Millwall v Leeds - Team/Reports/Ratings....

[The Subhuman]

I think we missed Cooper today

More concerning is the Pontus injury late on in the game, hope it's not a hamstring

Agreed and with Durly, bad day at the office for most including the manager. Looked like cramp for Pontus so hopefully back real quick. He's our only quality CH at the moment.

[1964white]

As poor as one of Monk's bad performances

7 Wiedwald
2 Anita
8 Jansson
5 Shaughnessy
2 Ayling
3 O’Kane
4 Phillips
6 Saiz
2 Hernandez
2 Alioski
2 Lasogga
Subs
7 Dallas
3 Roofe
2 Grot

[weasel]

The key is not to over-react - we aren't as poor a team as we showed today and similarly we aren't going to play as well as we did v Sunderland, Forest and Burton every week. Millwall played cleverly and to their strengths today and used negative tactics extremely well, other teams may try to copy them when they play us but if they aren't used to playing that way then they won't be as successful.

I expressed concern earlier that we had struggled against Bolton, Preston and Port Vale when the matches were more physical and it will be something we need to improve on but the players will be getting more experience of this type of match. A lot of our foreign players won't really be used to this type of match but what disappointed me today was O'Kane and Phillips not exerting any control on the match. It should have been those 2 battling and leading the way and creating the space for our flair players but they seemed non-existent.

TC certainly comes across as a very methodical coach but I also think that he will not have had much experience playing against these types of teams and performances and this match will do him good as he will have seen what happened first hand rather than relying on video. I am fully confident that he will turn this negative into a positive by making us do much better in future matches like this.

A bad day at the office but we are still top, if we keep averaging 17 points from every 8 matches we will be fine.

[Cjay]

We deserved to lose by 5 as Faaip said, credit Millwall they were better, tactically and as a team.

If they had the finishers we have it would have been 5.

Hernandez and Alioski ineffective because of the tactics, Saiz was better but not brilliant. Ayling, Anita and Shaun were poor, Jansson did better but not great for there goal. O'Kane wanted to much time and Phillips was like a headless chicken. Lasogga was poor nothing stuck but he ran about which is about all you can say. Dallas did better, Roofe didnt do much and Grot tried but meh.

Wiedwald- 7- easy saves or not he made them
Ayling-4 not a good day out, crossing wasnt great either and seemed to be out of position at times
Shaunessy-3 looked nervous, looked very much not a cb today.
Jansson 7- did well till the goal but offered very little help by his defensive partners.
Anita - 3 similar to Ayling and Jed Wallace beat him to easily to often.
Phillips-3 - poor, passing off, didnt get stuck in enough, looked like last season.
O,Kane 4 - Similar to Phillips, nothing worked, tried running at people just kept losing the ball, wanted to much time.
Hernandez 4- Ineffective, didnt get time to settle, harassed by Millwall and had 0 impact going forward.
Alioski 4- Similar to Pablo, ineffective, Doubled up on every time he had the ball, bullied today.
Saiz 6 - Most effective attacking player but that doesnt say much, looked the most likely to make something happen but overall handled well by Millwall.
Lasogga 4 - not a lot of service in fairness but whenever the ball went up to him it didnt stick, offered very little, mind elsewhere perhaps.
SUBS
Roofe- 4 Pretty ineffective i thought, snuffed out quite easily by Millwall.
Dallas6- worked hard, tried to get the ball forward, more effective then Roofe, Hernandez and Alioski but that doesnt say much.
Grot- 5 Ran about and tried to get involved but difficult for him, marked him up because he didnt get much time and he wanted the ball and tracked back.

[1964white]

Agreed and with Durly, bad day at the office for most including the manager. Looked like cramp for Pontus so hopefully back real quick. He's our only quality CH at the moment.

We kept saying we required another quality CB.

If we lose him for too long our promotion hopes would be in tatters

[1964white]

I'm still scratching my head why TC subbed Saiz

For a short period in the 2nd half it seemed our little playmaker may have created something special.

Once Sami went off the result was inevitable as all our other midfielders persisted to do is pass the ball backwards & sideways so frustrating !

[1964white]

The key is not to over-react - we aren't as poor a team as we showed today and similarly we aren't going to play as well as we did v Sunderland, Forest and Burton every week. Millwall played cleverly and to their strengths today and used negative tactics extremely well, other teams may try to copy them when they play us but if they aren't used to playing that way then they won't be as successful.

I expressed concern earlier that we had struggled against Bolton, Preston and Port Vale when the matches were more physical and it will be something we need to improve on but the players will be getting more experience of this type of match. A lot of our foreign players won't really be used to this type of match but what disappointed me today was O'Kane and Phillips not exerting any control on the match. It should have been those 2 battling and leading the way and creating the space for our flair players but they seemed non-existent

TC certainly comes across as a very methodical coach but I also think that he will not have had much experience playing against these types of teams and performances and this match will do him good as he will have seen what happened first hand rather than relying on video. I am fully confident that he will turn this negative into a positive by making us do much better in future matches like this.

A bad day at the office but we are still top, if we keep averaging 17 points from every 8 matches we will be fine.

Both were a massive disappointment today, O'K & KP have been engineering the same battling qualities on the teams we've played, today they bottled it !

[Cjay]

Think it was one game to much, players looked leggy and Millwall made sure they didny have much time.

Like Cardiff against Preston.

TC made an error, needed to freshen it up a bit more imo.

[mchldavies7]

Had it in the back of my mind that today would go like it did, i hoped we would have too much for them but they closed us down relentlessly.
I doubt they'll play with that intensity again this season.
They've shot their footballing load in winning the 'Leeds cup'
T.C will learn much from this it is hoped..
Team selection today was all wrong for me..could still have changed it up to combat them while we were still 0-0.
Wipe our mouths and move on to ipswich and beyond.
All is still good.

[1964white]

Had it in the back of my mind that today would go like it did, i hoped we would have too much for them but they closed us down relentlessly.
I doubt they'll play with that intensity again this season.
They've shot their footballing load in winning the 'Leeds cup'
T.C will learn much from this it is hoped..
Team selection today was all wrong for me..could still have changed it up to combat them while we were still 0-0.
Wipe our mouths and move on to ipswich and beyond.
All is still good.

Yes today was a learning curve & we'll learn from the Den battle. We are still top of the league of course

[weasel]

Think it was one game to much, players looked leggy and Millwall made sure they didny have much time.

Like Cardiff against Preston.

TC made an error, needed to freshen it up a bit more imo.

In fairness we should have been fresher than Millwall as they played most of their last match with just 10 men. They were just up for this match and worked their socks off. We had so many players that just couldn't get into the game today and as such it renders a plan B ineffective as it isn't like you can sub all the team and even a change of tactics/formation wouldn't have changed much as Millwall had the momentum - what we needed was to play our way into the game by keeping possession and by passing the ball around we would have created space and stretched Millwall and won comfortably. Sadly we just lost our composure completely and seemed to panic on the ball due and lost possession very cheaply as Millwall pressed us.

As I said previously O'Kane and Phillips needed to lead the way - they needed to be snapping into Millwall, winning the ball of them and then giving it to our other players and giving them the option of a quick 1-2. Play a few 1-2s and the space suddenly opens up - an example being Xavi and Iniesta for Barcelona who would probably pass the ball to each other at least 50 times per match with short passes designed to simply keep possession whilst moving the opposition around and waiting for gaps to appear so they could pass to other team mates.

[Cjay]

In fairness we should have been fresher than Millwall as they played most of their last match with just 10 men. They were just up for this match and worked their socks off. We had so many players that just couldn't get into the game today and as such it renders a plan B ineffective as it isn't like you can sub all the team and even a change of tactics/formation wouldn't have changed much as Millwall had the momentum - what we needed was to play our way into the game by keeping possession and by passing the ball around we would have created space and stretched Millwall and won comfortably. Sadly we just lost our composure completely and seemed to panic on the ball due and lost possession very cheaply as Millwall pressed us.

As I said previously O'Kane and Phillips needed to lead the way - they needed to be snapping into Millwall, winning the ball of them and then giving it to our other players and giving them the option of a quick 1-2. Play a few 1-2s and the space suddenly opens up - an example being Xavi and Iniesta for Barcelona who would probably pass the ball to each other at least 50 times per match with short passes designed to simply keep possession whilst moving the opposition around and waiting for gaps to appear so they could pass to other team mates.

Form wise they deserved there starts but think today was a game for Ronaldo Vieira imo.

[60sUnited]

Before I post this item, let it be known that when it comes to LUFC I am a pessimist without doubt, BUT I sensed at the Brum game that teams are starting to suss out Alioski and Saiz,and this was proven today. I think that we will now struggle a bit but we should be a top ten team again and maybe move upwards to our ultimate goal next season. I am not convinced about Lasogga and also dont think we can afford to play Hernandez in these type of away fixtures, Dallas should start over him. I am sure that the optimistic element will slag these opinions off but I have supported Leeds for over 50 years and my god I just want success........we will see !

[paddy parrott]

Great post Weasel and as always cannot disagree with you mate. Though Xavi and Iniesta are top international players it is great to compare ourselves with'em.
Onwards to next game and we hope for a better performance today is only one match. MOT.

[Oscar]

Shambolic performance today, easily the worst I have seen us play since we lost 4-0 at Brighton under Evans. We never got going they had a goal wrongly given for offside inside the first 15 minutes, we literally got out of our own half once in the first half and twice in the second half. Hopefully it was just a bad day at the office the performance does concern me a lot more than the result but there are no two ways about it we bottled it big time today, if you are serious about automatic promotion you need to win games like this or at least get a result, you certainly can't afford to not only lose the game but lose it in the manner we did.

Player Ratings:
Wiedwald 5- A very mixed game for Felix made 2 big errors one were he dropped a weak shot which led to a disallowed goal and when he raced off his line and presented Millwall with an open goal chance. Made some big saves and coped very well with Millwall's high crosses into the box and set pieces.
Ayling 7- Man Of The Match by some distance the only player who tried something different going forward, excellent defensively once again.
Shaugnessy 6- Did ok but gave Morison too much space at times did make a crucial clearance off the line.
Jansson 6- His mistake led to the goal sadly, however, it was a solid game for Pontus other than that rare mistake.
Anita 4- Awful constantly out of position, never got anywhere near Jed Wallace for the whole 90 minutes and offered nothing going forward.
Phillips 5- Had some good moments but struggled off the ball and some of his passing at times was poor.
O'Kane 5- Did try and drive the team forward with some ambitious passes but awful off the ball and didn't control the game as well as he usually does.
Alioski 4- Worked hard but was so quiet during the game.
Saiz 5- Lost the ball too much for my liking, he tried to drive us forward but just couldn't create anything.
Hernandez 3- Awful I genuinely can't remember Hernandez touching the ball.
Lasogga 5- Hold up play and link up play was poor, had zero service so difficult to be too critical.
Substitutions:
Dallas 5- Pressed Millwall high up the pitch and tried to run at them a few times but sadly his end product wasn't great today.
Roofe 3- Similar to Hernandez I don't remember him touching the ball.
Grot 5- He worked hard and tried very hard to impress but was ineffective sadly.

It's great to be top of the league, seeing us play good football and it has been a great start to the season but this is a bit of a reality check.

[1964white]

Before I post this item, let it be known that when it comes to LUFC I am a pessimist without doubt, BUT I sensed at the Brum game that teams are starting to suss out Alioski and Saiz,and this was proven today. I think that we will now struggle a bit but we should be a top ten team again and maybe move upwards to our ultimate goal next season. I am not convinced about Lasogga and also dont think we can afford to play Hernandez in these type of away fixtures, Dallas should start over him. I am sure that the optimistic element will slag these opinions off but I have supported Leeds for over 50 years and my god I just want success........we will see !

I thought Saiz was just starting to cause a few problems when he was unbelievably subbed, he was our best midfielder by a distance out of the ones that started. Saiz has more quality than Alioski imo!

O'Kane & Phillips were bullied at their own game & should take considerable blame for our poor display along with Hernandez & Alioski who were also woeful. Our defence were under constant pressure because of our failure to retain & pass the ball efficiently & as a consequence Lasogga & Grot got no service whatsoever

I still remain optimistic

[weasel]

I remain optimistic. For whatever reason this fixture has always been Millwall's cup final and they always seem to play out of their skins - sadly for them they never seem to play this well against everyone else or their league position would be much better. We had so many players play badly today and it is highly unlikely that so many will play so poorly at the same time again. Every team can have an off day - Man City beat us 4-0 and we also lost 4-1 in the year we won the League Title so bad results can happen when for whatever reason everyone has an off day.

The key now is to not simply brush the result under the carpet but for TC to be able to tell the players what went wrong and how to play our way into a match if it happens again. It is not to make too much of this match but to learn from it as this is a very young team and also a team that probably doesn't really have any wise old heads, ala Strachan, that could have calmed the players around them and restored calm. We lacked leadership on the pitch (and not just because of Cooper being missing as he isn't really the sort to bring calmness by putting his foot on the ball like a midfield captain). This young team can learn from this and become better.

[leedsmad]

Watched the game through LUTV ( International streaming ) and boy did i struggle to stay awake Midnight my time .
Don't know why on Earth Saiz was substituted , we had no hope after this . We didn't create anything got dominated in every aspect.
I'm sorry for the O'Kane fans but don't know why he has his place over Veira .

Never had a good feeling about this game anyway , i just thought we would of made there goal Keeper work way more ( he had a breeze Day) .
A good reminder not to get ahead of ourselves , so many good sides and alot more tougher opponents coming our way .
Need to bounce back vs the Tractor boys

[stevewall]

Its just sad, they seem stuck in a time warp, and the saddest bit is its not kids causing the trouble. Its fat, middle aged men in tops 2 sizes to small, probably with kids of there own. Utterly pathetic. But anyways there gonna get handed a footballing lesson

thanks for the footballing lesson we really enjoyed it no one ever gives millwall any credit understand that up to a point but we have played better than will be top half and yesterday's result won't actually look that bad, and despite the needle that seems to persist between us the only time I happy to see leeds get beat is when you play us,, despite your dislike for us we are 2 proper working class clubs . this could well be your year and this time next season you could be back in the sky ruined happy clappy plastic premiership strange thing is I and a lot of millwall fans will hope you do well , I'm old enough to remember the Don review leeds which still in my eyes was one of the best club sides I ever saw

[The Subhuman]

thanks for the footballing lesson we really enjoyed it no one ever gives millwall any credit understand that up to a point but we have played better than will be top half and yesterday's result won't actually look that bad, and despite the needle that seems to persist between us the only time I happy to see leeds get beat is when you play us,, despite your dislike for us we are 2 proper working class clubs . this could well be your year and this time next season you could be back in the sky ruined happy clappy plastic premiership strange thing is I and a lot of millwall fans will hope you do well , I'm old enough to remember the Don review leeds which still in my eyes was one of the best club sides I ever saw

Yeah I'm really not looking forward to that bit. I hate what the Prem has become.