Manchester United v Leeds United - 6-2 - MOTM

[CHAPELALLMAN]

I think Klich was the main culprit in the first 2 goals, lost his man and by a mile, as Kalvin did for the 4th. Very poor from both of them today, wonder if the 4 yellows was playing on their minds

I think we overplay Klich - we need more cover in CM. I've never agreed with certain players being permanent fixtures in the side ie Klich, Harrison, and Bamford.

[1964white]

Anyway getting back on topic....I'm unsure where we start

I thought three of our defensive unit were are better players but we conceded six goals

Much of that was down are non-existent midfield, Klich & Phillips were woeful, Rodrigo, Raphinha & Jack constantly gave the ball away.

Bamford & Harrison missed easy chances.

Here goes :

Meslier
Dallas
Cooper
_________________________________________
Raphinha
Davis
Shackleton

[gessa]

I'm not sure that's a logical conclusion. You can say a makeshift defence with little time under their belt in those positions doesn't work but if we had Koch/Llorente (or Coop) playing 25 plus games then the system should work against everyone bar the way we play weirdly

Today the issue was no one was sure which player they were supposed to be marking or covering.

The system is not working against these teams because of the gulf in quality of the opposition, they cope with it because they're as fit, more skillful and playing with better players in the side who complement one another better.

[1964white]

The system is not working against these teams because of the gulf in quality of the opposition, they cope with it because they're as fit, more skillful and playing with better players in the side who complement one another better.

Fully agree

[The Subhuman]

The system is not working against these teams because of the gulf in quality of the opposition, they cope with it because they're as fit, more skillful and playing with better players in the side who complement one another better.

At the moment, Bielsa's system is so complicated that any change would have to be long term and allow time for adjustment. I think this system would work against better teams once we have fully incorporated the new players and have a settled defence, the latter doesn't look likely soon.

[gessa]

At the moment, Bielsa's system is so complicated that any change would have to be long term and allow time for adjustment. I think this system would work against better teams once we have fully incorporated the new players and have a settled defence, the latter doesn't look likely soon.

I know it won't change and I expect these kind of results all season because of it, as long as we're beating those around and beneath us then I'm fine with that, until we can get better players in amost positions , then we can strive for better placings, it's always been work in progress since Radz got here and it's still 5 years away yet.

[Ratscoot]

Hi guys back online now, moved house, usual nightmare plus company buying my house went out of their way to make it a stressful few days, then we have this game, plus no broadband until Jan

But here we go

Dallas
Spiderboy
Raph
Coops
Ayling
Big Rod

[The Subhuman]

Hi guys back online now, moved house, usual nightmare plus company buying my house went out of their way to make it a stressful few days, then we have this game, plus no broadband until Jan

But here we go

Dallas
Spiderboy
Raph
Coops
Ayling
Big Rod

Great to have you back Rat, always fun moving house.

[The Subhuman]

Meslier - 58
Cooper - 47
Dallas - 44
Raphinha - 41
Rodrigo - 16
Ayling - 12
Shackelton - 7
Klich - 4
Alioski - 3
Davis - 2
Harrison - 1
Bamford - 1

[weasel]

I would agree with Faaip. Obviously the better sides have better finishers and so mistakes are punished more often but equally it is still a case of us making the mistakes rather than the system. If we don't give the ball away as often as we did today, and v Chelsea, we don't concede the goals. The trouble we have is that when we have the ball everyone is going forward, give the ball away in our half and at most we have our 2 centrebacks and KP in defensive positions. That is why it breaks down as especially against teams like Leicester and Man U they can then flood forward very quickly and very direct leaving us little time to recover and get players back into position.

Also I would like to know what system would work against the better side with our squad? We don't really have the players to try to simply sit back and nick a point and if we try to play a more cautious game then the fact we aren't great at converting our chances doesn't make us likely to do any better as we'd be having less chances.

We have to go gung ho as even in the championship we usually needed a lot more chances than the opposition to win a game. Against Newcastle when the score was 2-2 I bet we'd had 3 or 4 times as many chances as them.

[CHAPELALLMAN]

I would agree with Faaip. Obviously the better sides have better finishers and so mistakes are punished more often but equally it is still a case of us making the mistakes rather than the system. If we don't give the ball away as often as we did today, and v Chelsea, we don't concede the goals. The trouble we have is that when we have the ball everyone is going forward, give the ball away in our half and at most we have our 2 centrebacks and KP in defensive positions. That is why it breaks down as especially against teams like Leicester and Man U they can then flood forward very quickly and very direct leaving us little time to recover and get players back into position.

Also I would like to know what system would work against the better side with our squad? We don't really have the players to try to simply sit back and nick a point and if we try to play a more cautious game then the fact we aren't great at converting our chances doesn't make us likely to do any better as we'd be having less chances.

We have to go gung ho as even in the championship we usually needed a lot more chances than the opposition to win a game. Against Newcastle when the score was 2-2 I bet we'd had 3 or 4 times as many chances as them.

Harrison and Bamford have historically been our most profligate finishers, and both reverted to type today. With more clinical finishing they could have had 3 or 4 goals between them. Bamford has certainly improved this season in terms of his finishing, but today it was more like the Paddy of last season. All our eggs are in one basket with him, as ever since Roofe got injured that time we have relied pretty well 100% on him. We do need competition for the no 9 shirt.

As long as Harrison is a a permanent starter then we will continue to be frustrated by his finishing. Trouble is now and again he comes up with a special goal, and then everybody forgets the 5 or 6 previous games in which his crossing and finishing was poor.

Last season we had a sound defence, but for most of the season we had a problem with profligacy in front of goal. After the break that problem subsided a bit, helped quite a bit by Pablo's shooting ability. Over our two seasons in the championship Pablo's ability in this respect papered over the cracks in terms of our capacity to convert chances. Now we have a major problem with both our defending and finishing.

Quite simply until we can afford to buy more talented players than Bamford and Harrison then the finishing issue will always be with us. I'm not saying that Paddy needs replacing, but we do need another striker . If we buy Harrison then IMO we are taking a step backwards - we need to upgrade not stay where we are.He has scored 12 goals in 95 games for us, but how many chances has he missed during that time ?

[Boo Radley]

I know it won't change and I expect these kind of results all season because of it, as long as we're beating those around and beneath us then I'm fine with that, until we can get better players in amost positions , then we can strive for better placings, it's always been work in progress since Radz got here and it's still 5 years away yet.

Totally agree with this. Any points we get off the top five are a bonus. We had a bit of a free shot today having collected three points during the week. We just have to maintain our points average of around 1.1+ Pts per game over the season.

Our man to man marking is very vulnerable to teams that have better players all over the pitch. This is harder again when their subs are full internationals coming on fresh.We’ll build more quality in time. Meanwhile four points over the next two games will mean a good return over the Christmas - for a change. Hopefully lessons learned today will help us achieve this.

[Irish Ian]

f**k off ..

No need for that faaip.

I know feelings run high at times but let's try and remember this is a friendly forum.

[paddy parrott]

Mine are , Bamford, Dallas,,& Cooper closely followed by Rodrigo , Shackleton and Leif Davis.

[The Subhuman]

Harrison and Bamford have historically been our most profligate finishers, and both reverted to type today. With more clinical finishing they could have had 3 or 4 goals between them. Bamford has certainly improved this season in terms of his finishing, but today it was more like the Paddy of last season. All our eggs are in one basket with him, as ever since Roofe got injured that time we have relied pretty well 100% on him. We do need competition for the no 9 shirt.

As long as Harrison is a a permanent starter then we will continue to be frustrated by his finishing. Trouble is now and again he comes up with a special goal, and then everybody forgets the 5 or 6 previous games in which his crossing and finishing was poor.

Last season we had a sound defence, but for most of the season we had a problem with profligacy in front of goal. After the break that problem subsided a bit, helped quite a bit by Pablo's shooting ability. Over our two seasons in the championship Pablo's ability in this respect papered over the cracks in terms of our capacity to convert chances. Now we have a major problem with both our defending and finishing.

Quite simply until we can afford to buy more talented players than Bamford and Harrison then the finishing issue will always be with us. I'm not saying that Paddy needs replacing, but we do need another striker . If we buy Harrison then IMO we are taking a step backwards - we need to upgrade not stay where we are.He has scored 12 goals in 95 games for us, but how many chances has he missed during that time ?

Except Harrison is a winger (the great Eddie Gray averaged 5 a season) and has no history as a natural finisher ( a lot of wingers don't)

[The Subhuman]

edited

[CHAPELALLMAN]

Except Harrison is a winger (the great Eddie Gray averaged 5 a season) and has no history as a natural finisher ( a lot of wingers don't)

Ok Faaip - though Kewell scored 45 goals for us in 181 apps - that's a goal every 4 games. Snodgrass scored 35 in 168 games - that's a goal every 4.8 games.

Anyway, I would at least like to see the Alioski LB experiment abandoned, and Alioski and Harrison to compete for the left winger position. I tend to think that Alioski is more likely to pop up with the odd goal. I know there are issues with Alioski's defending, but he might be fine with a decent LB behind him. Anyway, Bielsa could rotate the pair of them in that position. I don't agree with Harrison being an automatic starter. I think generally if players were put back in their natural positions it would be a big help - at times I think MB tends to be too smart and it backfires badly.

[The Subhuman]

There are a few to be sure but they're few and far between.. Kewell probably the best winger we ever had

Snodgrass never played prem football for us and 16 of those came in Lg 1 ..huge difference..Snodgrass scored 14 goals in the prem in nearly 100 games. So we'll let Harrison play 100 before we compare those two

[Fridge]

Tough one this, gonna struggle for 6 players but here goes...

Dallas
Meslier
Rodrigo
Coops
Raphinha
Shack

[HarryofOz]

I rather feel Bielsa had thought the game was over at half time (from the perspective of us getting a favourable result) and with them both being on 4 yellow cards saw little point in risking them in the second half.

I have no doubt that that was the case.