Anonymous wrote: ↑Sun Feb 24, 2019 9:58 am
No point regretting the hypothetical players we didn't get, or those who are unavailable. The important thing now is getting the best performance out of the team available on the day, and riding our luck when necessary.
I still think our key strength is the spirit and determination of the squad as a whole. Several have spoken again recently about how special that is with this group, and how the fans have been lifted up by it too. In 'cup final' type games, it may be that this never say die attitude is what sees us through. When we have scored first, we haven't lost a single game or dropped a single point. That is remarkable. We have also had some incredible comebacks from losing positions. I can't remember the stat, but I think it's the most points gained in the league.
Spot on SaraM. When the season started fans bemoaned the lack of signings. Berardi and Cooper at centreback? Ridiculous. KP being in the team at all. Pablo was too old. Roofe playing up front? We hadn't signed a keeper. We sold Vieira and were only playing Klich cos we had nobody else. We only really signed 2 players, Bamford got injured and Douglas isn't the player he was last year apparently. So we started the season with a team that had been in freefall, losing our 1 talented youngster (Vieira having been sold as he was 1 of only 2 players we had that had any sort of value in the transfer market) and as such the only change from las tseason was a left back. Yet the team that was clearly not good enough was still expected to make the play-offs in a lot of fans eyes. Ridiculous. Yet fast forward on 6 months and the same side has been top 3 all season and top 2 for most.
This team is where they are primarily because of their hard work. What they lack for at times in talent they have more than made up for in a ridiculously insane amount of hard work. This team that chases for 90 minutes and then is still going strong when the opposition is flagging. We could go out and sign 'better' players but would they work as hard as the players we have? One weak cog would derail this machine no matter how good that cog was individually. This machine may be a little rusty, a little frayed at the edges, not quite working at 100% efficiency but by god it has been working and continually been pumping out the results.
Where once players were being derided as not even good enough for league 1 they are now firmly in the chase for promotion to the premiership. Players most fans would have discarded such as KP and Cooper have been vital and consistently good. Players like Ayling are now the victim of the boo boys yet Ayling was a first team regular in the Monk side that finished 7th, he was a regular when we were doing well under TC, he was injured when we did poorly under TC and PH. Does that not tell you something? Bielsa has not only watched these players train this season he has watched how they played last season and probably the season before. He has somehow put a great team together by playing to these players strengths rather than discarding them for their weaknesses and that is what this team is all about.They work hard, they run hard, they keep going. They play to their strengths and if they aren't all great finishers well so be it they have other attributes. Love them, love Leeds.
Cjay wrote: ↑Sat May 17, 2025 4:23 pm
I've pretended to support a team that's been crap for most of my life as part of a long term plan
Victor_Notts-17 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2026 7:03 pm
Did you post them because there's something wrong with your brain
leic white 63 wrote: ↑Sun Feb 24, 2019 9:00 am
said it the other day and i'll say it again a chris wood or his type of player we would have pissed this league imo.
sat in east upper yesterday mate and i just couldn't see us scoring frankly till the fluke.
just hope our negativity in the january window doesn't come back and bite us in the arse.
It certainly looked that way 63
This team has a certain resilience to grind results out when all looks lost. It certainly doesn't make comfortable watching whatsoever. My ticker was pounding by the end
leic white 63 wrote: ↑Sun Feb 24, 2019 9:00 am
said it the other day and i'll say it again a chris wood or his type of player we would have pissed this league imo.
sat in east upper yesterday mate and i just couldn't see us scoring frankly till the fluke.
just hope our negativity in the january window doesn't come back and bite us in the arse.
The thing is that what Wood brought with his goals we'd have lost out in the movement and chasing that Roofe brought to the team. Suddenly 1 player in the opposition team has space and time on the ball, he comes forward with the ball meaning that another Leeds player has to go towards him and leave their man. Knock on effect the whole system collapses.
If you want to get a top class finisher who will also play the way the system needs him to then you have to pay the money Man City do. That is why they are successful - they can buy players who are world class in finishing, passing, tackling etc but they will also run their b*lls off so that the system works. In the past this was why you would sometimes see the shock results when a team that ran their b*lls off would beat the more talented team that didn't work hard. Once the 'talented' team had a couple of players having an off day they were ineffective as they didn't have the back up of being able to match their opponents work rate. Just look at Aguero at City. When Pep Guardiola came in he basically told Aguero he didn't fancy him, he didn't fit into his plans. This wasn't because Aguero wasn't a clinical striker but because PG didn't think Aguero would do the hard work side of the game when City didn't have possession. Aguero though added that side to his game and now fits into PG's team. In their defence they bought John Stones. Now as a defender the weakest part of Stone's game was his defending. However PG needs his defenders to be able to play football, to be able to bring the ball forward, to be able to pass etc. A defender who can't do this is no good to him. So he spent a fortune on Stones because he able to do most of what PG needed in that position and he could work on his defending.
At Leeds we have players that MB has moulded into the team. They can't do everything that ideally the role demands, otherwise they would cost a fortune but he has identified which players can fit into the system and I doubt a Wood type player would.
Last edited by weasel on Sun Feb 24, 2019 1:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Cjay wrote: ↑Sat May 17, 2025 4:23 pm
I've pretended to support a team that's been crap for most of my life as part of a long term plan
Victor_Notts-17 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2026 7:03 pm
Did you post them because there's something wrong with your brain
There are issues though, I'm very happy with the way it's going but I've never thought we'd finish top 2, start of the season I didn't think we'd finish top 6. So my expectations are lower. If it's top 2 we want then I'd temper those expectations until we at least beat WBA, if they beat us (and it's a toss up right now) we're headed for a playoff place.
WBA just lost to SU, they cannot afford another loss to a rival or they're about done and they've beaten us once. Looking at it as a nuetral one sees two draws as a good return from QPR away and Brom especially if you factor in 3 games in 6 days. We have an out of form striker, little in the way of midfield creativity and a DMF that affords little protection to the back 4...We're not set up to finish top 2 imo. We need to hang on till Roofe is back and Brown and or Bogusz is ready to start.
Little disappointed to see Dallas get a run over Brown and maybe Stevens, it felt like we were giving him game time to knock off a little rustiness and at 1-1 (We did score before he came on but he was set to play the last 20) that felt a negative we're happy to draw this move. I like Dallas but he's not a game changer but a decent back up for injury off the bench.
We appear to be getting more negative the closer we get to the end of the season and seem to hope we set a target and other teams mess up. Which they might tbf...
"A mind is like a parachute, it doesn't work if it's not open"
Roofe is a top 5 striker in this league I dispute he's any less clinical than anyone else in this division all day long. He's an off ball striker and a bloody good one. But there's no point having him play AMF, that's a role for an on the ball player with vision and creativity, someone to collect and distribute into dangerous areas and maybe the odd out of box strike.
We will miss him but we were already missing him anyway once he got moved. I counted 3/4 chances he was in a better position to score from in those two games that Bamford (twice) and Alio, took away from him
"A mind is like a parachute, it doesn't work if it's not open"
weasel wrote: ↑Sun Feb 24, 2019 12:34 pm
The thing is that hat Wood brought with his goals we'd have lost out in the movement and chasing that Roofe brought to the team. Suddenly 1 player in the opposition team has space and time on the ball, he comes forward with the ball meaning that another Leeds player has to go towards him and leave their man. Knock on effect the whole system collapses.
If you want to get a top class finisher who will also play the way the system needs him to then you have to pay the money Man City do. That is why they are successful - they can buy players who are world class in finishing, passing, tackling etc but they will also run their b*lls off so that the system works. In the past this was why you would sometimes see the shock results when a team that ran their b*lls off would be the more talented team that didn't work hard. Once the 'talented' team had a couple of players having an off day they were ineffective as they didn't have the back up of being able to match their opponents work rate. Just look at Aguero at City. When Pep Guardiola came in he basically told Aguero he didn't fancy him, he didn't fit into his plans. This wasn't because Aguero wasn't a clinical striker but because PG didn't think Aguero would do the hard work side of the game when City didn't have possession. Aguero though added that side to his game and now fits into PG's team. In their defence they bought John Stones. Now as a defender the weakest part of Stone's game was his defending. However PG needs his defenders to be able to play football, to be able to bring the ball forward, to be able to pass etc. A defender who can't do this is no good to him. So he spent a fortune on Stones because he able to do most of what PG needed in that position and he could work on his defending.
At Leeds we have players that MB has moulded into the team. They can't do everything that ideally the role demands, otherwise they would cost a fortune but he has identified which players can fit into the system and I doubt a Wood type player would.
well i will bow down to your superior football knowledge coach
After calming down a bit about the performance i think that given the circumstances we just need to win our next 2 as well as today.
How we do it isnt important, our tiny squad will be pushed to its limits this week, if we have to scrape past Bolton, QPR and WBA then thats fine.
We can worrying about performances after this congestion.
As long as we win all our games this week (and we are capable) then performances can go out of the window.
It would be nice to have gotten a few goals yesterday to improve our goal difference and we should be beating QPR well on Tuesday, but if we go into the WBA game having won those 2 then all the pressure is on WBA.
For the next 2 games performances can be sacrificed for points imo.
weasel wrote: ↑Sun Feb 24, 2019 9:38 am
The trouble we have is that we don't see every match that Norwich, Sheff Utd and WBA play, we don't see their sh*t performances where they scrape a win we usually just see the highlights. If you watched just the Leeds highlights yesterday then you would think we could have scored 4 or 5. We don't see WBA scraping the win against QPR in the last minute of injury time after twice being pegged back, how brilliant were they then, we just bemoan the last minute winner and say that is the sign of a good team. We forget that Sheff Utd blew a 3 goal lead against Villa recently, we forget that Norwich got thumped 3-1 by Preston with Preston scoring 3, having a goal disallowed, Preston hitting the bar a couple of times and Norwich only scoring in injury time. If you watched every Norwich, Sheff Utd and WBA match I can guarantee that you'd find several scrappy performances where they won. Same as with us they will probably have had just a handful of great performances. Same with any team that wins titles or gets promoted they win most matches because of 1 moment of magic in an otherwise drab match, because their striker took his chance and the opposition's striker put his chance wide, because their keeper made a save at 0-0, because their free kick deflected into the only part of the goal the keeper couldn't cover, their mishit shot ricocheted perfectly to their striker, their shot that the keeper was saving deflects past him etc. We don't know the circumstances that dictated their matches, we don't know when Norwich beat Bolton 4-0 if the home crowd turned on their team when Norwich scored early and the Bolton players gave up.
What we do see is our team play. The good is only remembered if we win comfortably. The bad is usually remembered more than the good if we scrape a win against teams we consider we should be thrashing, yet thrashings are rare in this division with hard working players more common amongst all teams than players of real quality.
Take the win, we have played better and we have played worse. Add the 3 points to the tally because the points earned are the same whether we played beautifully or scraped a win. Yes for goal difference and heart pressure it would be nice to simply win 4-0. Did Wilko's team win beautifully every week when they were promoted, no they got jittery too and scraped over the line, did Grayson's side that was storming to promotion at Christmas romp to promotion, nope scraped over the line, did Wilko's title winning team put out the performances like beating Villa 4-1 away and Sheff Wed 6-1 away every week or did they win scrappy games more often than not? Even Fergie's Man Utd sides that dominated English football had several performances each season where they scraped wins.
I am sure WBA would have been happier with a scraped 1-0 win yesterday instead of losing a match where they had 57% possession and had 18 shots to the opposition's 7.
This! Some perspective rather than moaning that we didn't win 6-0. Three points at the business end of the season and we're still not happy, ffs. Does it matter that we're not playing champagne football if we win? Do you get a smaller trophy or some caveats to promotion if you haven't played like Barca or City every week? I'll have to check, but I'm pretty sure you don't. Reading match threads on here is becoming a drag, to be honest, we never seem satisfied. This squad, the same one (pretty much) that was shite second half of last season, is over-achieving, we have a proper football man in charge and our destiny is in our own hands. What more do posters on here want, or expect? And I mean realisitically, not the fantastical "we're Leeds Utd, we have a divine right to destroy teams" BS.
"When the going gets weird, the weird get professional!" Hunter S Thompson
Cjay wrote: ↑Sun Feb 24, 2019 2:18 pm
As long as we win all our games this week (and we are capable) then performances can go out of the window.
It would be nice to have gotten a few goals yesterday to improve our goal difference and we should be beating QPR well on Tuesday, but if we go into the WBA game having won those 2 then all the pressure is on WBA.
Don't forget that QPR twice came from behind against WBA. That shows character and ability. They also came from 4-0 down recently to only lose 4-3 which shows character. They will not be a pushover despite their league position.
Cjay wrote: ↑Sat May 17, 2025 4:23 pm
I've pretended to support a team that's been crap for most of my life as part of a long term plan
Victor_Notts-17 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2026 7:03 pm
Did you post them because there's something wrong with your brain
lufc1304 wrote: ↑Sun Feb 24, 2019 2:32 pm This squad, the same one (pretty much) that was shite second half of last season, is over-achieving, we have a proper football man in charge and our destiny is in our own hands. What more do posters on here want, or expect? And I mean realisitically, not the fantastical "we're Leeds Utd, we have a divine right to destroy teams" BS.
Well put we have no divine right to beat any team especially in the championship. Do we have a striker that is miles better than any the opposition have? Do we have players mile better at creating than the opposition have? Are our defenders much better defenders than the opposition have. Nope like much of the championship teams usually have 8 or 9 marginally better players in some areas than other teams or marginally worse in others. A team at the top probably only has a couple of players that are head and shoulders better than players in opposition teams.
If you asked the Bolton manager if he'd swap his player for the Leeds player in the same position he'd probably choose 2 or 3, the rest he'd probably simply say well not much difference. That is why every match is a battle, every match can go either way and our biggest strength seems to be that we relentlessly grind the opposition down rather than simply blowing them away with quality. We take the opposition out of their comfort zone constantly chasing and hassling them forcing mistakes that at some point will prove costly. When we have the ball we pass it around and keep possession no matter where we are on the pitch rather than giving it straight back to the opposition. We make them chase it, which they aren't as used to. The opposition eventually tires and we take advantage. We are miles better in the last 15 minutes than the first 15 minutes.
Cjay wrote: ↑Sat May 17, 2025 4:23 pm
I've pretended to support a team that's been crap for most of my life as part of a long term plan
Victor_Notts-17 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2026 7:03 pm
Did you post them because there's something wrong with your brain
weasel wrote: ↑Sun Feb 24, 2019 3:25 pm
Don't forget that QPR twice came from behind against WBA. That shows character and ability. They also came from 4-0 down recently to only lose 4-3 which shows character. They will not be a pushover despite their league position.
They wont, they've given a lot of the top half a scare recently, WBA, Blades, Bristol City.
But they are where they are for a reason, no false positions at this stage, we should be beating them.
Exactly, weasel, what Bielsa has done is create a synergy that is proving, to this point anyway, pretty potent. I suspect our rivals probably only envy us having PJ and maybe young Clarke who looks a bit special. The rest are, as you say, much of a muchness in comparison to their opposite numbers. No-one this season has a team full of internationals as Wolves did last year. What we're doing with the bunch we have is incredible, truth be told, however the season finishes.
"When the going gets weird, the weird get professional!" Hunter S Thompson
I'm, as I have been all season, looking at qualifying for the playoffs which I'm 98% certain we have done now...(Lets not sneer at up to 3 extra games all sold out and a visit to Wembley to boost the coffers. It's actually the best way to go up if you can.) The rest is cherry
"A mind is like a parachute, it doesn't work if it's not open"
BGwhite wrote: ↑Sun Feb 24, 2019 5:33 pm
I wouldn't enjoy the play-offs. There's too much at stake. We've got 13 cup finals as it is never mind another 3 do or die one's on top.
Nor me BG
Knowing our luck we'd probably end up losing to Derby in the Play-off Final after slaughtering the rams twice this season
Mocks one of the most respected managers in the world, most football fans know who Bielsa is, Bolton fans probably had to Google this idiot like the rest of us
