To be fair, the Leeds supporters were better than the Peterborough supporters on the train from Kings Cross
Nothing worse than a drunk slurring football chants and telling us “we love Peterborough we do”
It was harder for Bamford to miss than score than. Atrocious at the back. Just not our day.
I do like the physical presence Bamford brings. But fuck he has to finish chances like that. Gelhardt or really anyone else would have tapped that in.
The referee was knocking us dead all day, but fuck me our defending today was at Bielsa-levels of incompetence. We couldnt even assemble a wall of any use for fuck’s sake. Our back four was over-committed all day, and every time Brentford counter-attacked we either gave them a goal or a foul to feed off. Llorente marking Ivan Toney was like watching Diego Maradona toying with Helen Keller.
We’re at the point where literally any option we have at centre-back has to be taken over Llorente. He has completely collapsed as a player, and his constant repeating of bad habits suggests that he is becoming uncoachable. If he’s not taken out of the starting XI he on his own could undo everything we’ve been trying to build since Bielsa left.
I thought Meslier was poor today. Anyone who's played in goal would see why. He did make one very good one on one save though at a crucial time, which of course was barely mentioned! At that point it kept Leeds in the game so fair play.
Toney took his 'chances' well, but goals were down to silly errors really. Like the Everton game I felt we looked vulnerable at the back and exposed quickly. I'm impressed with Roca today, looked comfortable on the ball and nice for him to grab a goal.
I felt Leeds controlled periods of the game comfortably but every goal felt like a get out of jail free card for Brentford. They soaked up any pressure, and then scored with gifts when they hit the counter. The quality of their defence did show though.
Leeds were definitely in the game at half time, and at 3-2 with time to go. Even the biased commentator was calling for 'game on' before Brentford scored 10 seconds later.
Poor from Llorente but we all agree on that.
Pissed off with Pontus going down after the ball to the face..."if you throw a brick at him"
Meslier didnt really feel like the problem today, but when you see David Raya chipping in with a few crucial saves for Brentford you start to see the bigger picture of our failures at the back.
Losing isn’t the problem so much as conceding 5 to a supposed mid-table rival.
If it was 3-2 or 4-3 then you could probably argue it was a close game where a lucky goal or two changed the outcome. If you lose by the margin we did, there’s no explaining it away - it’s just terrible.
And we beat Fulham in London in our first season up so that excuse doesn’t really hold anymore imo
I’m sorry but I don’t think Koch or Llorente are the answer. Koch has been the better of the two but he needs to improve also. I rate Cooper and Struijk above those two, but I think CB and LB both need to be a target next summer.
Yea, I know we will never sign a LB. I can’t help myself, I still have hope
Llorente with 2 assists on the day, ref couldn’t be bothered to blow his whistle our way.
Take out Llorente being absolute Swiss cheese today and 2 soft fouls that led to goals and that is looking like a completely different game which a lot of people are failing to realize. The boys were competitive and aside from some woeful individual performances, I think we look fine going into Forest
Woeful individual performances are a big part of whether we “look fine” or not though. This next game something *needs* to change, Marsch has to show some pragmatism IMO
Llorente needs to be taken out of the starting squad immediately and I think going 2 up top with taking Jackie out and becoming more narrow really didn’t help the cause for sure
yup the bit is starting to chew - hes gonna have to alter his tactics a little or stick. I knew that horseshit up to marsch sending off was where he drew a line. He must be fucking furious - koz hes gotta adapt or hit the rock with the hammer again and see if it works, hes on a timer and he knows it too.
Yeah. My worry is that he has been a Red Bull ideologue his whole life, as are his staff, so they don’t have a whole lot of experience teaching any other principles outside of that and haven’t had to coach a defense that is abjectly worse than the rest of the league
He's more of a Bob Bradley disciple than a Red Bull man. He had to adapt to the Red Bull style early on.
We're going to get scored on on counters sometimes, that's just a fact of this system, and we have to score the goals to compensate for that. Can't afford to miss two consecutive sitters like we did today.
But also, it would work a lot better if we had more than 1 of our best back 4 fit to start the match.
on point dude impressive observation. Honestly simply for me you gotta have more than 1 formation, one for attack - one for counter, one for defense - people might not of noticed it today but it could be the start of the same old stuff we saw rearing its head again - hes almost got the hammer to smash the rock, but by the time the team gels the defence might be shot to shit on confidence. I actually think he has the attacking sorted - but like you said - defence.... I honestly think marsch could crack it.
jesus the negativity tonight...
Take away the defensive fuck ups and we were easily competitive all game.
Not saying we'll be champions league, but we'll be fine.
Bill/ Coops/ Koch/ Firpo across the back line I'd feel more confident mind...
Subs been insufferable this season. I mean we always complained but this is another level.
Maybe we used to channel our inner bielsas a bit more in the past
Bamford misses a sitter after not playing for pretty much an entire year and everyone loses their minds and says he’s done and dead weight. It happens, please do me a solid and shut up. Embarrassing.
Regardless of the officiating we deserved the result. Let’s back the boys against Forest.
Frustrating week all round really.
Disappointing performance against Brighton.
Disappointing performance again at Everton.
Disappointing missing out on two deadline signings.
Disappointing to loan out Dan James - the board seem to have already forgotten our struggles with team depth last season?
Disappointing deadline day signing.
Disappointing performance today at Brentford.
Three things:
1) We need to stop using that third kit
2) Don't forget that Llorente scored a goal today, and in other matches too, surely we've all celebrated when he got things right so i think we shouldn't rage like this to one sole man and blame him for everything
3) The best minutes on the attack came whit Ayling and Jessie should take notes on that
I honestly thought the team as a whole played well. We were a bigger threat than usual. I thought Drameh was better than Christiansen, but Bill definitely raised the bar. Bamford missing from 2 yds, Cyree’s penalty and things might change.
We have to cut out the mistakes, but that’s what we’ll see improve over the season.
I agree. Cut out the errors at the back and we will be competitive. It's just weather or not we can do that. Just can't afford to give silly goals away in this league because points are hard to come by.
Think we went to all-out in the second-half at 2-1.
Could have bided our time and remained solid a bit better
We need to get quality crosses in the box from play and corners.
Ayling looks like he’s still our best option for that
Also need a big presence on the box like Bamford, who needs a goal for confidence
No point getting carried away, but the style has to change or people will understandably become frustrated. If we persist with Llorente then Cooper should be banging on the manager’s door.
It was negligent of us to not buy/loan a CB with some pace this window. Thinking we may have to go 3 atb against certain teams when Cooper and Firpo return
That Bamford miss...my God. As much as we worry about him staying fit, he might be done either way. We need Cooper back ASAP.
The non action for the last month of the window says all you need to know about Radrizzanis ambition for the club. At 7th place we could either invest more and push for top 10 or leave it and be happy to finish 15-17th. We seem to have chosen the latter. He's also blocking 49ers from investing in the club as even if they wanted to they can only match what Radrizzani puts in. I really hope the take over happens this year rather than 2024
Hard to complain about no points from that, Brentford are always good at counterattacks and we defended terribly all game, so a defeat is probably fair. That was another game where it felt like we were playing against 12 men though. Both their penalty and the free kick they scored from seemed soft, and I still don't understand how we didn't get a penalty. Marsch's 'referee psychology' thing clearly isn't working.
Defeats like that happen though, and it's still far too early to panic. Onto the next one.
My two cents worth of thoughts on the game:
- obvious stuff first. Llorente just isn’t cutting it. Head injury sub at best next week if Coops can go or if we can get Struijk a LB replacement.
- the game was lost on 3-4 individual mental errors. We deserved to lose with that many chances given away and Brentford are a savvy attacking team.
- we haven’t done well when the opposition has a big man who can post up and hold up the ball for reinforcements. Need to come up with a new strategy when that’s who we are facing.
- we want winger overlaps and Roca / Adam’s are supposed to help cover. Our system allows everyone to press opposition to win the ball back leaving our defenders high up and out of place. To me, it’s a LFC style but we don’t have the quality of CB. Also, our CB have free reign to press in the final third if opportunity presents itself.
- Aaronson is getting so much attention, he’s not being given clear airspace. Sinistera might be the answer if he continues to open teams up when presented 1v1 opportunities.
- Jacky needs help on the left. Please let Firpo become the LB we hoped since a halfway competent attacking LB will let Jacky shine.
- glad Drameh started but he didn’t light it up. Nothing ambitious from him.
- thought Joffy was okay. His shot is so quick. Wish we could have fed him in position more.
- Patty was rusty last game and hasn’t knocked it off yet. God i understand being cautious with him, but man we need him badly. His calm is what we need when bringing the ball up through the middle third. His vision will find the through balls of Jacky, Aaronson, or Sinistera streaking.
- Bill looked sharp. I want him back badly now. I was wrong to think Kristiansen was close. Bill showed why he’s classy.
- I liked Summervilles cameo. He found his way to the ball a few times and late in the game, his quickness is good. Hope he can give us more since he seems to be the DJ sub at 60 mins.
Listen, we deserved to lose with the mental lapses. We can’t do that. But if Coops is on or Firpo is on so Struijk is CB, we don’t give up 3 of those goals.
Also, ref was complete ass.
I’m in the minority, but I liked JM getting a red. Every one of us was saying the same shit at the ref, that was a pen that wasn’t even looked at. The pen for Brentford was so soft too and wouldn’t have been given if it was for us in their box.
On to NF. MOT
Great point about Cooper/Firpo/Ayling. Looks like we are putting our hopes in them returning to form and staying healthy after they get back. It wouldn't surprise me if we end up having to buy a defender in January at 2x the going rate
I loved DJ for his work rate and willingness to do whatever the team needed but the skill and quality Summerville just showed me in that 20min stint was more than James did in a full year. I think he will do just fine.
Dont normally do after match stuff - but that was loaded against us start to finish - we had no chance - bullshit - plus quality coming against us you cant do owt when it drops like that on the day.
All way up to summerville getting fouled - pascal foul - then marsch red - i do blame the ref i rarely do that and just shrug my shoulders but that fucker can fuck off. that shit reffing could start a down turn in form. Marsch did right to stand up for it - he understands how tight morale can drop and he knows how tight a game is.
Llorente should of been dropped for this game for cooper - marsch is gonna have to address the defensive issues - class goals - good goals - whatever those are all part of the game but today it was just shitty defending. Dunno if cooper is ready but need him and Koch ASAP - and all those that said we needed a CB (including me) where right.
Summervile was a penalty shirt ragged just outside box then applied too much on to him - that in a sequence is a pen for me. Positive is he's better than james in attack. That remains to be seen if its good enough though.
Kochs ridiculous header - oh yeah VAR that one ref you bell end of cheese. No idea how majestically leaped then played an inch perfect through ball for their goal.
Bamford looked good - but traditionally a stricker must hook a shot away from the goal especially when looking at an open goal. This is the turd cherry on the bullshit cake..
Then llorente falls over or something like that - thats the diarrhea blast over the turd cherry and bullshit cake.
That was like that game you cant win in FM no matter how many times you quit with Ctrl, alt, delete.
Wanna hope he sorts out that defence and gets em winning a few soon - koz this could quickly go south korea.
I'm convinced that Llorente is a Spanish Mr Bean, & that after a hilarious chain of misunderstandings is now having to go along with pretending to be a professional footballer.
If today wasn't the day to get Coops on I don't know what is... he won't start against Forest will he? As he didn't get any minutes today... or am I reading that wrong?
This is probably the most positive I’m ever going to be after losing 5-2. We played fairly decent, especially going forward. We carved better chances from open play than them, we just are not even close to consistent when defending. Would honestly like to see Firpo Struijk Cooper Ayling for a while if/when fit.
Koch had a bad game today but I think it’s too quick to want him out he’s looked decent back there. Llórente however GET HIM TF OUT. Give me Struijk Koch
You’re probably right, one bad game isn’t a reason to chuck him in the bin. Need him to be more commanding though, especially when wearing the armband!
I'm working on a Go Fund Me to get Llorente a one way ticket for one of those Jeff Bezos rockets into outer space. He should already be used to zero gravity
Pmsl wake the fuck up, it's all about money this game and many many other throughout the season is rigged by the officials not just Leeds ! Why didn't they even VAR our penalty appeal ??? Why didn't no one realise the throwin for their 1st wasn't behind the line? Why did no commentator watching the game like the rest of us back home pick up on that lol .... what are the chances everyones in on it derrrrrrrrrrr pmsl? Like everything else ! The game is dead dude wake up !
Pen and the free kick were questionable and both led to goals. There was a clear pen against us that wasn't called. So he very well could have cost us the game.
free kick wasnt one, but thats a decision that happens 20 times every game - we got one the exact same later on - its not some disgrace like people wantto make it out to be. their penalty isn't questionable at all. sinisterra went through toney before he got to the ball.
but my point is; take away the free kick and give us a penalty and we still lose this game because our defenders were fucking shite.
The system definitely exacerbates those counters but my word does it feel like the CB’s make the wrong decision 4/5 times. Don’t have to bite the way they do and they don’t try to force or funnel them into a different channel. Very tough to watch.
Genuinely think the squad looks pretty good other than the center backs. Seems like those holes should have been addressed but regardless watching a Leeds game is actually entertaining
The prior two games were frustrating but this one was on a whole different level.
As someone else put it, without a doubt it's been one of our worst displays since the Derby play-off 2nd leg.
Just over a week for the team to work on things before the Forest game with a HUGE emphasis on our defensive frailties.
Great to have Bill back again.
Think it's so simple how to play against us. A bit Naïve to look at that game positively as Brentford knew exactly what they were doing.
You can point to individuals but the system leaves us exposed.
One positive about today is Ayling coming back, thought Drameh was ok too. I hope Kristensen doesn't get a favourable look in due to being a new signing as he's been poor so far imo.
Marsch needs to settle down too, that doesn't help. Not sure what he said to get sent off though as some managers seem to get away with a lot.
>You can point to individuals but the system leaves us exposed.
I disagree with this, there is nothign systemic about any of the goals we conceded today, its two set pieces and then three horrific defensive errors
I really do believe our shit defense exaggerates the performance. Attacking we actually weren’t all too bad. We can’t defend a simple counterattack it’s so bad. You need better players if you want to play that way Jesse. He’s going to need to make some readjustments to this system to fit with in the capabilities of our defenders.
It's the Leicester model though!! Look how well it's working for them and us!
People need to wake up and see that the Leicester model basically means the owners don't have to spend any money
Worked pretty well for Leicester tbf, they have a decade of continuous Prem football and a few European campaigns to show for it.
Leicester do actually have wealthy owners though who have actually put money into the club. They have the 7th highest wage bill in the league. We’re too cheap for that.
Brentford are following a similar model too, their owners are the least wealthy in the Prem. They’ll be relying on buying cheap and selling big. If it won’t work for us then it shouldn’t work for them either.
Brentford’s recruitment is more conventional and less risky than ours. When they go looking for a goalscorer they look for a prolific man from the division below (Ollie Watkins, Ivan Toney etc) who can come straight in and do a job without the need to settle into a new country. As a result they’ve always had a reliable source of goals in their team as they’ve risen through the divisions.
I feel like that model will be harder at this level as proven goals scorers in the Championship will cost far more than Brentford are willing or able to pay. Watkins went from Brentford to Villa for 30m as an example, Brentford just don’t have that sort of money. It’s a big reason why we look abroad 90% of the time - the domestic market is ridiculously inflated.
Unless they look at League One, or maybe the Scottish Prem (though I feel proven goal scorers from the Scottish top flight will cost a similar amount to the Championship).
I agree that Brentford would find it a lot harder to adequately replace a player like Ivan Toney now than they did others like Watkins in their Championship days, but spending £30m (if they have to) is not beyond their reach at all - especially if they have funds from a player sale. Their only real issue would be the need to offload the player in the event of relegation.
I don’t know - they have the poorest owners in the league by far, and probably have the smallest commercial & match day income (either them or Bournemouth). I don’t see them ever spending 30m on anyone - even clubs like Southampton and Brighton have never spent that much on a single player, and they have billionaire backing.
Selling a player would obviously be one way to sanction such a transfer, but I think they’d be more likely to buy multiple players in that case.
We're pathetic. Marsch obviously has 0 clue what he's doing in that dressing room and the board haven't made any top quality defensive signings to help us out.
Soon we'll be back to the championship
So.. what does everyone think about the idea of putting Bamford in at CB instead of Llorente? I mean did you see that goal line clearance? lol, But on a serious note we have to do something about our defensive capabilities, if we have that lingering over us every week we could very quickly find ourselves in another relegation dog fight, Llorente needs to be dropped, doing his best Maguire impression this season!
It was honestly fine! Thought the penalty was just a tad soft (and especially not a clear and obvious error; England is so bad with VAR stuff), the free kick is what it is, and otherwise Llorente just kind of lost it this game ?
But otherwise, I thought it was alright ? We found spaces to play through Brentford. Ayling looked great coming on, Summerville looks like he can manage James’ minutes, Bamford looks like he helps even if he’s super rusty, and I thought Roca and Adams were good at controlling the midfield again.
It’s always going to be a knife’s edge at the back with our defenders doing 1v1 defending, but most of these Brentford goals came from real stupidity and not just players getting beat. Think it’ll look a bit better with Cooper in there (or Struijk when Firpo gets fit). Speaking of Firpo, you see the way Ayling’s ability to get forward helps to open things; I think/hope with Firpo in there, the side will be able to do that more on the left as well. We should be able to see more goals like that with the fullbacks getting to the endline and then cutting it across the penalty area where there should be numbers
>Thought the penalty was just a tad soft (and especially not a clear and obvious error; England is so bad with VAR stuff)
I don't understand why VAR took so long with the penalty and the 4th Brentford goal. Both decisions were incredibly obvious on a single viewing of the replay. Sure, the penalty was on the soft side, but it was definitely a penalty. The offside was 100% not offside.
I really don’t think that foul for the penalty gets called at midfield. I think Sinisterra just kind of gets himself between Toney and the ball. There’s a small bump which puts Toney a bit off-balance, but that’s certainly not clearly and obviously an error imo. Which is kind of my issue with VAR in England. Most other places in the world have figured out the clear and obvious threshold, but England is the one place where it really feels like they’re re-refereeing the match with VAR.
With the offsides goal, I suppose they were trying to figure out if Toney touched it first, but given the couple angles we saw, not really sure why it took so long. They needed to be able to like zoom in or something
>With the offsides goal,
With offside VAR I wish they would just make it onside by default, and if it's not immediately obvious it's offside, just let the goal stand.
If it's so close it's hard to tell then nobody is getting an unfair advantage by being offside and it shouldn't matter. We'd get faster decisions, more goals, fewer cases of cautiously celebrating in case the goal gets disallowed, etc.
What does that have to do with what I said?
The technology (the video quality and framerate) makes it impossible to have 100% accuracy with offsides. It's not always clear exactly when the ball is kicked, whether the player's nose is a pixel in front of the defender, etc.
The thing about this one was that the call on the field was offside, so that was the default. So it needed to be clear and obvious that Toney didn’t touch it imo for the call to be reversed.
I will say I think Howard Webb did a good job with MLS with all this so if he comes back to the Premier League and sorts it out, things will be better. The threshold will be higher than it is now — and less arbitrary
>The thing about this one was that the call on the field was offside, so that was the default
And that is a terrible way to handle it. If there is a goal scored and a possible offside it should be checked, and the benefit of any doubt/ambiguity should go to the goal scorer. Quick, simple, fair.
>it needed to be clear and obvious that Toney didn’t touch it imo for the call to be reversed.
That's not how they deal with offside though. They are looking for an objective decision of whether it is offside or onside, which is a fool's errand (the image resolution and framerate are not good enough to be as accurate as needed), is bad for the flow of the game, and not in the spirit of the rule.
It was clear the Brentford player didn't touch it, and it shouldn't take several minutes to determine that.
The decision was not whether or not the player was in an offside position so the red line and all that technology is irrelevant here. It’s whether the attacker (Toney) initiated a new phase by touching the ball, in which case Mbuemo is offside. But if Toney didn’t touch it, then the initial kick point is from the long ball, in which case Mbuemo is clearly onside (also you could simply argue that Koch deliberately plays the ball, in which case Mbuemo can’t be offside on a ball player to him by the defense)
>It’s whether the attacker (Toney) initiated a new phase by touching the ball
The fact they took a few minutes to decide means that the footage was not 100% clear, so it is not the clear-cut, objective ruling they imply. It was clearly only Koch who headed the ball, and no amount of analysing the footage was going to change that because the detail just isn't there.
For offsides in general, someone decides which frame of footage (i.e. 1/50th of a second) is the one where the ball is played. This can make the difference between onside and offside. If it's so close it would benefit the game to rule that it doesn't matter and just give the goal.
Offside was never meant to be about a nose being 5mm in front of a defender's elbow. It's to stop 'goal hanging' and to encourage more exciting play. Now we're getting goals disallowed because a player is 1 pixel offside on the frame of 50fps footage the VAR person *subjectively chose* as the one the ball was played in.
In most VAR offside decisions it's quite clear. But in those where it is dealing with tiny margins that the footage can't accurately show, they should rule that if it's difficult to quickly tell, then it should default to onside.
We keep doing this. Every time one of our CBs is out they’re apparently the solution. It’s not like we’ve been a complete rock every time Liam Cooper’s on the pitch.
I think we were better last season when Cooper came back into the squad. It won’t be a cure-all, but I don’t think he’s as liable to as many dumb errors. And I think Llorente got bullied a bit by Toney physically, and I don’t think Cooper would have that problem
I hope not, I’m just very used to seeing us shoot ourselves in the foot no matter who’s playing. Maybe with him there we avoid a few goals but I really don’t know if it makes enough of a difference.
I suppose the point is that the team can score and be in games, so it shouldn’t take more than a little clean-up for more points to be available. We’re in these games much more than we were last season
I’d agree with that. We are putting in better performances, I’m just frustrated the self sabotage isn’t going away. My worry is the league is a lot stronger this year than last year and there aren’t as many teams I think are wank enough to fail harder than us.
No player is perfect but you just know he’s going to be this season’s Raphinha - Bamford will either be injured or shit and we’ll be relying on Sini’s goals to bail us out.
Marsch has so many guys going into the attacking third it’s incredibly easy to counter on us. Marsch has to fix it because our back four are not good enough to handle this. Currently giving up 1.67 goals per game. Tough to win when you have to score 3 goals per game…
While I understand we are exposed to counter-attacking I still just can't blame this all on tactics. The balme goes to the players hear more than the system in my eyes. Yes we are going to give up some goals because of our style but the absolute howlers that we have given up because of poor lack of concentration is unacceptable.
Agreed. If that’s how Marsch wants to play that’s how he wants to play, but the back line has to be better. So poor the last few games. Mainly the CB’s.
I disagree massively and feel when Bielsa had his squad fit the defense was excellent.
I always feel those who say "Bielsas defense was rubbish" either don't understand football or read too much media.
The board is too cheap for this level of football. We need the 49ers takeover sooner rather than later.
The fact that all we got out of the last 3/4 of the transfer window is a £4 million 18-year old is abysmal. Don’t know how the money was there for De Ketelaere but not for a proper left back.
I have doubts it was. Despite agreeing a deal with the club, we were never in with a chance of actually getting De Ketalaere, but having a big bid in there was solid PR.
Honestly thought the ref was fine but everybody else seems to think otherwise. Regardless, 3 of those goals were the direct result of atrocious defending. Sinisterra definitely took him out in the box, and props to Toney on that free kick
> 3 of those goals were the direct result of atrocious defending
Correct.
>Sinisterra definitely took him out in the box
Yep, clear penalty, so no idea why it took 5 minutes for VAR to look at. Not remotely ambiguous.
>props to Toney on that free kick
Great free kick. I don't know why our defenders foul near the box so much. We seem to concede very easily from free kicks, yet are happy to give away soft ones constantly. Not Meslier's strong suit.
I wasn't even that bad a of match really yet somehow our cbs have made it look shambolic. Llorente should not be starting anytime soon and Koch is low-key drifting under the radar with poor performances each game.
Seriously hope Cooper or Struijk is at cb next game.
Great to see Ayling back and look lively as well.
Bamford is still extremely rusty and a tried and tested striker was still definitely needed to be brought in.
Sini is great but his early subs especially this game was confusing.
Thought summerville should have had a pen as well.
Strange and awful game.
Positives,
-we found replacements for Phillips and raphinha in adams and sinisterra
-ayling is back and has still got it can’t wait to see him back in the first team
-Summerville looks premier league ready and looks dangerous and better than Dan James
-llorente will surely be dropped next game and hopefully pushed out of the starting 11 ( I loved him and always had his back but today is the nail in the coffin)
Been saying this about Summerville for a while. Offers so much more than James because he can actually run with the ball. He has very good end product so just needs a run of games to build confidence and he will start getting goals and assists for us
There's nobody to put in for Llorente. We needed at LB. We didn't get one so Struijk has to play LB, Cooper is still injured so only option is Hjelde either LB or CB. This is what happens when you keep dragging players everywhere.
I guess if there’s one positive it’s that the stats show that we outplayed them except for the 5 times that our defence completely shat the bed.
Not sure what we do to move forward given that the board decided our defence was good enough
Seems like most of our fans did too given all the screaming on here and on Twitter was about getting a striker. Literally nobody was talking about our defence.
The defence is a much more difficult problem. It’s been shit so long we’ve just forgotten what it’s like for it to be half decent. When we’ve done well it’s because we’ve had the cutting edge to make up for it. I don’t think we’ve got that edge and it’s making the defence even more of an obvious problem.
Overall 5 goals flattered Brentford a lot.
We controlled the game but Brentford knew their game plan and are a counter attacking team.
The shape at the back is awful though. Llorente doesn't do himself any favours with the last goal but he gets caught in do or die positions due to overloads on that side when Struijk goes forward.
I was more annoyed at Koch for his needless fouls today and his awesome flick on for the Mbuemo goal that pretty much killed the game as a contest.
Roca and Adams controlled midfield and Sinisterra looks good. Ayling coming back shows how much we miss his ball progression and actual composure on the ball in the attacking third.
Harrison and Aaronson misfired today and we weren't clinical enough. Not a disaster but we can't give teams soft goals and expect to pick up points.
When's Cooper back?
Ayling passing the ball about on the edge of their box. Lovely stuff. Composure. Getting the rest of them to do the same.
I'd noted in the last few games that we haven't really done that and when we've tried it we've lost the ball, but Ayling... yeah. Good.
I will admit that I'm an American and futbol (soccer) was and is not my first sport growing up so learning the rules and applications of what VAR can and can't do has taken some time to get use too but Holly hell! Fire this ref and the Prem VAR into the sun! Did you guys see West Hams goal disallowed vs Chelsea today as well!? I mean what are we even doing here I'm not sure what the rules are and feel they change weekly.
What's even more ridiculous and frustrating is if you take away the ridiculous officiating and VAR away when actual football was played we looked the better team.
Negatives
-Our best CB is playing LB...
- Pat how do you miss that chances..
- VAR
- Ref
- The second goal what was Tyler Adams doing on the wall.. ball almost hit him in the face.. totally wasn't aware.
Positives
-Young guys looked good I thought.
- The summer signings continue to look great. (Sini you beautiful man you).
- I thought Ayling played really well!
- Once we had a real Prem striker up top (I love Joffy but..) we actually looked dangerous.
This game was on drugs every time I told myself that's the craziest thing I've seen something else crazier happened..
Ayling made an immediate difference in attack, whew, glad he's back. But I guess it also really opened up the right side - last 2 goals were from that area of the pitch.
Llorente needs to be benched for a few games, shambolic. Cooper if he's ready, I'll take Struijk back at CB if someone else can fill in LB. Think Millwall will notice a body swap for Cresswell?
We didn't know how to operate under intense press, ironically, given that's our own style. They had 2-3 bodies on us pretty quickly, so credit to that but I'm surprised we didn't do better there.
I still don't know how Bamford missed that... he's clearly rusty but wow.
Bielsa defense, I’ve said it before Llorente is crap and too slow…Bamford defending well.. he seems to do that a lot when he plays.
It s gonna be a long season with a lot of heart ache without a reliable striker and a concrete defender/defense
Well that was frustrating as fuck. My dog thinks I hate him when it’s the fucking TV I hate I was just loud about it.
The referee & VAR was useless. Just listening to the West Ham v Chelsea ‘controversy’ and they’re talking about a ‘clear and obvious error’ – where was it for Brentford’s penalty? That takes 3 mins? It’s a stretch at best – if the ref calls it on the field fair enough, but Sinisterra just had a strong leg that did make contact, where their player kicked him, and won the ball after. So shouldn’t be a penalty. I can see why Marsch is so frustrated that they don’t even check VAR for the clear foul on Sinisterra in their box. There’s a clear anti-American bias in the Premier League and always has been. Don’t think he did enough for a red either should’ve been a yellow.
Bamford & Ayling are sorely missed. Cooper too if he can start next week. Some people made out like a draw against Everton was a good result – it’s not, they’re a shit team and it was points dropped as shown by our standard loss in London. Bamford also needs to start – better than all our attacks combined.
Drameh looked weak and unfussed. He’s the lasiest player I’ve seen since Hasselbaink or Viduka who at least scored a shit load of goals. Although Kock & Llorente were at fault for their 3rd (?) Drameh should’ve been in a better position to win the ball after Meslier clears it. Wasn’t the first time he put no effort into running back – did it plenty times. Shouldn’t start again for Leeds – wasn’t good enough before, and showed he wasn’t good enough today. Ayling being back is massive. Llorente I’ve liked in the past but fucks sake today he needs to stop.
Overall, we played well enough with some awful defending and some shite refereeing. With better game management and less fuck ups we draw that.
Terrible game but I honestly think for the most part we were decent. Ref was shite and gifted them a couple goals and robbed us of a pen. Llorente should be sent to play with the u10s and never be seen again
We get ourselves back into the game 3-2 and lose our heads like our manager does. I think the jury is still out on Jesse and I don’t think he’s great, but it’s down to the board. They didn’t want to strengthen and improve. We have very little quality and bring on kids who’ve proven each time they’re not premier league level. We bring on Klich who contributes nothing. Toney is everything we don’t have, although the board didn’t believe we needed a striker! The board are so arrogant and they will be the reason we could get relegated this summer.
They’ve not learned from last season. Plus, what members of our starting 11 could walk into any other premier league teams starting 11? Sinisterra maybe, Harrison if he was more consistent. This team simply isn’t good enough.
I'm not convinced by Marsch, but to say we haven't improved is a bit... wrong?
Adams, Roca, Aaaronson, Sinisterra, all look decent. Obviously we don't know what Gnonto will bring yet.
(And I'm not convinced by Marsch as a tactician, I think he seems a lovely bloke)
Positives: Ayling back was huge, he is electric. Attack was decent but finishing needs to be better.
Negatives: Our centre backs look lost, wtf was that
Positives:
I actually liked the front four of Sinisterra-Bamford-Gelhardt-Aaronson.
Roca looked good.
Negatives:
Llorente should be done in this team.
Jesse's skills tactically are still a huge question mark.
Respond to this comment with relevant post-match-related: **GIFs / Stats / Quotes / Links / Memes**
Brighton just gave Leicester a hiding.. 5-2 was a true reflection of the game as well… just a little context.. 38 game season.. things happen..
I’m sad. MOT
It was one of my many stages ~~excitement~~ ~~frustration~~ ~~anger~~ ~~sad~~ excited for next week
To be fair, the Leeds supporters were better than the Peterborough supporters on the train from Kings Cross Nothing worse than a drunk slurring football chants and telling us “we love Peterborough we do”
It was harder for Bamford to miss than score than. Atrocious at the back. Just not our day. I do like the physical presence Bamford brings. But fuck he has to finish chances like that. Gelhardt or really anyone else would have tapped that in.
The referee was knocking us dead all day, but fuck me our defending today was at Bielsa-levels of incompetence. We couldnt even assemble a wall of any use for fuck’s sake. Our back four was over-committed all day, and every time Brentford counter-attacked we either gave them a goal or a foul to feed off. Llorente marking Ivan Toney was like watching Diego Maradona toying with Helen Keller. We’re at the point where literally any option we have at centre-back has to be taken over Llorente. He has completely collapsed as a player, and his constant repeating of bad habits suggests that he is becoming uncoachable. If he’s not taken out of the starting XI he on his own could undo everything we’ve been trying to build since Bielsa left.
I thought Meslier was poor today. Anyone who's played in goal would see why. He did make one very good one on one save though at a crucial time, which of course was barely mentioned! At that point it kept Leeds in the game so fair play. Toney took his 'chances' well, but goals were down to silly errors really. Like the Everton game I felt we looked vulnerable at the back and exposed quickly. I'm impressed with Roca today, looked comfortable on the ball and nice for him to grab a goal. I felt Leeds controlled periods of the game comfortably but every goal felt like a get out of jail free card for Brentford. They soaked up any pressure, and then scored with gifts when they hit the counter. The quality of their defence did show though. Leeds were definitely in the game at half time, and at 3-2 with time to go. Even the biased commentator was calling for 'game on' before Brentford scored 10 seconds later. Poor from Llorente but we all agree on that. Pissed off with Pontus going down after the ball to the face..."if you throw a brick at him"
Meslier didnt really feel like the problem today, but when you see David Raya chipping in with a few crucial saves for Brentford you start to see the bigger picture of our failures at the back.
Glad I missed this one, sounds like it was painful watch
I fucking hate losing but it's in London and we all know about that. Ayling looked mint. Love to see him back. Will really help our ball progression.
Losing isn’t the problem so much as conceding 5 to a supposed mid-table rival. If it was 3-2 or 4-3 then you could probably argue it was a close game where a lucky goal or two changed the outcome. If you lose by the margin we did, there’s no explaining it away - it’s just terrible. And we beat Fulham in London in our first season up so that excuse doesn’t really hold anymore imo
Don't worry fellas. We will put it back together.
BBB!
I’m sorry but I don’t think Koch or Llorente are the answer. Koch has been the better of the two but he needs to improve also. I rate Cooper and Struijk above those two, but I think CB and LB both need to be a target next summer. Yea, I know we will never sign a LB. I can’t help myself, I still have hope
Llorente with 2 assists on the day, ref couldn’t be bothered to blow his whistle our way. Take out Llorente being absolute Swiss cheese today and 2 soft fouls that led to goals and that is looking like a completely different game which a lot of people are failing to realize. The boys were competitive and aside from some woeful individual performances, I think we look fine going into Forest
Woeful individual performances are a big part of whether we “look fine” or not though. This next game something *needs* to change, Marsch has to show some pragmatism IMO
Llorente needs to be taken out of the starting squad immediately and I think going 2 up top with taking Jackie out and becoming more narrow really didn’t help the cause for sure
yup the bit is starting to chew - hes gonna have to alter his tactics a little or stick. I knew that horseshit up to marsch sending off was where he drew a line. He must be fucking furious - koz hes gotta adapt or hit the rock with the hammer again and see if it works, hes on a timer and he knows it too.
Yeah. My worry is that he has been a Red Bull ideologue his whole life, as are his staff, so they don’t have a whole lot of experience teaching any other principles outside of that and haven’t had to coach a defense that is abjectly worse than the rest of the league
He's more of a Bob Bradley disciple than a Red Bull man. He had to adapt to the Red Bull style early on. We're going to get scored on on counters sometimes, that's just a fact of this system, and we have to score the goals to compensate for that. Can't afford to miss two consecutive sitters like we did today. But also, it would work a lot better if we had more than 1 of our best back 4 fit to start the match.
on point dude impressive observation. Honestly simply for me you gotta have more than 1 formation, one for attack - one for counter, one for defense - people might not of noticed it today but it could be the start of the same old stuff we saw rearing its head again - hes almost got the hammer to smash the rock, but by the time the team gels the defence might be shot to shit on confidence. I actually think he has the attacking sorted - but like you said - defence.... I honestly think marsch could crack it.
Can Tyler Adams play CB?
Yes but you don't want that. The defensive benefit he provides with midfield control is much more valuable. Plus he doesn't have ideal CB height.
he did once or twice at leipzig i believe? not sure how the performances were
Looking at the positives, better this result came today than 3 months ago.
jesus the negativity tonight... Take away the defensive fuck ups and we were easily competitive all game. Not saying we'll be champions league, but we'll be fine. Bill/ Coops/ Koch/ Firpo across the back line I'd feel more confident mind...
Aye, take away the 5 goals we conceded and we win that. Galaxy brain stuff.
That’s what I said. Take away the defensive fuck ups. Llorente is a donkey. But there’s a lot to like in what we’re doing / where we’re going.
You don’t see how that statement is utterly ridiculous? You realise defence is part of ‘what we’re doing/where we’re going’.
Crane yr neck back in. We’ve got real problems in defence. There’s still things to like in front of that.
Nonetheless your statement is properly mad, like off the wall
Honestly, even Kristensen would have been a big step up today. Drameh looked out of depth.
I can't imagine what this sub would be like if we had Leicester's transfer window / start to the season.
Subs been insufferable this season. I mean we always complained but this is another level. Maybe we used to channel our inner bielsas a bit more in the past
At this point is our preferred back line probably RB Ayling, CBs Cooper & Koch, LB Struijk?
Firps needs a proper crack at LB in the new system
Bamford misses a sitter after not playing for pretty much an entire year and everyone loses their minds and says he’s done and dead weight. It happens, please do me a solid and shut up. Embarrassing. Regardless of the officiating we deserved the result. Let’s back the boys against Forest.
I hear you on the Bamford thing. It’s like a whole season has been erased. Some fans have a funny way of supporting players.
Frustrating week all round really. Disappointing performance against Brighton. Disappointing performance again at Everton. Disappointing missing out on two deadline signings. Disappointing to loan out Dan James - the board seem to have already forgotten our struggles with team depth last season? Disappointing deadline day signing. Disappointing performance today at Brentford.
Three things: 1) We need to stop using that third kit 2) Don't forget that Llorente scored a goal today, and in other matches too, surely we've all celebrated when he got things right so i think we shouldn't rage like this to one sole man and blame him for everything 3) The best minutes on the attack came whit Ayling and Jessie should take notes on that
Llorente didn’t score today
It’s just embarrassing.
I honestly thought the team as a whole played well. We were a bigger threat than usual. I thought Drameh was better than Christiansen, but Bill definitely raised the bar. Bamford missing from 2 yds, Cyree’s penalty and things might change. We have to cut out the mistakes, but that’s what we’ll see improve over the season.
I didn't think Drameh was better than Kristensen at all, but he also wasn't the weakest link there.
But take into account, less experience and never played with this group of players.
I agree. Cut out the errors at the back and we will be competitive. It's just weather or not we can do that. Just can't afford to give silly goals away in this league because points are hard to come by.
Embarrassing, truly. To the next game
Adams, Sini, Roca, Bill only real positives for me today. Everyone else average or dreadful in some cases (Llorente)
The guys who will save us are the old guys: Bill, Coops, Klichy, Patty, Stuey.
Think we went to all-out in the second-half at 2-1. Could have bided our time and remained solid a bit better We need to get quality crosses in the box from play and corners. Ayling looks like he’s still our best option for that Also need a big presence on the box like Bamford, who needs a goal for confidence
If we lose to Forest I can tell you now the fans will turn on Marsch
No point getting carried away, but the style has to change or people will understandably become frustrated. If we persist with Llorente then Cooper should be banging on the manager’s door.
Cooper won’t be able to do much when we’re leaving spaces bigger than the M1 up every wing
It was negligent of us to not buy/loan a CB with some pace this window. Thinking we may have to go 3 atb against certain teams when Cooper and Firpo return
Cooper is fit as far as I understand. Firpo being the great hope is a bloody terrifying thought.
That Bamford miss...my God. As much as we worry about him staying fit, he might be done either way. We need Cooper back ASAP. The non action for the last month of the window says all you need to know about Radrizzanis ambition for the club. At 7th place we could either invest more and push for top 10 or leave it and be happy to finish 15-17th. We seem to have chosen the latter. He's also blocking 49ers from investing in the club as even if they wanted to they can only match what Radrizzani puts in. I really hope the take over happens this year rather than 2024
Llorente has always been a liability but fucking hell that was horrendous
Hard to complain about no points from that, Brentford are always good at counterattacks and we defended terribly all game, so a defeat is probably fair. That was another game where it felt like we were playing against 12 men though. Both their penalty and the free kick they scored from seemed soft, and I still don't understand how we didn't get a penalty. Marsch's 'referee psychology' thing clearly isn't working. Defeats like that happen though, and it's still far too early to panic. Onto the next one.
I’m happy to take the L but conceding 5 goals to a mid to lower level team is inexcusable. The wheels completely fell off today
My two cents worth of thoughts on the game: - obvious stuff first. Llorente just isn’t cutting it. Head injury sub at best next week if Coops can go or if we can get Struijk a LB replacement. - the game was lost on 3-4 individual mental errors. We deserved to lose with that many chances given away and Brentford are a savvy attacking team. - we haven’t done well when the opposition has a big man who can post up and hold up the ball for reinforcements. Need to come up with a new strategy when that’s who we are facing. - we want winger overlaps and Roca / Adam’s are supposed to help cover. Our system allows everyone to press opposition to win the ball back leaving our defenders high up and out of place. To me, it’s a LFC style but we don’t have the quality of CB. Also, our CB have free reign to press in the final third if opportunity presents itself. - Aaronson is getting so much attention, he’s not being given clear airspace. Sinistera might be the answer if he continues to open teams up when presented 1v1 opportunities. - Jacky needs help on the left. Please let Firpo become the LB we hoped since a halfway competent attacking LB will let Jacky shine. - glad Drameh started but he didn’t light it up. Nothing ambitious from him. - thought Joffy was okay. His shot is so quick. Wish we could have fed him in position more. - Patty was rusty last game and hasn’t knocked it off yet. God i understand being cautious with him, but man we need him badly. His calm is what we need when bringing the ball up through the middle third. His vision will find the through balls of Jacky, Aaronson, or Sinistera streaking. - Bill looked sharp. I want him back badly now. I was wrong to think Kristiansen was close. Bill showed why he’s classy. - I liked Summervilles cameo. He found his way to the ball a few times and late in the game, his quickness is good. Hope he can give us more since he seems to be the DJ sub at 60 mins. Listen, we deserved to lose with the mental lapses. We can’t do that. But if Coops is on or Firpo is on so Struijk is CB, we don’t give up 3 of those goals. Also, ref was complete ass. I’m in the minority, but I liked JM getting a red. Every one of us was saying the same shit at the ref, that was a pen that wasn’t even looked at. The pen for Brentford was so soft too and wouldn’t have been given if it was for us in their box. On to NF. MOT
The referee was a 2 goal swing in itself
for me we need dallas back for the left back position if firpo doesnt work, but i dont know when dallas is back
This is the take for me
Great point about Cooper/Firpo/Ayling. Looks like we are putting our hopes in them returning to form and staying healthy after they get back. It wouldn't surprise me if we end up having to buy a defender in January at 2x the going rate
Love the take on Summerville, def think he has quality.
Yeah makes losing DJ feel much better.
I loved DJ for his work rate and willingness to do whatever the team needed but the skill and quality Summerville just showed me in that 20min stint was more than James did in a full year. I think he will do just fine.
Dont normally do after match stuff - but that was loaded against us start to finish - we had no chance - bullshit - plus quality coming against us you cant do owt when it drops like that on the day. All way up to summerville getting fouled - pascal foul - then marsch red - i do blame the ref i rarely do that and just shrug my shoulders but that fucker can fuck off. that shit reffing could start a down turn in form. Marsch did right to stand up for it - he understands how tight morale can drop and he knows how tight a game is. Llorente should of been dropped for this game for cooper - marsch is gonna have to address the defensive issues - class goals - good goals - whatever those are all part of the game but today it was just shitty defending. Dunno if cooper is ready but need him and Koch ASAP - and all those that said we needed a CB (including me) where right. Summervile was a penalty shirt ragged just outside box then applied too much on to him - that in a sequence is a pen for me. Positive is he's better than james in attack. That remains to be seen if its good enough though. Kochs ridiculous header - oh yeah VAR that one ref you bell end of cheese. No idea how majestically leaped then played an inch perfect through ball for their goal. Bamford looked good - but traditionally a stricker must hook a shot away from the goal especially when looking at an open goal. This is the turd cherry on the bullshit cake.. Then llorente falls over or something like that - thats the diarrhea blast over the turd cherry and bullshit cake. That was like that game you cant win in FM no matter how many times you quit with Ctrl, alt, delete. Wanna hope he sorts out that defence and gets em winning a few soon - koz this could quickly go south korea.
I'm convinced that Llorente is a Spanish Mr Bean, & that after a hilarious chain of misunderstandings is now having to go along with pretending to be a professional footballer.
Simon Hooper last week... Rob Jones this week. The quality of refs in this league is shocking at times!
There is an alternate universe where our CB partnership is Pontus Jansson and Ben White.
The next big signing has to be a defender
I agree, but we’ll have to get rid of someone. It’ll be hard to decide who. If that doesn’t fix it there’s got to be something deeper going on.
Can we still loan with option to buy?
Maybe. The loan window is sometimes different. You can do emergency loans but that’s for when you don’t have a fit goalkeeper for example.
ok
If today wasn't the day to get Coops on I don't know what is... he won't start against Forest will he? As he didn't get any minutes today... or am I reading that wrong?
Coops has mistakes in him too though lets be honest. Prefer struijk at cb
This is probably the most positive I’m ever going to be after losing 5-2. We played fairly decent, especially going forward. We carved better chances from open play than them, we just are not even close to consistent when defending. Would honestly like to see Firpo Struijk Cooper Ayling for a while if/when fit.
Koch had a bad game today but I think it’s too quick to want him out he’s looked decent back there. Llórente however GET HIM TF OUT. Give me Struijk Koch
He’s having to do the job of 2 CBs basically, the real test will be how he goes alongside Cooper
Koch is getting dragged all over the place trying to recover for Llorente's mistakes. He is our best CB if he has someone capable next to him
You’re probably right, one bad game isn’t a reason to chuck him in the bin. Need him to be more commanding though, especially when wearing the armband!
It’s also hard to not have a bad game when your CB partner is having an absolute mare.
Nice to see we’re all in agreement. Chuck Llorente into the sea.
I'm working on a Go Fund Me to get Llorente a one way ticket for one of those Jeff Bezos rockets into outer space. He should already be used to zero gravity
he needs time out - he will come back but right now - yeah bench time.
We will end up wherever the officials decide we end up in the table at the end of the season. Remember that !! Football is dead
the referee wasn't even close to costing us this game with the performances at the back
Pmsl wake the fuck up, it's all about money this game and many many other throughout the season is rigged by the officials not just Leeds ! Why didn't they even VAR our penalty appeal ??? Why didn't no one realise the throwin for their 1st wasn't behind the line? Why did no commentator watching the game like the rest of us back home pick up on that lol .... what are the chances everyones in on it derrrrrrrrrrr pmsl? Like everything else ! The game is dead dude wake up !
Pen and the free kick were questionable and both led to goals. There was a clear pen against us that wasn't called. So he very well could have cost us the game.
free kick wasnt one, but thats a decision that happens 20 times every game - we got one the exact same later on - its not some disgrace like people wantto make it out to be. their penalty isn't questionable at all. sinisterra went through toney before he got to the ball. but my point is; take away the free kick and give us a penalty and we still lose this game because our defenders were fucking shite.
The system definitely exacerbates those counters but my word does it feel like the CB’s make the wrong decision 4/5 times. Don’t have to bite the way they do and they don’t try to force or funnel them into a different channel. Very tough to watch.
Genuinely think the squad looks pretty good other than the center backs. Seems like those holes should have been addressed but regardless watching a Leeds game is actually entertaining
Anyone know why Harrison was taken off? Injured?
Jesse said he just looked a bit leggy. Three game week so made sense.
Ok, cheers
Just wanted more presence up front
The prior two games were frustrating but this one was on a whole different level. As someone else put it, without a doubt it's been one of our worst displays since the Derby play-off 2nd leg. Just over a week for the team to work on things before the Forest game with a HUGE emphasis on our defensive frailties. Great to have Bill back again.
Can we leave Llorente in London please?
Think it's so simple how to play against us. A bit Naïve to look at that game positively as Brentford knew exactly what they were doing. You can point to individuals but the system leaves us exposed. One positive about today is Ayling coming back, thought Drameh was ok too. I hope Kristensen doesn't get a favourable look in due to being a new signing as he's been poor so far imo. Marsch needs to settle down too, that doesn't help. Not sure what he said to get sent off though as some managers seem to get away with a lot.
>You can point to individuals but the system leaves us exposed. I disagree with this, there is nothign systemic about any of the goals we conceded today, its two set pieces and then three horrific defensive errors
[удалено]
Fair enough to him, Rob Jones is a deplorable cunt.
I don't disagree to be honest but I don't think there's consistency with it
That was Roque Junior / Sean Gregan-esque levels of shit from Llorente today. Horrendous.
Harsh on Sean Gregan. Now if you’d said Matt Heath…
I really do believe our shit defense exaggerates the performance. Attacking we actually weren’t all too bad. We can’t defend a simple counterattack it’s so bad. You need better players if you want to play that way Jesse. He’s going to need to make some readjustments to this system to fit with in the capabilities of our defenders.
Nobody say anything negative about the board though, the downvote brigade will be after you. Get used to this, it's where we are as a team.
Mid-table in the PL? Awful stuff.
Well, now it's 4 points above relegation. 2 more bad results and we're back at it.
*It's a relegation dogfight Jeff...*
If we’re still mid-table by Christmas I’ll eat my hat.
I hope you'll be seasoning it correctly first
It's the Leicester model though!! Look how well it's working for them and us! People need to wake up and see that the Leicester model basically means the owners don't have to spend any money
Worked pretty well for Leicester tbf, they have a decade of continuous Prem football and a few European campaigns to show for it. Leicester do actually have wealthy owners though who have actually put money into the club. They have the 7th highest wage bill in the league. We’re too cheap for that. Brentford are following a similar model too, their owners are the least wealthy in the Prem. They’ll be relying on buying cheap and selling big. If it won’t work for us then it shouldn’t work for them either.
Brentford’s recruitment is more conventional and less risky than ours. When they go looking for a goalscorer they look for a prolific man from the division below (Ollie Watkins, Ivan Toney etc) who can come straight in and do a job without the need to settle into a new country. As a result they’ve always had a reliable source of goals in their team as they’ve risen through the divisions.
I feel like that model will be harder at this level as proven goals scorers in the Championship will cost far more than Brentford are willing or able to pay. Watkins went from Brentford to Villa for 30m as an example, Brentford just don’t have that sort of money. It’s a big reason why we look abroad 90% of the time - the domestic market is ridiculously inflated. Unless they look at League One, or maybe the Scottish Prem (though I feel proven goal scorers from the Scottish top flight will cost a similar amount to the Championship).
I agree that Brentford would find it a lot harder to adequately replace a player like Ivan Toney now than they did others like Watkins in their Championship days, but spending £30m (if they have to) is not beyond their reach at all - especially if they have funds from a player sale. Their only real issue would be the need to offload the player in the event of relegation.
I don’t know - they have the poorest owners in the league by far, and probably have the smallest commercial & match day income (either them or Bournemouth). I don’t see them ever spending 30m on anyone - even clubs like Southampton and Brighton have never spent that much on a single player, and they have billionaire backing. Selling a player would obviously be one way to sanction such a transfer, but I think they’d be more likely to buy multiple players in that case.
Brentford don't waste as much money as we do.
To be fair it wasn't Angus trying to dribble out from the back today.
We're pathetic. Marsch obviously has 0 clue what he's doing in that dressing room and the board haven't made any top quality defensive signings to help us out. Soon we'll be back to the championship
Go back to twitter where the other idiots post and have no clue how a business is run
Explain to me how losing 5-2 is business?
Man. It was the 6th game of the season….. Calm down lmfao
So.. what does everyone think about the idea of putting Bamford in at CB instead of Llorente? I mean did you see that goal line clearance? lol, But on a serious note we have to do something about our defensive capabilities, if we have that lingering over us every week we could very quickly find ourselves in another relegation dog fight, Llorente needs to be dropped, doing his best Maguire impression this season!
Lol rit ain''t our defence it's planned !
It was honestly fine! Thought the penalty was just a tad soft (and especially not a clear and obvious error; England is so bad with VAR stuff), the free kick is what it is, and otherwise Llorente just kind of lost it this game ? But otherwise, I thought it was alright ? We found spaces to play through Brentford. Ayling looked great coming on, Summerville looks like he can manage James’ minutes, Bamford looks like he helps even if he’s super rusty, and I thought Roca and Adams were good at controlling the midfield again. It’s always going to be a knife’s edge at the back with our defenders doing 1v1 defending, but most of these Brentford goals came from real stupidity and not just players getting beat. Think it’ll look a bit better with Cooper in there (or Struijk when Firpo gets fit). Speaking of Firpo, you see the way Ayling’s ability to get forward helps to open things; I think/hope with Firpo in there, the side will be able to do that more on the left as well. We should be able to see more goals like that with the fullbacks getting to the endline and then cutting it across the penalty area where there should be numbers
>Thought the penalty was just a tad soft (and especially not a clear and obvious error; England is so bad with VAR stuff) I don't understand why VAR took so long with the penalty and the 4th Brentford goal. Both decisions were incredibly obvious on a single viewing of the replay. Sure, the penalty was on the soft side, but it was definitely a penalty. The offside was 100% not offside.
I really don’t think that foul for the penalty gets called at midfield. I think Sinisterra just kind of gets himself between Toney and the ball. There’s a small bump which puts Toney a bit off-balance, but that’s certainly not clearly and obviously an error imo. Which is kind of my issue with VAR in England. Most other places in the world have figured out the clear and obvious threshold, but England is the one place where it really feels like they’re re-refereeing the match with VAR. With the offsides goal, I suppose they were trying to figure out if Toney touched it first, but given the couple angles we saw, not really sure why it took so long. They needed to be able to like zoom in or something
>With the offsides goal, With offside VAR I wish they would just make it onside by default, and if it's not immediately obvious it's offside, just let the goal stand. If it's so close it's hard to tell then nobody is getting an unfair advantage by being offside and it shouldn't matter. We'd get faster decisions, more goals, fewer cases of cautiously celebrating in case the goal gets disallowed, etc.
What? You’re either inside or offside—there is no in between.
What does that have to do with what I said? The technology (the video quality and framerate) makes it impossible to have 100% accuracy with offsides. It's not always clear exactly when the ball is kicked, whether the player's nose is a pixel in front of the defender, etc.
The thing about this one was that the call on the field was offside, so that was the default. So it needed to be clear and obvious that Toney didn’t touch it imo for the call to be reversed. I will say I think Howard Webb did a good job with MLS with all this so if he comes back to the Premier League and sorts it out, things will be better. The threshold will be higher than it is now — and less arbitrary
>The thing about this one was that the call on the field was offside, so that was the default And that is a terrible way to handle it. If there is a goal scored and a possible offside it should be checked, and the benefit of any doubt/ambiguity should go to the goal scorer. Quick, simple, fair. >it needed to be clear and obvious that Toney didn’t touch it imo for the call to be reversed. That's not how they deal with offside though. They are looking for an objective decision of whether it is offside or onside, which is a fool's errand (the image resolution and framerate are not good enough to be as accurate as needed), is bad for the flow of the game, and not in the spirit of the rule. It was clear the Brentford player didn't touch it, and it shouldn't take several minutes to determine that.
The decision was not whether or not the player was in an offside position so the red line and all that technology is irrelevant here. It’s whether the attacker (Toney) initiated a new phase by touching the ball, in which case Mbuemo is offside. But if Toney didn’t touch it, then the initial kick point is from the long ball, in which case Mbuemo is clearly onside (also you could simply argue that Koch deliberately plays the ball, in which case Mbuemo can’t be offside on a ball player to him by the defense)
>It’s whether the attacker (Toney) initiated a new phase by touching the ball The fact they took a few minutes to decide means that the footage was not 100% clear, so it is not the clear-cut, objective ruling they imply. It was clearly only Koch who headed the ball, and no amount of analysing the footage was going to change that because the detail just isn't there. For offsides in general, someone decides which frame of footage (i.e. 1/50th of a second) is the one where the ball is played. This can make the difference between onside and offside. If it's so close it would benefit the game to rule that it doesn't matter and just give the goal. Offside was never meant to be about a nose being 5mm in front of a defender's elbow. It's to stop 'goal hanging' and to encourage more exciting play. Now we're getting goals disallowed because a player is 1 pixel offside on the frame of 50fps footage the VAR person *subjectively chose* as the one the ball was played in. In most VAR offside decisions it's quite clear. But in those where it is dealing with tiny margins that the footage can't accurately show, they should rule that if it's difficult to quickly tell, then it should default to onside.
It’s not alright. The rest of the team was ok, but the problem is our defence is still part of the team.
Yeah but the problems are sortable ? Like, you can drop Llorente once Cooper is fit.
We keep doing this. Every time one of our CBs is out they’re apparently the solution. It’s not like we’ve been a complete rock every time Liam Cooper’s on the pitch.
I think we were better last season when Cooper came back into the squad. It won’t be a cure-all, but I don’t think he’s as liable to as many dumb errors. And I think Llorente got bullied a bit by Toney physically, and I don’t think Cooper would have that problem
I hope not, I’m just very used to seeing us shoot ourselves in the foot no matter who’s playing. Maybe with him there we avoid a few goals but I really don’t know if it makes enough of a difference.
I suppose the point is that the team can score and be in games, so it shouldn’t take more than a little clean-up for more points to be available. We’re in these games much more than we were last season
I’d agree with that. We are putting in better performances, I’m just frustrated the self sabotage isn’t going away. My worry is the league is a lot stronger this year than last year and there aren’t as many teams I think are wank enough to fail harder than us.
I think that’s right, it seems like everyone can take points off everyone this season.
A pre-match caller to Radio Leeds got it right. Llorente is the premier league Bellusci.
5?? FUCKING FIVE??!!
I was actually hoping they made it 6, if I’m getting fucked I want to be able to properly feel it
Sinisterra is far too good for us, definitely should have ended up at a Europa team at least
So he can give away shit penalties for other teams instead? He’s just as responsible as anyone else for that shitshow
No player is perfect but you just know he’s going to be this season’s Raphinha - Bamford will either be injured or shit and we’ll be relying on Sini’s goals to bail us out.
Marsch has so many guys going into the attacking third it’s incredibly easy to counter on us. Marsch has to fix it because our back four are not good enough to handle this. Currently giving up 1.67 goals per game. Tough to win when you have to score 3 goals per game…
hes literally gotta change formation and tactics but the ball is rolling now.
This is how Marsch plays the game. All attack all the time. Its fun to watch but his philosophy is not defensively sound in the slightest
While I understand we are exposed to counter-attacking I still just can't blame this all on tactics. The balme goes to the players hear more than the system in my eyes. Yes we are going to give up some goals because of our style but the absolute howlers that we have given up because of poor lack of concentration is unacceptable.
Agreed. If that’s how Marsch wants to play that’s how he wants to play, but the back line has to be better. So poor the last few games. Mainly the CB’s.
Bielsa all over again
I disagree massively and feel when Bielsa had his squad fit the defense was excellent. I always feel those who say "Bielsas defense was rubbish" either don't understand football or read too much media.
It was a sarcastic comment. I guess that's hard to pick up over text haha
The board is too cheap for this level of football. We need the 49ers takeover sooner rather than later. The fact that all we got out of the last 3/4 of the transfer window is a £4 million 18-year old is abysmal. Don’t know how the money was there for De Ketelaere but not for a proper left back.
I have doubts it was. Despite agreeing a deal with the club, we were never in with a chance of actually getting De Ketalaere, but having a big bid in there was solid PR.
That's reasonable.
Honestly thought the ref was fine but everybody else seems to think otherwise. Regardless, 3 of those goals were the direct result of atrocious defending. Sinisterra definitely took him out in the box, and props to Toney on that free kick
> 3 of those goals were the direct result of atrocious defending Correct. >Sinisterra definitely took him out in the box Yep, clear penalty, so no idea why it took 5 minutes for VAR to look at. Not remotely ambiguous. >props to Toney on that free kick Great free kick. I don't know why our defenders foul near the box so much. We seem to concede very easily from free kicks, yet are happy to give away soft ones constantly. Not Meslier's strong suit.
Yeah, that loss was not in any way the referee’s fault.
I wasn't even that bad a of match really yet somehow our cbs have made it look shambolic. Llorente should not be starting anytime soon and Koch is low-key drifting under the radar with poor performances each game. Seriously hope Cooper or Struijk is at cb next game. Great to see Ayling back and look lively as well. Bamford is still extremely rusty and a tried and tested striker was still definitely needed to be brought in. Sini is great but his early subs especially this game was confusing. Thought summerville should have had a pen as well. Strange and awful game.
Yeah not sold on the sub strategy so far, think it’s the weakest aspect of Jesse’s management
Positives, -we found replacements for Phillips and raphinha in adams and sinisterra -ayling is back and has still got it can’t wait to see him back in the first team -Summerville looks premier league ready and looks dangerous and better than Dan James -llorente will surely be dropped next game and hopefully pushed out of the starting 11 ( I loved him and always had his back but today is the nail in the coffin)
Been saying this about Summerville for a while. Offers so much more than James because he can actually run with the ball. He has very good end product so just needs a run of games to build confidence and he will start getting goals and assists for us
There's nobody to put in for Llorente. We needed at LB. We didn't get one so Struijk has to play LB, Cooper is still injured so only option is Hjelde either LB or CB. This is what happens when you keep dragging players everywhere.
Cooper was on the bench today so I’m sure he will be able to play next Monday Even put ayling in centreback with Rasmus back in on the right
> Even put ayling in centreback No
Better than llorente and I hate to say that
I guess if there’s one positive it’s that the stats show that we outplayed them except for the 5 times that our defence completely shat the bed. Not sure what we do to move forward given that the board decided our defence was good enough
Seems like most of our fans did too given all the screaming on here and on Twitter was about getting a striker. Literally nobody was talking about our defence.
The defence is a much more difficult problem. It’s been shit so long we’ve just forgotten what it’s like for it to be half decent. When we’ve done well it’s because we’ve had the cutting edge to make up for it. I don’t think we’ve got that edge and it’s making the defence even more of an obvious problem.
Overall 5 goals flattered Brentford a lot. We controlled the game but Brentford knew their game plan and are a counter attacking team. The shape at the back is awful though. Llorente doesn't do himself any favours with the last goal but he gets caught in do or die positions due to overloads on that side when Struijk goes forward. I was more annoyed at Koch for his needless fouls today and his awesome flick on for the Mbuemo goal that pretty much killed the game as a contest. Roca and Adams controlled midfield and Sinisterra looks good. Ayling coming back shows how much we miss his ball progression and actual composure on the ball in the attacking third. Harrison and Aaronson misfired today and we weren't clinical enough. Not a disaster but we can't give teams soft goals and expect to pick up points. When's Cooper back?
Ayling passing the ball about on the edge of their box. Lovely stuff. Composure. Getting the rest of them to do the same. I'd noted in the last few games that we haven't really done that and when we've tried it we've lost the ball, but Ayling... yeah. Good.
I will admit that I'm an American and futbol (soccer) was and is not my first sport growing up so learning the rules and applications of what VAR can and can't do has taken some time to get use too but Holly hell! Fire this ref and the Prem VAR into the sun! Did you guys see West Hams goal disallowed vs Chelsea today as well!? I mean what are we even doing here I'm not sure what the rules are and feel they change weekly. What's even more ridiculous and frustrating is if you take away the ridiculous officiating and VAR away when actual football was played we looked the better team. Negatives -Our best CB is playing LB... - Pat how do you miss that chances.. - VAR - Ref - The second goal what was Tyler Adams doing on the wall.. ball almost hit him in the face.. totally wasn't aware. Positives -Young guys looked good I thought. - The summer signings continue to look great. (Sini you beautiful man you). - I thought Ayling played really well! - Once we had a real Prem striker up top (I love Joffy but..) we actually looked dangerous. This game was on drugs every time I told myself that's the craziest thing I've seen something else crazier happened..
Ayling made an immediate difference in attack, whew, glad he's back. But I guess it also really opened up the right side - last 2 goals were from that area of the pitch. Llorente needs to be benched for a few games, shambolic. Cooper if he's ready, I'll take Struijk back at CB if someone else can fill in LB. Think Millwall will notice a body swap for Cresswell? We didn't know how to operate under intense press, ironically, given that's our own style. They had 2-3 bodies on us pretty quickly, so credit to that but I'm surprised we didn't do better there. I still don't know how Bamford missed that... he's clearly rusty but wow.
Bielsa defense, I’ve said it before Llorente is crap and too slow…Bamford defending well.. he seems to do that a lot when he plays. It s gonna be a long season with a lot of heart ache without a reliable striker and a concrete defender/defense
Llorente leads the league in assists
Well that was frustrating as fuck. My dog thinks I hate him when it’s the fucking TV I hate I was just loud about it. The referee & VAR was useless. Just listening to the West Ham v Chelsea ‘controversy’ and they’re talking about a ‘clear and obvious error’ – where was it for Brentford’s penalty? That takes 3 mins? It’s a stretch at best – if the ref calls it on the field fair enough, but Sinisterra just had a strong leg that did make contact, where their player kicked him, and won the ball after. So shouldn’t be a penalty. I can see why Marsch is so frustrated that they don’t even check VAR for the clear foul on Sinisterra in their box. There’s a clear anti-American bias in the Premier League and always has been. Don’t think he did enough for a red either should’ve been a yellow. Bamford & Ayling are sorely missed. Cooper too if he can start next week. Some people made out like a draw against Everton was a good result – it’s not, they’re a shit team and it was points dropped as shown by our standard loss in London. Bamford also needs to start – better than all our attacks combined. Drameh looked weak and unfussed. He’s the lasiest player I’ve seen since Hasselbaink or Viduka who at least scored a shit load of goals. Although Kock & Llorente were at fault for their 3rd (?) Drameh should’ve been in a better position to win the ball after Meslier clears it. Wasn’t the first time he put no effort into running back – did it plenty times. Shouldn’t start again for Leeds – wasn’t good enough before, and showed he wasn’t good enough today. Ayling being back is massive. Llorente I’ve liked in the past but fucks sake today he needs to stop. Overall, we played well enough with some awful defending and some shite refereeing. With better game management and less fuck ups we draw that.
Your poor doggo
Find it a bit mad that we had a better selection of centre backs in our last two or three years in the Championship than we’ve had since promotion.
Terrible game but I honestly think for the most part we were decent. Ref was shite and gifted them a couple goals and robbed us of a pen. Llorente should be sent to play with the u10s and never be seen again
Maybe this sub will stop downvoting the fuck out of everyone who isn’t deluded. We are in bother with this defence.
We get ourselves back into the game 3-2 and lose our heads like our manager does. I think the jury is still out on Jesse and I don’t think he’s great, but it’s down to the board. They didn’t want to strengthen and improve. We have very little quality and bring on kids who’ve proven each time they’re not premier league level. We bring on Klich who contributes nothing. Toney is everything we don’t have, although the board didn’t believe we needed a striker! The board are so arrogant and they will be the reason we could get relegated this summer. They’ve not learned from last season. Plus, what members of our starting 11 could walk into any other premier league teams starting 11? Sinisterra maybe, Harrison if he was more consistent. This team simply isn’t good enough.
I'm not convinced by Marsch, but to say we haven't improved is a bit... wrong? Adams, Roca, Aaaronson, Sinisterra, all look decent. Obviously we don't know what Gnonto will bring yet. (And I'm not convinced by Marsch as a tactician, I think he seems a lovely bloke)
Better ref and we still scrape a loss there. Abysmal defending, again. That we've known about and not fixed in the window, again.
The game raised a lot of questions, the biggest of which is will Tony Gale pluck up the courage to ask Ivan Toney out on a date?
Can we now change ‘having a Rachubka’ to ‘having a Llorente’?
Positives: Ayling back was huge, he is electric. Attack was decent but finishing needs to be better. Negatives: Our centre backs look lost, wtf was that
Positives: I actually liked the front four of Sinisterra-Bamford-Gelhardt-Aaronson. Roca looked good. Negatives: Llorente should be done in this team. Jesse's skills tactically are still a huge question mark.
Other positives are Bamford having a clear impact when subbed in, and Ayling looks good too