Fulham v Leeds Utd Match Thread

[mothbanquet]

End of the day results elsewhere mean the drop points in the last 2 matches have only seen us reduce our 10 point gap to 9 points. Okay WBA are a little further ahead but that is fairly irrelevant as top 2 is all that matters rather than top1. We lost today but again it wasn't like we were outplayed or that the opposition rained shots down on us, think they had 3 on target and 1 of those was the penalty. We didn't get the rub of the green today, a penalty that was never a penalty, a penalty that Kiko was then unlucky not to save, we then hit the post etc

And to be honest I felt we played poorly yet even playing poorly we were a match for the 3rd placed team in the division.

Exactly. Nothing I've seen here today makes me think we won't walk over most teams in this league. If we got battered a la WBA away last season then fair enough but this wasn't one of those occasions and everyone who saw the game knows it. Still plenty of leeway and we're too good for this to be a trend.

[Cjay]

I've had doubts for a while and I honestly don't think Eddie is a fit, not saying he's not a good player but ...

I've never believed MB wanted him, the pacey poacher but with limited all round game never really fit the MB way.

Good player as you say but the wrong player.

[mothbanquet]

I've never believed MB wanted him, the pacey poacher but with limited all round game never really fit the MB way.

Good player as you say but the wrong player.

Shame as it was a bit of a fairytale we wanted to come true, but Che Adams would be a better fit in retrospect. If it happens.

[BGwhite]

Need to think about a replacement for Pablo imo. If it's hammy he's probably out for 6-8 weeks knowing his previous recovery times unless it's just a twinge he felt.. hopefully. I really do think it's ridiculous that our most creative player is nearly 35 and without him we look half the team. Again this is just plain and simple bad management !

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[BGwhite]

At least we're not top at Xmas !Any team in 2nd had an 8 pt lead at Xmas and not been promoted ?

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[Mick Jones shoulder]

Still created enough chances to win the game even though we weren't that good. Bit poor defensively over the last two games, but not a great deal of damage points wise.
Stuff Preston happy days.

Eddie looks a great finisher just doesn't currently have the all round game Bielsa requires.

[rrfierce]

I know bamford works hard and has scored 10 goals but he seriously needs to.put more of these chances away. He must have had 10 shots, and if he was more of a finisher then these disappointing results would probably be even less frequent

[60sUnited]

Unfortunately due to family commitments I couldn't follow any of todays game BUT having read all of the comments and seeing the result sadly its no surprise to me, I am starting to worry now that we are showing signs of last season........obviously hope I am wrong !

[HarryofOz]

Bugger

[Norm]

I think, like Rab, that too much negativity somehow finds its way onto the pitch via the nervous vibes from our fans, which is then when the players start to perform less efficiently, missing chances to score and failing to pass the ball accurately.

[Norm]

...and then we lose narrowly again and confidence becomes a luxury, so please let's not have too many negatives on here. We're all distressed by the 2 results but we're confident of good results again from now on.

[John in Louisiana]

What Norm said.

[BGwhite]

The negativity is born from decades of disappointment and failures at the final hurdle and I'm quite sure that there would be more around had it not been for a large points gap to 3rd . I'm very sure that anything other than a win against Preston will incite more negativity and it's all down to the dim past. It's down to the club to put this behind them and move on starting in Thursday with a win.

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[1964white]

Lets blame our magnificent paying fans when we play poorly

[Chilli D]

...and then we lose narrowly again and confidence becomes a luxury, so please let's not have too many negatives on here. We're all distressed by the 2 results but we're confident of good results again from now on.

Half way through the season, first defeat in 12, three points off the top and nine points clear of third. Distressed? Not me Norm

[dezzy]

Didn’t see the game as was travelling to Galway, in paper losing away to Fulham isn’t the end of the world and we’ve been on a great run, but it’s the injury to Pablo that could be the worst thing to come from that game, if he’s out for a while we will miss him. Let’s hope Roberts and Shackleton can hit the ground running

[rich_leeds64]

Let blame our magnificent paying fans when we play poorly

I don’t think anyone’s blaming fans at the match, but I know what Rab and Norm are saying. Having spent many Saturdays in the stands with the most passionate bunch of supporters in the country then sometimes the moans of a missed chance or the groans of a wayward pass can sound negative but it’s only because we’re so desperate to win.
The main source of negativity is social media where we have keyboard warriors who’ve probably never been near a live game posting absolute s**t about certain players or the whole team. Players are always on Twitter or whatever and see this and it’s this that I believe can be damaging.

One defeat in 12 and 27 is great and af he end if the day we deserved far more yesterday. Bounce back against Preston and everyone’s happy as it’ll help keep the gap between us and 3rd

[weasel]

...and then we lose narrowly again and confidence becomes a luxury, so please let's not have too many negatives on here. We're all distressed by the 2 results but we're confident of good results again from now on.

Panic sets in if you take 1 or 2 results in isolation and judge them as being all important. If you look at the last block of 10 matches then we have done amazingly points wise. There is a reason why we have never got 10 wins in a row throughout our 100 year history and that is because in football anything can happen to make you lose or draw a game, chances missed, opposition keeper has a blinder, opposition play really well, ref is poor etc etc.

We're still top 2, a healthy gap and we have seen over the last few weeks that the teams below us are all dropping points. We have taken 1 point from our last 2 games and the gap has gone from 10 points to 9 points not from 10 to 4. During our winning run did we play better against Huddersfield than we did against Fulham, did we play better against Reading than we did against Cardiff? Different results but not necessarily better performances.

When we fell away in the Garry Monk season we fell away because we played abysmally. We deserved to lose the matches we did. In fact the second half of that season saw our keeper, Robert Green, as the best performer by a mile - that says an awful lot about the problems we had. Worth noticing that during our winning run there were 2 games where Kiko Casillas won the man of the match award.

If we took our last 10 games a block rather than just focusing on the last 2 results but instead of the winning run we put the Fulham loss in the middle of the 10 matches then it is a great run of form. Main thing now is not to panic, be that fans or players, but to carry on doing the good things we have been doing and try to work on the bad things. There is a reason we are top 2.

[rab_rant]

[1964white]

Leeds fans giving one of the nicest neutral football fans around, Benjamin has a soft spot for Leeds

Love the clip with his girlfriend & dogs