Vs Leeds away. (Matchday thread).

[Millenniumram]

1 hour ago, Harrowram said:

I wonder whether the budget issue is to do with FFP or perhaps Mel wants to sell and to do that he needs to get the finances in shape?

The latter, I believe

[DavesaRam]

Well that was one hell of a footballing lesson, although probably definitely not a lesson in ethics.

Whether or not spygate affected our mentality or not, the scene was set with almost immediate effect. Keogh went to head a clearance but got right under the ball which bounced and caught Wisdom by surprise, ending with him making a clumsy challenge in the area. Was it a peno? Could have been. Was it ruled out for offside? Yes. Should it have been? I was watching it at the pub and only saw one replay, which looked offside. Sky reckoned it was onside, but the commentators were so biased tonight that they were probably wearing the Leeds football kit!

But from then on, we were totally on the back foot. We couldn't put passes together, and were second to the ball on far too many occasions. The change for the second half made a difference, but we only really "got on to the pitch" for the last 20 minutes or so.

This Leeds team gave me a nasty reminder of the Revie era dirties. This team has phenomenal football talent, and played us off the park for most of the match. But as with the Revie sides of long ago, why on earth do they need to employ the dark arts, thuggery and blatant cheating? Anything more than an "after you, sir" challenge, and they were on the ground writhing in agony, while bleating to the ref for severe censure. Roofe is a tremendous striker, and his goal was beautifully taken, but he is such a dirty b............ as well. Virtually every challenge involved giving Keogh or Tomori a hefty push in the back. occasionally given .......... In addition Leeds were incredibly aggressive with their challenges, with each one giving the Ram a dilemma: risk having one of your limbs snapped off, or pull out of the challenge, which was our preferred option. So maybe it works, But it is ugly, and shouldn't be part of today's football. As for that studs in the face of Holmes - that should have been a straight red, and a penalty, and would have given us a chance to get back into the match. We didn't deserve it. The Sky "expert" opinion was that it was probably payback for the two penalties which Leeds should have had.

Oh, and there was a ref, but I am apparently not allowed to say any more than that for fear of mass murder of match officials at local league level. But what the hell, why not? Apart from the red card, he did OK, although once again, playing against a team employing the dark arts and thuggery, Derby ended up with more yellow cards than Leeds. In reality, I have no complaints about the cards given to Derby players, except for the one against Holmes - it was his first offence, after being manhandled badly all game. However, I am surprised that Bryson wasn't disciplined. But where were the yellow cards for the Leeds thuggery?

None of this officialdom affected the match though, simply because Derby weren't at the races until the finishing flag was already being waved, Yet again, we started too slowly, for whatever reason. We do need more bite in our challenges, and Leeds, along with many others, have shown that overt, even excessive aggression works. But do we want that aspect to our play, where bite becomes violence? I say no, and am delighted that Robert Huth has quashed rumours of his arrival at Derby by stating that he has retired. We need bite, but we do not need thug, even though this may have contributed to Leeds supremacy tonight. Although there is a rather good DM just about to break through in the Luton team. Perhaps we should go and have a look at him?

At least until the WBA season-enderwe have only got the lsser teams of this division to play. You know, the ones we struggle to beat! So that's a positive.

Right what's next? Oh yes, off to the spygate thread, because that was really entertaining!

[Topram]

We miss Fozzy big time

[Bazal77]

Bottom line we were out played

no need for panic stations, it was Leeds night for sure but there’s still so much more football to be played this season. 

Last night in terms of performance that was rock bottom. A line needs to be drawn and frank has to state that a performance like that is not acceptable from any one involved. 

Frank needs to take a look at himself more than anyone, he’s learnt a harsh harsh lesson from a top level manager who is equally adept at coaching football players as he is the “dark arts” 

in terms of the match there’s so much praise for Leeds but short of one fantastic cross and very fortunate goal, they didn’t create much and as fans we know how bad we played and they only got 2 haha (gotta find a positive somewhere)

a standard has to be set and maintained, it was spoken about after our last spanking by Leeds and it’s obvious we have fell well short 

as for the players who aren’t good enough blah blah 

look at Leeds last night they were bang average last season and this season .. pretty much the same players think there world beaters ... that’s down to the coach. Don’t give up on the players get behind them and everyone at the club 

[G STAR RAM]

5 hours ago, singaporeram said:

While not ignoring that we’ve had some fantastic moments this season - man u, chelsea, west brom, norwich etc ...

what a job Bielsa has done - that is a squad that was mid table last year and has now lost saiz and viera - keeper blackman broke his leg - baker’s gone back to chelsea - there’s a bunch of kids come in - their wage bill is mid table at best. The only money spent under this owner is on bamford, who’s hardly played. Hernandez is quality but not new. We outspent them on flo jo. 

As a club, obviously leeds are as bad as it gets and Allioski as irritating as you get but Bielsa - he’s a miracle worker

 

Of course it helps work miracles when you have prior knowledge of how your opponents will be setting up and what personnel they will be using!

[Chellaston Ram]

Its hurting still at the moment but knowing Derby we’ll probably go and beat Southampton on Wednesday 

[goldstar]

Just now, Chellaston Ram said:

Its hurting still at the moment but knowing Derby we’ll probably go and beat Southampton on Wednesday 

I hope you're right! Lawrence scoring a brace and Marriott with a cheeky goal or two. Perhaps even Wilson will be back and whip in a trademark free kick. Is that too much to ask?

[Topram]

Why is Waghorn getting over looked? Does Lampard not like him thought he was his number 1 target

[IronRam 140.6]

13 hours ago, KCG said:

I get so pissed-off by comments like this. We were rubbish. We are too lightweight. We have the team balance wrong. We have too many players not producing on a regular basis. Its meaningless pap saying the opposition are so good when we were so poor.

Us vs West Brom, Man utd, Norwich. Them poor or us good?. 

IMO Leeds have had two matches against us where they have been oustanding. I would go as far as to say had we had put up one of our A games ala one from the top list, we still would have lost both fixtures against them.

 

We have been embarrassingly poor against pretty much the bottom 8 of the EFL. The Leeds games are the probably the only two games  where we've been blown away by teams out of the top 6.

[Millenniumram]

35 minutes ago, Topram said:

We miss Fozzy big time

His ability to stop a cross certainly... We miss will Hughes even more tho... what total ******* sold him?

[Topram]

7 minutes ago, Millenniumram said:

His ability to stop a cross certainly... We miss will Hughes even more tho... what total ******* sold him?

Hughes is what we needed last night, get on the ball in the middle and keep it we had no midfield yesterday 

[IlsonDerby]

3 hours ago, MACKWORTHRAM said:

He tries the same things. His work rate and effort is awful. He rightly gets criticized for it and on the rare occasion he does something good he sticks his fingers in his ears Infront of the fans.

He's nowhere near as good as he thinks he is. Nowhere near.

I'm not expecting him to he consistent and do it every week.

But he has a lot more poor games than he does good ones. 

I can’t continue this argument against this level of bias. The last straw for me is this nonsense... 

Back up your allegations of a lack of effort with some statistics please. Anecdotal evidence isn’t good enough. 

[Ellafella]

59 minutes ago, DavesaRam said:

Well that was one hell of a footballing lesson, although probably definitely not a lesson in ethics.

Whether or not spygate affected our mentality or not, the scene was set with almost immediate effect. Keogh went to head a clearance but got right under the ball which bounced and caught Wisdom by surprise, ending with him making a clumsy challenge in the area. Was it a peno? Could have been. Was it ruled out for offside? Yes. Should it have been? I was watching it at the pub and only saw one replay, which looked offside. Sky reckoned it was onside, but the commentators were so biased tonight that they were probably wearing the Leeds football kit!

But from then on, we were totally on the back foot. We couldn't put passes together, and were second to the ball on far too many occasions. The change for the second half made a difference, but we only really "got on to the pitch" for the last 20 minutes or so.

This Leeds team gave me a nasty reminder of the Revie era dirties. This team has phenomenal football talent, and played us off the park for most of the match. But as with the Revie sides of long ago, why on earth do they need to employ the dark arts, thuggery and blatant cheating? Anything more than an "after you, sir" challenge, and they were on the ground writhing in agony, while bleating to the ref for severe censure. Roofe is a tremendous striker, and his goal was beautifully taken, but he is such a dirty b............ as well. Virtually every challenge involved giving Keogh or Tomori a hefty push in the back. occasionally given .......... In addition Leeds were incredibly aggressive with their challenges, with each one giving the Ram a dilemma: risk having one of your limbs snapped off, or pull out of the challenge, which was our preferred option. So maybe it works, But it is ugly, and shouldn't be part of today's football. As for that studs in the face of Holmes - that should have been a straight red, and a penalty, and would have given us a chance to get back into the match. We didn't deserve it. The Sky "expert" opinion was that it was probably payback for the two penalties which Leeds should have had.

Oh, and there was a ref, but I am apparently not allowed to say any more than that for fear of mass murder of match officials at local league level. But what the hell, why not? Apart from the red card, he did OK, although once again, playing against a team employing the dark arts and thuggery, Derby ended up with more yellow cards than Leeds. In reality, I have no complaints about the cards given to Derby players, except for the one against Holmes - it was his first offence, after being manhandled badly all game. However, I am surprised that Bryson wasn't disciplined. But where were the yellow cards for the Leeds thuggery?

None of this officialdom affected the match though, simply because Derby weren't at the races until the finishing flag was already being waved, Yet again, we started too slowly, for whatever reason. We do need more bite in our challenges, and Leeds, along with many others, have shown that overt, even excessive aggression works. But do we want that aspect to our play, where bite becomes violence? I say no, and am delighted that Robert Huth has quashed rumours of his arrival at Derby by stating that he has retired. We need bite, but we do not need thug, even though this may have contributed to Leeds supremacy tonight. Although there is a rather good DM just about to break through in the Luton team. Perhaps we should go and have a look at him?

At least until the WBA season-enderwe have only got the lsser teams of this division to play. You know, the ones we struggle to beat! So that's a positive.

Right what's next? Oh yes, off to the spygate thread, because that was really entertaining!

Such a good post that I enjoyed reading and agreed with thoroughly. Our players were psychologically absent in stark contrast to Leeds who were at the pinnacle of preparedness for a match that they profoundly dominated. 

[North East Ram]

11 minutes ago, Topram said:

Hughes is what we needed last night, get on the ball in the middle and keep it we had no midfield yesterday 

We’ve missed Hughes every game since he left. He’d improve our team by leaps and bounds and that’s no criticism of our current players. I really think he’d help FL achieve his style; energy, press, pass etc. 

He has so much composure, skill and experience. We’ll never get another even if we had £20m for 1 player. Unless we spend it on Hughes!

Bloody Gary. Nick Leeson invested more shrewdly.

[Millenniumram]

23 minutes ago, Topram said:

Hughes is what we needed last night, get on the ball in the middle and keep it we had no midfield yesterday 

Indeed, best we can do at the moment is stick Holmes in there imo. Better than at rb that’s for sure 

[Anag Ram]

Tom Huddlestone would have filled that gaping hole in front of the back four.

He would also have reduced the panic on the ball.

Has to be him plus two runners in midfield until we get someone better.

[Mafiabob]

Yeah you are allowed @DavesaRam but don’t go playing victim when someone challenges your comments about officials. Which you consistently do

Pretty much agree with everyone on here and thought he missed a lot last night. 

[RamNut]

9 minutes ago, Anag Ram said:

Tom Huddlestone would have filled that gaping hole in front of the back four.

He would also have reduced the panic on the ball.

Has to be him plus two runners in midfield until we get someone better.

He'd also have been less mobile than Stephen Hawking

[Sith Happens]

As the ref took no action with the challenge by the keeper on holmes i think the league could charge him with dangerous play.

Damning evidence looking at holmes before putting his boot in. Has to be dealt with surely. 

Especially if Johnson was charged for a non bite.

[angieram]

5 minutes ago, RamNut said:

He'd also have been less mobile than Stephen Hawking

We had mobility all over the park last night. Absolutely useless if it isn't complemented by some basic ball control and accurate passing.