The #LUFC Breakfast Debate (Tuesday 16th April) - Do Leeds United have a Plan B?

[Ellandback1]

Good Morning. It's Tuesday 16th April, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road...


Do Leeds United have a Plan B?

When Leeds have been playing well, they've been unstoppable, and have motored through their competition like a hot knife through butter, but what happens when they falter? With one win in five, and games running out fast, it seems Daniel Farke has run out of ideas and Leeds out of steam. The petrol light is desperately flashing, yet nobody thought of filling up the tank in January when given the opportunity.

To think they could breeze through the season, with just three loanee's is massively short sighted, especially as they are still recovering from losing 12 first team players who temporarily exited Elland Road last Summer! To say Leeds are predictable is an understatement. Set-pieces and aerial supremacy are a long way down on Leeds agenda, and without any target men to hold the ball up, or cause havoc from corners, their options are extremely limited.

The club failed to prepare for relegation last season, and quite obviously have approached this campaign in the same nonchalant manner! Why don't they learn by their mistakes?





Should Farke stay if Leeds miss out on promotion

Only so much blame can be attributed to the International Break, as Leeds look to recover from their sudden loss of form! Five points from a possible twelve have severely dented Leeds automatic promotion hopes, and Daniel Farke must take his share of the blame. Team selection and substitutions have come in for criticism in recent times, as has his teams set play routines.

Farke has a fantastic reputation for getting out of the Championship, but as things stand, if Leeds do manage it, it will be the hard route! If they fail, should they stick with Farke, knowing that the majority of their better players will depart in the Summer?

[Clitheroe White]

Should Farke stay if Leeds miss out on promotion? - YES

We have done well this season so far., and it may yet be amazing!
It's an exceptional season with other teams performing so strongly.
We have more points than Bielsa at this stage.
Who would we get who is better?

Therefore it's a resounding yes, we should look to keep him. 100%

[airedale]

Yes farke should stay .
Injuries to rutter and gnonto have done for us right at the end of the season, the fact that our set pieces are pants gives the opposition the option to hack down our players at will with no fear of conceding a goal.
In my opinion bamfords streak was more to do with firpo joining the starting 11 and providing the overlap.
Get piroe in the team at 8 10 or 9 i don't care.
Practice set pieces and train summerville to use his left foot and pass now and again .

[WhiteRose]

I dont want to give opposition managers the credit by saying we have been worked out, they are just using the tried and tested low block to frustrate us and force us into making wreckless subs. In this scenario set pieces are our best weapon but we are so bad at them, i think it’s the lack of intelligent movement in the box that’s the biggest issue rather than the crosses themselves, tactic seems to be to crowd the keeper.

No matter how the season ends, up to now you would be short sighted to say it’s been a bad one, Farke has done well and I think it would be daft to get rid of a manager who would have us up there fighting again - need some good signings to sort out the poor return on goals from midfield.

[Chilli D]

There are a number of potential reasons why our form has slumped recently but right now it's purely down to not putting the ball in the back of the net. With the exception of the Sunderland game we are still creating enough chances to win games but not being clinical enough.
Teams are well aware of the threat Summerville poses and are stifling him when he gets the ball and our creator-in-chief Georginio has not been the same since his operation.
I'm sure Leicester and Ipswich fans will be saying similar things about their own teams recent form so it's all down to whoever can turn things around, and do it now.
Automatic promotion is looking less likely for us now but not out of the question by any means when you look at all the remaining games.
If we end up in the play offs, so be it. It gives us a second chance of going up.

[wilsdenwhite]

Yes Farke should stay. I actually think we'd have a stronger second year under him much like we did with Bielsa. Most people thought Farke would be taking us up at the first attempt given his record at this level and he still might but I'd have settled for a top 6 finish and a good season after the summer we had and he has bettered that by some distance. He deserves another season whatever the outcome.

But will the 49ers feel the same if he fails to get us up? They'd need a blockbuster appointment to show their intent if they sack Farke.

[Kennyb41]

No way on this earth do i want him to leave whilst we've still got loads to sort out, and he seems the right level headed bloke to do it.

He needs at least 1 more year to muddle thru the loaned out shite, he needs 2 more windows at least to build on what he's started.

He is handling the stuff he's picked up fantastically well, got us money back for Sini, Adams by identifying who we've already got that are very similar if not better players, he has brought thru Gray at the right time for him.

There are umpteen +pluses and hardly any -negatives seeing as he's been working with his own £5m bargain shop buys whilst balancing the books.

There is still a helluva lot more work to be done, and he's got a hold of the reins with the tasks in hand, we don't see the background work he's working on. I don't feel NONE of the 49ers, Kinnear, scouts or indeed any fecker, can oversee the things we need better than him, better the Devil you know, than to get some lunatic that we don't know what the fck he's gonna be about, whether he can get the same out of our average players, or need to spend £gazillions we don't have, to make us what ? Worse ?

[Jaydog]

No point in asking the question to me unless you tell me what the alternative is. Remember last time.
Bielsa to Marsch

[CUSSIE01]

DF has to be given the chance to finish the job if we don’t get promoted, I’ve praised him all season but have given him stick the last few games like everyone else for his team selection, late substitutions, early subs, the wrong subs but if we’d knocked in a couple of late goals v Sunderland & Blackburn we’d be hailing him as the new Messiah. Fickle things football supporters. At the start of the season if someone had offered me a chance of automatic promotion & a guaranteed play off position at this stage they’d have no fingers left.

[Jaydog]

What was his finishing position first season at Norwich? From memory (and I’m too bloody lazy to look it up Cjay) it was mid table….

[1964white]

Yes Farke should stay. I actually think we'd have a stronger second year under him much like we did with Bielsa. Most people thought Farke would be taking us up at the first attempt given his record at this level and he still might but I'd have settled for a top 6 finish and a good season after the summer we had and he has bettered that by some distance. He deserves another season whatever the outcome.

But will the 49ers feel the same if he fails to get us up? They'd need a blockbuster appointment to show their intent if they sack Farke.

Totally agree, Wilsden I said it on another thread this week.

Some of our negative fans will tell you different, such as we are doomed for mid-table mediocrity under the 49ers.

Why would you sack a manager, who had a disrupted start to the season & has lost only two games in this calendar year & we should finish this unprecedented season with 90+ points on limited resources?

[Sean_Nile]

When Leeds have been playing well, they've been unstoppable, and have motored through their competition like a hot knife through butter, but what happens when they falter?

A motorised hot knife now there's a thought, if not a mixed metaphor.

The tank is empty and we are running on fumes is another evocative turn of phrase.

The former harks to a time of energy and confidence, the latter to a time of tepid ineptitude.

And the team are left with their feet in two camps, one hot and one cold.

And while we are invested in literary allusions what better way than to quote John of Patmos:

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

What a pronouncement to make on any team.

[Ellandback1]

I dont want to give opposition managers the credit by saying we have been worked out, they are just using the tried and tested low block to frustrate us and force us into making wreckless subs. In this scenario set pieces are our best weapon but we are so bad at them, i think it’s the lack of intelligent movement in the box that’s the biggest issue rather than the crosses themselves, tactic seems to be to crowd the keeper.

No matter how the season ends, up to now you would be short sighted to say it’s been a bad one, Farke has done well and I think it would be daft to get rid of a manager who would have us up there fighting again - need some good signings to sort out the poor return on goals from midfield.

The thing is, we don't go looking for free kicks, unlike every other team in the division

[Barlow Boy]

Absolutely Farke should stay, the carnage he inherited, and had to run with for a time, is forgotten by some. If it means we have to wait another year, before promotion, so be it.

The last thing we need is starting all over again.

[whiteswan]

The thing is, we don't go looking for free kicks, unlike every other team in the division

Georgie and Paddy do

[Irish Ian]

Only am idiot would get rid if Farke this season.
Or next season either.

As this this plan A plan B tripe.

It's the most mythical bollocks of a concept ever in the history of sport. It ignores the fact that players have peaks and troughs in fitness and form and sometimes it doesn't come off, no matter how hard you try or what you do the opposition get one over on you.

[Overman]

No point in asking the question to me unless you tell me what the alternative is. Remember last time.
Bielsa to Marsch

Ron Atkinson.

[Jaydog]

Ron Atkinson.

He’s only 85. Why not.

[mentalcase]

Should Farke stay if Leeds miss out on promotion? - YES

We have done well this season so far., and it may yet be amazing!
It's an exceptional season with other teams performing so strongly.
We have more points than Bielsa at this stage.
Who would we get who is better?

Therefore it's a resounding yes, we should look to keep him. 100%

^THIS ^
The job wasn't ever a quick 1 season fix was it !!
This is a project, you can't sack someone less than 1 year into a 4 year project.

[1964white]

Absolutely Farke should stay, the carnage he inherited, and had to run with for a time, is forgotten by some. If it means we have to wait another year, before promotion, so be it.

The last thing we need is starting all over again.

It's hard to believe some of our fans forget the early season turmoil.

I'm up for waiting another season, I've enjoyed the current one.