Leeds Utd v Burnley Match Thread

[Ellandback1]

Leeds United v Burnley
14th September 12:30pm | Elland Road


Leeds face their toughest opponent of the season so far, as Burnley make the hour long trip across the Pennines, coming up against a rejuvenated Leeds side. After starting their 2024-2025 campaign in underwhelming fashion, successive 2-0 victories over Yorkshire rivals Sheffield Wednesday and Hull City see Daniel Farke's side climb to fourth in the table, two places and a point below the Whites.

It has been a challenging Summer for both sides, having lost instrumental players. There will undoubtedly be teething issues as they search for their best starting XI. The International break does little to help any side, but in Leeds case, they only had 12 senior players turn up for training in the past fortnight!





With Junior Firpo not expected back back until late on Friday, Isaac Schmidt out with a calf injury and Max Wober picking up a fresh knee ailment whilst on International duty with Austria, Daniel Farke may opt to give Sam Byram his first league start of the season. Dan James is still nursing a hamstring injury, but have the luxury of Manor Solomon and Largie Ramazani to call upon in wide positions.

Patrick Bamford may be wearing the No9 shirt, but in most people's eyes, Matteo Joseph has done enough to lead the line for Leeds this season. Nethertheless, Bamford should be fit enough for the bench on Saturday. Wilfred Gnonto took a knock for the Italian U21's during their 7-0 annihilation of San Marino, but is expected to be passed fit.

After an explosive start to the season, with back-to-back victories and nine goals scored, the Clarets lost at Sunderland, were knocked out of the League Cup and only drew at home against Blackburn. They now have a centre-back crisis, with Hjalmar Ekdal, Jordan Beyer, and Maxime Esteve all expected to miss the trip to Elland Road. Dutch attacking Midfielder Zian Flemming also remains out with a calf strain.

[The Subhuman]

Jeez if we had their CB injury list we'd have none left

[Cjay]

Jeez if we had their CB injury list we'd have none left

If we had anything like the injuries Burnley have now in general we wouldn't be able to fill the bench even using our 3 senior goalies.

They've 8 1st team players definitely out.

Josh Cullen and Conor Roberts are doubts.

Maxime Esteve is as well.

Just half of those first team injuries would leave us with a bench of kids.

[Jammy 07]

If we had anything like the injuries Burnley have now in general we wouldn't be able to fill the bench even using our 3 senior goalies.

They've 8 1st team players definitely out.

Josh Cullen and Conor Roberts are doubts.

Maxime Esteve is as well.

Just half of those first team injuries would leave us with a bench of kids.

Personally I'd much rather take the gamble of having a small but high quality squad rather than go back to the days when we used to have 30+ senior pros on the books and finish 13th every season.

Also we're now rid of most of our sicknotes such as Shackleton, Forshaw etc and only Bamford remains who hopefuly will return the the bench this weekend.

[Cjay]

Personally I'd much rather take the gamble of having a small but high quality squad rather than go back to the days when we used to have 30+ senior pros on the books and finish 13th every season.

Also we're now rid of most of our sicknotes such as Shackleton, Forshaw etc and only Bamford remains who hopefuly will return the the bench this weekend.

It's a gamble both ways I suppose.

Last season though we had a bigger squad but because of good fortune with Injuries and managerial choices it didn't need or wasn't used.

Last season we had 8 players who played in 40+ league games.

10 in all competitions.

If we have that luck again then no problem.

But any sort of injury crisis and our squad will look far from promotion level.

[Jammy 07]

Last season we had 8 players who played in 40+ league games.

10 in all competitions.

If we have that luck again then no problem.

But any sort of injury crisis and our squad will look far from promotion level.

That's a really interesting stat and it does make you wonder if Farke's training methods were a factor ? Guess we'll learn more this season but with Dan James already out for up to 6 weeks and Bamford only just returning to training after missing the run in I'd say luck is probably the more relevant contributor.

[The Subhuman]

Personally I'd much rather take the gamble of having a small but high quality squad rather than go back to the days when we used to have 30+ senior pros on the books and finish 13th every season.

Also we're now rid of most of our sicknotes such as Shackleton, Forshaw etc and only Bamford remains who hopefuly will return the the bench this weekend.

Small squads, though, tend not to work, didn't last season, as you get players carrying injuries and fatigue becomes an issue as the season draws to a close..

[Jammy 07]

Small squads, though, tend not to work, didn't last season, as you get players carrying injuries and fatigue becomes an issue as the season draws to a close..

We didn't look tired or fatigued due to playing too many games against Norwich and that was in games 47 and 48 of the season. My own personal view is that Farke and the players felt the pressure too much and that's what led to inferior performances. Then in the play offs we relaxed and played well again but couldn't quite do it at Wembley in what was a 50/50 match between two good teams.

[Jammy 07]

Just to add that hopefully Farke has learn't his lesson and never mentions again the 40 game onwards mark being the crucial time of the season.

One game at a time Daniel, one game at a time.

[The Subhuman]

We didn't look tired or fatigued due to playing too many games against Norwich and that was in games 47 and 48 of the season. My own personal view is that Farke and the players felt the pressure too much and that's what led to inferior performances. Then in the play offs we relaxed and played well again but couldn't quite do it at Wembley in what was a 50/50 match between two good teams.

Norwich was the outlier for the last 10 or so games... Rodon lost form due to carrying an injury, Geo played through hernia op recovery, and was "less" for the last few weeks, James badly lost form. Summerville not as effective (I never bought the "found out" BS) Small squads can work but you reduce your odds.

It may have been down to a mismanaged squad last season or just not deep enough (depending on your viewpoint) but we went from the best to, basically, the fourth best team in the division in ten games or so.

[Jammy 07]

Norwich was the outlier for the last 10 or so games... Rodon lost form due to carrying an injury, Geo played through hernia op recovery, and was "less" for the last few weeks, James badly lost form. Summerville not as effective (I never bought the "found out" BS) Small squads can work but you reduce your odds.

It may have been down to a mismanaged squad last season or just not deep enough (depending on your viewpoint) but we went from the best to, basically, the fourth best team in the division in ten games or so.

We were perfectly fine until the 6th April which was matchday 41 against Coventry away. We then followed that 2-1 defeat with a lacklustre midweek 0-0 at home to Sunderland and then the defeat against Blackburn.

In other words 1 point from a possible 9 during a 7 day spell contesting matchdays 41/42/43.

The six games prior to that which included the two Easter games after the international break we took 14 points from 18 and were undefeated. Easter was actually a good away point at Watford after twice being behind followed by the 3-1 home win against Hull.

Oh and the ten games prior to that we won all ten.

[The Subhuman]

We were perfectly fine until the 6th April which was matchday 41 against Coventry away. We then followed that 2-1 defeat with a lacklustre midweek 0-0 at home to Sunderland and then the defeat against Blackburn.

In other words 1 point from a possible 9 during a 7 day spell contesting matchdays 41/42/43.

The six games prior to that which included the two Easter games after the international break we took 14 points from 18 and were undefeated. Easter was actually a good away point at Watford after twice being behind followed by the 3-1 home win against Hull.

Oh and the ten games prior to that we won all ten.

And you've kinda made my point for me ... we ran out of steam

[Jammy 07]

And you've kinda made my point for me ... we ran out of steam

Or we couldn’t handle the pressure during the vital run in and fell apart as a team.

How else do you explain a 4-0 hammering at QPR in a must win game. Then as soon as we’d failed we could produce the Norwich play off performance.

So for me tiredness wasn’t the issue just mentally not strong enough to deal with what required during the crux of the season. Leicester had a wobble too but we let them off the hook by dropping points at exactly the wrong time so they were able to regroup and get through it.

[1964white]

Small squads, though, tend not to work, didn't last season, as you get players carrying injuries and fatigue becomes an issue as the season draws to a close..

Tend to agree to a certain extent, though last season we had a squad of 22 players with only 15 players regualarly used, as Farke obviously didn't trust some of his bench players.

This season, we have a 22-man squad and I reckon the majority of them will get more game time, as we have a better balanced group of players, not reliant on two players, Summerville & Rutter.

My concerns are the centre-back & No.9 positions.

Wober & Bamford continually have injury problems & the trend seems to be still apparent this season.

[Sean_Nile]

Small squads, though, tend not to work, didn't last season, as you get players carrying injuries and fatigue becomes an issue as the season draws to a close..

But then again sometimes it does work... Bielsa was an advocate of a small core of players to choose from and got promoted.

[The Subhuman]

But then again sometimes it does work... Bielsa was an advocate of a small core of players to choose from and got promoted.

There are exceptions to the rule and we're unlikely to have his genius again

[The Subhuman]

Meslier
Bogle
Byram
Ampadu
Rodon
Struijk
Gnonto
Gruev
Joseph
Aaronson
Solomon

Darlow
Schmidt
Firpo
Debayo
Tanaka
Gelhardt
Ramazani
Piroe
Bamford

[Irish Ian]

Looking forward to this one.

Our first real test against a manager with a decent record against us.

I'll be interesting to see how many of the last day signings feature.

[John in Louisiana]

Looking forward to this one.

Our first real test against a manager with a decent record against us.

I'll be interesting to see how many of the last day signings feature.

Yes indeed.

We will have a very good idea of what our promotion chances look like after this one.

Cautiously optimistic.

[1964white]

Bamford back in training.