the end of August. Nobody is going to suggest that Leeds have been the better team over the whole season, if Leicester finish on more points. That'd be mental. But team vs team as a finished article (August on), is it really outlandish to say that Leeds might be just as good or even a bit better? if that's what the 1 vs 1 results and points totals end up saying, it's probably true isn't it? I've personally been consistent since the start of the season. I think Leicester win the league and comfortably. I think you'll probably end up on more points than us since August too. Doesn't mean you can't have a hypothetical discussion about it....or maybe it does

Well the doubt stems from what happened after August, I suppose. Whilst appreciating that Leicester's pre-season wasn't perfect, Leeds was clearly worse (results alone proved that) and August was our most disruptive month. Leicester gained 7 points over Leeds in that period and since then, there has been very little to choose between the two teams. If Leeds win on Friday, it'll sneak Leeds just ahead of Leicester on points since August. There would be an argument to put forward at that point, that since both teams had been put together (6 of the team that started in our first game, did not start on Saturday. 4 who featured have left the club entirely, a fifth on loan), Leeds are the better of the two teams. Or that they are evenly matched. I'm not saying that would be right or fair necessarily as there would have been different teams faced. But it wouldn't be a wholly unreasonable argument either. That's where the doubt stems from, rightly or wrongly. Leeds doing the double over Leicester certainly isn't going to help clear it up.

I think this is probably where your confusion is. Read back. You may have said "potentially" in your head but you wrote "effectively".

The point being, it isn't effectively 7. If Leeds got level on points with Leicester, I'd expect it's more likely that GD will be in Leeds favour than Leicester's. The gap to Leeds is most likely, a 3 game gap. Which is still loads regardless of GD.

Not sure about this bit. The gap in GD between Leicester and Leeds is 8. If Leeds were to win that game even 1-0, it's at 6. 2-0 and it's down to 4. For Leeds to bridge the gap to Leicester it will require Leeds to win twice and Leicester to lose twice. If all of that is by single goals then yeah, Leicester are still just ahead of Leeds on GD. Leeds have been winning a lot of games by 2, 3 or 4 goal margins so it's much more likely that if it turned around like that, GD wouldn't be in your favour any longer.

I understand. Really, I do. There's probably few club's supporters that have quite the same level of PTSD than Leeds fans. "Leeds are falling apart, again" and all that. It is a remarkable season and brilliant for it. I think a quote before the Plymouth game was that Leeds are 10 points ahead of Bielsa's championship winning Leeds team at the same point. Yet still in serious peril of not being promoted at all. That says it all. It's extraordinary.

Hasn't made much or any difference this season. Smashed Millwall, Rotherham (another "rival") and Huddersfield 10-1 collectively, fairly recently. Beaten Boro too. Drew with Wednesday during our poor start. Not sure that factor will make any difference.

The time to worry for Leicester is if there is a series of defeats. A narrow defeat in a good run when the gap tightens for a moment, means little. If Leeds win on Friday, it gives us a slight sniff of a chance to finish top. Only that. For most of the season, there has been practically zero chance. Even then, I'd say it's a highly unlikely turn of events. That your form could suddenly collapse so much that two teams could catch you? Honestly, it's so improbable that you should not be wasting time thinking about it. But football fans always do fear the worst, somehow.

Plymouth are actually really strong at home and I think, top scorers in the league at home. Not 'pretty poor' by any stretch of the imagination. We didn't play as well as previous games, stopped them scoring, scored two and hit the woodwork twice. If that's us on an off day now, I'll take it.

Eh?

25 attempts vs 7. 72% vs 28%. It was the most ridiculous game but yeah, took a last minute equaliser to save defeat. I guess on that alone, they did come close so i'll temper that ealier comment. It wasnt because they deserved to mind. Shows you what can occasionally happen in football but it should have been a comfortable win. Club was in a mess then too. It's a completely different vibe now.

Because we’re only 14 points behind them with a game in hand, beat them Win our game in hand, they lose to Leeds we win our game the gap is down to 5 points! Hardly any Leeds fans are suggesting this and probably hardly any saints fans. You always get the odd loon though.

Yeah, fair points. I suppose what I mean is, we only looked like winning the draws rather than losing them, when the scores were level. Take the last draw we had - Coventry. 20 attempts from us, 7 from them. 25 vs 7 against Cardiff. 16 vs 4 against West Brom. Most of those draws were during that first month of turmoil also. It is different now. We've let in 1 goal in the last 5 home games and the GF/GA is 14/1.

That's for sure. No chance you'll fold like Ipswich did.

We never looked like losing any of those draws though and most were the opponent digging in and grinding them out in the face of us trying to win the game. Doubt any team has ever won all their home games in a season so some draws are practically inevitable.

True but the second best team in the league at the time got hammered 4-0. We are the strongest at home i've seen a Leeds team in a really long time. Anything can happen in football but I wouldn't be going into that game expecting to win it. It'll be tough for you.

Anything can happen of course but I wouldn't be expecting that outcome if I were you. Nobody has got close to beating us at ER this season.

Nah. It's just never happening.