Lillehamring

We've dropped points from a winning position with 15 minutes to go on 6 occasions - at least two of those were to deflected goals, one to a worldie free kick and one was after playing half a game with 10 men. You're making a mountain out of a mole hill.

Bit harsh to judge us on those two games (especially one being our hardest game on paper this season) - look at the five previous games - 5 wins from 5, scored 15 conceded 2 (thanks Winksy)

I think he saw that we were totally dominating and creating chance after chance, but that daka and mavi were clearly flagging (probably why they made such messes of those one on ones), so he made a like for like swap. I think that leeds scoring straight after makes it look in hindsight like a bad call. but the reasoning behind the changes was sound.

I think more what enzo said - when they got that goal, the near silent crowd and the momentum totally changed. I think the timing, following straight after our changes was coincidental. Add to that, that as capitulations go, there wasn't much we could have done about either of the last two goals. That said, for me, the subs needed to be ten minutes before to capitalize with fresh legs when we were dominating.

Yeah but you can't just look at the goals and define our performances as poor. The linesman cost us one goal, so we scored three, we conceded an own goal and a deflection that was never going in - so that's only really three that we've had any control over. Also Leeds' form, especially at home, suggested they'd blow us away, when in fact we made them look bang average. The Boro game, it was only our finishing that let us down, we did enough to generate 24 shots. I'm not saying we were great or even deserved to win those games, but we didn't play like a team that deserved to get beat. And that's just the last two games, we won the previous five, outscoring our opponents 15-2. So, to criticise our form is a little unfair. I take back nonsense, but only to replace it with 'very little sense'.

The own goal. as i distinguished from my actual point, this was just being a bit facetious.

Tell that to Southampton. First time we lost to leeds, we'd won 9 straight. momentum is fine until you hit a wall.

Against Leeds? so couldn't finish for shit apart from the 2 goals we put past a team that had conceded just 11 goals in 16 games? And by 'crumble' you mean get caught out by 2 wicked deflections? Or the other 5 games out of 34 where we've dropped points in the last 15 minutes. Overall we're still 19-13 in the last 15 minutes. And this bottling against Cov - dude, have some føkking respect - we we're a man down from half time and were still on for a point up until the 88th minute - that's not bottling it, that's fighting until you've nothing left to fight with. Unless you mean the Coventry game where we 'bottled it' by coming back from 1-0 down with two goals in the last 13 minutes? I get that you're a negative sod, but at least try to come up with some plausible reasons why you think we're shit.

I get what you mean, and sure it would be a drag especially after leading for so long, but you have to remember that Leeds picked a manager with a track record of doing well in this division, and failing badly in the PL. We've taken a risk on a long term plan for a much higher ceiling. As long as we go up i'd rather be there with Maresca that Farke.

Maybe, but you don't make your bad luck. What possible influence, for example, could we have had on the linesman not blowing that call? None. That's not down to us, that's just bad luck.

You mean the last 2 games, right, because if you look at our last 5, 6 and 10 games we have the 6th, 5th and 4th best form. And even then, the Leeds game, we played superbly, Leeds just got all the breaks.

Toi be fair, technically we scored 3 goals in the Leeds game! But, joking aside, we scored twice away to a team unbeaten at home, and who had only conceded 11 goals in 17 matches - not our fault that one was disallowed.

I think we'll see that. After the rather flat performance against Boro, we certainly responded against Leeds. Sure it didn't pan out great, but we came out determined to win and played like we were bound to do so.

Exactly, even a draw could be costly for Leeds, right now.

You can't help but feel it was all building up to the game with us - now the real work for Leeds starts. Suddenly, there's a lot of pressure and expectation on them. And we saw against us that defensively they are bang average.

Oh yeah, the way they figured us out by knowing that if they let us have 21 shots, one would hit the woodwork one would be a save and the other 19 would be missed or blocked. Yes, and the tactical master class of kicking the ball at the defender from outside the box and knowing it would deflect in. Yes, by god, they had us figured out.

Nonsense. The way we played against Leeds, 99 times out of 100 that's a comfortable win. It's not every game you have a legit goal disallowed, or concede a late deflected goal - the odds on both those happening (twice with the deflection) in one game must be off the scale.

Also worth noting, this was their biggest game of the season, on a great run, unbeaten at home and, despite some decent but ineffective stuff early on and some lucky goals, they were fortunate to get the result and looked to have completely bottles it whilst we literally ran through them. The motivation in their 'easy' games won't be so easy to come by, and the longer that winning run goes on the harder it'll be and the more the pressure will be.

- i didn't start the debate, i just joined in. The result is obviously all that matters, but when you get a game like this it's inevitable that there're going to be lots of issues worthy of discussion

Archaic? Wait a minute, now - i'm not happy with that!

At the risk of starting a needless debate - i've always used the word soccer, not exclusively but now and again. Look at it this way, would you expect american's to call the NFL 'American' football, of course not - you do see why american's have to use soccer, which always used to be a perfectly acceptable term.

Well if leeds knew 'how to play us' they had a funny way of showing it - realistically they could have been 4-0 down before they'd even managed a shot on target. You talk like we were out played and out thought, but the reality is: one bad call, two bad misses and two deflected goals. And as for your final question: it's happened in six games: the two ipswich games, sheffield, the 1st boro game, tonight and (understandably) the coventry game. Three draws and three losses from 34 matches - it's almost like teams just need to turn up!

To be fair though, when he made the changes we were 1-0 up and looking the most likely to score - mavi and daka looked knackered and that's probably why they blew their chances. So he chose a like for like swap to see if fresh legs could be more productive in front of goal, to get at their tyring defenders. It was the natural choice. Bringing on praet or coady would have reeked of shutting up shop with 10+ minutes to go - the game was not heading that way. Unfortunately, we immediately concede and the momentum shifts. But at the time there was nothing to indicate that leeds were going to get a goal, let alone three - they'd only managed 1 shot on target at that point, 10 minutes before he made the changes. I think the subs were right, but they should have come 10 minutes earlier, straight after the daka miss.

The problem is though, our finishing is wildly inconsistent - we missed sitters tonight and against boro, but we're averaging 2 goals a game. Why we have these weird bad games I don't know, but I don't think it's a reflection of what is happening on the training field - i think it's just bad judgement on the day - i think in the heat of the action players just make bad calls. I'd almost argue that it's not really a problem in general, i think it's more that these games seem to stand out because for one reason or another they tend to be in games we end up losing or dropping points. For example - Hull we were woeful and got punished by a defelected goal, tonight, two deflected goals, boro a worldie free kick and so on. So we tend to focus on the missed chances, but as a team we actually have the 2nd highest shot conversion rate in the league and only villa and newcastle have higher rates in the PL.

I think we'd all like to have seen a better return, but that's still 5 points from 5 games - if you can manage that against your nearest three rivals, the rest should be simple. Besides, in four of those games we were the better side, so i'm not sure, from a tactical perspective, what we could have done differently. In all 5 games, 3 points was achievable.