Manchester City v Leeds United Match Thread

[YorkshireSquare]

That's a pretty accurate analogy. There's a lot of tedious blustering at times, when it can be summarised in a few sentences.

Is that just weasel vs cjay or the whole forum?

[1964white]

But every supporter will be doing that. Arsenal fans will be looking out for City results, City fans will be looking out for Liverpool and Chelsea results.....its human nature to look at the teams results around you, whether you are at the top of the league or at the bottom. Wet Spam fans will be looking at our results, as will Wolves and Forest and Burnley.

West Ham & Forest won't have to look out for our results for long, once we have been left adrift with Burnley & Wolves.

Yesterday's second-half performance doesn't fool me, we got lucky with both our goals & not one of our players comes even close to Phil Foden's quality, he was sensational, only a fantastic save from Perri, denied him a brilliant hat-trick.

[PhoenixUnited]

Daniel Farke this morning

Right I'll show them, I'll play the players they've been screaming for, early subs, go 5 at the back for a bit and then say told you so when it fails big time and we concede 7

Daniel Farke this evening

s**t, that actually worked.

Perhaps he might have considered that he could stir the pot again once Pep bent the rules, stopped play and rejigged his strategy. Also bringing Okafor on in the 82nd minute was a waste of time; Byram might have been a better choice. Just shows that Farke ison a learning curve. He was outfoxed by Pep not surprisingly

[Cjay]

1 and 2) Rutter's first half of the season stats were okay, his second half abysmal. The injury might have affected him, similarly the pressure or the fact he played a full season but I think as he was further away from goal he had less of a goal impact. He's not a 9, he probably is a 10 but similarly Piroe isn't really a traditional 9 or modern 10 either. Personally though I feel it was all down to Bamford having his purple patch after the PEterborough goal. This saw him having a run in the team and Paddy was a 9 so it made sense to switch Rutter to 10. Would have been interesting to see what a Paddy/Prioe combo could have done.

3) Not claiming it to be a tactical masterclass but it was a brave decision rather than one forced on him - the easy decision would have been to simply park the bus at half time and take a modest beating - he could have then celebrated the achievment like Jesse Marsch did after just losing 3-0 to City. In terms of the data stuff and effectiveness of being more direct I'm sure similar things could be said about Bielsaball and how we seemed to convert our chances at a better ratio in matches where we had less possession. Whether Bielsaball would work long term if it went to lower possession regularly I would doubt.

You can argue that a direct style is one that the players are suited to but the majority of our players have played the Farke way for 2 seasons so they will I feel be more suited to the Farke way which is more akin to how football is played by most clubs these days. Given the success (albeit at championship level) of the Farke way for the last 2 years I think the sensible option is to play that way and make subtle changes - this is by and large what has happened. At 2-0 and being torn apart then a drastic change was probably called for, rather than say carrying on like against Arsenal. It was almost a nothing to lose option and a chance to see if it could work.

Yeah that was the point I was making re Aaronsen. We were at that point 3-2 down and Piroe would likely have given us a better chance to get a 3rd.

Fair post.

Won't debate it because we will both just end up repeating ourselves

Is an uncomfortable truth though.

We've taken 3 points from our last 6

7 from our last 10, both relegation form.

Averaging 2 goals conceded or more per game

No clean sheets since August

Jesse Marsch had more points at this stage and won the next 2.

He had the same 3 points from his last 6 games and more points from his last 10 (9)

Gracia had a better ppg.

Bielsa was sacked for better form.

Fundamentally Farke has the worst Premier league record of any permanent Leeds United manager and plenty have been sacked for better.

I'm sure they all could point to data or bad luck at some point.

But I worry we are being cut adrift, and it won't be plucky 45 minutes vs Man City that cause it, it will be we've lost to 15th, 16th and 19th and because in games DF just wouldn't change his ideals too often.

It's quoted a lot and it's slightly dismissed at times with the money issue but if you've got the worst record of any Premier league manager in history over 50 games (was over 25 as well but I think he's just above Mckenna now but only by about 0.1ppg) and have lost 60% or whatever it was of your Premier league games then the least you should have is little bit of self awareness and have a ready made alternative plan that you are willing to use from day 1 and stick to.

Not stumble across one at nearly Christmas time having had brief games where you've changed a bit but generally reverted to your way.

For me that is arrogance on the part of Daniel Farke, undeserved arrogance to get to this stage in the season before he really tries something properly different to what he wants.

As you say he had Championship success, but so have many managers and plenty adapted immediately, he's very hesitant to adapt away from his way which imo is probably why he will always be a lower league manager in the end.

[DDB220]

West Ham & Forest won't have to look out for our results for long, once we have been left adrift with Burnley & Wolves.

Yesterday's second-half performance doesn't fool me, we got lucky with both our goals & not one of our players comes even close to Phil Foden's quality, he was sensational, only a fantastic save from Perri, denied him a brilliant hat-trick.

I do not disagree. Farke adopted a second half tactical rejig that many fans have been calling for weeks. 532 has been constantly articulated by Ger on his channel and a system that Citeh struggle against, given the players available is it not the obvious tactical set up from the start ?

As others have mentioned Farke has finally bitten the bullet whilst staring down the barrel. DCL made all the difference yesterday, he pushed us up the field and pushed them back - my MoTM by a long stretch.

I do not view the 2nd half performance as a reprieve for Farke, it will take a change of results and points on the board to do that. Neither of which he has provided.

[Pullhard]

The margins are razor thin at this level - the points dropped from good positions against Bournemouth, Fulham etc make all the difference. Even yesterday, an unexpected point keeps the momentum and the points total ticking over.
As has been pointed out by multiple posters, losing to the 5 or so teams in the relegation mix is super costly.

The risk of course is that we wake up in two weeks time and find we are 4 points from 17th. Relying on other teams losing is depressing, but sadly we are reliant on that scenario and that is our grim reality.
Starting today. Big shout out to Liverpool and Brighton.

[Pullhard]

West Ham & Forest won't have to look out for our results for long, once we have been left adrift with Burnley & Wolves.

Yesterday's second-half performance doesn't fool me, we got lucky with both our goals & not one of our players comes even close to Phil Foden's quality, he was sensational, only a fantastic save from Perri, denied him a brilliant hat-trick.

Therein lies the big gap. Rodon is possibly the only one we have with so called PL "quality". But he plays at the wrong end of the pitch to bang goals in (even though he manages a few)

[1964white]

I do not disagree. Farke adopted a second half tactical rejig that many fans have been calling for weeks. 532 has been constantly articulated by Ger on his channel and a system that Citeh struggle against, given the players available is it not the obvious tactical set up from the start ?

As others have mentioned Farke has finally bitten the bullet whilst staring down the barrel. DCL made all the difference yesterday, he pushed us up the field and pushed them back - my MoTM by a long stretch.

I do not view the 2nd half performance as a reprieve for Farke, it will take a change of results and points on the board to do that. Neither of which he has provided.

As I posted earlier, our second-half display painted over the cracks in our team. Once the Citeh players had the huddle/discussed tactics with Pep, whilst Donnarumma was pretending to be injured, they sussed us out as class teams do & went on to score the inevitable winner, which was always coming.

For all his critics, DCL was brilliant, inspiring & driving us on with all his power/strength offensively.

[1964white]

Therein lies the big gap. Rodon is possibly the only one we have with so called PL "quality". But he plays at the wrong end of the pitch to bang goals in (even though he manages a few)

Totally agree!

Rodon will be snapped up by a top six club next summer, his performances will seem even better with top class defenders around him.

[DDB220]

As I posted earlier, our second-half display painted over the cracks in our team. Once the Citeh players had the huddle/discussed tactics with Pep, whilst Donnarumma was pretending to be injured, they sussed us out as class teams do & went on to score the inevitable winner, which was always coming.

For all his critics, DCL was brilliant, inspiring & driving us on with all his power/strength offensively.

I haven’t read all the posts - I had to be somewhere as soon as the match finished. Logged on this morning and started to make my way backwards - saw the Weasel v CJAY monologues and decided against it, it is a nice day in Kent and I have just finished a book, I do not fancy starting another one.

[WhiteRose]

So Farke does enough to live another day then - fair play it wasn’t the embarrassment it looked like it would be but seems we let them off after going to 2-2. It’s frustrating after seeing a back 5 working, something a few of us have called for that Farke immediately says it won’t work for every team which all but confirms he won’t try it vs Chelsea until the games already gone.

[The Subhuman]

Therein lies the big gap. Rodon is possibly the only one we have with so called PL "quality". But he plays at the wrong end of the pitch to bang goals in (even though he manages a few)

Not for me. Gnonto and Struijk who's outplayed Joe for the most part this season are both prem quality. I think Tanaka is too

Guess it depends what we mean by prem quality.

[John in Louisiana]

Reading Weasel v CJay is a bit like a Wagner opera.... hours of boredom punctuated by great 5 minutes

Believe it was Mark Twain who said Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.

[SG90]

Totally agree!

Rodon will be snapped up by a top six club next summer, his performances will seem even better with top class defenders around him.

No he wont, he's too old now. He had his chance with Spurs and it didn't work out.

[SG90]

It looks like we'll be cut adrift now by the time Farke goes, which is sadly what I said would happen, and therefore it will limit the potential replacements. Why don't we have anyone at the club with any foresight?

[The Subhuman]

No he wont, he's too old now. He had his chance with Spurs and it didn't work out.

Struijk is the sellable asset and after yesterday his value will have shot up. Rodon needs to stay in Leeds now, we won't make good money on him as he'll be 29 next season and he's put in a lot of minutes. Slightly over rated here, we tend to overlook his errors while making too much of others errors

He, as much as Perri, had a chance to prevent the second but it's the fouled Perri we blame.. Love Joe and he stays if we drop imo..

[Jaydog]

Reading Weasel v CJay is a bit like a Wagner opera.... hours of boredom punctuated by great 5 minutes

Great 5 minutes.
Are you a very slow reader.

[1964white]

No he wont, he's too old now. He had his chance with Spurs and it didn't work out.

28 is not old for a CB.

Joe has matured into a very good CB since his Spurs/Swansea & early Leeds years.

Also, he won't be playing under a coach & for a team that invites constant pressure, having to deal with cross after cross, because our other defenders can't stop them coming into our box.

[1964white]

Not for me. Gnonto and Struijk who's outplayed Joe for the most part this season are both prem quality. I think Tanaka is too

Guess it depends what we mean by prem quality.

No, they haven't.

Struijk was dropped for three matches, Gnonto has hardly broke sweat due to his fitness concerns.

Joe is easily our most consistent performer this season.

[The Subhuman]

No, they haven't.

Struijk was dropped for three matches, Gnonto has hardly broke sweat due to his fitness concerns.

Joe is easily our most consistent performer this season.

"and Struijk who's outplayed Rodon this season".... Gnonto is mentioned as premier class

Massive error and NO GOOD REASON to drop Struijk who's been top draw all season.... If you think Bijol has been better or Farke was right then I don't know what to say