Do you know why everyone’s panicking now Kalvin?

Kalvin Phillips may have taken to Twitter after the Sheffield Wednesday defeat to say “Don’t know why everyone’s panicking and spouting lies! We lost a game of football to a team that didn’t deserve to win. It’s really not a big deal.” But it is a big deal, it’s a big deal when we’ve only won one game in the last seven. Especially when we’ve lost three of those to teams who “didn’t deserve to win”, there many reasons for Leeds fans to be panicking; our conversion rate, lack of depth in the squad and the diminishing points gap.

Most of the games we’ve lost this season we haven’t deserved to, not if you look at possession and shot statistics. But the plain fact is we don’t put our chances away. We are by far the most creative team in the Championship, we create the most chances, take the most shots. But our conversion rate is down there with the worst and if we don’t take our chances the opposition always has a chance. Be is a scrambled goal, a handball, a penalty that shouldn’t have been, we leave the door open for teams and recently they have been taking that chance.

We were warned when Bielsa arrived that his teams burn out in the second half of the season. I don’t believe that for a second but it’s clear now why his teams struggle during the business end of the season. There is no way a team competing for promotion from the Championship should only have 16 recognised first team players and recently that has bitten us hard. With Roberts, Hernandez and Forshaw all out our options in the middle of midfield have been limited. Stuart Dallas has been brilliant at covering multiple positions this season but a central midfielder he is not.





Phillips may have told us all not to panic but there was something panicked about his 88th minute lunge on Geoff Cameron which will ultimately lead to a three-game ban. With Phillips missing and Forshaw injured who will cover? The Ben White experiment failed and Stuart Dallas is not a defensive midfielder? The lack of depth in the squad was show with today’s subs bench. Take out Alioski and the average age of the six replacements was 19. There is plenty of talent and potential amongst that lot but not the experience you need to mount a promotion charge.

Leeds were in the same situation and I remained positive, but as they say once bitten twice shy and I’m finding it difficult to be anything but negative about our prospects this season. The squad is down to the bare bones with injuries to key players, bans for Phillips and Casilla up ahead and a reliance on a striker with the worst conversion rate in the league. So, I’m sorry Kalvin, I’m going to panic. Angus Kinnear told Take Us Home, the Amazon Prime documentary, that Leeds were not “dicking around with the play-offs anymore.” Well on this form with the likes of Fulham and Brentford breathing down our necks he could be right, we’ll probably finish seventh.