To Panic Or Not To Panic

[1964white]

Phillips and Vieria have age on their side.
Saiz needs a change of attitude.
Alioski just needs better guiding
Ayling needs to recover the previous seasons form.
They all have it in them imo.

Pearce and BPF breaking through.
Jansson and Forshaw Hernandez in good form then we are only really 2/3 away from a challenging team, 4 would be nice as they won't all be in form at the same time.
I think a new keeper will be named mon/ tues, and 2 more by the weeks end.

Lets hope Pontus doesn't come as a sub & score the winner for Sweden today or else we will have a major problem to deal with before the season kicks off

[Brader]

Sorry I don't get what your all saying about Doukara

No he wasn't a world beater but he was decent coming off the bench or filling in the midfield when needed during Monk's reign

He was replaced by two players who were totally out of their depth in Grot & Ekuban who scored one goal between them. Doukara scored six goals & gave us a bit of strength & muscle when required much more than those two truly awful Orta signings who would struggle to score goals in a pub team. Doukara also scored the goal of the season v Forest at ER

He conspired with other players to fake an injury and refused to play a game. He could have been messi and I’d still be glad he’s gone. I don’t think anyone been as critical as ekuban as I have but quite frankly - until he does the same he’s better than doukara in my eyes. (Please still get rid of him)

[The Subhuman]

Doukara and Cooper, similar players. Servicable. Both can be good on their day.

[Cjay]

I think there are 5 players that have improvement in them,that were probably only at 60-70% last season Ayling before injury, Phillips, Vieira Saiz and Alioski. I also think Ekuban as the attributes for improvement, whether he has the desire is another thing. Get the extra percentage from that lot and its like having new players.

Lets hope so, Kinnear was bigging that up actually, players improving under Bielsa, perhaps right but hope he wasnt still under the illusion that we have a top 6 squad.

Agree on Alioski, Vieira and Saiz, Ayling was very poor pre injury, he needs to improve, his positioning at times was awful. Phillips not sure about, still young i suppose. Think Ekuban will go tbh, do agree with what you said though.

Tyler Roberts, Mateusz Klich, Yosuke Ideguchi to.

Ryan Edmondson, Pascal Struijk, Oriol Rey, Jack Clarke, Tom Pearce, BPF.

Lot of potential stars there to.

[1964white]

Ayling was very poor pre injury, he needs to improve, his positioning at times was awful.

Ayling had his best game in a Leeds shirt in our final home game v QPR, never stopped running for 90 minutes on a very warm day, incredible to think when you consider he was out injured for four months

He'll is one player who'll excel under Bielsa

[Cjay]

Ayling had his best game in a Leeds shirt in our final home game v QPR, never stopped running for 90 minutes on a very warm day, incredible to think when you consider he was out injured for four months

He'll is one player who'll excel under Bielsa

He did well that day.

Cant forget though, reflected in his own thread with the comments. He was very poor for us pre injury.

Hopefully Bielsa can teach him some discipline and positional sense because if not just like under TC he will get caught out.

[The Subhuman]

Has to be a wing back surely in this system, don't want him rooted in defence

[weasel]

Hopefully Bielsa can teach him (Ayling) some discipline and positional sense because if not just like under TC he will get caught out.

It might well work the other way though as Bielsa seems to like players not having fixed roles as such and being comfortable popping up anywhere on the pitch. I do think that Ayling was given license to do that under TC as it was certainly far more evident than the previous season under Monk who was played a more traditional compact style. If a full back pops up in the middle of midfield then who on earth is meant to be marking him - that then creates confusion for the opposition and potentially gives us an extra man there for that passage of play.

In theory having 3 centrebacks should mean that if Ayling does get caught out of position then we should be better equipped to cover but until we see how Bielas lines up the team we won't really know as there seems a lot of difference in opinion as to whether the 3 centrebacks will be typical centrebacks, 1 centreback and 2 full backs, or a midfielder thrown in there. Bielsa will probably make us all look like fools by playing a standard 442!

[paddy parrott]

Three defenders so to speak ., whether two or more are centre backs doesn't nesscessarily have to be . They that are playing in these roles really need to be top of their game and highly disciplined. We have some serious improvisation needed here and the team must improve the silly and ridiculous red cards situation that cost us every season.

[Cjay]

It might well work the other way though as Bielsa seems to like players not having fixed roles as such and being comfortable popping up anywhere on the pitch. I do think that Ayling was given license to do that under TC as it was certainly far more evident than the previous season under Monk who was played a more traditional compact style. If a full back pops up in the middle of midfield then who on earth is meant to be marking him - that then creates confusion for the opposition and potentially gives us an extra man there for that passage of play.

In theory having 3 centrebacks should mean that if Ayling does get caught out of position then we should be better equipped to cover but until we see how Bielas lines up the team we won't really know as there seems a lot of difference in opinion as to whether the 3 centrebacks will be typical centrebacks, 1 centreback and 2 full backs, or a midfielder thrown in there. Bielsa will probably make us all look like fools by playing a standard 442!

If we look at the influenced Bielsa teams then Ayling may thrive, as you say centre backs or wing backs popping up somewhere unexpected creates confusion and overload etc.

But to be successful we must control games, for that to work we must be the dominant side overall imo.

If we lose it high up the pitch then we mist win it back and press quickly otherwise we will get caught out.

It happens on occasion to City and Barca in peps days, sometimes they didnt win it back and they looked extremely vulnerable.

Hopefully Bielsa can drill them and get them working as a unit because his style is very much an all or nothing style for me.

Get it right its great but get it wrong and your really going to struggle.

[Cjay]

Crucial week coming up imo.

We kick off in 4 weeks , need to be getting 3 deals over the line for me next week at a minimum.

[weasel]

If we look at the influenced Bielsa teams then Ayling may thrive, as you say centre backs or wing backs popping up somewhere unexpected creates confusion and overload etc.

But to be successful we must control games, for that to work we must be the dominant side overall imo.

If we lose it high up the pitch then we mist win it back and press quickly otherwise we will get caught out.

It happens on occasion to City and Barca in peps days, sometimes they didnt win it back and they looked extremely vulnerable.

Hopefully Bielsa can drill them and get them working as a unit because his style is very much an all or nothing style for me.

Get it right its great but get it wrong and your really going to struggle.

100%. The key is to not lose possession cheaply as if you lose the ball just as your fullback has sprinted past the play then there is no way he can get back in position if the opposition break well. Like you say the key is that if we lose the ball we win it back very quickly so that players being out of position for us doesn't matter. If the opposition do win the ball and then get past the 'high press' then like you say we would be extremely vulnerable as a lot of players would be totally out of position.

For me that was a key part of our troubles last season. We simply gave the ball away too easily and were not able to win it back quickly enough leading us to look very short at the back with midfield and at least 1 full back out of position and the opposition storming forward. Teams that had done their homework on us knew that the easiest way to beat the high press was to simply launch the ball forward to their target man and then support him quickly. If you have 6 players swarming around you to try to close down the space and options but you can take them out of the game with 1 long pass then it is a very simple way to play. It showed at Man City in Pep's first season that they struggled against the more direct teams but Pep was able to work things out so that his second season was a success. It is no coincidence that TC encountered the same problems and the hope is that Bielsa doesn't fall into the same trap of underestimating 'long ball' teams.

[Cjay]

100%. The key is to not lose possession cheaply as if you lose the ball just as your fullback has sprinted past the play then there is no way he can get back in position if the opposition break well. Like you say the key is that if we lose the ball we win it back very quickly so that players being out of position for us doesn't matter. If the opposition do win the ball and then get past the 'high press' then like you say we would be extremely vulnerable as a lot of players would be totally out of position.

For me that was a key part of our troubles last season. We simply gave the ball away too easily and were not able to win it back quickly enough leading us to look very short at the back with midfield and at least 1 full back out of position and the opposition storming forward. Teams that had done their homework on us knew that the easiest way to beat the high press was to simply launch the ball forward to their target man and then support him quickly. If you have 6 players swarming around you to try to close down the space and options but you can take them out of the game with 1 long pass then it is a very simple way to play. It showed at Man City in Pep's first season that they struggled against the more direct teams but Pep was able to work things out so that his second season was a success. It is no coincidence that TC encountered the same problems and the hope is that Bielsa doesn't fall into the same trap of underestimating 'long ball' teams.

Pep managed to work it out but he had the cash to do so.

Main concern for me is I'm not sure that even with a few good players at this level we will have enough talent to play the style Bielsa likes.

Its such a demanding style, you need players technically good enough to keep the ball but also disciplined enough to work as one to win it back quickly, if just one player diverts from this gaps appear immediately as we saw under TC as you say.

Mentioned before its no accident that the sides who make it work are the big sides with the top players and big cheque books.

Bielsa has never managed a side like that and consequently he has had despite his reputation limited success.

Lot of pressure on Bielsa as a coach, without the big money he needs to train an essentially average group to play a top class style.

[The Subhuman]

Looks like atm we're more likely to lose than gain players ...everything in seems to be loans, which I hate (even Hugill is rumoured to be a loan and the keeper which imo is taking too long). Not panicking because personally I think apart from needing a pair of forwards we can cope via the youth.

But would hate to lose PJ, he's one of the few nailed on starters along with, atm, Hernandez and Ayling ...the rest is flux

[Cjay]

Said somewhere this week was crucial imo.

3 players minimum was my wish, less then that then i will start to panic.

Like Faaip, not keen on loans unless there is an option to buy. Only acceptable exceptions would be 1 or at most 2 truly exceptional talents we cant turn down the chance for ie Foden and Diaz.

Otherwise loans must have options to buy, that being said if they arent exceptional players then we shouldn't be loaning them anyways.

Bit meh atm, went from expecting Hernandez or Vydra and Foyth Diaz etc on loan to being genuinely concerned we could lost our few key players, Jansson Vieira etc.

The more i think about it the more concerned i am by what Angus Kinnear said, things like "we'd like to go into the Stoke game with what will be our 1st 11". And "i think the loan market is something our supporters can expect us to be very active in". "This year the targets have been identified earlier, so it's more about working hard to get the right people". And finally "And I know there's a massive interest in the fan base in terms of who we bring in, but I also think we've got some players with fantastic potential if they're playing at 100 per cent, rather than perhaps 70 per cent. That could be the difference between last season and doing stuff next season".


Those comments alone are quite worrying, lots of loans, he still believes this squad is top 6, i really do think thats what he is implying, and he insists targets were identified earlier, but there is no movement, so he can fall back on the loan market even more and then justify it with "well we identified targets but they proved to expensive? And whats this "we'd like to" business, how is that fair on us or Bielsa, you know when the season starts, its vital to start well, so you get everything ready surely.

If Friday comes and goes with nothing positive. then panic will start to set in.

[The Subhuman]

This squad can't be anything without a striker added and probably a back up.

[Norm]

We don't know what Bielsa's requirements or preferences are because there's absolutely no comment from the club (that I have seen anyway)- any scraps we get are from external sources

[1964white]

We don't know what Bielsa's requirements or preferences are because there's absolutely no comment from the club (that I have seen anyway)- any scraps we get are from external sources

LUFC do like to keep our fans in the dark Norm

[Cjay]

Phil Hay saying some deals are "bubbling away".

Still waiting on Blackman to go ahead, not closed the door totally on Vydra and Hernandez and looking at alternatives but given the time frame we dont have many choices.

Targets have been pretty well publicised but obviously some have fallen away, Bartley, Gunn, Stockdale, Vydra etc.

Think its pretty clear we have identified targets early but put all our eggs in these baskets and are scrambling now, very poor really.

Dont believe Kinnear at all, its clearly not under control.

Trying not to be a "bedwetter" but anyone who thinka everything is fine is clutching at straws imo, very badly organised once again, staggering ineptitude.

[Brader]

I wonder if bielsa has seen a couple in U23s who have really impressed him. Only thing I can think of as to why we’ve not been linked with many CBs yet