Leeds United Premier League Adventures

[Highgate]

56 minutes ago, David said:

I want that. But don’t want him. Wouldn’t even want him here making the tea.

Not being a fan of him as a manager is fair enough, but criticizing a man's tea making skills is surely below the belt ?

[Sith Happens]

3 minutes ago, Highgate said:

Not being a fan of him as a manager is fair enough, but criticizing a man's tea making skills is surely below the belt ?

in fairness David has a vested interest in his tea making ability,  what with his breakfast meetings and all. ?

[TigerTedd]

1 hour ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

To be fair, that doesn't come close to this....

 

Bless them. They’ve got dance moves and everything. 

[TigerTedd]

1 hour ago, Highgate said:

Yeah, who wants to get promoted and stay up in the Premier League while playing entertaining attacking football. ?

It’s overrated. 

[Ghost of Clough]

20 hours ago, Jourdan said:

Leeds will be fine. They are already seven points clear of the bottom three.

They’ll have days like today, but they should stay up comfortably.

They are poor defensively, but their aggressive pressing style always gives them a chance. 

They don’t have to be better than United. They have to be better than Brighton, Burnley, Fulham, WBA, and Sheff Utd and possibly a few others, which is hardly the challenge of a lifetime.

They’ll be absolutely fine.

Burnley, West Brom and Brighton are 3 of their next 4 league games. They'll be dragged into a relegation battle if they don't win at least one of those.

[Jourdan]

1 hour ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Burnley, West Brom and Brighton are 3 of their next 4 league games. They'll be dragged into a relegation battle if they don't win at least one of those.

Possibly.

On the other hand, they might also look at those games and think they could be out of reach if results go their way. They probably go into each of those games as favourites on current form.

I would like Leeds to implode as much as the next person, but the platform is there for them to stay up comfortably.

The teams below them have been that bad.

[Leeds Ram]

Bielsa may be an analytics nerd but he's also tactically extremely rigid and not massively sophisticated. Unlocking Bielsa ball is simply breaking their press at which point their wingbacks are too far up the pitch meaning oceans of space exists both behind and in front of them and matching their work rate i.e. following their runners. In the championship teams found this harder to do because of concentration levels dropping off in lesser players, less technically able players being able to break out of their aggressive press and fatigue setting in more quickly due to playing more games. Even in our division though  their form fell off the edge of the cliff around February as they started to tire making it much easier to match their intensity and break through their press.  In the premiership good quality teams such as Leicester etc. are already taking them to the cleaners on an increasingly regular basis. 

His inability to cope with a basic formation change in our second leg should have been the moment everyone realised this is a guy who just cannot adapt which is one of the reasons why he's never won anything. It is also why this guy is at Leeds United and not Barcelona. He's not a fraud as his approach to analytics and implementation of footballing philosophy is pretty unique from what I can gather but he's not god and not one of the best managers in the world despite what others claim.  

He won't relegate Leeds as they'll pick up enough points against good teams having an 'off day' and are just as good as 7/8 other teams in the division. But finishing 14th/15th (where they'll likely end up) isn't taking the premier league by storm like they all imagined they would. My guess would be he'll leave early next season after a string of poor results due to burnout in the core of the squad starts to hit. 

[Reggie Greenwood]

11 hours ago, Leeds Ram said:

Bielsa may be an analytics nerd but he's also tactically extremely rigid and not massively sophisticated. Unlocking Bielsa ball is simply breaking their press at which point their wingbacks are too far up the pitch meaning oceans of space exists both behind and in front of them and matching their work rate i.e. following their runners. In the championship teams found this harder to do because of concentration levels dropping off in lesser players, less technically able players being able to break out of their aggressive press and fatigue setting in more quickly due to playing more games. Even in our division though  their form fell off the edge of the cliff around February as they started to tire making it much easier to match their intensity and break through their press.  In the premiership good quality teams such as Leicester etc. are already taking them to the cleaners on an increasingly regular basis. 

His inability to cope with a basic formation change in our second leg should have been the moment everyone realised this is a guy who just cannot adapt which is one of the reasons why he's never won anything. It is also why this guy is at Leeds United and not Barcelona. He's not a fraud as his approach to analytics and implementation of footballing philosophy is pretty unique from what I can gather but he's not god and not one of the best managers in the world despite what others claim.  

He won't relegate Leeds as they'll pick up enough points against good teams having an 'off day' and are just as good as 7/8 other teams in the division. But finishing 14th/15th (where they'll likely end up) isn't taking the premier league by storm like they all imagined they would. My guess would be he'll leave early next season after a string of poor results due to burnout in the core of the squad starts to hit. 

The Covid break helped them enormously last season. Gave them a big rest which avoided the fatigue of the previous season 

[kevinhectoring]

23 hours ago, Leeds Ram said:

Bielsa may be an analytics nerd but he's also tactically extremely rigid and not massively sophisticated. Unlocking Bielsa ball is simply breaking their press at which point their wingbacks are too far up the pitch meaning oceans of space exists both behind and in front of them and matching their work rate i.e. following their runners. In the championship teams found this harder to do because of concentration levels dropping off in lesser players, less technically able players being able to break out of their aggressive press and fatigue setting in more quickly due to playing more games. Even in our division though  their form fell off the edge of the cliff around February as they started to tire making it much easier to match their intensity and break through their press.  In the premiership good quality teams such as Leicester etc. are already taking them to the cleaners on an increasingly regular basis. 

His inability to cope with a basic formation change in our second leg should have been the moment everyone realised this is a guy who just cannot adapt which is one of the reasons why he's never won anything. It is also why this guy is at Leeds United and not Barcelona. He's not a fraud as his approach to analytics and implementation of footballing philosophy is pretty unique from what I can gather but he's not god and not one of the best managers in the world despite what others claim.  

He won't relegate Leeds as they'll pick up enough points against good teams having an 'off day' and are just as good as 7/8 other teams in the division. But finishing 14th/15th (where they'll likely end up) isn't taking the premier league by storm like they all imagined they would. My guess would be he'll leave early next season after a string of poor results due to burnout in the core of the squad starts to hit. 

fascinating post thank you    I must admit I thought they would do better this season    Man U was a shocker for them    

Bielsa - like Klopp - has the ability to motivate players to cover the yards and execute that gegen press. Many managers (including PC) just can't energise their squad in this way, whatever the plan. It's a big part of the job. 

Bielsa has not under-performed. His squad is not a strong PL squad - this reflects that the owner (if I have it right) has about what MM has and it's not enough these days to get to the top.   Their dominance in the Championship before promotion reflected Bielsa's class. All teams have slumps and eventually he won promotion after strong showings in consecutive seasons. And hasn't he been offered bigger jobs than Leeds? I thought so but may be wrong there. The spirit of CLough was with us on the return leg - I didn't think at the time that Bielsa was to blame I thought it had more to do with their goalkeeper (but maybe I need to watch it again). 

Love the crouching thing. Sure he has a bucket and now a little chair to help him but half the time he just squats like a Chinese lady at a railway station. Not sure even Pep could do that. 

And his reluctance to speak English on English TV, bless him...

I like him and rate him even if he hides in hedges sometimes  

[Van der MoodHoover]

Spent about 100m on players since promotion haven't they? 

Perhaps their recruitment is a weakness.... 

[Leeds Ram]

14 hours ago, kevinhectoring said:

fascinating post thank you    I must admit I thought they would do better this season    Man U was a shocker for them    

Bielsa - like Klopp - has the ability to motivate players to cover the yards and execute that gegen press. Many managers (including PC) just can't energise their squad in this way, whatever the plan. It's a big part of the job. 

Bielsa has not under-performed. His squad is not a strong PL squad - this reflects that the owner (if I have it right) has about what MM has and it's not enough these days to get to the top.   Their dominance in the Championship before promotion reflected Bielsa's class. All teams have slumps and eventually he won promotion after strong showings in consecutive seasons. And hasn't he been offered bigger jobs than Leeds? I thought so but may be wrong there. The spirit of CLough was with us on the return leg - I didn't think at the time that Bielsa was to blame I thought it had more to do with their goalkeeper (but maybe I need to watch it again). 

Love the crouching thing. Sure he has a bucket and now a little chair to help him but half the time he just squats like a Chinese lady at a railway station. Not sure even Pep could do that. 

And his reluctance to speak English on English TV, bless him...

I like him and rate him even if he hides in hedges sometimes  

It's interesting as Klopp clearly is a very funny energetic guy- Bielsa comes across more like a weird guru borderline cult leader who'll get his players motivated in that way. So, he'll force players out who won't sign up to the programme and create a cohesive squad mentality- similar to Mourinho in that regard I guess. Again, this itself has problems as Mourinho and lesser managers such as Billy Davies who create a similar atmosphere have learned.  

I don't think he's underperformed but he's not working miracles with the squad he has got either this year so far. Leeds have spent quite significant sums on a few players in key areas to beef up that team i think.  All teams do have slumps yeah, but he has a habit such as in his time at Bilbao and Marseille of burning his teams out by the back end of the season. This tends to suggest it's not a natural cycle of form that teams go through but a natural result of the high intensity, high pressure game he plays. 

He's never taken on a world class club job like man utd etc.  no- he's managed Bilbao, Marseille, lazio, lille and leeds. He was only in charge of lazio for 2 days before quitting. He's never won a major title and his time in charge of Argentina and Chile was mixed not producing spectacular results or achievements there either. From what I can work out he joined Leeds because he'd walked away from Lazio and his time at Lille ended up in acrimonious circumstances as did his time in Marseille. 

In the second half of that game we shifted formation I believe to a diamond which Bielsa either didn't register or couldn't respond to- whilst their hysterical goalkeeper gave us an in the second half we completely dominated and could have scored more than we did. Most coaches would have changed it up... this is similar to Bielsa's issues in the premier league his inability to be flexible can end up harming the team. 

I'm not saying he's a bad coach or that i don't like him. I think he's a coach who plays a high pressing game driven by data but that actually tactically he's not as sophisticated as some claim he is. His data is very sophisticated but his way of playing (wingbacks, high press, runners from midfield) can be countered especially by teams who are good on the ball and willing to match their work rate. Bielsa from what I have seen has not had an answer when teams can do that to him. 

[Malagaram]

15 hours ago, kevinhectoring said:

fascinating post thank you    I must admit I thought they would do better this season    Man U was a shocker for them    

Bielsa - like Klopp - has the ability to motivate players to cover the yards and execute that gegen press. Many managers (including PC) just can't energise their squad in this way, whatever the plan. It's a big part of the job. 

Bielsa has not under-performed. His squad is not a strong PL squad - this reflects that the owner (if I have it right) has about what MM has and it's not enough these days to get to the top.   Their dominance in the Championship before promotion reflected Bielsa's class. All teams have slumps and eventually he won promotion after strong showings in consecutive seasons. And hasn't he been offered bigger jobs than Leeds? I thought so but may be wrong there. The spirit of CLough was with us on the return leg - I didn't think at the time that Bielsa was to blame I thought it had more to do with their goalkeeper (but maybe I need to watch it again). 

Love the crouching thing. Sure he has a bucket and now a little chair to help him but half the time he just squats like a Chinese lady at a railway station. Not sure even Pep could do that. 

And his reluctance to speak English on English TV, bless him...

I like him and rate him even if he hides in hedges sometimes  

Me to

[MuespachRam]

Just heard a brilliant description of Bielsa on the guardian podcast....he is just Keegan with a bucket. 

[TigerTedd]

Just heard them talking about Lampard on Talk Sport, and why some people want him to fail. Some were saying it’s not Lampard as such, it’s just Chelski, no one really likes them. But a Leeds fan texted in saying he wants Lampard to fail because of spy gate.

let it go man, let it go. 

But, you know what, Leeds may have beaten us last season on their way to getting promoted, but that was Philip Cocu’s Derby County. The last memory they’ll ever have of Frank Lampard’s Derby county is us beating them 4-2. Ah, happier times.

and he beat them again this season. I can see why they’re starting to bear a grudge. 

[Wolfie20]

1 hour ago, TigerTedd said:

The last memory they’ll ever have of Frank Lampard’s Derby county is us beating them 4-2. Ah, happier times.

Showing the full match on Sky Sports Christmas Day afternoon ?

[RadioactiveWaste]

Merry Christmas to Leeds fans.

The season of goodwill to all men.

[G STAR RAM]

Another to add to my list of unpopular views...

Leeds are an absolute breath of fresh air to the Premier League.

A team that actually thinks scoring goals is the most important stat in a game rather than number passes , xG etc

Their games are actually exciting to watch.

[Day]

I hope Burnley contain them all game, score in the last minute off Chris Woods backside having had 12% possession all game.

That would cheer me up no end. 

With Burnley’s game in hand, that could potentially put them a place closer to the bottom 3 where they belong.

[Day]

Turned Sky Sports on, just in time to hear that apparently Leeds are becoming everyone’s second favourite team.

What planet are these lot on ??

[DarkFruitsRam7]

52 minutes ago, David said:

I hope Burnley contain them all game, score in the last minute off Chris Woods backside having had 12% possession all game.

That would cheer me up no end. 

With Burnley’s game in hand, that could potentially put them a place closer to the bottom 3 where they belong.

Would also win me £60. Still happy for it to happen?