Leeds Utd v Cardiff City Match Thread

[paddy parrott]

Indeed weasel ,I suppose on the face of it Marcelo can be slated for Lack of substitutions & and now coupled by making wrong 'un's.
We hopefully can resolve the despondency by this season's end.

[Gandalf]

I reckon it was pre-planned by Marcelo to ensure that we weren't top at Christmas. Let WBA carry that burden this year.

[1964white]

I reckon it was pre-planned by Marcelo to ensure that we weren't top at Christmas. Let WBA carry that burden this year.

Just like a front running racehorse let the baggies do all the running, takes the heat off us

[DavidH]

Welcome David.
I enjoyed your comments.Did you get the stream from here?
If so join in the hysteria on match day. They even put up with my insane ramblings.

Thanks for the welcome everyone. I usually do it the VPN way, still paying my fiver to LUFC, though earlier in the season when I was in Brussels for the weekend, and therefore absolutely within the "rules", couldn't get the app to work on my tablet and ended up using a stream from here. I do usually look at the comments on here at half time and full time.

(I don't think I've given anything away that might spoil my future match watching, but if mods think so, please feel free to edit my post)

[The Subhuman]

The LP was my first intro to it all, then the TV. the film was a big no no for me though (apart from Alan Rickman as Marvin)

I have also read the books more than a few times.....

The radio series was a late arrival in my collection, however I have to agree, it is by far the most comprehensive version, with many additions (or should that be omissions from the rest of the mediums?)

It still all sounds as good as ever when I listen

It was conceived as a radio series and that's why that remains the ultimate Hitchikers experience

[hector]

It was conceived as a radio series and that's why that remains the ultimate Hitchikers experience

I agree, and nowhere else do you get to hear about the "shoe event horizon"

[whiteswan]

Swannie positives

Always nice to everyone
Always complimentary about MOT
Loves her malt & wine
Loves her houndie
Oh and Swannie is a Leeds fan

Negatives

Swannie's Leeds predictions

Rating

11 out of 10

Who me

Always nice to everyone except dear hector

[John in Louisiana]

Yes... but I write the fourth worst poetry in the universe.

Well.....AT least you're better than the Vogons.

[hector]

I'm better than them, by an order of one. I generally have better stuff in my armpits to write about. Sets me apart in the poetry world.

Better than a small lump of green putty??

[The Subhuman]

The brilliant Dirk Maggs did series 3-5 of the radio show and of course responsible for the fantastic Adventures of Sexton Blake too. Which I highly recommend and have in the past

Now time for a perfectly normal beast sandwich

[Norm]

I love your compliments H - you have a certain je ne sais quoi?

[jindy30]

Yep what a disa...ppppppointment. however i think bielsa has to reconsider his substitutes. Changing the back 4 right at the end was a mistake.

Also Kllich, and Dallas played well but really they lack consistency.

Alioski , the most improved players under beilsa should get a first team place.

Glad Costa is showing up, he definitely has more to give.

Bamford is scoring his opportunities but so are other players.

[1964white]

Yep what a disa...ppppppointment. however i think bielsa has to reconsider his substitutes. Changing the back 4 right at the end was a mistake.

Fully agree our defence was already disjointed without Cooper, weakening the back four was a recipe for disaster, back four should have become a back five was the change to make. Thank god the game didn't go on much longer.

A learning curve for all concern!

[mothbanquet]

Fully agree our defence was already disjointed without Cooper, weakening the back four was a recipe for disaster, back four should have become a back five was the change to make. Thank god the game didn't go on much longer.

A learning curve for all concern!

I think you're saying the right thing but in the wrong way here. Cardiff's defence was disjointed in the first half of the game, and ours was disjointed in the last 30 minutes. However, that was this game. Until that game, our defence held the best goals conceded ratio by far in multiple leagues and tiers across Europe. This, along with a dozen clean sheets, was achieved without Cooper as well as with him.

This cannot be possible if the defence is fundamentally disjointed. It is almost impossible to achieve that level of results through luck alone. How can ten goals conceded in twenty-one league games logically become a recipe for disaster because of a tweak? Sorry mate, hyperbole generated by a disappointed sequence of events does not equal reality. White/Berardi maintained the defensive performance of White/Cooper adequately in real terms.

Taking into account Kiko, Ayling, Dallas and Phillips - in fact the whole team - are equally responsible for defence when the team is not in possession, surely they are all equally culpable? Why were those Cardiff players who scored allowed to have the ball, why were players further up the pitch not closed down and pressured like they were in the first 60 minutes? Why is Neil Harris's head wider at the bottom than it is at the top?

Of course, reality does interject here. It was plain as day to see our intensity dropped immediately when we were 3 nil up, and you can to a degree forgive the attacking players for thinking their job was done and wanting to rest their legs. This is a mental issue, not a tactical one, and no changes Bielsa made to the game at this point would affect their complacency beyond shouting at them. A change from a back four to a back five would have simply meant five switched-off players at the back instead of four. And this is exactly where Cooper's absence, as you rightly point out, was missed.

I was of the same mind straight away when the second goal went in. Leadership isn't needed as much when things are going well as when they turn the other way. The Bera-White partnership has been successful, that's undeniable, but sooner or later everyone makes mistakes. In this instance, that partnership had not experienced something go so wrong so quickly, and in this instance is where leadership comes into play. Inspiring a winning, confident team to win is nowhere near as challenging as hoisting a failing team up by their collars and making them believe in victory against the flow of current events. We have to credit Cardiff for doing this, they may still have thought they'd lose anyway even when our players mentally downed tools. They were 3 goals down away, after all. I think Cooper would have either had the lads pull their socks up after the first or second Cardiff goal, or held them together before they were scored.

White and Berardi have been extremely effective, but maybe this game has exposed their limits. We won't really know that for certain until we have a further basis for comparison, but it is a possibility. It could simply be a bad day at the office. I do feel Cooper added a little something extra however and maybe we'll be able to pin that down a bit more precisely when he comes back into the team.

And our height is fine.

[The Subhuman]

I think everyone forgets that MB had been making late changes to the defence in the previous 7 games too.

[1964white]

Europe. This, along with a dozen clean sheets, was achieved without Cooper as well as with him.

This cannot be possible if the defence is fundamentally disjointed. It is almost impossible to achieve that level of results through luck alone. How can ten goals conceded in twenty-one league games logically become a recipe for disaster because of a tweak? Sorry mate, hyperbole generated by a disappointed sequence of events does not equal reality. White/Berardi maintained the defensive performance of White/Cooper adequately in real terms.

It really depends who we play, I know I sound like a broken record but our defence looked shaky against Cardiff, Millwall & Sheff Wed, three teams who use bullying tactics & like to play the ball in the air.

We needed Cooper in all three games, you certainly shouldn't take off your 3rd choice so-called CB when you're hanging onto a lead

Fulham shouldn't be a problem as long as White keeps Mitrovic quiet, their style of play is much different to the above three teams we struggled against & constantly have done over many seasons.

[1964white]

I think everyone forgets that MB had been making late changes to the defence in the previous 7 games too.

The difference being we previously made the correct changes.

[mothbanquet]

It really depends who we play, I know I sound like a broken record but our defence looked shaky against Cardiff, Millwall & Sheff Wed, three teams who use bullying tactics & like to play the ball in the air.

We needed Cooper in all three games, you certainly shouldn't take off your 3rd choice so-called CB when you're hanging onto a lead

Fulham shouldn't be a problem as long as White keeps Mitrovic quiet, their style of play is much different to the above three teams we struggled against & constantly have done over many seasons.

Agreed, and Huddersfield too used the same tactics to good effect. If not for the heroics of Kiko the game could have turned out very differently. However, the result was an away win with a clean sheet, so the subject of what could have been is pushed to the background, rightly or wrongly.

Was this a case of riding our luck too long? Looking back at Cardiff's goals, at least two of them are purely down to lack of positional awareness or concentration on the part of the defenders. Their first was either a truly excellent shot or wayward cross, either way it went because it capitalised on an error in Kiko's judgement, not a result of bullying. The equaliser was a pacey break between our CBs, not winning a tussle in the box to score from a header. We've suffered so few of these kinds of goals which were our Achille's Heel last season, but Strujik was out of position to allow the striker to break so maybe they simply forgot these kinds of attacks existed...

Beyond reminding the lads to keep switched on and perhaps offering a difference in communication with Kiko, I don't see how Cooper's presence would have effected those particular goals and their physical game has no influence on that beyond what we saw. Maybe Neil Harris is just Monk 2.0 in that he's just destined to get some sort of a result from us no matter what.

I certainly can't argue your gripes with taking off CBs when in a winning position, because that makes perfect sense logically and Bielsa this season has been much more willing to make defensive substitions, so he has proven to adhere to the same logic. I will let more tactically-informed people make an argument on this point because I may well miss or not understand the minutae.

Ultimately though, as you say, Fulham will be the real point of comparison. Was Cardiff an aberration or the start of some kind of decline? Impossible to tell until then. We've shown we can contain strong physical presences and aerial threats, of which Mitrovich is probably the most dangerous example in this league, so a clean sheet will be a challenge. We will see.

[The Subhuman]

The difference being we previously made the correct changes.

It's correct when it works, incorrect when it doesn't. Hindsight is 20/20 and an all too easy weapon to criticize using

[The Subhuman]

Isn't riding your luck what every winning team does?