Leeds A Post Match Thread

[worth_the_wait]

Apologies if this has already been said somewhere in the previous 17 pages ...

 

But seeing all 5 of our remaining "Immortals" featuring in a Premier League match on a miserable November night in 2020 was a great sight. 

 

Schmiechel, Fuchs, Albrighton, Vardy and Morgan all on in the same match ... brings back great memories!

[BKLFox]

3 hours ago, Muzzy_Larsson said:

A huge thing that jumped out at me in Rodgers post match interview was this quote, "you can control the game without the ball". This is at absolute odds with everything he has said and believed previously. He has always been vocal in a belief in that the only way to control and dominate the game is via posession and winning the ball back as quickly as you can.

 

This is pretty significant for me in a promising sense. It's always been his main weak spot that he stuck to rigidly to his posession based philosophy but I think the signs are there this season he is evolving in this sense and becoming more flexible in his outlook.

Yep i was just reading every page to see if anyone mentioned as i picked it up also yesterday.

The way pundits talk of us deploying a low block & quick counter puts a vision of Burnley, West Brom, West Ham & the likes & even back to our championship winning team but this is different.
Keown mentioned also last week against Arsenal in the MoTD2 show, he paused play & said look it looks like Arsenal are controlling this game but in fact its Leicester who are dictating where the ball goes & pushing Arsenal down channels they don't want to go, then get turned over & they are off, but also we are not just off with a hoof over the top we now actually have the players comfortable with the ball to play through @ speed, these 2 results can not be over looked for how well the tactics were spot on without being 'anti-football' regardless of what Arteta (& Pep) say, at least Bielsa had the grace to commend us & that we deserved the points, so fair play to him & infact a lot of the Leeds fans comments have been much the same so hats off to them also.    

 

    

 

[Babylon]

13 minutes ago, HighPeakFox said:

The West Ham game looks anomalous now.... I wonder much of it was down to wrong tactics (I do not discount this being the primary reason necessarily) and how much of it was the players just not being switched on/attentive/carrying out their plan. 

 

I suspect this game, and the Villa game to an extent, may prove to have been a watershed for all concerned.

Sometimes losses don’t need to be your fault. We play in a league that almost any team can turn up and put on a performance. West Ham and Villa have proved they are no mugs this season already, to bigger teams than us.

[Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo]

14 minutes ago, HighPeakFox said:

The West Ham game looks anomalous now.... I wonder much of it was down to wrong tactics (I do not discount this being the primary reason necessarily) and how much of it was the players just not being switched on/attentive/carrying out their plan. 

 

I suspect this game, and the Villa game to an extent, may prove to have been a watershed for all concerned.

Tbf, West Ham were really good that day - they could have beaten anyone

[HighPeakFox]

1 minute ago, Babylon said:

Sometimes losses don’t need to be your fault. We play in a league that almost any team can turn up and put on a performance. West Ham and Villa have proved they are no mugs this season already, to bigger teams than us.

 

1 minute ago, Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo said:

Tbf, West Ham were really good that day - they could have beaten anyone

You're both absolutely right, and I said as much at the time. I do think, however, that we could have performed better.

[LCCFox96]

19 minutes ago, shen said:

I love how Rodgers has basically admitted that our counter-attacking tactics are the best way for us to get a result against more technical sides, rather than going toe to toe with them. We might not always succeed - there are days where heads will drop after conceding early against Man City; where VAR will not contentiously rule out goals in our favour or where teams will take their chances during our weaker periods - but these results will have given players and coaches alike the belief that if they stick to the plan, they always have a chance.

 

He still needs to figure out how cope with teams playing the exact same way against us however. I still maintain we weren't as bad against West Ham as the score suggested and we should obviously hold out for a point against Villa in those situations, but when better technical teams than us fail to break down teams doing this, maybe it's inevitable to run into disappointments such as those. 
If we play the same way against Villa and West Ham as we did against Leeds, Arsenal and Man City, we'd be moaning at the lack of ambition against teams we consider inferior to ours.

 

I agree with all of that to be fair - I do think we could adopt the wing back formation and play a similar line up against teams and look to dominate the ball. In my opinion Ricardo and Castagne are our biggest wide threats, and out of our wingers who are involved regularly - Barnes, Under, Perez, Albrighton - all of them can play in a front three off Vardy and I'd argue the first three are better suited to that the wide spot in a midfield 4 etc.

 

That suits Vardy too is there is support in and around him and if we use Iheanacho, we can get runners beyond to utilise his neat and intricate link up play. Then with Tielemans, Mendy, Praet, Ndidi, Maddison and Hamza we have a full compliment of central players to manage the central positions, and 3 elite centre backs in Evans, Soyuncu and Fofana in the back 3. Justin and Fuchs offer flexibility to cover at wingback and outside CB, and behind them we have Amartey and Morgan.

 

With that squad depth, we should be able to utilise a back 5 easily enough in games where we need to dominate the ball and break people down. We have flexibility in that shape with the personnel in the squad and have more ball playing ability than last season, certainly in the defence, to support Ndidi and/or Mendy playing out from the deeper midfield roles. Moving Tielemans deeper has helped that too.

 

It will be interesting to see what sort of system Rodgers uses in the next such game. I presume that will be Fulham at home, as I can see a similar system used against a top Wolves side with the injuries persisting until after the international break and at Liverpool were we will obviously look to keep tight after being pumped 4-0 last time around. In the run of games versus Fulham, Sheffield United and Brighton I expect to see us approach the games in a similar fashion to West Ham and Villa but hopefully improve the results. There are no easy games right now though and we could just as easily get whacked by Liverpool as we could slump to another 1-0 in a game versus Fulham for example.

[KingsX]

9 hours ago, duk3nuk3m said:

Same here.

How long should I wait before I worry about it not going down?

 

If you're old enough to pick Jock Wallace for your avatar, I'm guessing not long at all.

[shen]

37 minutes ago, worth_the_wait said:

Apologies if this has already been said somewhere in the previous 17 pages ...

 

But seeing all 5 of our remaining "Immortals" featuring in a Premier League match on a miserable November night in 2020 was a great sight. 

 

Schmiechel, Fuchs, Albrighton, Vardy and Morgan all on in the same match ... brings back great memories!

I know he wasn't a major contributor that season, but Amartey was also part of that team. As were James and Gray, so we technically have 8 'immortals' still in our squad

[Muzzy_Larsson]

51 minutes ago, Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo said:

Tbf, West Ham were really good that day - they could have beaten anyone

This is a good point and I think people need to remember this and have a bit of perspective and not overreact at the next defeat.

 

One of the main factors that makes the EPL the best league in the world is it's competitiveness, any side can beat any other side on their day and it happens quite regularly.

[Stuntman_Mike]

Having just watched the goals back I still can't get my head around why Kasper was getting stick for their goal. 

 

The defence should deal with it, and if he comes out he makes the situation worse with where the ball was dropping. 

Edited 3 November 2020 by Stuntman_Mike

[Leeds Fox]

9 minutes ago, Stuntman_Mike said:

Having just watched the goals back I still can't get my head around why Kasper was getting stick for their goal. 

 

The defence should deal with it, and if he comes out he makes the situation worse with where the ball was dropping. 

Agree. Kasper couldn’t really do much there. The cross was great, on target and into a very dangerous area. Any touch on the ball causes havoc and no touch on it meant it went in. 

[StriderHiryu]

3 hours ago, HighPeakFox said:

The West Ham game looks anomalous now.... I wonder much of it was down to wrong tactics (I do not discount this being the primary reason necessarily) and how much of it was the players just not being switched on/attentive/carrying out their plan. 

 

I suspect this game, and the Villa game to an extent, may prove to have been a watershed for all concerned.

The Wolves game will be an interesting game for this reason, because for me it was totally the wrong choice of tactics on the day. West Ham did to us what we did to Leeds last night, albeit we helped their cause with shocking defending and a total off day from everyone on the pitch. Wolves are a counter attacking team themselves and also very good at it. Games have been close against them since they returned to the top flight and we've ridden our luck against them numerous times. We are definitely capable of beating them, but I think the last three games have been 0-0 at full time between us for a reason. So it will be interesting to see what Rodgers goes for in that game, especially as I'm not sure if another 0-0 would necessarily be a bad result. They've lost Jota this season though, which I think is great for us as he's often their most dangerous player against us. They still have Jimenez and Traore of course!

[HoustonFox]

8 minutes ago, StriderHiryu said:

The Wolves game will be an interesting game for this reason, because for me it was totally the wrong choice of tactics on the day. West Ham did to us what we did to Leeds last night, albeit we helped their cause with shocking defending and a total off day from everyone on the pitch. Wolves are a counter attacking team themselves and also very good at it. Games have been close against them since they returned to the top flight and we've ridden our luck against them numerous times. We are definitely capable of beating them, but I think the last three games have been 0-0 at full time between us for a reason. So it will be interesting to see what Rodgers goes for in that game, especially as I'm not sure if another 0-0 would necessarily be a bad result. They've lost Jota this season though, which I think is great for us as he's often their most dangerous player against us. They still have Jimenez and Traore of course!

Yeah, totally agree.  Last night, we were able to capitalise on Leeds’ naivety as they just couldn’t adjust and left us so much room, kind of like Man City did.  We were also fortuitous that Bamford missed two sitters, and that during their periods of pressure, when we were just “getting rid” but it was going back to them, they didn’t do anything.

 

On the flip side, and glass half full, apart from the two Bamford sitters, we shut them down, stopped them creating danger and then took advantage of the gaps.  

 

Against wolves, we’ll have to play more as they will look to counter us, and we need to be wary of that, and as you said, their pace.  I’m glad they don’t have Jota, but also think we need to adapt to a more balanced final third and shape - at times yesterday, we went very 541 rather than 343.  Leeds let us get away with that, and the damage was done, but from a sustainability perspective, we have to have people help Vards more still, as until Under came on, he was still a little isolated at times (although Harvey and Dennis were fabulous!)

[Finnegan]

1 hour ago, Stuntman_Mike said:

Having just watched the goals back I still can't get my head around why Kasper was getting stick for their goal. 

 

The defence should deal with it, and if he comes out he makes the situation worse with where the ball was dropping. 

 

He couldn't move until it cleared the last of the players in that clump so I'm sympathetic, it wasn't easy. 

 

But given his starting position was pretty decent I thought it was a bit feeble how he practically just fell on his side more than dived for it. 

 

Wasn't the most athletic attempt at a save we've ever seen from him. 

 

Like I said, was a tough one though so fair play. 

 

 

Edited 3 November 2020 by Finnegan

[deep blue]

7 hours ago, Spudulike said:

It really is a thing of beauty. Chengo's pace is incredible. 

Can't disagree with that.  But his anticipation and angle of run made the pass possible, attributes that Vardy has in spades.  Cengir seems so tuned into our style of play, and I think we are perfect for him too.

[Guest Markyblue]

14 minutes ago, deep blue said:

Can't disagree with that.  But his anticipation and angle of run made the pass possible, attributes that Vardy has in spades.  Cengir seems so tuned into our style of play, and I think we are perfect for him too.

Those 2 are going to be like batman and robin for us this season. 

[adejo92]

The shops will do anything to sell toys on the run up to Christmas.

 

 

[StriderHiryu]

10 hours ago, Muzzy_Larsson said:

A huge thing that jumped out at me in Rodgers post match interview was this quote, "you can control the game without the ball". This is at absolute odds with everything he has said and believed previously. He has always been vocal in a belief in that the only way to control and dominate the game is via posession and winning the ball back as quickly as you can.

 

This is pretty significant for me in a promising sense. It's always been his main weak spot that he stuck to rigidly to his posession based philosophy but I think the signs are there this season he is evolving in this sense and becoming more flexible in his outlook.

I wonder why Rodgers had this epiphany? Maybe the way we bottled the end of last season and it’s similarities to Liverpool’s famous title collapse made him profoundly change his views?

 

As you say I think it’s the best thing that could have happened to us. I now think we have a real chance of winning any game we play, even if it’s not always beautiful high tempo possession football. And the only time I ever felt like that before was the 15/16 season! In fact some games are eerily similar because that season I’d often see us have 30% or less possession in a game and yet never once feel worried. We were just so ruthlessly efficient and clinical then and during the first 30 minutes yesterday we looked like an improved version of that side. 

[HighPeakFox]

24 minutes ago, StriderHiryu said:

I wonder why Rodgers had this epiphany? Maybe the way we bottled the end of last season and it’s similarities to Liverpool’s famous title collapse made him profoundly change his views?

 

As you say I think it’s the best thing that could have happened to us. I now think we have a real chance of winning any game we play, even if it’s not always beautiful high tempo possession football. And the only time I ever felt like that before was the 15/16 season! In fact some games are eerily similar because that season I’d often see us have 30% or less possession in a game and yet never once feel worried. We were just so ruthlessly efficient and clinical then and during the first 30 minutes yesterday we looked like an improved version of that side. 

I guess that idealism, wonderful though it sounds, is actually an extreme position, and is dangerously close to dogmatism. Evolution as an individual (and perhaps as a society) perhaps relies upon us to learn and move towards a more pragmatic approach, which encompasses a more balanced methodology rooted in realism. 

 

I'm quite sure this will come back to haunt me next time I'm dogmatically idealistic, but at least I'm waffling on the basis of knowing my own faults.

[Guest SO1]

38 minutes ago, StriderHiryu said:

I wonder why Rodgers had this epiphany? Maybe the way we bottled the end of last season and it’s similarities to Liverpool’s famous title collapse made him profoundly change his views?

 

As you say I think it’s the best thing that could have happened to us. I now think we have a real chance of winning any game we play, even if it’s not always beautiful high tempo possession football. And the only time I ever felt like that before was the 15/16 season! In fact some games are eerily similar because that season I’d often see us have 30% or less possession in a game and yet never once feel worried. We were just so ruthlessly efficient and clinical then and during the first 30 minutes yesterday we looked like an improved version of that side. 

Id say its what you stated here and what you said yesterday about the energy level it takes to play possession /attacking football.

That combined with the injury list and our limited squad depth sounds like the perfect storm. Nothing like the feeling of confidence in our clubs defending. My stomach is thankful. I revel in the work rate we have as we closeout matches.

Edited 3 November 2020 by SO1

[Blue ROI]

5 goals at Elland Road just like our last Monday night top fight game there in 2003/04.

 

There the similarites ended.

Edited 3 November 2020 by Blue ROI

[urban fox]

I think there is a bit of the bulldog spirit in our camp at the minute. So many writing us off due to the poor end to last season and the injury crisis this has brought the squad together and engendered a bit of a seize mentality both with the players and coaching staff.

a bit of the old 2016 stuff you attitude.

[sacreblueits442]

56 minutes ago, StriderHiryu said:

I wonder why Rodgers had this epiphany? Maybe the way we bottled the end of last season and it’s similarities to Liverpool’s famous title collapse made him profoundly change his views?

 

As you say I think it’s the best thing that could have happened to us. I now think we have a real chance of winning any game we play, even if it’s not always beautiful high tempo possession football. And the only time I ever felt like that before was the 15/16 season! In fact some games are eerily similar because that season I’d often see us have 30% or less possession in a game and yet never once feel worried. We were just so ruthlessly efficient and clinical then and during the first 30 minutes yesterday we looked like an improved version of that side. 

.....totally  agree!!!

People saying that we were sussed out...what we wanted was a better quality and intelligent  players playing in the 2016 system, as  you said the feel at the moment is much the same. 

[gw_leics772]

23 hours ago, lcfc sheff said:

I don’t want us to ever attempt playing possession football again! Park the bus and we’ll go far 

I suspect of we try that against wolves the ball will still be sitting on the centre circle at half time. 

 

Horses for courses

[gw_leics772]

22 hours ago, Tom12345 said:

Easily the most satisfying win for me this year. I like the player selection and the much improved positivity (except for a period in the middle). If I am to find fault it was when we still had a few back passes in the middle of the game when we should have passed forward after getting into a good position. Apart from that, I really enjoy watching Mendy in the middle, Fuchs on the left with Thomas, Vardy of course, Tielemans bossing the midfield, and Under being unleashed. I just wish to watch a game where both Under and Barnes could play on either side of Vardy. That would be lethal!

I had a meltdown at half time against arsenal but with hindsight I decided to watch more carefully and even appreciate the long backpasses. The opposition attackers chase the ball, they all move up and create space for us to play through them. 

What a difference a few months make. It's not that simple, of course it's not, but the players seem to buy into it now and know what is expected of them. The biggest problem we had post lock down was players inexplicably going into hiding. No runners off the ball. Certainly can't say that about this game. 

Siege mentality is a big part of our history, and BR has pulled off some absolute masterstrokes.

 

It could be more difficult to choose the right option when there are numerous to choose from, but Tbf be fair to him, not many would have called the frankly weird and scary starting line ups that have won our last 3 PL away games. 

 

Time to try not to overthink it as fans, and leave him to it, but accept that it won't be this good every game. Could be difficult though because this season is there for the taking, like 2015-16, and if the bookies are right, we will be top of the English football pyramid come 18:30 Sunday night. 

 

Exciting times. 

Edited 3 November 2020 by gw_leics772