Pick your team against Norwich

[The Subhuman]

Despite our awful last few matches we have picked up more points than both Ipswich and Leicester since the end of October. Our results were pretty damn incredible for a long time yet many seem to think they are justified in slagging off all our players. Go farke yerselves!

Haven't you been doing that?

[Sean_Nile]

Ill have a go at that if you like.

And these arent excuses or an attempt to happy clap the manager.


The International break was a factor. Thorp Arch was almost deserted of first teamers as they were off, some playing meaninlgess friendlies and Kamara and the Welsh lads alos living with the disappointment of getting knocked out of the Euros. --I posted about this banana skin back in October yay me!-- Factor in the injuries on top.
Rutter having bloody surgery as well. Never useful in mid season, he has been our talisman and he hasnt been on it since.

The pressure of leading from the front, this has also affected the other two as well. Remember though that we have been under pressure all season since that poor start, it hasnt never went away, take for example the whole run of games in the West Country and Wales we had to come through, the stress at times has been very high. You could see it coming, even during the great run we had, we rarely won a game in regulation fashion for a promotion chaser, we had awful games where nothing would go right until a moment of luck or very high quality won the day. Away to Wendies, at home to Preston late penalty, at home to Leicester a blind linesman and a late pen.
We were riding our luck.

It ran out at home to Sunderland and away to Coventry, the momentum shifts. We were so inflated but fragile as well. The balloon burst.

How many of those problems were " manageable" -- some point to Farke not throwing on subs to win games earlier or not playing certain players or giving players minutes when we were cruising , but we rarely were.. many many of our games were a grind with the points not being secured until well into the game) So squad size some say, but the bench is never as strong as the starting 11.

Recruitment in January, realistically you only get good players if you can promise their club the player would get minutes.
We could have had Carvallio hey say but that meant dropping Rutter. Moore suits Ipswich play but he hardly been prolific which is why he was surplus to requirements. there. Also in January goals were not a problem. By the end of January were were probably playing our best stuff of the season. My only thought would have been drafting in a CB, but again with the partnership between Rodon and Ampadu blossoming you wonder what the benefits could have been then, especially as Gruev and Kamara were going well. I would have liked one as Farke fortold Kamara running out of gas at some point due to him having no pre season training. As he has by the look.

So can you manage when International breaks come? DF had already held Gray back earlier in the season, but there was no way he could hold back the others.
Rutters injury, it was already there by the time the break came and it was hoped that he would recover enough.


Back to August and the poor start.

Ipswich, SH, Leicester and us all have been head and shoulders above the rest of the league.

All have had bad runs and wobbles. SH lost 4 in a row , then battered us and went on a 24 game unbeaten run. And finished 4th!
We had that bad start and therefore had no buffer zone when this crash came.
Ipswich had theirs but managed to turn losses into draws during the late winter time which was a protection for them.
Leicester made hay while the sun shone which allowed them time to put their wobble right.
Ours came at the culmination of an insane run, but the run only got us on a par with the others.

So too many bad things coming together at the pressure point of the season.

Thankfully we still have the time and the opportunity to get it right.

Im off to bed

Reading your long comment somehow brought to mind chaos theory where everything appears to be stable, but there is a tension in the system, then it reaches a tipping point where a seemingly insignificant incident causes the system to collapse. One snowflake falls in the alps and causes an avalanche.

I have seen grains of sand fall from a funnel to build a sand pile which grows taller with every grain dropped, but this process does not continue indefinately. Stress and tension builds up in the system and even though the sand falls at the same rate, there comes a point where is an avalanche effect.

So you can field the same team that has brought success, yet one player has groin surgery and that causes a stable winning system to collapse.

As the old saying goes if a butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazonian jungle, will there be a hurricane in Japan.

[pjm2019]

Ill have a go at that if you like.

And these arent excuses or an attempt to happy clap the manager.


The International break was a factor. Thorp Arch was almost deserted of first teamers as they were off, some playing meaninlgess friendlies and Kamara and the Welsh lads alos living with the disappointment of getting knocked out of the Euros. --I posted about this banana skin back in October yay me!-- Factor in the injuries on top.
Rutter having bloody surgery as well. Never useful in mid season, he has been our talisman and he hasnt been on it since.

The pressure of leading from the front, this has also affected the other two as well. Remember though that we have been under pressure all season since that poor start, it hasnt never went away, take for example the whole run of games in the West Country and Wales we had to come through, the stress at times has been very high. You could see it coming, even during the great run we had, we rarely won a game in regulation fashion for a promotion chaser, we had awful games where nothing would go right until a moment of luck or very high quality won the day. Away to Wendies, at home to Preston late penalty, at home to Leicester a blind linesman and a late pen.
We were riding our luck.

It ran out at home to Sunderland and away to Coventry, the momentum shifts. We were so inflated but fragile as well. The balloon burst.

How many of those problems were " manageable" -- some point to Farke not throwing on subs to win games earlier or not playing certain players or giving players minutes when we were cruising , but we rarely were.. many many of our games were a grind with the points not being secured until well into the game) So squad size some say, but the bench is never as strong as the starting 11.

Recruitment in January, realistically you only get good players if you can promise their club the player would get minutes.
We could have had Carvallio hey say but that meant dropping Rutter. Moore suits Ipswich play but he hardly been prolific which is why he was surplus to requirements. there. Also in January goals were not a problem. By the end of January were were probably playing our best stuff of the season. My only thought would have been drafting in a CB, but again with the partnership between Rodon and Ampadu blossoming you wonder what the benefits could have been then, especially as Gruev and Kamara were going well. I would have liked one as Farke fortold Kamara running out of gas at some point due to him having no pre season training. As he has by the look.

So can you manage when International breaks come? DF had already held Gray back earlier in the season, but there was no way he could hold back the others.
Rutters injury, it was already there by the time the break came and it was hoped that he would recover enough.


Back to August and the poor start.

Ipswich, SH, Leicester and us all have been head and shoulders above the rest of the league.

All have had bad runs and wobbles. SH lost 4 in a row , then battered us and went on a 24 game unbeaten run. And finished 4th!
We had that bad start and therefore had no buffer zone when this crash came.
Ipswich had theirs but managed to turn losses into draws during the late winter time which was a protection for them.
Leicester made hay while the sun shone which allowed them time to put their wobble right.
Ours came at the culmination of an insane run, but the run only got us on a par with the others.

So too many bad things coming together at the pressure point of the season.

Thankfully we still have the time and the opportunity to get it right.

Im off to bed

And your team and formation ?

[Irish Ian]

And your team and formation ?

I'll get back to you on that.

Summerviles ankle and Bamfords knee being in question.

[SG90]

Doesn't matter as Farke will pick his favourites anyway, but I'd go:

Klaesson
Gray
Cresswell
Rodon
Firpo
Ampadu
Gruev
Kamara
Gnonto
Gelhardt
Summerville
Piroe

[Irish Ian]

Doesn't matter as Farke will pick his favourites anyway, but I'd go:

Klaesson
Gray
Cresswell
Rodon
Firpo
Ampadu
Gruev
Kamara
Gnonto
Gelhardt
Summerville
Piroe

Good move sneaking an extra player in.

[Orange Box]

I have seen grains of sand fall from a funnel to build a sand pile which grows taller with every grain dropped, but this process does not continue indefinately. Stress and tension builds up in the system and even though the sand falls at the same rate, there comes a point where is an avalanche effect.

I don’t want to decry your theory, but you’re not describing chaos, what your video illustrates is equilibrium. Yes, there appears to be an avalanche (a fail) on one side, but the whole pile (ie the team) achieves stasis - the height never falters. Very much akin to the human body: when there is an overbalance of one input, the body components work together to regain balance, chemically as well as physically.

Translate that to football, and in particular Leeds United, the chemistry is provided by the off-field team, the physicality on. The off-field team returned an injured organ (Geo) too early, and failed to replace one showing signs of fatigue (Rodon). This meant the other parts of the body (team) have to compensate, but the chemical element didn’t appear to attempt to compensate, it remained the same, resulting in an inadequate attempt to achieve stasis. Result, in the body - illness, possibly catastrophic. In football - defeat, as we have seen.

[Kennyb41]

I really feel he needs to get Ampadu and Kamara back together, and it outweighs my fears of Cooper being cold, as much as i've i've been impressed with Firpo's contribution going forward, he is wayyyyyyyyyy too much of a liability defensively and teams will defo target him especially at Wembley if we get there. Roberts can also attack like fck and i'm not reet arsed him or Gray and i wanna see Byram back at LB.

I feel the holding 2 are gonna be key to the right balance of defence and attack, and hope he plays like the leicester game, i'd prefer James to be hopefully fit enough over Gnonto, these are v slight decisions of either/or, and he could use some rotation or subs.

So ,

Mes
Roberts---Rodon---Cooper---Byram
Ampadu --- Kamara
James ---Rutter ---Summerville
Bamford

Gray - Gnonto - Piroe - Joseph - Just have to be found a way into the 90 mins and especially over the 2 games semi.

I only saw up to the Soton goal on Saturday before i had to go out, but i thought i saw him trying something with Piroe and a 4-3-3 higher press, i think he was just toying.

[Leeds1000]

I was thinking something similar Kenneth. Defensively we can't get any worse. At some point, if we are a couple of goals down, i would find a way of getting Creswell on for set-pieces. He would be more use than the rest put together. Wembley will bring the best out of Rutter.

[Sean_Nile]

I don’t want to decry your theory, but you’re not describing chaos, what your video illustrates is equilibrium. Yes, there appears to be an avalanche (a fail) on one side, but the whole pile (ie the team) achieves stasis - the height never falters. Very much akin to the human body: when there is an overbalance of one input, the body components work together to regain balance, chemically as well as physically.

Translate that to football, and in particular Leeds United, the chemistry is provided by the off-field team, the physicality on. The off-field team returned an injured organ (Geo) too early, and failed to replace one showing signs of fatigue (Rodon). This meant the other parts of the body (team) have to compensate, but the chemical element didn’t appear to attempt to compensate, it remained the same, resulting in an inadequate attempt to achieve stasis. Result, in the body - illness, possibly catastrophic. In football - defeat, as we have seen.

The good thing about an analogy is that it does not apportion blame to a certain individual... there is no finger pointing or character assassination, and everyone can interpret it as they like and choose their own culprits.

Consider a clear glass fermentation vessel that have small coloured balls immersed in it. Inside is a motorised spinning propeller to agitate the liquid. You will observe that up to a certain rpm the immersed balls will swirl in an orderly pattern, but as you increase the rpm there will come a tipping point when only a small increase in the rpm will cause chaos and unpredictable randomness of the immersed coloured balls.

Has the rpm of the team been turned up to high?

Or consider the random pattern caused by a double pendulum, not a double pivit I hasten to add. A singular pendulum moves in a regular fashion, however a double pendulum/pivit creates a random pattern, one could postulate that a single pivit Kalvin is more predictable and reliable than a unpredictible double pivit of Gurev and Gray

[Sean_Nile]

Here is a trace map of the Gurev/Gray double pendulum/pivit random movement which shows the classic side to side chaotic backwards and forwards swings.

[Jaydog]

Is there an octopus that can pick the team.
I’m sure there was one that selected the WC winner or something

[CUSSIE01]

There hasn’t been many mentioning the impact of losing Struijk to the team but if we’d have had him for the run in I think we’d be promoted by now. If we had Struijk, Byram/Firpo, Rodon & Roberts in our back 4 with Ampadu sitting in front and Archie given licence to get forward we’d have romped the league imho.

[GreennWhite]

My team to play Norwich......Ipswich

[Phild]

We can no longer talk about Firpos offensive contribution offsetting his defensive flaws.
He is a defender and CANNOT defend, period.
Never gets close to his man, more often than not is the wrong side.
First change to be made for me.

[The Subhuman]

My team to play Norwich......Ipswich

Would make it easier for Norwich, they've taken 4 points of their rivals this season