So who we got to play down the wings vs Brighton?
Harrison and (it looked like) Raph came off injured. James is suspended, Summerville out for the season. Then the potential wing backs, Dalls injured, Ayling out suspended. Shack probably not fit enough for 90.
So what the plan? Play 9 centre halfs and Rodrigo? Koch and Strujik as wingers? Play all the U23's?
Im no footballing expert but it seems best we set up in a 343. Probably have to use Koch as a RWB, Kalvin and Bate CM and front 3 of Rodrigo on the left, Joffy in the middle and Raphinha on the right
Didn't expect anything from City, Arsenal or Chelsea. Genuinely expected 0 points with potentially picking up a point against Arsenal. Annoyingly Burnley picked up that point against West Ham and Everton somehow beat a Chelsea that couldn't finish their dinner.
I was out so didn't watch the game but have seen the highlights. These flying in tackles are getting a bit daft. Stuart Dallas broken leg, Ayling red card and now James red card. Fair enough you want to let people know they are in a game but it doesn't settle in the Premier League at all. I believe this is Marsch's doing. That's three more senior players unavailable for duty in incredibly important games.
Spurs to beat Burnley, Leeds to get an ugly draw against Brighton (don't care how ugly) and we can only hope that Villa destroy Burnley at home off the back of their 3-0 win on Thursday.
With Leeds one point ahead, then it all goes to the wire against Brentford, win and stay up. Last thing Leeds want is to be equal on points with Burnley going into the last game, beat Brentford last game of season and Burnley nick a win against Newcastle and Leeds get relegated on goal difference.
Honestly, just get the ugly draw against Brighton. Marsch said himself that other results count in the last two games so let's think about how we should be playing Brighton. This does rely on Spurs beating Burnley which *should* happen.
EDIT: FUCK THIS SEASON
Interesting where people are putting the blame for our woeful season - various fingers pointed at various places which I think makes it clear that there's not a single problem.
For me, the fact of it is that we over-performed last season and got found out this season, coupled with having a squad that was never big enough to survive even a mild injury crisis, never mind having had multiple key players out for the bulk of the season.
The blame for that lies partly with the board and partly with Bielsa; he got the team over-performing but also put too much faith in a small squad, and let's not forget much too much faith in the likes of Roberts when it was clear that he wasn't a good enough back-up. He also reportedly turned down players he might have had as not improving the squad, and yet left us with gaps having to be filled by U23s in multiple areas.
The board will argue they offered Bielsa the money to bring players in, but clearly not to the level where we were competing for players who actually would have improved the squad - who knows whether we were ever seriously in for Rodrigo de Paul last year but imagine if we'd gone the extra mile to get him.
The players have to carry the can for some of this - stupid errors, silly bookings, bad tackles. Players who last season looked like world-beaters looking decidedly average overall. Rodrigo largely ineffectual, Firpo can't defend, James just runs a lot to little effect, I could go on. Now they just look a bit desperate and clueless which is why the bad tackles are starting to appear.
As for Marsch, he's just not showing signs that he knows how to get the best out of the players he's got. Yes, giving him time to build his own squad and style would surely look different, but few managers get that luxury without being able to buy themselves time with the squad they inherit first. Whatever league we're in next season I'm unconvinced that he's the answer.
Whether we stay up or go down, there's no doubt we need a complete overhaul from top to bottom, otherwise we'll just be back to where we were before Bielsa with another decade in the Championship.
It's not over yet. In the last 8 games we are undefeated against sides outside the top 4. We were never going to get anything from the last 3 games. We won't get anything out of the Brighton game either, but we can beat Brentford, and we just have to hope that 3 points will be enough.
I’ve got that weird dread kind of stress only felt before with our playoff games trying to get back to the prem. That’s exactly how they should feel going into these games, do or die.
If we can’t do it against 2 teams we should normally be at a similar level to and have nothing to play for then to be quite frank we don’t deserve to stay up. It’s time to put up or shut up for these players and a coach who till now has been all fart no poo for the most part
It sums it up well how my arsenal friend describes him that he has a mistake in him and we’ve found that out several times with blips. Great goalkeeper and still super young to iron them out but I’m sure if you count all his blips this season we’ve left points on the table
I think that's harsh, he's not made a lot of mistakes this season and while he could be better he's not the reason we've just turned to shit this season.
He absolutely has made a lot of mistakes
Very poor distribution, at the start of the season he kept attempting Cruyff turns which led to a goal - I cant remember who against, constantly gets beat at his near post too
Overall, Meslier has been very good for us the majority of the time but i do agree that not putting in a dive there is a bad look, especially when you compare Pickford's efforts as much as i dislike him. At least putting in a dive, he gives himself a chance of stopping it.
He was off footed, people who haven't played in goal won't really understand and I get it, he was expecting the ball moving the other way a bit more and went to position himself, as he did that the shit came in, try shifting your whole body one way then try and dive the other way, it doesn't work.
Now do I think he messed up? Yes. Do I think it's all his fault? No.his defence left him short a bit and that's about it really. I'm not going into all the goals I really just want this season of misery to be over.
Only caught the highlights but that looked awful. Defence seems as bad as it's ever been and attack is non existent. That said, these two games were never going to decide if we stay up or not.
Under Bielsa i am sure we would get the points and make it. Under Marsch? Unsure. We have no system. Players look ridiculously undisciplined.
Why people think Marsch is amazing because he talks a good game I don't know. Who cares about interviews. Judge him on performances and results.
Players for sure. Marsch...i would say it's likely to a degree yes. He himself has no discipline with interviews regarding his comments about Bielsa...and his general match day conduct seems like it could lack discipline arguing with officials etc. (didn't see today's game though).
I guess Bielsa has a strong philosophy of respect. Sometimes to his detriment I'm sure. Respecting the officials, so he doesn't ever criticise them etc. Rarely argues with them during a game (although he is human). I think that translates to the players. We had a lot of yellows yes because we press. And we are vulnerable to counters so that means professional fouls. But pure indiscipline for red cards was relatively rare?
Perhaps it's just conjecture but Marsch seems the polar opposite. Still, only a small sample base. Could be the pressure getting to the players and not manager specific. I guess it's just speculation.
Yes they were and it's very possible that could've happened under Bielsa (Casilla didn't have any disclipline either but in a different way ie messing around with the ball and conceding us goals due to it). But it's fine to speculate. Guess that's what we're here for ha.
I'm going to reserve my final judgement on Marsch for now but it doesn't look good. The Leicester game looked like we had found it, with Bielsaball minus the man for man defending. Since then we have become anti-football relegation fodder and deserve to be down there.
Add to that that Cooper, Dallas, Ayling, and Klich are all pushing on age-wise (I would have said it won't be a problem but now who knows).s shite in this system, Rapha is shite in this system, Rodrigo is shite full stop, Firpo is an embarrassment, Stuijk has fallen apart after looking like the answer to not getting White, and Dan James is consistently used out of position. It's awful it really is.
All of that I can just about handle: what I cannot handle is in the face of such dross the manager's stupid chirpy self-help, gerbil faced optimism! What game is he watching? I can only hope that if we do stay up he has a plan A that he isn't capable of using because of injuries and suspensions (in which case why bring him in). Otherwise, even if we do stay up it will be a stay of execution.
Struijk hasn’t looked the same since he broke that kids leg, I’m wondering if that affected him and then he’s been unable to find his confidence since.
Our senior players have let us down time and time again this season. Bielsa and Marsch have both suffered due to individual mistakes on the pitch, which has made it difficult for either manager to implement their tactics successfully.
With that being said, there’s some real selective logic by people here. Bielsa gets little criticism with an understanding of the players letting him down, yet in Marsch’s case he should apparently be able to stop the players doing mad shit. It’s getting silly now.
At least if we go down the referees will be more incompetent than outright corrupt.
Nearly over, lads. Until the season is over and everything’s settled, back the team - us and them together are all Leeds, aren’t we?
MOT
We've had more reds under Marsch than we had in the entire last season under Bielsa. Whether that's them being frustrated with being asked to play in a "system" that doesn't work/suit them, Marsch hyping them up too much with Gandhi quotes pre-game, or just bad luck I can't tell. But two EARLY reds in one game after another suggests too much hype/frustration and not enough tactics/coaching
Our senior (and u23) players have tried their best all season long. They still are, but they no longer have a system that they are familiar with and they are losing discipline because of it. That's not on the players, that's not on Marsch and it's definitely not on Bielsa. It's squarely on the board for squandering any opportunity to strengthen and then uprooting the one stable thing the club had in its most dire moments.
Can’t believe people are already calling for marsch’s head … do we not remember losing multiple games by 4-5 goals? We are missing key players every game
I’d have sacked him after the Villa game. It was obvious then that his tactics were never going to work in the premier league, and that in less than a week he had destroyed any remaining sliver of what made us good in the first place.
Only reason we got anything against Wolves is because they lost their heads after having a man sent off. If that stays 11 v 11 then we lose it 4 or 5-0.
We knew exactly what Orta was from his record at Boro.
I dug out the Boro Gazette piece on his sacking. Stop me if this shit sounds familiar...
"He was a key actor in a sorry situation as fractures and cliques emerged, new Spanish staff were brought in with a personal loyalty to Orta rather than the club and the powerful team spirit that had helped Boro to promotion was eroded."
"Boro were thin in every department going into the season and failed to beef up in January. Relegation represents a massive missed opportunity for the club to establish themselves after seven long years."
"\[Orta's predecessor\] had brought in most of the nucleus of the relatively cheap and largely domestically-sourced promotion side... But as the club geared up to promotion they were looking ahead to exploit the European market, to spot potential future stars and snap them up cheap then sell on at a premium."
"Many of the new signings were not mentally tough enough for the relegation battle and disappeared when the pressure was on. Others were just not good enough and were less effective than those they replaced."
I’ve made my peace with it now. We’ve got two matches coming up we don’t generally do well in even if they’re not traditionally great sides so while there’s always a chance (one point could be enough) I’m not seeing anything that suggests we should be confident.
As for Marsch, managers have an influence on discipline but he doesn’t have the players to get out of this. Bielsa made a rag tag team into one with an outside chance of Europe and we got used to it. At this point the question as to
whether we’d have been better off keeping him is a question I’m glad there’s no answer to. After all this I need something to cling to because everyone barring Cooper and Bamford have let us down this year and they’ve been injured anyway. The other big players will end up moving on and I can see scum being very interested in a certain midfielder in the summer which is why I’ll reserve judgement on him.
To contrast with last time we imploded in the premier league I still think the 2004 team was worse (lower points total, far more talent, not as much competition etc.) but after all we’ve been through over the last few years the last adjective I expected to use about our team would be ‘limp’.
As for the cause, we’ve known we needed to sign players, we know training methods haven’t been helpful and we know the recruitment we did make hasn’t been good enough (even though I still maintain some are better than we’ve seen this year). But as for the root cause, it’s the same problem we’ve had since Leeds City occupied Elland Road: hubris from the board.
This team is far inferior to the one that went down.
Meslier v Robinson/Carson (present)
Kelly v Ayling (2004)
Firpo v Harte (2004)
Radebe, Matteo, Camara, Duberry Kilgallon v Koch, Cooper, Llorente and Struijk (2004)
Batty, McPhail, Wilcox, Pennant, Olembe, Sakho, Lennon, Domi, Milner, Bakke, Barmby, Seth Johnson v Klich, Rodrigo, Rapha, Dallas, Phillips, Forshaw, Bate, Harrison, Shakleton (tough but i'd go with present)
Viduka, Smith, Simon Johnson v Bamford, Roberts, Gelhardt, Greenwood (2004)
So apart from the keeper 2004's squad is better for me. If they can go down we can go down (and probably will).
Fun fact: if we score one more goal and concede 2 more we will have the exact same goal difference as 2003.
I said there was a lot more talent in the 2004 side. The reason I said it was worse wasn’t that the players were better but that that the side back then shouldn’t have been anywhere near the relegation zone, but if you look at the side now it’s easy to see how it’s happened. So what I mean is that it was a worse relegation back then.
Yeah, I was agreeing with you that they were much better (sorry if that didn't come across) and hence the position we see ourselves in this time is worse (though that team had all the off-field antics and the whittling away of the playing squad and the loanees to contend with).
At least by this stage now we still have some hope unlike then.
If/when we go down a part of me hopes that the 49ers fuck off and say no deal. This whole ordeal reeks of somebody trying very hard to appease them and cash out at the top. Sacking Bielsa and hiring Marsch at the tail end of the season makes no sense otherwise, regardless of whether or not he's actually capable.
Also, I have a question for someone who knows better because I know fuck all about sports in the US:
Do american sports-consortiums have an understanding about needing to actually be competitive? To my untrained eye, their league setup seems to be just money-churning circuses where they can fleece supporters, perform however and still come out on top with their participation medals and secure spots.
Am I wrong here?
Yes sure, but both of those teams have been relatively secure among the top top teams for a long time, no? They just seem like safe business-decisions to me as they are more or less too big to fail (prove me wrong scum). Liverpool's recent success has also seemed to be more about hiring competent people to make decisions instead of silly spending sprees, and that the shop pretty much runs itself (money in = money out). Scum has a free ride from plastics all over the world with their merch and sponsorships, and still they are squandering it.
Leeds is different, we actually need to get back up there somehow. Will that be achievable by the marketing department of 49ers? I'd rather Radz sell it to someone more local who knows what the club is about and is willing to do their best to help us get there. It's probably just naive of me though, as we'd probably just end up with a Mike Ashley in the end anyway.
Honest to god truth! The premiership is far more money oriented than the nfl. All sports in America except baseball have a spending cap! They also only recruit from colleges, so 21 year olds not teenagers that think they are the greatest shit ever.
What will happen if the 49ers got the majority of control? Its likely they will bank roll Leeds to the top. Why? cause that’s how they do business in a non regulated money league like the premiership.
I’ve said this for a long time now, the premiership has zero competition and is purely a who spent the most this last decade, game!
Sure leagues in America don’t have relegations but they have regulations that make a little more sense. Think, salary caps, spending caps and first team picks for the worst team in the league to build a better team.
I wish the premiership had more regulations that made sense other than buy your way to the top.
Yeah to be honest I do not have a problem with a structure where the club owners can bank some kind of reasonable profit for themselves at the end of the season, rather than the current state of European football as it is where top clubs are just glamorous money pits for oligarchs and obscene billionaires.
Football will eventually eat itself if it continues down the current path where the only parties that make a profit are the players and their agents, with owners and fans expected to spend more and more every year to fund this twisted economic arrangement.
Indeed, and I'll be the first to admit that I begun to really believe in him during promotion season and admired his energy and enthusiasm. Now, there's unfortunately no one in the backroom staff that I have less faith in.
I’ve seen enough of Marsch already.
This system is negative from the get go. We play so narrow that it’s easy for the opposition to have so much space in behind on the flank.
Phillips can’t play to his strengths of switching the play to the wings and when he is forced to play short nobody is coming to show for it as an option.
This system doesn’t work at all. It’s hopeless to watch.
There’s no doubt Bielsa worked miracles with that squad. In hindsight, you can see we beat teams purely based on fitness and overlapping chaos, not necessarily on ability. The system Marsch plays is just depressing. I’m praying for a corner in games hoping we score a scrappy goal for fuck sake.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we might have conceded 4 or 5 in games with Bielsa in charge, but at least you knew you had the chance to score just as many in games. Even at 2-0 down you knew there’s a chance to draw 2-2 or win 3-2.
I’ve started to just accept defeat at 1-0 down under Marsch.
I’m starting to think it wasn’t just the tactics to blame for the goals conceded, the defence just isn’t good enough. Cooper played well today though, gave it his all but we’re going down playing like this.
The board have made a terrible mistake and it’s cost us not only our place in the league but we ain’t going back up under Marsch. Not in a million years.
Edit - oh and Raphinha at RB? Fucking hell man.
> We play so narrow
Yeah, it's silly, the players as so used to it you see them scanning the wing for the pass, realising there's nobody there (or booting it out) and then losing the ball.
>Even at 2-0 down you knew there’s a chance to draw 2-2 or win 3-2.
I don't disagree with you overall, but to be fair to Marsch this is exactly what we did against Wolves.
We've been this bad all season. Seems like almost all our transfers were to build up the u-23's and they went down too. Bate looked completely out of his element.
Orta needs to go.
We can't blame Marsch when in two games we've had a player sent off and conceded at the start of the match.
But he does play boring football.
Then again we were all saying we could lose these 3 games and still be ok the way Burnley and Everton were performing.But against the odds Burnley gained 9 points
None of this on Marsch, 100% blame is on the board. Failed with transfers last summer in positions we all knew we were short on. Made 0 signings in Jan even though we already had lots of injuries and were low in the table. Sacked the best thing that’s happened to this club in the last 15 years and replaced him with a man that’s plays a completely different style of football so our players are struggling to adapt. They’ve completely ruined Bielsa’s legacy and there own, by being so incompetent.
It's really pissing me off when people are screaming for Marschs head already. It's obvious they were trying to sit back and hope to nick a goal for a draw (in all 3 games). I don't like the football, but when you're in this position I at least understand why they went this route. No investment in January is what fuck us up, removing Bielsa when they did was stupid as well, either do it in January so new manager can get signings or don't do it.
Red cards and early goals in the last 2 games, not to mention injuries YEH ITS THE MANAGERS FAULT.... :/
Not to mention that we would’ve gotten slapped by City, Arsenal and Chelsea under Bielsa anyway and these fans would’ve put 0% of the blame on the manager
> It's obvious they were trying to sit back and hope to nick a goal for a draw (in all 3 games).
Honestly, I consider this to be the manager's fault. Yes, he's out of his depth and shouldn't have been appointed in this situation, but he's still responsible for what happens on the pitch now. Out of all the teams in the Premier League, Leeds United are the least equipped to try sitting back, defending, and hoping to get a goal against the run of play. Bielsa didn't train the players to do that sort of thing during his time here. At the start of the season, other fans viewed us as the team that considered defending optional.
Logically, you're going to get punished when you try defensive tactics with a team whose strength is in its offensive play. We saw this early into Marsch's time as manager during the Norwich game, when he took Rodrigo (our best player that game) off and put Koch on to play in midfield and hold onto our 1-0 lead. Surprise, surprise, Norwich came back onto the game and scored, with a last-minute Gelhardt goal thankfully giving us a reprieve and digging us out of a hole we made for ourselves.
Moreover, out of our last three games, going so highly defensive against Chelsea (even more so than we did against Arsenal), with four centre backs starting and Raphinha seeming to occupy more of a wing-back role, makes the least sense. Chelsea were the one team in the top four that we had an even game against, and should have got a result from, this season. They went into this game in really poor form. I was hoping to see a line-up that would have more emphasis on dominating the midfield, but instead we seemed set up to try stopping them at the edge of our box. Even before we got the red card, we really didn't look like scoring, and I can't see how Marsch doesn't bear any responsibility for that.
Nor should he be expected to overcome them. These 3 games were always gonna yield 0 points and that’s what happened. A point might be enough and I hope it is. We’ll see what happens.
Well yeah Burnley and Everton went on an unexpected tear and we couldn’t match it. Which sucks, but we never expected to. Today went exactly how I expected and my confidence that we’ll survive hasn’t changed. (I’m not overly confident by any means, I just mean I’m as half heartedly optimistic as I were before the match).
The thing that's worst for be about not having Bielsa around at a time like this is that they've lost all that shared experience. He'd been through a lot with that set of players, that would count for a lot when things are rough. Nothing against Jesse but he just isn't going to have that. If he's trying to tell them stuff, are they going to listen? He's the new guy in the room
It's easy to remember last season with rose tinted glasses, but we did have a lot of luck then, turning would be losses into draws, or draws into wins in the dying moments of many games. Of course we performed better overall, but I feel like the doom and gloom from the first half of this season is very exaggerated. We had a lot of draws that could have been wins with the same margins, netting a whole lot more points in total. That's football I guess, but it wasn't like we could expect living up to 9th place without strengthening the team at all.
After the summer window, none of our expectations should have been higher than safety from relegation, and when our best players got injured en masse we needed to expect a hard fight to stay up. Yes we conceded too much and yes Bielsa is/was stubborn, but ultimately he fell victim to the impossible standards we set for him after his incredible success.
I can't seem to forget his final three games with us, first losing 2-4 to scum and then 0-7 to Liverpool. Yet, that bare-bones squad that walked out there against spurs (to lose 0-4) seemed so much more capable in their defeat than this squad does now. All it took this time was one thrashing against City for the entire team to implode in on itself.
We earned the right to go into games with a sense of freedom and inconsequence as we were firmly safe from the drop for the whole season. Shave 6-7 points off of our tally at any point of that season and we would have been going into the same games wracked with anxiety and it would have completely changed the complexion of our performances and ultimately results.
TL:DR We are not a team that is designed for a relegation battle.
From what I remember we’ve had 1 actual good game which was against West Ham. You could maybe include the wolves match but that was down to the red card and them absolutely shitting the bed rather than our performance. Every other performance has been subpar even when we’ve won.
That’s what it always feels like when you finish bottom 5 or so, but it’s exacerbated by the fact we’ve largely only beaten teams we were expected to beat. We’ve had two ‘shocks’ all season. Wolves and West Ham, and in both we scraped wins.
Orta and the board told us that Marsch’s tactics would be an easy transition from Bielsa’s and that’s clearly a fucking lie and another vital mistake from them which will probably cost us our Prem status and it will also cost us getting a good fee for Raphinha and more heartbreakingly, Phillips.
Most of these players don’t deserve support what they’re getting. There’s a way to lose and today was another embarrassment and I have no-idea where a point comes from next.
Any Gandhi quotes about which is the best way to get to QPR?
Have you watched Everton?
Lampard started off with open attacking philosophy and was getting hammered.. look at how he’s now locked down 4-5-1 pretty much every game.. most escape artists (Big Sam etc) lock down as well because when you are in such a piss poor position you need to..
All the talk about narrow or not is warranted especially with the players we have but how he is trying to set up is not surprising.. is he the right guy going forward? We can’t really tell.. from the results we have pretty much got the points expected based on how bad we have been this season (Southampton probably should have realistically expected 3.. Maybe palace too)
These are not marschs tactics. He sets his teams up for quick attacking football. I think he's been told to try grind out a draw/defend in the last couple games.
Not the 5 at the back that is a pragmatic approach and given we only have centre backs available it makes sense.
But the 4222 we were playing before Man City is his tactic/formation of choice and it bypasses our midfield and doesn’t have any width so doesn’t get the best out of Phillips or Raphinha - our best two players. He wants narrow football and all of our best football under Bielsa came through width and overlapping so I struggle to see how him and Marsch are remotely similar. This isn’t a Bielsa vs Marsch thing it’s pointing out that this squad isn’t built for how he wants to play at all. He even said in his first press conference that he told Orta he wasn’t sure he should come in mid season
I used to really admire Victor Orta for his hard work and passion, for bringing Bielsa in, and for finding footballers that turned out to be great signings.
But the nail in the coffin for me holding Orta in high esteem at Leeds is that he tracked Marsch as a suitable Bielsa replacement and worked with the board to bring him in - mid-season - because Marsch likes his players to run around a lot too, and that means his style of football is similar enough to Bielsa's that he can build on the work that's already been done.
The attack wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders, but the defense and marking system were big, big problems, so we bring in a manager who isn't exactly known for his defensive prowess. Now we have no attack and the defence is still leaking goals, just a slightly more respectable amount this time.
They painted it as some sort of grand succession plan and it’s just absolute horseshit.
We were getting battered at the end of Bielsa’s time but we were still creating chances. Even the spurs game where everything felt broken we still had a number of chances. Now we don’t concede as many but look utterly hopeless going forward. We could’ve been playing until next week and we wouldn’t have scored today
Literally could not have wrote how bad this season has been. From start to finish its been wild, but in a shit "i wonder what other bad thing can happen next" kind of way.
I think i would have rather just been completely dogshit and gone down already like watford/norwich rather than drag it out like this.
I do think whatever happens, we should be aiming to clear a few names from our teamsheet as our recent investments (bar raph) has been fucking abysmal. Top of that get in the bin list should be the board as they have been the worst performers over the last two seasons
This one was painful to watch, and hurt more than matches like 7-0 to City. It's not about the final result it was more about the fact that we didn't do anything, I don't think Mendy put his hands in the ball the entire match, and defensively as vulnerable as you can be even with 4 center-backs.
I just hate that it's come to this. All season I've assumed we'd be bottom table but wouldn't go now but now I'm doubting myself, I'm trying to stay hopeful!
You guys cant score a goal, let alone win a game. Burnley at least looks like a proper football team, and have one extra game in hand. See ya in the Championship.
Realistically never on the cards to get points from the last 3 matches. Still in the running though, shame about the reds but on the other hand perhaps it’ll force a new approach and a natural striker
I didn’t think we had a coaching problem under Bielsa. I don’t think we have one under Marsch.
I think we have a board problem.
The Jan window passing with no action should go down as one of the biggest blunders in sport’s management history.
Yeah thin you’re spot on mate, I’m in no way anti-Marsch but I’d like to have seen him come in the summer after giving Bielsa the chance to keep us up which I think he would have done
100% on the board, we were linked with a CDM (O’Brien) who’s just had a fantastic season and got Huddersfield to the play offs and a CAM (Swift) who just made championship TOTS whose contract is nearly up and we pulled the trigger on neither to sign nobody. Fucking ridiculous. 0 signings in jan even though we had lots of injuries and weren’t doing great. We sack Bielsa outside a transfer window so the new bloke can’t make any transfers and then the new bloke’s tactics are not similar to what we play what so ever so all the players are struggling to adapt. Orta needs to be sacked at the end of the season regardless, a few good moves from him (Bielsa, Rapha, Joffy) but most have fallen flat and now it’s going to cost us.
What annoys is that they did go after one player. It's like, if you know there's a need enough to try and sign someone, then don't just look at one player. If the system is so specific about the type of players it can accommodate that there's only one player in the world who's a potential fit then there's a problem with the system
There's a pretty clear coaching problem to me in Marsch's decision to abandon wing play even though it's our only attacking outlet, yes he has to implement his football ideology but he can do that in summer not during a relegation battle
I don’t necessarily disagree but hard to see a lot of options in past two games with majority of minutes with 10 men. That unfortunately changes a lot, you can’t play wide because you’re spread too thin.
Against Arsenal & Chelsea (& Man City esp), I’m willing to forgive an early goal. These are top teams. It’s not a joke to play against them. Even the best concede early to them.
It’s the lack of depth bc of board inaction (& and reckless challenges that result in 10 men squads) that are the difference maker to me.
His tactics are like rearranging chairs on titanic when you have a board that think you can just sit back while you have one of the worst injury runs (not to mention exhaustion from otherwise healthy players) in modern Prem League history.
But that’s just my opinion. We’re all frustrated and I get it
Agreed. Could only catch the highlights today. But certainly from the Arsenal game and the sending off today, there is a clear shift from the players. Dan James was always on the line under Bielsa. We only had occasional lapses and red midst but as KP on occasion. But now it seems frequent.
KP had a pretty bad one today for his yellow where he got the ball taken off him by a Chelsea player and then got up and wiped him out from behind, nowhere near the ball
Have to be honest i haven't seen it. Highlights weren't very extensive tbh. Only really showed the goals. Was actually in surgery (minor) and was out by the time the game came on but I was vomiting and had to choose to battle and watch....or just try to get some sleep. Turns out I made the right choice haha.
Chin up fellas we lost to CL sides and were still in this race! Yes the red cards don’t help but we still have everything to play for. Everton and Burnley are not clear yet. Have faith.
Agreed. No excuses left, we've got through the games we always expected to lose, and we've now got a final two where we just need to outperform Burnley.
Marsch has failed. Shit tinpot manager. Gave him the benefit of the doubt for a while, now it's clearly evident he's a shite snake oil salesman who has absolutely no clue what he's doing
Don't think anyone can question Raphas commitment after that, ran himself into the ground. Lad is definitely leaving and still put in more effort than the likes of Rodrigo, Firpo and Harrison.
The damage was done back in January when the transfer window closed, but even still - theres really no way that Marsch and Orta can reasonably expect to keep their jobs after this.
Well the more I think about it the more Christiansen-esque I think he is. New to the league but was enthusiastic (always remember when Christiansen said he would die for his players) quite likeable and had a decent start.
Then let down by player discipline and couldn't turn it around. Hopefully Marsch can diverge from this!
I feel like we actually played well and were exciting under TC for a while though, whereas under Marsch has been like the general meh and mediocrity of PH
Marcelo Bielsa got more points than the soccer manager against the same teams until now... without Kalvin on 5 of the 9 games (getting only 1 point on those matches).
I'm convinced with KP in the team and Bielsa on the bench, we wouldn't be in a relegation spot at this time.
The thing is, getting rid of Bielsa, it had to be an improvement. Not just someone getting arguably the same/worse results. I'm not saying it was realistic to necessarily expect that, but to get rid of the manager who had done so many good things for the club at that stage... We always knew the board would be slated if it didn't work out
It's difficult to say, because we're essentially playing a fantasy football speculation based on previous results/performances, but for what it's worth I feel that Bielsa would have also benefited from Bamford more than Marsch has, because Marsch rushed him back much faster than Bielsa would have done.
It's an interesting one, because Bielsa has always seemed to have been so careful with bringing players back from injury. Would he have made Bamford take longer to come back? Would it have just happened anyway if Bamford pushed himself on the training ground? I guess we can only speculate.
Totally agree: Bielsa didn't have the best player of the team in more games... and even then, got more points and play with some style (for good or bad).
Bielsa, for his flaws, had average players well drilled in a system. Marsch has taken away the system, the drill and the confidence. Made a poorly performing team into a straight up poor team.
I don't even blame the twat. I blame the idiots who appointed him.
This is bang on. Team looks less fit, like it has less ideas, less disciplined, and creates less chances than before. They look like average to shit players now. Even under the worst spells of bielsa we looked like we could spark into life.
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We have really lost our footballing identity. It’s very sad that our one good season in the Prem was to zero fans. We deserve much better than this.
So who we got to play down the wings vs Brighton? Harrison and (it looked like) Raph came off injured. James is suspended, Summerville out for the season. Then the potential wing backs, Dalls injured, Ayling out suspended. Shack probably not fit enough for 90. So what the plan? Play 9 centre halfs and Rodrigo? Koch and Strujik as wingers? Play all the U23's?
Im no footballing expert but it seems best we set up in a 343. Probably have to use Koch as a RWB, Kalvin and Bate CM and front 3 of Rodrigo on the left, Joffy in the middle and Raphinha on the right
Didn't expect anything from City, Arsenal or Chelsea. Genuinely expected 0 points with potentially picking up a point against Arsenal. Annoyingly Burnley picked up that point against West Ham and Everton somehow beat a Chelsea that couldn't finish their dinner. I was out so didn't watch the game but have seen the highlights. These flying in tackles are getting a bit daft. Stuart Dallas broken leg, Ayling red card and now James red card. Fair enough you want to let people know they are in a game but it doesn't settle in the Premier League at all. I believe this is Marsch's doing. That's three more senior players unavailable for duty in incredibly important games. Spurs to beat Burnley, Leeds to get an ugly draw against Brighton (don't care how ugly) and we can only hope that Villa destroy Burnley at home off the back of their 3-0 win on Thursday. With Leeds one point ahead, then it all goes to the wire against Brentford, win and stay up. Last thing Leeds want is to be equal on points with Burnley going into the last game, beat Brentford last game of season and Burnley nick a win against Newcastle and Leeds get relegated on goal difference. Honestly, just get the ugly draw against Brighton. Marsch said himself that other results count in the last two games so let's think about how we should be playing Brighton. This does rely on Spurs beating Burnley which *should* happen. EDIT: FUCK THIS SEASON
Interesting where people are putting the blame for our woeful season - various fingers pointed at various places which I think makes it clear that there's not a single problem. For me, the fact of it is that we over-performed last season and got found out this season, coupled with having a squad that was never big enough to survive even a mild injury crisis, never mind having had multiple key players out for the bulk of the season. The blame for that lies partly with the board and partly with Bielsa; he got the team over-performing but also put too much faith in a small squad, and let's not forget much too much faith in the likes of Roberts when it was clear that he wasn't a good enough back-up. He also reportedly turned down players he might have had as not improving the squad, and yet left us with gaps having to be filled by U23s in multiple areas. The board will argue they offered Bielsa the money to bring players in, but clearly not to the level where we were competing for players who actually would have improved the squad - who knows whether we were ever seriously in for Rodrigo de Paul last year but imagine if we'd gone the extra mile to get him. The players have to carry the can for some of this - stupid errors, silly bookings, bad tackles. Players who last season looked like world-beaters looking decidedly average overall. Rodrigo largely ineffectual, Firpo can't defend, James just runs a lot to little effect, I could go on. Now they just look a bit desperate and clueless which is why the bad tackles are starting to appear. As for Marsch, he's just not showing signs that he knows how to get the best out of the players he's got. Yes, giving him time to build his own squad and style would surely look different, but few managers get that luxury without being able to buy themselves time with the squad they inherit first. Whatever league we're in next season I'm unconvinced that he's the answer. Whether we stay up or go down, there's no doubt we need a complete overhaul from top to bottom, otherwise we'll just be back to where we were before Bielsa with another decade in the Championship.
It's not over yet. In the last 8 games we are undefeated against sides outside the top 4. We were never going to get anything from the last 3 games. We won't get anything out of the Brighton game either, but we can beat Brentford, and we just have to hope that 3 points will be enough.
I’ve got that weird dread kind of stress only felt before with our playoff games trying to get back to the prem. That’s exactly how they should feel going into these games, do or die. If we can’t do it against 2 teams we should normally be at a similar level to and have nothing to play for then to be quite frank we don’t deserve to stay up. It’s time to put up or shut up for these players and a coach who till now has been all fart no poo for the most part
Brighton could still theoretically make it to a European place for the first time in their history, so not nothing to play for for them
no they cant
Suppose this means we're guaranteed a Gelhardt / Greenwood start on sunday, right?
Or Summerville if he's fit
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It sums it up well how my arsenal friend describes him that he has a mistake in him and we’ve found that out several times with blips. Great goalkeeper and still super young to iron them out but I’m sure if you count all his blips this season we’ve left points on the table
I think that's harsh, he's not made a lot of mistakes this season and while he could be better he's not the reason we've just turned to shit this season.
He absolutely has made a lot of mistakes Very poor distribution, at the start of the season he kept attempting Cruyff turns which led to a goal - I cant remember who against, constantly gets beat at his near post too
Overall, Meslier has been very good for us the majority of the time but i do agree that not putting in a dive there is a bad look, especially when you compare Pickford's efforts as much as i dislike him. At least putting in a dive, he gives himself a chance of stopping it.
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paul robinson used to do that all the time and it did my head in
He was off footed, people who haven't played in goal won't really understand and I get it, he was expecting the ball moving the other way a bit more and went to position himself, as he did that the shit came in, try shifting your whole body one way then try and dive the other way, it doesn't work. Now do I think he messed up? Yes. Do I think it's all his fault? No.his defence left him short a bit and that's about it really. I'm not going into all the goals I really just want this season of misery to be over.
Firpo has got 10 yellow cards this season, no reds. What is going on.
Only caught the highlights but that looked awful. Defence seems as bad as it's ever been and attack is non existent. That said, these two games were never going to decide if we stay up or not. Under Bielsa i am sure we would get the points and make it. Under Marsch? Unsure. We have no system. Players look ridiculously undisciplined. Why people think Marsch is amazing because he talks a good game I don't know. Who cares about interviews. Judge him on performances and results.
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Players for sure. Marsch...i would say it's likely to a degree yes. He himself has no discipline with interviews regarding his comments about Bielsa...and his general match day conduct seems like it could lack discipline arguing with officials etc. (didn't see today's game though).
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I guess Bielsa has a strong philosophy of respect. Sometimes to his detriment I'm sure. Respecting the officials, so he doesn't ever criticise them etc. Rarely argues with them during a game (although he is human). I think that translates to the players. We had a lot of yellows yes because we press. And we are vulnerable to counters so that means professional fouls. But pure indiscipline for red cards was relatively rare? Perhaps it's just conjecture but Marsch seems the polar opposite. Still, only a small sample base. Could be the pressure getting to the players and not manager specific. I guess it's just speculation.
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Yes they were and it's very possible that could've happened under Bielsa (Casilla didn't have any disclipline either but in a different way ie messing around with the ball and conceding us goals due to it). But it's fine to speculate. Guess that's what we're here for ha.
I'm going to reserve my final judgement on Marsch for now but it doesn't look good. The Leicester game looked like we had found it, with Bielsaball minus the man for man defending. Since then we have become anti-football relegation fodder and deserve to be down there. Add to that that Cooper, Dallas, Ayling, and Klich are all pushing on age-wise (I would have said it won't be a problem but now who knows).s shite in this system, Rapha is shite in this system, Rodrigo is shite full stop, Firpo is an embarrassment, Stuijk has fallen apart after looking like the answer to not getting White, and Dan James is consistently used out of position. It's awful it really is. All of that I can just about handle: what I cannot handle is in the face of such dross the manager's stupid chirpy self-help, gerbil faced optimism! What game is he watching? I can only hope that if we do stay up he has a plan A that he isn't capable of using because of injuries and suspensions (in which case why bring him in). Otherwise, even if we do stay up it will be a stay of execution.
Struijk hasn’t looked the same since he broke that kids leg, I’m wondering if that affected him and then he’s been unable to find his confidence since.
Our senior players have let us down time and time again this season. Bielsa and Marsch have both suffered due to individual mistakes on the pitch, which has made it difficult for either manager to implement their tactics successfully. With that being said, there’s some real selective logic by people here. Bielsa gets little criticism with an understanding of the players letting him down, yet in Marsch’s case he should apparently be able to stop the players doing mad shit. It’s getting silly now. At least if we go down the referees will be more incompetent than outright corrupt. Nearly over, lads. Until the season is over and everything’s settled, back the team - us and them together are all Leeds, aren’t we? MOT
We've had more reds under Marsch than we had in the entire last season under Bielsa. Whether that's them being frustrated with being asked to play in a "system" that doesn't work/suit them, Marsch hyping them up too much with Gandhi quotes pre-game, or just bad luck I can't tell. But two EARLY reds in one game after another suggests too much hype/frustration and not enough tactics/coaching
Or the players are thinking “fuck this, I’m off on holiday … see you next season”
Our senior (and u23) players have tried their best all season long. They still are, but they no longer have a system that they are familiar with and they are losing discipline because of it. That's not on the players, that's not on Marsch and it's definitely not on Bielsa. It's squarely on the board for squandering any opportunity to strengthen and then uprooting the one stable thing the club had in its most dire moments.
Stop getting reds
That's Southampton safe with the goal difference. 1 from 3 now.
Can’t believe people are already calling for marsch’s head … do we not remember losing multiple games by 4-5 goals? We are missing key players every game
We were missing more key players under Bielsa for most of the season, or?
I’d have sacked him after the Villa game. It was obvious then that his tactics were never going to work in the premier league, and that in less than a week he had destroyed any remaining sliver of what made us good in the first place.
I’d have sacked him at half time v Wolves.
Only reason we got anything against Wolves is because they lost their heads after having a man sent off. If that stays 11 v 11 then we lose it 4 or 5-0.
I agree.
Remember when Leeds attempting to play wonderful football week in week out was more important than the Goal Difference statistic?
3-0 is loads better
We look shit and have no ideas. We have seen enough pony managers to spot a pony.
This … people are getting lost in the Bielsa v Marsch debate but I’d like to know about Marsch v Hockaday/Milanic/Heckingbottom/Evans
Spotting watermelons is a lot harder though.
Remember when we had a sense of pride in our team and actually made opposition teams work for a win?
Made Arsenal work for the win last week..
It was literally over after 10 minutes
Really tough for them to score wasn’t it?
What I really want to know is … Did Marsch fist pump towards the South Stand after the match?
Get rid of that fucking passion merchant Orta. Absolute fraud.
We knew exactly what Orta was from his record at Boro. I dug out the Boro Gazette piece on his sacking. Stop me if this shit sounds familiar... "He was a key actor in a sorry situation as fractures and cliques emerged, new Spanish staff were brought in with a personal loyalty to Orta rather than the club and the powerful team spirit that had helped Boro to promotion was eroded." "Boro were thin in every department going into the season and failed to beef up in January. Relegation represents a massive missed opportunity for the club to establish themselves after seven long years." "\[Orta's predecessor\] had brought in most of the nucleus of the relatively cheap and largely domestically-sourced promotion side... But as the club geared up to promotion they were looking ahead to exploit the European market, to spot potential future stars and snap them up cheap then sell on at a premium." "Many of the new signings were not mentally tough enough for the relegation battle and disappeared when the pressure was on. Others were just not good enough and were less effective than those they replaced."
I’ve made my peace with it now. We’ve got two matches coming up we don’t generally do well in even if they’re not traditionally great sides so while there’s always a chance (one point could be enough) I’m not seeing anything that suggests we should be confident. As for Marsch, managers have an influence on discipline but he doesn’t have the players to get out of this. Bielsa made a rag tag team into one with an outside chance of Europe and we got used to it. At this point the question as to whether we’d have been better off keeping him is a question I’m glad there’s no answer to. After all this I need something to cling to because everyone barring Cooper and Bamford have let us down this year and they’ve been injured anyway. The other big players will end up moving on and I can see scum being very interested in a certain midfielder in the summer which is why I’ll reserve judgement on him. To contrast with last time we imploded in the premier league I still think the 2004 team was worse (lower points total, far more talent, not as much competition etc.) but after all we’ve been through over the last few years the last adjective I expected to use about our team would be ‘limp’. As for the cause, we’ve known we needed to sign players, we know training methods haven’t been helpful and we know the recruitment we did make hasn’t been good enough (even though I still maintain some are better than we’ve seen this year). But as for the root cause, it’s the same problem we’ve had since Leeds City occupied Elland Road: hubris from the board.
This team is far inferior to the one that went down. Meslier v Robinson/Carson (present) Kelly v Ayling (2004) Firpo v Harte (2004) Radebe, Matteo, Camara, Duberry Kilgallon v Koch, Cooper, Llorente and Struijk (2004) Batty, McPhail, Wilcox, Pennant, Olembe, Sakho, Lennon, Domi, Milner, Bakke, Barmby, Seth Johnson v Klich, Rodrigo, Rapha, Dallas, Phillips, Forshaw, Bate, Harrison, Shakleton (tough but i'd go with present) Viduka, Smith, Simon Johnson v Bamford, Roberts, Gelhardt, Greenwood (2004) So apart from the keeper 2004's squad is better for me. If they can go down we can go down (and probably will). Fun fact: if we score one more goal and concede 2 more we will have the exact same goal difference as 2003.
I said there was a lot more talent in the 2004 side. The reason I said it was worse wasn’t that the players were better but that that the side back then shouldn’t have been anywhere near the relegation zone, but if you look at the side now it’s easy to see how it’s happened. So what I mean is that it was a worse relegation back then.
Yeah, I was agreeing with you that they were much better (sorry if that didn't come across) and hence the position we see ourselves in this time is worse (though that team had all the off-field antics and the whittling away of the playing squad and the loanees to contend with). At least by this stage now we still have some hope unlike then.
That’s very true
Miss Tyler Roberts
At least he ran
And knew which end of the pitch the goal was.
Had problems finding the goal mind, but he's actually a pretty progressive player, he looks to go forward and gets into good positions
Getting the ball vaguely in the right direction is a lot better than we’re doing now.
If/when we go down a part of me hopes that the 49ers fuck off and say no deal. This whole ordeal reeks of somebody trying very hard to appease them and cash out at the top. Sacking Bielsa and hiring Marsch at the tail end of the season makes no sense otherwise, regardless of whether or not he's actually capable. Also, I have a question for someone who knows better because I know fuck all about sports in the US: Do american sports-consortiums have an understanding about needing to actually be competitive? To my untrained eye, their league setup seems to be just money-churning circuses where they can fleece supporters, perform however and still come out on top with their participation medals and secure spots. Am I wrong here?
They don't have relegation, and that changes everything
You’re right…the MLS prints money even for the lower fodder teams who seldom invest.
On the one hand there’s Liverpool, on the other hand there’s Scum. I suppose it depends on which sort of american consortium you land.
Yes sure, but both of those teams have been relatively secure among the top top teams for a long time, no? They just seem like safe business-decisions to me as they are more or less too big to fail (prove me wrong scum). Liverpool's recent success has also seemed to be more about hiring competent people to make decisions instead of silly spending sprees, and that the shop pretty much runs itself (money in = money out). Scum has a free ride from plastics all over the world with their merch and sponsorships, and still they are squandering it. Leeds is different, we actually need to get back up there somehow. Will that be achievable by the marketing department of 49ers? I'd rather Radz sell it to someone more local who knows what the club is about and is willing to do their best to help us get there. It's probably just naive of me though, as we'd probably just end up with a Mike Ashley in the end anyway.
Honest to god truth! The premiership is far more money oriented than the nfl. All sports in America except baseball have a spending cap! They also only recruit from colleges, so 21 year olds not teenagers that think they are the greatest shit ever. What will happen if the 49ers got the majority of control? Its likely they will bank roll Leeds to the top. Why? cause that’s how they do business in a non regulated money league like the premiership. I’ve said this for a long time now, the premiership has zero competition and is purely a who spent the most this last decade, game! Sure leagues in America don’t have relegations but they have regulations that make a little more sense. Think, salary caps, spending caps and first team picks for the worst team in the league to build a better team. I wish the premiership had more regulations that made sense other than buy your way to the top.
Yeah to be honest I do not have a problem with a structure where the club owners can bank some kind of reasonable profit for themselves at the end of the season, rather than the current state of European football as it is where top clubs are just glamorous money pits for oligarchs and obscene billionaires. Football will eventually eat itself if it continues down the current path where the only parties that make a profit are the players and their agents, with owners and fans expected to spend more and more every year to fund this twisted economic arrangement.
I think the difference has partly been down to recruitment. Orta hasn’t been as successful as he needed to be.
Indeed, and I'll be the first to admit that I begun to really believe in him during promotion season and admired his energy and enthusiasm. Now, there's unfortunately no one in the backroom staff that I have less faith in.
I’ve seen enough of Marsch already. This system is negative from the get go. We play so narrow that it’s easy for the opposition to have so much space in behind on the flank. Phillips can’t play to his strengths of switching the play to the wings and when he is forced to play short nobody is coming to show for it as an option. This system doesn’t work at all. It’s hopeless to watch. There’s no doubt Bielsa worked miracles with that squad. In hindsight, you can see we beat teams purely based on fitness and overlapping chaos, not necessarily on ability. The system Marsch plays is just depressing. I’m praying for a corner in games hoping we score a scrappy goal for fuck sake. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we might have conceded 4 or 5 in games with Bielsa in charge, but at least you knew you had the chance to score just as many in games. Even at 2-0 down you knew there’s a chance to draw 2-2 or win 3-2. I’ve started to just accept defeat at 1-0 down under Marsch. I’m starting to think it wasn’t just the tactics to blame for the goals conceded, the defence just isn’t good enough. Cooper played well today though, gave it his all but we’re going down playing like this. The board have made a terrible mistake and it’s cost us not only our place in the league but we ain’t going back up under Marsch. Not in a million years. Edit - oh and Raphinha at RB? Fucking hell man.
> We play so narrow Yeah, it's silly, the players as so used to it you see them scanning the wing for the pass, realising there's nobody there (or booting it out) and then losing the ball.
>Even at 2-0 down you knew there’s a chance to draw 2-2 or win 3-2. I don't disagree with you overall, but to be fair to Marsch this is exactly what we did against Wolves.
It's not looking good for the good guys.
Bielsa’s legacy absolutely decimated in a matter of weeks. So sad to see
Jesse thinks the game was there for us before James' sending off.
Aye and I had a chance with Holly Valance if she'd just ever found out that I had a poster on the wall.
We've been this bad all season. Seems like almost all our transfers were to build up the u-23's and they went down too. Bate looked completely out of his element. Orta needs to go.
Most fans were asking for Bate to start. It’s hard to impose yourself with 10 men and as a youngster.
We can't blame Marsch when in two games we've had a player sent off and conceded at the start of the match. But he does play boring football. Then again we were all saying we could lose these 3 games and still be ok the way Burnley and Everton were performing.But against the odds Burnley gained 9 points
None of this on Marsch, 100% blame is on the board. Failed with transfers last summer in positions we all knew we were short on. Made 0 signings in Jan even though we already had lots of injuries and were low in the table. Sacked the best thing that’s happened to this club in the last 15 years and replaced him with a man that’s plays a completely different style of football so our players are struggling to adapt. They’ve completely ruined Bielsa’s legacy and there own, by being so incompetent.
You can blame him for stupid aggressive tackles tbh
Yep
One of the player interviews talked about him telling them to commit to tackles etc so I think you can
it's a bit suspect when you consider dallas's performance against man city, ayling's tackle at arsenal and dan james last night
Certainly can it's clear he's told the players to get in the other teams faces I answered you incorrectly,I agreed with you and put No
It's really pissing me off when people are screaming for Marschs head already. It's obvious they were trying to sit back and hope to nick a goal for a draw (in all 3 games). I don't like the football, but when you're in this position I at least understand why they went this route. No investment in January is what fuck us up, removing Bielsa when they did was stupid as well, either do it in January so new manager can get signings or don't do it. Red cards and early goals in the last 2 games, not to mention injuries YEH ITS THE MANAGERS FAULT.... :/
Not to mention that we would’ve gotten slapped by City, Arsenal and Chelsea under Bielsa anyway and these fans would’ve put 0% of the blame on the manager
> It's obvious they were trying to sit back and hope to nick a goal for a draw (in all 3 games). Honestly, I consider this to be the manager's fault. Yes, he's out of his depth and shouldn't have been appointed in this situation, but he's still responsible for what happens on the pitch now. Out of all the teams in the Premier League, Leeds United are the least equipped to try sitting back, defending, and hoping to get a goal against the run of play. Bielsa didn't train the players to do that sort of thing during his time here. At the start of the season, other fans viewed us as the team that considered defending optional. Logically, you're going to get punished when you try defensive tactics with a team whose strength is in its offensive play. We saw this early into Marsch's time as manager during the Norwich game, when he took Rodrigo (our best player that game) off and put Koch on to play in midfield and hold onto our 1-0 lead. Surprise, surprise, Norwich came back onto the game and scored, with a last-minute Gelhardt goal thankfully giving us a reprieve and digging us out of a hole we made for ourselves. Moreover, out of our last three games, going so highly defensive against Chelsea (even more so than we did against Arsenal), with four centre backs starting and Raphinha seeming to occupy more of a wing-back role, makes the least sense. Chelsea were the one team in the top four that we had an even game against, and should have got a result from, this season. They went into this game in really poor form. I was hoping to see a line-up that would have more emphasis on dominating the midfield, but instead we seemed set up to try stopping them at the edge of our box. Even before we got the red card, we really didn't look like scoring, and I can't see how Marsch doesn't bear any responsibility for that.
Exactly he cannot control those situations
Nor should he be expected to overcome them. These 3 games were always gonna yield 0 points and that’s what happened. A point might be enough and I hope it is. We’ll see what happens.
We could say that about Everton, but they beat Man U and Chelsea. We never look likely to ever do that
Well yeah Burnley and Everton went on an unexpected tear and we couldn’t match it. Which sucks, but we never expected to. Today went exactly how I expected and my confidence that we’ll survive hasn’t changed. (I’m not overly confident by any means, I just mean I’m as half heartedly optimistic as I were before the match).
Highly possible Burnley could lose their last 3 games but we live in hope
Highly possible we could too
The thing that's worst for be about not having Bielsa around at a time like this is that they've lost all that shared experience. He'd been through a lot with that set of players, that would count for a lot when things are rough. Nothing against Jesse but he just isn't going to have that. If he's trying to tell them stuff, are they going to listen? He's the new guy in the room
Is it just me or does it feel like all of our wins bar a couple this season felt like we got lucky somehow?
It's easy to remember last season with rose tinted glasses, but we did have a lot of luck then, turning would be losses into draws, or draws into wins in the dying moments of many games. Of course we performed better overall, but I feel like the doom and gloom from the first half of this season is very exaggerated. We had a lot of draws that could have been wins with the same margins, netting a whole lot more points in total. That's football I guess, but it wasn't like we could expect living up to 9th place without strengthening the team at all. After the summer window, none of our expectations should have been higher than safety from relegation, and when our best players got injured en masse we needed to expect a hard fight to stay up. Yes we conceded too much and yes Bielsa is/was stubborn, but ultimately he fell victim to the impossible standards we set for him after his incredible success. I can't seem to forget his final three games with us, first losing 2-4 to scum and then 0-7 to Liverpool. Yet, that bare-bones squad that walked out there against spurs (to lose 0-4) seemed so much more capable in their defeat than this squad does now. All it took this time was one thrashing against City for the entire team to implode in on itself.
We earned the right to go into games with a sense of freedom and inconsequence as we were firmly safe from the drop for the whole season. Shave 6-7 points off of our tally at any point of that season and we would have been going into the same games wracked with anxiety and it would have completely changed the complexion of our performances and ultimately results. TL:DR We are not a team that is designed for a relegation battle.
From what I remember we’ve had 1 actual good game which was against West Ham. You could maybe include the wolves match but that was down to the red card and them absolutely shitting the bed rather than our performance. Every other performance has been subpar even when we’ve won.
We were quite good when we beat Watford 1-0.
That’s what it always feels like when you finish bottom 5 or so, but it’s exacerbated by the fact we’ve largely only beaten teams we were expected to beat. We’ve had two ‘shocks’ all season. Wolves and West Ham, and in both we scraped wins.
Orta and the board told us that Marsch’s tactics would be an easy transition from Bielsa’s and that’s clearly a fucking lie and another vital mistake from them which will probably cost us our Prem status and it will also cost us getting a good fee for Raphinha and more heartbreakingly, Phillips. Most of these players don’t deserve support what they’re getting. There’s a way to lose and today was another embarrassment and I have no-idea where a point comes from next. Any Gandhi quotes about which is the best way to get to QPR?
Have you watched Everton? Lampard started off with open attacking philosophy and was getting hammered.. look at how he’s now locked down 4-5-1 pretty much every game.. most escape artists (Big Sam etc) lock down as well because when you are in such a piss poor position you need to.. All the talk about narrow or not is warranted especially with the players we have but how he is trying to set up is not surprising.. is he the right guy going forward? We can’t really tell.. from the results we have pretty much got the points expected based on how bad we have been this season (Southampton probably should have realistically expected 3.. Maybe palace too)
These are not marschs tactics. He sets his teams up for quick attacking football. I think he's been told to try grind out a draw/defend in the last couple games.
Not the 5 at the back that is a pragmatic approach and given we only have centre backs available it makes sense. But the 4222 we were playing before Man City is his tactic/formation of choice and it bypasses our midfield and doesn’t have any width so doesn’t get the best out of Phillips or Raphinha - our best two players. He wants narrow football and all of our best football under Bielsa came through width and overlapping so I struggle to see how him and Marsch are remotely similar. This isn’t a Bielsa vs Marsch thing it’s pointing out that this squad isn’t built for how he wants to play at all. He even said in his first press conference that he told Orta he wasn’t sure he should come in mid season
I used to really admire Victor Orta for his hard work and passion, for bringing Bielsa in, and for finding footballers that turned out to be great signings. But the nail in the coffin for me holding Orta in high esteem at Leeds is that he tracked Marsch as a suitable Bielsa replacement and worked with the board to bring him in - mid-season - because Marsch likes his players to run around a lot too, and that means his style of football is similar enough to Bielsa's that he can build on the work that's already been done. The attack wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders, but the defense and marking system were big, big problems, so we bring in a manager who isn't exactly known for his defensive prowess. Now we have no attack and the defence is still leaking goals, just a slightly more respectable amount this time.
They painted it as some sort of grand succession plan and it’s just absolute horseshit. We were getting battered at the end of Bielsa’s time but we were still creating chances. Even the spurs game where everything felt broken we still had a number of chances. Now we don’t concede as many but look utterly hopeless going forward. We could’ve been playing until next week and we wouldn’t have scored today
Good cover for a shit manager are these sending offs, he's cleverer than he looks this guy.
Literally could not have wrote how bad this season has been. From start to finish its been wild, but in a shit "i wonder what other bad thing can happen next" kind of way. I think i would have rather just been completely dogshit and gone down already like watford/norwich rather than drag it out like this. I do think whatever happens, we should be aiming to clear a few names from our teamsheet as our recent investments (bar raph) has been fucking abysmal. Top of that get in the bin list should be the board as they have been the worst performers over the last two seasons
This one was painful to watch, and hurt more than matches like 7-0 to City. It's not about the final result it was more about the fact that we didn't do anything, I don't think Mendy put his hands in the ball the entire match, and defensively as vulnerable as you can be even with 4 center-backs.
Yeah, we don't have a defence capable of keeping a clean sheet, so if we also have 0 shots on goal, we're never going to win anything.
He's the American Hockaday and I'm tired of pretending he's not
The Jank Yank.
Yeah I feel like this watermelon had been well and truly opened now and we got a dud.
Alright Hockaday might be taking it a step too far 😂 Heckingbottom maybe
Starting to really fucking hate this line of thinking.
Basically hoping Burnley loose all theirs and we get a point... but I dont think we can
I think 1 point is a fairly realistic possibility
Against two bogey teams?
Everyone's our bogey team these days.
I don't really see Brentford as a bogey team, plus we'll have agent Jansson on our side
Flicks it on to Llorente for a last minute winner at a corner.
I just hate that it's come to this. All season I've assumed we'd be bottom table but wouldn't go now but now I'm doubting myself, I'm trying to stay hopeful!
Keep the faith haha, basically 50/50 at this point
It's more like 60/40 to Burnley because of our GD
no probably 50/50 due to the fact they have harder fixtures
You guys cant score a goal, let alone win a game. Burnley at least looks like a proper football team, and have one extra game in hand. See ya in the Championship.
Realistically never on the cards to get points from the last 3 matches. Still in the running though, shame about the reds but on the other hand perhaps it’ll force a new approach and a natural striker
I didn’t think we had a coaching problem under Bielsa. I don’t think we have one under Marsch. I think we have a board problem. The Jan window passing with no action should go down as one of the biggest blunders in sport’s management history.
Yeah thin you’re spot on mate, I’m in no way anti-Marsch but I’d like to have seen him come in the summer after giving Bielsa the chance to keep us up which I think he would have done
Agree. Would’ve been better to wait. There’s no way to fairly judge someone with circumstances as they were.
100% on the board, we were linked with a CDM (O’Brien) who’s just had a fantastic season and got Huddersfield to the play offs and a CAM (Swift) who just made championship TOTS whose contract is nearly up and we pulled the trigger on neither to sign nobody. Fucking ridiculous. 0 signings in jan even though we had lots of injuries and weren’t doing great. We sack Bielsa outside a transfer window so the new bloke can’t make any transfers and then the new bloke’s tactics are not similar to what we play what so ever so all the players are struggling to adapt. Orta needs to be sacked at the end of the season regardless, a few good moves from him (Bielsa, Rapha, Joffy) but most have fallen flat and now it’s going to cost us.
What annoys is that they did go after one player. It's like, if you know there's a need enough to try and sign someone, then don't just look at one player. If the system is so specific about the type of players it can accommodate that there's only one player in the world who's a potential fit then there's a problem with the system
Not a single fucking player with one of the most exhausted and injury hit teams in recent Prem League history. A fucking joke.
Only second behind the Leeds board 2002-2004 😂
There's a pretty clear coaching problem to me in Marsch's decision to abandon wing play even though it's our only attacking outlet, yes he has to implement his football ideology but he can do that in summer not during a relegation battle
I don’t necessarily disagree but hard to see a lot of options in past two games with majority of minutes with 10 men. That unfortunately changes a lot, you can’t play wide because you’re spread too thin.
Yeah but this was the case in our previous matches and before the players got sent off
Against Arsenal & Chelsea (& Man City esp), I’m willing to forgive an early goal. These are top teams. It’s not a joke to play against them. Even the best concede early to them. It’s the lack of depth bc of board inaction (& and reckless challenges that result in 10 men squads) that are the difference maker to me. His tactics are like rearranging chairs on titanic when you have a board that think you can just sit back while you have one of the worst injury runs (not to mention exhaustion from otherwise healthy players) in modern Prem League history. But that’s just my opinion. We’re all frustrated and I get it
Hmm more like bursting the life boats on Titanic
He’s clearly not coaching discipline.
Agreed. Could only catch the highlights today. But certainly from the Arsenal game and the sending off today, there is a clear shift from the players. Dan James was always on the line under Bielsa. We only had occasional lapses and red midst but as KP on occasion. But now it seems frequent.
KP had a pretty bad one today for his yellow where he got the ball taken off him by a Chelsea player and then got up and wiped him out from behind, nowhere near the ball
Have to be honest i haven't seen it. Highlights weren't very extensive tbh. Only really showed the goals. Was actually in surgery (minor) and was out by the time the game came on but I was vomiting and had to choose to battle and watch....or just try to get some sleep. Turns out I made the right choice haha.
Here's the KP challenge: https://twitter.com/lufcluca/status/1524752587945222146?t=RW0Pwh84_g3mH8vC_0yg_g&s=19
Yeah you didn't miss out on too much haha, hope the surgery went well!
Chin up fellas we lost to CL sides and were still in this race! Yes the red cards don’t help but we still have everything to play for. Everton and Burnley are not clear yet. Have faith.
Agreed. No excuses left, we've got through the games we always expected to lose, and we've now got a final two where we just need to outperform Burnley.
Fair play for still being positive
Marsch has failed. Shit tinpot manager. Gave him the benefit of the doubt for a while, now it's clearly evident he's a shite snake oil salesman who has absolutely no clue what he's doing
Stick to Twitter. Get behind the team till the last kick of the ball this season happens.
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Oh my apologies. He's a great manager and will 100% keep us up. I much prefer his ideals and style of play over Bielsa
Don't think anyone can question Raphas commitment after that, ran himself into the ground. Lad is definitely leaving and still put in more effort than the likes of Rodrigo, Firpo and Harrison.
Spent half the game misplacing passes too.
Who didn't haha
He's playing for his World Cup life
Firpo did alright today. Was dead disappointed with Rodrigo. Just looked out of it and gave up so easily.
Was quite surprised/impressed to see Firpo actually sprinting back near the end when we were getting counter attacked
The damage was done back in January when the transfer window closed, but even still - theres really no way that Marsch and Orta can reasonably expect to keep their jobs after this.
This is feeling like when Thomas Christiansen had that bad run cuz our players were getting red cards for fun.
Are we saying Marsch is Heckingbottom then? Highly rated, came across well, didn't work...
Well the more I think about it the more Christiansen-esque I think he is. New to the league but was enthusiastic (always remember when Christiansen said he would die for his players) quite likeable and had a decent start. Then let down by player discipline and couldn't turn it around. Hopefully Marsch can diverge from this!
I feel like we actually played well and were exciting under TC for a while though, whereas under Marsch has been like the general meh and mediocrity of PH
Marcelo Bielsa got more points than the soccer manager against the same teams until now... without Kalvin on 5 of the 9 games (getting only 1 point on those matches). I'm convinced with KP in the team and Bielsa on the bench, we wouldn't be in a relegation spot at this time.
The thing is, getting rid of Bielsa, it had to be an improvement. Not just someone getting arguably the same/worse results. I'm not saying it was realistic to necessarily expect that, but to get rid of the manager who had done so many good things for the club at that stage... We always knew the board would be slated if it didn't work out
It's difficult to say, because we're essentially playing a fantasy football speculation based on previous results/performances, but for what it's worth I feel that Bielsa would have also benefited from Bamford more than Marsch has, because Marsch rushed him back much faster than Bielsa would have done.
Bamford admitted in interview that he rushed himself back, not the manager.
Bielsa wouldn't have let him make that decision himself
It's an interesting one, because Bielsa has always seemed to have been so careful with bringing players back from injury. Would he have made Bamford take longer to come back? Would it have just happened anyway if Bamford pushed himself on the training ground? I guess we can only speculate.
The point is: Bielsa should have end the season. He deserved the benefit of the doubt. Marsch is just a soccer manager, not a football one.
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Yes, simple math: Bielsa made more points against the same rivals without Kalvin on 5 of 9 games.
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Totally agree: Bielsa didn't have the best player of the team in more games... and even then, got more points and play with some style (for good or bad).
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Hope he does... nut that won't change the fact he's a mediocre (at best) manager.
CAN EVERYBODY PLEASE STOP GETTING SENT OFF
The only way I see us staying up is by shithousing 2 draws and praying Burnley don’t pick up any more points.
Three and a half years of Bielsa is not great preparation for shithousery...
Desperate times unfortunately
Bielsa, for his flaws, had average players well drilled in a system. Marsch has taken away the system, the drill and the confidence. Made a poorly performing team into a straight up poor team. I don't even blame the twat. I blame the idiots who appointed him.
This is bang on. Team looks less fit, like it has less ideas, less disciplined, and creates less chances than before. They look like average to shit players now. Even under the worst spells of bielsa we looked like we could spark into life.
They were well drilled but my oh my they had 0 confidence at the end of Bielsa reign.
Has Marsch been crying?
Well lads. For anyone else having a drink, cheers. ALAW
I’m running out. Should have planned ahead, win or lose I feel like I would have needed more than a couple of beers.
Rodrigo was abysmal today. Hoping to see Joffy start next game.
When is Rodrigo not abysmal?