Leeds Utd v Queens Park Rangers Match Thread

[Cjay]

I can't decide between Joseph and Piroe. Piroe puts away his chances. But he starts and offers very little. Josesph's work rate his good. But his final product needs to improve.

Joseph has been a great goal scorer at junior level and for Spain 21's. But he needs to convert that at senior level. Joffy was exactly the same way. Hopefully Joseph makes the next step.

My opinion is well known on this.

But if Piroe was as bad as Joseph was today he'd be getting slaughtered.

Running around a lot doesn't win games.

Maybe in a Bielsa side which is more than the sum of its parts but not in this one which needs it's individual difference makers.

[andrewjohnsmith]

I agree AJS, there was a good debate in the match reaction on the Just Joe show and I think it was JT who argued that we go through the same cycle with Piroe. The key is to start with Joseph as the rest of our attack is more creative and energetic when he is on and then bring Piroe on for 30+ minutes once the other team has some tired legs and he has a better opportunity of finding space to exploit for a goal. That’s the predicament he’s scored most of his goals from so why deviate from that? My two cents…

It's what seems to work best for Piroe. But Joseph still needs to improve. Hopefully with a continued run of games.

[Jaydog]

Really mate?

Take our chances & we'd have been out of sight long before the end of the game.

Anyway, we had some success prior to kick-off, we finally flushed him out, we ought to rename Weasel.

Did you meet the Weasel???

[andrewjohnsmith]

My opinion is well known on this.

But if Piroe was as bad as Joseph was today he'd be getting slaughtered.

Running around a lot doesn't win games.

Maybe in a Bielsa side which is more than the sum of its parts but not in this one which needs it's individual difference makers.

Joseph still looking more like potential than the current answer

In past games some have said he doesn't get the service. I've honestly seen that Piroe and Bamford anticipate and get into better positions than Joseph does. But also Joseph keeps fluffing the chances he gets. He's obviously got the ability. But he needs to convert that into the final product at senior level.

Piroe is a fantastic finisher. Nobody can debate that. He's had a couple of games where he's looked like Shearer at 9. And he's had some games where he's contributed well at 10. But more often he's a passenger. If he scores the goals, I'm happy. But I do wish we could see the Sunderland performance or Norwich (last season's playoff) more often.

As it is, Joseph is not cutting the grade yet. He would probably benefit from more starts. But he needs to do more than he did today.

[1964white]

[1964white]

Did you meet the Weasel???

No, we are discussing the elusive Mentalcase.

[Jaydog]

No, we are discussing the elusive Mentalcase.

Hope you got a picture with your £100000 camera

[1964white]

I agree AJS, there was a good debate in the match reaction on the Just Joe show and I think it was JT who argued that we go through the same cycle with Piroe. The key is to start with Joseph as the rest of our attack is more creative and energetic when he is on and then bring Piroe on for 30+ minutes once the other team has some tired legs and he has a better opportunity of finding space to exploit for a goal. That’s the predicament he’s scored most of his goals from so why deviate from that? My two cents…

This has always been my thoughts to getting the best out of Piroe, plus we are benefitting from this strategy with the end result.

Four of Piroe's six goals have come when he has played 20 minutes or less, his other two came late in the game when the opposition defences were tiring.

[Cjay]

Joseph still looking more like potential than the current answer

In past games some have said he doesn't get the service. I've honestly seen that Piroe and Bamford anticipate and get into better positions than Joseph does. But also Joseph keeps fluffing the chances he gets. He's obviously got the ability. But he needs to convert that into the final product at senior level.

Piroe is a fantastic finisher. Nobody can debate that. He's had a couple of games where he's looked like Shearer at 9. And he's had some games where he's contributed well at 10. But more often he's a passenger. If he scores the goals, I'm happy. But I do wish we could see the Sunderland performance or Norwich (last season's playoff) more often.

As it is, Joseph is not cutting the grade yet. He would probably benefit from more starts. But he needs to do more than he did today.

I think no matter how highly we rate Joseph its important to remember striker is the hardest job in football.

They cost the most money for a reason.

Hasn't been a Championship striker 21 or under in the top 10 top goalscorers since Tammy Abraham did it for Villa 5,6 years ago and he wasn't the inexperienced kid Mateo is.

He'd already scored 15 goals in a Premier League season for Chelsea and already had a 23 goal Championship season to his name after that with Bristol City before Villa.

Mateo is a kid with very little first team experience comparatively.

It's asking a lot of him.

You can only imagine the reaction had his poor finish not bounced kindly to Bogle and we go in at half time 0-0.

He has lots of potential but he's really raw, he's all effort and energy like most young footballers and fans like that I get that.

I don't think he has the intelligence of Piroe or Bamford for that matter but neither should he, he hasn't got the experience they have.

He didn't get coached by people like Van Nistelrooy or Luc Nilis as a kid or have Bielsa guiding him like Bamford.

He needs patience, you don't get that in a promotion chasing team.

Striker is an unforgiving position (look at the stick Bamford and Piroe have taken), Joseph and his youth won't get the benefit of the doubt for long and thay would be a shame but its the nature of the position and ours

[1964white]

Hope you got a picture with your £100000 camera

£10,000 camera, I wish.

[Jaydog]

£10,000 camera, I wish.

I meant £200
I’m prone to exaggerating

[pjm2019]

If we get back Ethan Ampadu and Largie Ramazani back fit at Xmas and no other injuries to our squad we should win this league.

[weasel]

I think we are streets ahead in terms of performances. We just can't put the ball in the net often enough to reflect our dominance. I guess everything is dictated by scoring goals. Millwall we get no goals despite being the better side, today we end up with 2 goals in a laboured performance. I am struggling to understand why i didn't enjoy the game today. 2 goals, clean sheet i should be buzzin.

Absolutely spot on - goals change matches. Against Millwall we'd had a great spell prior to them scoring and we really should have been a goal or two up. As it is when teams play us they play very defensively and then tend to go even more defensive if they take the lead. We saw with Burnley that after they scored they had a couple of good chances on the break to extend their lead before half time but then in the second half they didn't even try to break against us with any intent - they had the lead and didn't want to risk it.

So every game we are allowed to dictate possession. We then have to figure out a way to get a goal. Maybe we could go more 'gung ho' but doing that increases the risk of exposing ourselves to the danger of conceding - and as we have seen once we go behind it gets far more difficult to score so why would we want to increase our chances of going behind? Yes in some games, such as the Bristol one, we may not get the breakthrough but in the majority we do.

If we'd scored against Millwall when we were well on top then likely a very different result. We go in front and control a game, create plenty of chances but fail to kill teams off but equally we also dont give the opposition loads of chances to get an equaliser. There were times today though when we actually risked conceding an equaliser by continuing to attack and leaving ourselves vulnerable.

Our record though when we go in front has been pretty amazing. If we were better at taking our chances or making our chances better then we'd be top by a mile. I doubt there is any other team in the division that is close to us in terms of the amount of chances created minus the amount of chances conceded. I also doubt there are many teams with a poorer conversion rate.

[weasel]

Its almost like other teams are not allowed to have a say in a game against Leeds. How dare they frustrate us and make life difficult for us. These fans who demand 100% perfection from us would be best going elsewhere and supporting another team, who might give them more enjoyment.
Its football, things don`t always go as planned. You are going to have games were its a bit of a struggle and as seems to be the case with us, we miss too many decent chances. That`s not Farke`s fault, its the players fault, despite some fans with their constant gripes saying it is.
If some of our fans are this pissed off with the team at present, i dread to think how its going to be if we do get promoted an are being hammered every other week.
We have no divine right to be promoted, at present we are in a good position to do that,but lets wait and see how things turn out.

[weasel]

I thought we played well today.

There were times in the game when we should have been 2, 3, 4 or even 5 up, once again we lacked composure & weren't clinical enough, come the 90th minute the crowd were getting nervous every time the hoops strode forward or ventured near our box.

A fully deserved victory.

If we had the composure in the final third we would be winning these games at a canter. We continually create enough chances to win 4 or 5-0. We had nearly twice as many shots (21 to 11) as Middlesborough had today against Luton however they scored 5 and I wouldn't be surprised if we regularly were creating more chances in matches than the teams that have hit 5 goals in that week's set of fixtures. The Gnonto overhit pass to Soloman today was a prime example of us being wasteful and lacking in consistent quality in the final third.

People though would rather blame Farke and criticise the way we play despite his way of playing allowing us to regularly create 20 chances per match whilst also regularly limiting the opposition to extremely few chances.

[weasel]

If its 1 on 1 its Piroe every time for me.
Wasn’t as easy as he made it look.

An exquisite finish better only by yours in the middle cubicle at Waitrose.

[weasel]

Really mate?

Take our chances & we'd have been out of sight long before the end of the game.

Anyway, we had some success prior to kick-off, we finally flushed him out, we ought to rename Weasel.

What have I missed??????

[weasel]

How did Luton ever get promoted?

What happened to parachute payment advantage?

Yet some fans seem to think that it is a god given that relegated teams will be competing at the top.

Luton looked to have far more fight in their season in the prem than we had in our last season in the prem. They also suffered far less disruption after relegation than we did (kept the same manager who knew all the player and had got promoted with them and also didn't have the mass exodus of players that we had).

[weasel]

It argues both ways. During that post christmas run, we won a lot of games but we weren't burying teams. And the whole time we were trailing the top 2. It would have been a gamble to rotate or make early subs. And that might have cost us points. Personally I always trusted players like Cresswell and Joffy. But Farke never did. If he'd given them minutes and we'd dropped to a late equalizer he'd have been blamed.

But where it did cost us was in the final (4 or 5?) games.

You also have the fact that our winning run put real pressure on Leicester and Ipswich. Without that pressure maybe they would have simply steamrollered their way and both comfortably been on over 100 points. So if we say only drew a couple of games instead of winning during our winning run then maybe they would have been too far gone for us to have reeled them in even if we'd ended the season on fire.

[weasel]

I've always insisted Piroe is more dangerous coming off the bench.

Not as prolific for Leeds when he starts.

I think he would be if we were creating chances for him. A lot of the games where he has started we simply haven't created chances for him which then leads to him trying his luck from long range or dropping deeper to try to get a touch of the ball.