Pre-Match: Leeds United (Away) - 2nd November 2020

[Wymsey]

49 minutes ago, Spudulike said:

Thing is, which of our training grounds has Bielsa being spying at? Seagrave, when open, might prove difficult to stop prying eyes due to its vast expanse. 

 

 

For all we know, he could be asking someone to have a look at this thread..

[AjcW]

33 minutes ago, volpeazzurro said:

I agree because the tactics for each game should be based both on the quality of the opposition and also the players you have fit at your disposal. It's nice to entertain but it's mainly about winning. There'll be time for a bit more entertainment perhaps when we get our first team players all back and play against appropriate opposition. It's about keeping up with the pack at the moment for me first and foremost. 

I also think as Leicester fans, it was only ten years ago we were playing like this every week  so we should really be used to it?

Also i've always enjoyed watching Atletico over the years for the exact reasons I've found our more defensive approach games entertaining too... it's fascinating seeing a more expansive opposition being completely outsmarted!

[Pub breath]

1 hour ago, volpeazzurro said:

I've been very surprised by Leeds but in a good way and like the way they attack the opposition without care for reputation. From experience, over the few years we've been back, unless very lucky with injuries, it can be squad depth that starts to take it's toll. Despite having some unbelievable bad luck with injuries to several key players this season thus far, whilst it's no means the strongest squad, we've just about had enough depth to get through and remain in contention for a reasonably good finish.

 

Bielsa's style of play is ambitious high energy stuff and the worry could be fatigue without a good back up squad to rotate throughout a long hard season. I think it was perhaps the teams downfall when they just missed out on promotion last time. 

 

If both teams had all players fit then I'd have to say that at this point in time, we do on paper have the better players by quite a distance BUT ... so did Manchester City, Manchester United,  Arsenal etc etc when we won the Premiership! Man City team value about 300m then, ours about 23m. It's about having a good team not individuals, fight, togetherness and a clever manager. Leeds currently appear to have all of the latter so the season looks bright for them imo.

Rotation isn't something Bielsa especially does.  Klich, as an example, played near enough every minute of the last two seasons.  He believes that the players are capable of playing at this intensity all season.   He likes a relatively small squad and only really buys players who can play more than one position.  We played all last season with just two senior CBs and when one got injured, he'd play a kid, a RB or even Phillips there instead.  Still ended up with the league's best defence.  We have 4 options at CB now which is an incredible luxury

 

I do think your title season was the exception that proves the rule.  Generally money will win trophies with the occasional blip.  I wish there were more moments like Leicester's in the sport but we may wait a lifetime for that to happen again:( 

Edited 30 October 2020 by Pub breath

[mozartfox]

1 hour ago, goose2010 said:

oh come on... The disrespect to our defenders is back I see! 

 

Watkins had just scored a hat trick against Liverpool when we played Villa we didn't give him a kick! its like you think these players cant adapt. 

Did you watch the Villa - Leeds game by chance?

[Guest SO1]

1 hour ago, AjcW said:

See no reason to ditch the Man City/Arsenal approach. Yes it shows Leeds an awful lot of respect, but I feel like they've earned it with their start given the teams they've played.

Yes they're ripe to concede a few, but we've had our 5 goals in a game for the season fixture  and I think you can really only implement the 'score more than them' plan if you're a Liverpool or Man City.

 

One more win here and we can get back to being a bit more expansive, back to back wins is the key for me!

It would be great to go mano a mano but we just don't have the horses or the squad to do it with all the matches. The injuries are killing us. No shame in winning. Not like watching Burnley is it.

[Jobyfox]

Considering the injury situation I can only envisage one game plan...

 

 

[Guest SO1]

2 hours ago, murphy said:

 

I think it s relevant because it is about development.  Leaving Leeds and Leicester out if it, I think that a newly promoted team will usually have at it's core a number of Championship players.  For most, year one is just about staying in the division and improving the quality year on year.  A team with a five year head start should have better players, however, recently Wolves and Sheff Utd have bucked that trend and made waves in their first year.  I have been impressed with Leeds, they do look a good side and will probably do something similar.

 

If I can offer you a piece of unsolicited advice, I would urge you as a visiting supporter not to get sucked into squabbles.  I'm not saying that yo have but I've seen it happen before.  You seem to me a decent poster and I always welcome the views of oppo fans.  We have some good regular posters from different clubs and I think that most of the home the posters here are decent too but you will likely come across some more obnoxious posts.  When it's your club, it can be difficult not to bite but if you see something you don't like it's better to walk on by and engage with the more reasonable posts.

Fairplay. I could feel myself do a little of the Cringe and a Twist

[goose2010]

20 minutes ago, mozartfox said:

Did you watch the Villa - Leeds game by chance?

yeah I did. Villa were poor Mings played like it was his first professional game of football. Did you watch us against Arsenal by any chance? 

[AjcW]

1 hour ago, SO1 said:

It would be great to go mano a mano but we just don't have the horses or the squad to do it with all the matches. The injuries are killing us. No shame in winning. Not like watching Burnley is it.

Exactly that with your last sentence. Once we get the ball and break we’re still passing it nicely, the goal at Arsenal was lovely! 

[cruzFOX]

Leeds are like 10 guys all on red bulls! We only have Vardy who does that and he's a senior now. This is going to be a game of containment for the Foxes. Mighty mouse Mendy will need to be 110% snuffing out danger. It sucks we have Timmy out too now. Evans I'm not sure will be back but maybe his wisdom & vision makes up for the lack of speed. Will be watching the game with one eye open behind the couch. If we can grind a 1 point draw out of this and suffer no more injuries I'll be happy. We need our whole squad back before we can play the 'sexy time' football as Borat would say.  

[Nalis]

Probably the most intriguing game of the season for us so far.

[mozartfox]

3 hours ago, goose2010 said:

yeah I did. Villa were poor Mings played like it was his first professional game of football. Did you watch us against Arsenal by any chance? 

Yes I did and guess? what Big Wes was not playing!!!!    Their Goal last night was a ball over Morgan's head.  JJ was also at fault mind you.

 

Anyhow, you have your opinion and I have mine,  you are confident and I am not without Evans playing.  Suggest we leave it there.

[FoxesWalk]

I’m looking forward to this one, I want to like Bielsa (or the wannabe hipster in me wants to like Bielsa), but I’ve never actually watched one of his club sides play 90mins. His Chile side was pretty good though. 
 

I suspect we will aim to counter, they don’t look comfortable playing against that from why I’ve seen. Too many injuries to do a lot else anyway.  
 

Phillips out for them is obviously good for us, he’s solid. 

Edited 30 October 2020 by FoxesWalk

[Dahnsouff]

I worry without my chestnuts 

[Sunbury Fox]

8 hours ago, hejammy said:

So they think they are already a better team than us and that we are the "Park the bus" merchants. This is why a lot of neutral fans don't particularly like Leeds fans. They are like the Manure fans, Self entitled. A few good games in their first year back and they're talking about winning the league. I hope they get a beating and come crashing back down the earth. 

Wow.

[Dahnsouff]

Beat the press and get it to Barnes and Under, we could do well, and I would actually be tempted to play Maddison and Nacho as 10's and let Barnes and Under cut it back to them.

 

 

[Sunbury Fox]

7 hours ago, Pub breath said:

I wouldn't actually dispute much of that and certainly agree that Leicester should be better than Leeds right now.  I just can't say with any degree of certainty that they are.  The other poster did and has basically just done exactly what the Leeds fan did and got called entitled for it.  What the two clubs did last season isn't relevant, it's about the two teams right now.  If the Leeds fan was "entitled" saying that then so was that poster.  

Out of interest, what would your combined Leeds/Leicester XI be if both teams were at full strength?

[gurru991]

I hate having to give Leeds too much respect by sitting back against them but injuries are going to stop us from playing on the front foot.

[Grebfromgrebland]

I don't care how we play let's just beat these bar stewards.

 

 

 

 

[Pub breath]

Just now, Sunbury Fox said:

Out of interest, what would your combined Leeds/Leicester XI be if both teams were at full strength?

I honestly couldn't say I've seen enough Leicester matches to be able to do that.  I've not even seen enough of some of our new signings to judge that.  Raphinia, as an example, looks absolutely incredible but has had two ten minute cameos.  I'd suspect he's got a fair chance of finishing the season as our best player when he's up to speed.

 

It's also about how players fit into a system.  Would Vardy work as a 9 for Leeds, with what our 9 is required to do?  Probably not.  Is he a better CF than Bamford?  Obviously.

[Foxxed]

Barnes to be like a hot knife through warm butter 

[Sunbury Fox]

If Evans is fit, I'd like us to go for a back 4 with Justin and Fuchs as the FBs. If Evans is out, we are stuck with a back 5 that looks scarily bad at PL level.

 

If we can play a back 4, I'd like to see Mendy, Youri or Den and Maddison in midfield, topped off with a front 3 of Vards, Ünder and Barnes. Pace, pace, pace! 

[deanolegend1989]

7 hours ago, st albans fox said:

With the state of the injuries and the ridiculous schedule I am happy to do whatever it takes to accumulate points 

 

the sexy football can wait till after Xmas when we hopefully have almost all our players back 

 

if we had parked the bus against West Ham we would probably not have lost. Brendan will only play defensively if he feels he needs to but after the Aston Villa performance, he may have realised we simply dont have the personnel and fitness levels to play the way he wants to 

We did park the bus again at West Ham and lost because we got dominated in midfield and hit with long balls. Leeds will play less long balls than West Ham but the same thing remains. We will get beat if we concede the first goal.

So we can treat Leeds like Arsenal and City and pray to knick something against mighty Leeds or we can actually see their quite poor at the back and go for them.

[In Peace]

8 hours ago, Danny Clender said:

This is the 'Kelley's Heroes' Cup.

The battle between Brendan Rodgers and Marcelo Bielsa. 

 

I think Brendan will have done a lot of homework for this game.

 

He will have read ‘The Quality of Madness: A Life of Marcelo Bielsa, ‘Coaching Build Up Play Against High Pressing Teams’ and every other book in the world that has ever mentioned Marcelo Bielsa. 

He will have watched every single game Bielsa has ever managed, chatted to former assistants and players and has been practicing sitting on an upside cooler box whilst in training. 

All this to produce a 3 part, 10 hour Powerpoint Presentation to be presented to the team.

 

A very vague rumour has it that, Demarai Gray has not been selected so far this season because he’s been undercover up in Leeds for the past 6 weeks spying on their training ground. Was he the right choice to be selected for such an important covert mission?, I’m not sure.

 

I imagine Rodgers will go with a deep to shallow block with overlapping CDM’s. 

Schmeichel will be a full back striker, he’ll be constantly sprinting up for attacking play and sprinting back to cover the posts, Ward will be in Goal.

He’ll play a false number 4, 21 and 25.

Barnes will man mark Bielsa so to block the instructions he gives from his eye brows.

Slimani will goal hang, literally off the goal posts for the whole match, offsides will slow the game down to a standstill.

 

And this this is where the masterclass happens, Demarai Gray has gone so deep undercover at Leeds he will actually be playing for them and he will score 4 own goals in the last 5 minutes of the game.

 

Below is a copy of Bielsa's plans for the game.

Sadly, many Bothans died to bring us this information.

 

 

Danny, Leeds fan here in peace. I often read opposition fans posts before we play them, but rarely comment. I have to say that this is brilliant, love it  Personally, I think if Rodgers neglects to look at Bielsa's primary school 3rd grade art class project he will miss the actual game plan that he produced  for this very game some 50 odd year's ago!  May the best team on the day win!

[Paninistickers]

1 hour ago, Pub breath said:

I honestly couldn't say I've seen enough Leicester matches to be able to do that.  I've not even seen enough of some of our new signings to judge that.  Raphinia, as an example, looks absolutely incredible but has had two ten minute cameos.  I'd suspect he's got a fair chance of finishing the season as our best player when he's up to speed.

 

It's also about how players fit into a system.  Would Vardy work as a 9 for Leeds, with what our 9 is required to do?  Probably not.  Is he a better CF than Bamford?  Obviously.

Lol.

 

I can tell you matey, 7 or 8 of our first xi would make any team in the land. The other 3, apart from Perez, would make all but the top 6. So a combined xi would be LCFC and that's it.

 

Doesn't mean you won't best us. We have our entire defence out and we have a big time soft underbelly, even at the best if times.