The view on last nights game and the Marcelo Bielsa effect

[DanS1992]

Well I hate to say it (and I really do) but wow to the dirty Leeds, credit when credit is due, that was total football. Being a Rams fan who has lived in France for the last 18 years, I know first hand what a Bielsa team can do from his 1 year stint at Marseille a couple of years back. I have a friend who is massive marseille fan and I watched most of their games under Bielsa and I had never seen anything like it before. This is why it is not the time to panic. It is going to take a bit of time for Lamps to sort things out. I can garantee that we will not be the only team that bielsa spanks. He has a knack of turning average players into world beaters (this is the same leeds side that finished mid table), he did this at marseille. His high tempo, hi pressing style of football which is comparable to the dutch style total football of the cruyff era is a joy to behold, even if it was leeds i was in awe. Bielsa only knows one way to play, attack attack and attack, and when the ball is lost recover it quickly. Leeds will and I hate to say it go far this season and they should enjoy it while it lasts because Bielsa has a habbit of not staying at one club for too long. You only need to see what some of the best coaches in the world say about him, Guardiola, Simeone and Pocchetino don’t blow smoke up this argentines backside for no reason and we saw why they do today. This is the style of football we should aspire to play, hell all teams should aspire to play, and even if it was dirty leeds we can all agree it was pretty impressive.

However this said, from what I saw there are a few glaring problems to sort out from our perspective.

Having watched tonight’s game on Sky and most of last seasons games on Rams Tv, Keogh HAS TO GO. Enough is enough. He is no captain and no defender. He constantly gives the ball away with wayward passing and his lack of awarness. His positional sense is none existant, he is a constant liability in our back line. I have vigorously defended him on numerous occasions but enough is enough he does not have the level required. Sell or hell even terminate his contract, I never want to see him put on a rams shirt again. Im sure Frank will have noticed this by now and when Davies is back fit, I can see Keogh benchwarming for a while.

Secondly, Max Lowe is not ready yet, his positioning is bad (he was at fault for at least two of the goals) and i think frank can see that he is not ready yet, hence the signing of Scott Malone.

Next on to Wisdom. Well we need a new right back, offers very little going forward, and seems to slow the game down when we do get into favorable attacking positions. He can’t rely just on physical strength as we saw tonight.

Finally onto Ledley and the CDM role. Well he looks knackered and i dont think he can keep up with the pace of the game. Frank saw this and subbed him at half time. Hope Evans can do the role, because sadly I don’t think we will see Thorne again.

As I said before, there is no need to panic, but we do need to sort out these four problems. Otherwise, i think we have one hell of a player in Mason Mount, very elegant and technically gifted, Tomori looked okay, put a decent centre half next to him (i.e Davies) to cover for his occasionnal mistakes. Waghorn couldn’t do much because of our inability to keep the ball and the poor service received. Jozefzoon looked lively as did Bennett. And Carson was amazing again, could not do much about the goals with the defence he has in front of him. The nucleus of a decent team is there, Lamps just needs to solve the four problems stated above, and we must give him time. He is a clever bloke and will know where the liabilities are in time. Due to past managers doing buisness like they playing football manager (i.e Clement, Rowtw*t…) a good season for us would be an 10th to 7th place finish and anything above would be a mighty bonus.

[Rambalin]

My Leeds mates are not convinced just yet they say they played the same at the start of last season blowing teams away 5 wins in 7. Then it all blew up when it started to get top Autumn and sides began to nullify Saizand he got himself suspended.They finished thirteenth.

Bielsa's recent teams on domestic leagues have faded badly too.

[RadioactiveWaste]

Leeds are magnificent and absolutely on it last night - can they sustain tthat level? If they can keep that up they're going places. However, they may well burn out and its a long season.

Still, they've spanked us and stoke and you've got to credit the football they played.

[YorkshireRam]

2 hours ago, DanS1992 said:

Well I hate to say it (and I really do) but wow to the dirty Leeds, credit when credit is due, that was total football. Being a Rams fan who has lived in France for the last 18 years, I know first hand what a Bielsa team can do from his 1 year stint at Marseille a couple of years back. I have a friend who is massive marseille fan and I watched most of their games under Bielsa and I had never seen anything like it before. This is why it is not the time to panic. It is going to take a bit of time for Lamps to sort things out. I can garantee that we will not be the only team that bielsa spanks. He has a knack of turning average players into world beaters (this is the same leeds side that finished mid table), he did this at marseille. His high tempo, hi pressing style of football which is comparable to the dutch style total football of the cruyff era is a joy to behold, even if it was leeds i was in awe. Bielsa only knows one way to play, attack attack and attack, and when the ball is lost recover it quickly. Leeds will and I hate to say it go far this season and they should enjoy it while it lasts because Bielsa has a habbit of not staying at one club for too long. You only need to see what some of the best coaches in the world say about him, Guardiola, Simeone and Pocchetino don’t blow smoke up this argentines backside for no reason and we saw why they do today. This is the style of football we should aspire to play, hell all teams should aspire to play, and even if it was dirty leeds we can all agree it was pretty impressive.

However this said, from what I saw there are a few glaring problems to sort out from our perspective.

Having watched tonight’s game on Sky and most of last seasons games on Rams Tv, Keogh HAS TO GO. Enough is enough. He is no captain and no defender. He constantly gives the ball away with wayward passing and his lack of awarness. His positional sense is none existant, he is a constant liability in our back line. I have vigorously defended him on numerous occasions but enough is enough he does not have the level required. Sell or hell even terminate his contract, I never want to see him put on a rams shirt again. Im sure Frank will have noticed this by now and when Davies is back fit, I can see Keogh benchwarming for a while.

Secondly, Max Lowe is not ready yet, his positioning is bad (he was at fault for at least two of the goals) and i think frank can see that he is not ready yet, hence the signing of Scott Malone.

Next on to Wisdom. Well we need a new right back, offers very little going forward, and seems to slow the game down when we do get into favorable attacking positions. He can’t rely just on physical strength as we saw tonight.

Finally onto Ledley and the CDM role. Well he looks knackered and i dont think he can keep up with the pace of the game. Frank saw this and subbed him at half time. Hope Evans can do the role, because sadly I don’t think we will see Thorne again.

As I said before, there is no need to panic, but we do need to sort out these four problems. Otherwise, i think we have one hell of a player in Mason Mount, very elegant and technically gifted, Tomori looked okay, put a decent centre half next to him (i.e Davies) to cover for his occasionnal mistakes. Waghorn couldn’t do much because of our inability to keep the ball and the poor service received. Jozefzoon looked lively as did Bennett. And Carson was amazing again, could not do much about the goals with the defence he has in front of him. The nucleus of a decent team is there, Lamps just needs to solve the four problems stated above, and we must give him time. He is a clever bloke and will know where the liabilities are in time. Due to past managers doing buisness like they playing football manager (i.e Clement, Rowtw*t…) a good season for us would be an 10th to 7th place finish and anything above would be a mighty bonus.

After speaking to a Huddersfield fan, Malone is apparently terrible defensively and while he is very attacking, is also often very wasteful when he gets into good positions.

For me, it would be hard to put in a solid defensive performance when the rest of the back 4 looked incredibly shaky, and Ledley failed to screen most of the time, but Lowe and Tomori looked the better 2 of the 4. We desperately missed the composure that Davies seems to bring to the entire back 4, Keogh was like a deer in headlights and looked out of his depth.
I'd like to see: Lowe   Davies    Tomori     Wisdom   , before we start writing off either of the fullbacks