CHAPELALLMAN wrote: ↑Tue Mar 09, 2021 9:23 am
I stated a few of my opinions on here recently ;
And I think I'll echo/expand/oppose these here as these are some of the main issues.
1) That the team are a bit of a soft touch defensively this season - especially at set pieces.
The numbers don't lie. It does remind me of that first Championship season, where every time the opposition went forward it felt like they would score. I didn't miss it either. It's simply the ying/yang of Bielsa's system but that's what goal difference shows us - overall it's not too far skewed one way or the other. If we conceded even 10 less goals from all sources this season this in real terms would mean we would've won several more games and put us sniffing around the top 6. This we all know is an unrealistic proposition.
What I'm trying to say is the goals conceded have been balanced out by goals scored and overall don't mean we are a poor team. There are also factors like once Koch gets back in, not to mention he and Llorente having more time to develop partnerships and getting used to the system itself as well as the standards required in the Prem. Not to mention that better quality attackers and retainers of the ball will lead to less loss of possession and pressure on our defenders.
What we're seeing here is the absolute worst of things. We can only improve the defensive stats from here and when we do - through the transfer market or by other means - this will mean massive gains in the results we get. Losses will become draws, tight games will be won.
TLDR; this is to be expected, we've seen it before but things will improve and when they do, it will be special.
2) That Klich may have reached his ceiling as a good championship player.
I would say what I said before and that's that we know what Klich is capable of at his best but he doesn't show his best often enough or consistently enough to play at this level. I refuse to believe the club would let him play with an injury and he's been one of the mainstays of the squad, with endless reserves of stamina since Bielsa arrived. Whatever his problem is, it's not physical.
I think something's happened in his personal life, or done something to affect his confidence. There are too many unknowns for us to do anything but speculate, but by the same measure we don't have many other players of his quality to play in the position, inconsistent as the quality may be. Until someone comes in for him, we can only hope he has a few more games as good as he's had at other times in the season. Maybe he has reached his ceiling but it's not as a Championship player, I'd say upper-lower table Prem with sparks of lower-upper table at times.
3) That mid table status cannot be thought of as a given, nor should it be used as some kind of a barometer of success at this moment in time with so many games left to play this season, including some very difficult games.
Nothing is ever a given but perspective can be gained here by stepping into the shoes of sides below us. The fact is we're a better team with a much, much better manager than the vast majority of the teams below us in the table. Brighton and Newcastle are the ones to be worried about a relegation dogfight, not us, and following those teams and their games closely will show you why.
We only need 2 more wins (historically-speaking, 1 win) to guarantee survival. 40pts was the consensus at the start and remains so. The top 6 or 7 would have to drop an absurd number of points between now and the end of the season to make the relegation tide high enough to trouble us. Let's not start using the 'r' word until we actually look a worse team than the ones below us.
4) That some of the championship mainstays may not be good enough at this level - Cooper, Klich, Harrison, Alioski and Costa prinicipally. Roberts was never a mainstay. This is not disrespecting what some of those players did for the club in its championship promotion season.
You're right, it's not. I always enjoyed Vinnie Jones's anecdote where he mock-confronted Wilko in his hardman way while playing golf over him not being signed on. Wilko said it best - with a new league comes new competition, new priorities, all the way down to new playing surfaces and crowd mannerisms. New challenges require different toolsets. In our case Bielsa's system's made it easier in a way. All we need are better players and with that must come the admission that some players' Leeds careers have run their course.
In a weird way I feel Bielsa might be giving Roberts enough game time, experience and practice in the big time to up his value enough to move on. While Rodrigo is out, anyway. I think Roberts will be much better equipped for the Championship and will fetch a relatively decent price there. He'll likely find himself more suited to a traditional striker/AMF role in a club like Preston or Blackburn, and could excel there.
5) That Jack Harrison should not be signed in the summer - even for what seems like a bargain 10m. Better to use the 10m plus whatever extra is required to sign a consistent left winger.
This is a bit trickier than first appearances suggest, because to lose Jack would be to shunt Raph or Costa over to the left and who would take either of their places if they got injured? I feel that right now we've got a good balance of cover and aren't hurting too badly - mainly because Raph's quality is enough to compensate for the relative shortfall in Jack and Costa.
I agree in principle that £10mil spent on Jack would be £10mil better put towards a better player but there are positions in far more need of upgrading at the moment - LB, CM being priorities. The ideal solution I suppose would be to get him on loan yet another season while we shore up the rest of the squad. Maybe the reason we haven't signed him permanently yet is precisely because that's what we intend to do?
