Leeds Utd v Middlesbrough Match Thread - Farke Names Unchanged Line-up

[Cjay]

Comparing their points total to Farke's Norwich side in his first promotion season is a strange one as they started off really slowly (including losing 3-0 to us). If they end the season having bettered Farke's total from that season they will have done well.

Think they've already done very well tbh.

It would take a phenomenal drop in form for them to finish even outside the top half so they are likely going to have a very decent season whatever happens.

I was talking more in terms of conceding an unusually high amount of goals for a team near the top.

Norwich under Farke was somewhere pushing 60 which is a record high going back many many years , Ipswich will be similar at the rate they are going.

45 points in 19 games is phenomenal to the point they could dip to basically the average ppg for 6th which would be a massive drop for them and still be getting over 90 points.

[1964white]

I was thinkin of thi Sid me howd chap, freezin tha ickle nutz off, and us thinkin we were Citeh at 3-2, you tryna scream with tha gob droopin like thad had a stroke

Not to worry, would you like me have settled for a 3-2 win and a crackin game that had thi on tha toes before k/o ???

It was a cracking match & atmosphere, a game to savour!

[Jaydog]

I was offered them by my good mate Allan on the coach, he shares a packet of Werther's around every game.

I refused today, I even allowed him to have my penguin out of my sandwich box

If you have tuna sandwiches never, I repeat, never let a penguin in your lunchbox. It only ever ends up one way.

[mentalcase]

I thought we got lucky today.

Both headed goals were deflected towards the scorers, and the pen and sending off were gifts.

However 7 out of 9 points isn't a poor return from a busy week.

No idea which game you watched Ian, we were lucky !!!
Frigging hell fella, but for poor finishing AGAIN, we could have ended with 5, yet we were lucky !!!

[Jaydog]

It was deflected, lucky it wsn't deflected in was my first thought.

This could get confusing. The deflected free kick was not lucky for us. It was lucky for them. Not in the sense it went in but the fact that it nearly went in and in doing so created mayhem cleared up by an heroic Joe Rodon saving block.
On the other hand if it hadn’t been deflected it may have gone in. Or been saved. Easily.
See what I mean.
In any event I’ll take luck any day of the week.

[1964white]

This could become a problem with the intense schedule we've ahead. It raises the question as to why Farke doesn't at least introduce subs earlier in the games. I think Farke is right in starting our best side but you can see players flagging around the 70th minute, or even earlier, but no subs seem to considered this early.

If we didn't have the options on the bench, like last year, you'd say something but that's clearly not the case.

Spence in earlier for Gray is an obvious one to spare the young lad.

Farke obviously didn't trust his back-up players holding onto a 3-2 lead against a strong Boro' team, leaving it late to make changes. Daniel probably realises, we become worse with each substitute that enters the pitch.

[Irish Ian]

No idea which game you watched Ian, we were lucky !!!
Frigging hell fella, but for poor finishing AGAIN, we could have ended with 5, yet we were lucky !!!

Lucky we took 3 points imo.
Lucky we got the goals we did mate, both assists were by their defenders and yes we missed a hatful due to some woeful finishing from Rutter especially, he had two one on ones and fluffed his lines.

Latte Lath should have had four of his own too... At times we didnt know what to do with him.
Then there was the one off the post as well. And we only had 10 men to play against for 30 minutes and in that time they still carved out a couple of good chances.

[mentalcase]

Lucky we took 3 points imo.
Lucky we got the goals we did mate, both assists were by their defenders and yes we missed a hatful due to some woeful finishing from Rutter especially, he had two one on ones and fluffed his lines.

Latte Lath should have had four of his own too... At times we didnt know what to do with him.
Then there was the one off the post as well. And we only had 10 men to play against for 30 minutes and in that time they still carved out a couple of good chances.

But for their 4, we could have had 4 on top of that, we were'nt lucky Ian, they may have been unfortunate, but we were UNlucky not to get what we deserved.
I can't wait for the day we actually get "lucky" some day it will come, hopefully when we need it, not when we are 3-1 up.
As a few of us said prior to the game, boro can certainly score, look at their results, but they had some brutes out their today that got away with a lot, fair play to United for standing up to it, we know we can out score most teams, boro have smashed some in and they gave it a go today but, we were far better and ought to have scored 5 at a canter.

[Irish Ian]

But for their 4, we could have had 4 on top of that, we were'nt lucky Ian, they may have been unfortunate, but we were UNlucky not to get what we deserved.
I can't wait for the day we actually get "lucky" some day it will come, hopefully when we need it, not when we are 3-1 up.
As a few of us said prior to the game, boro can certainly score, look at their results, but they had some brutes out their today that got away with a lot, fair play to United for standing up to it, we know we can out score most teams, boro have smashed some in and they gave it a go today but, we were far better and ought to have scored 5 at a canter.

Did you think we played that well?

I dunno mate I think we are on the verge of a huge car crash.

We made nothing of the extra man apart from concede a huge chance.

In any case we have the hardest run of the season coming up and will have to play a bit better imo

[mentalcase]

Did you think we played that well?

I dunno mate I think we are on the verge of a huge car crash.

We made nothing of the extra man apart from concede a huge chance.

In any case we have the hardest run of the season coming up and will have to play a bit better imo

Yes, I thought we dominated as usual but again without the rewards, we too frequently live like this, I think it's the norm for us now, we showed against Leicester, when we have to have a different shape we can, Ipswich was , we can score more than you, it appears to be a theme, I agree, we look like we could get caught out one day, but by who ?
Aslo, I think we are going to smash some team as well with what we create, we just seem to lose rythm when we go in front.
I'd like us to put 3 in midfield with Gray, Ampadu & Kamara, just to open up defences a little more, but DF has his preferred system and in all honesty, its working out so far.
Tis good we're grumbling when we're winning eh

[mentalcase]

Oh to add to thet Ian, as you say, tough games coming up noe, lets have a reet good look at procedings mid January.
Whisky kicking in

[weasel]

Did you think we played that well?

I dunno mate I think we are on the verge of a huge car crash.

We made nothing of the extra man apart from concede a huge chance.

In any case we have the hardest run of the season coming up and will have to play a bit better imo

I felt we deservedly won. Boro could have scored more, we could have scored more, they got a bit of luck with their goals, we got a bit of luck with ours. I felt we could step up a gear but generally took the sting out of the game when their man was sent off, yes a couple of lapses during that time and we nearly got punished but equally we could, and should, have added to our lead during the last half hour. In some ways them having a man sent off made us less likely to score as they seemed to be happy to sit back at 3-2 and hope to get something from the game rather than trying to get something by trying to attack us. If they had have stayed at 11 they would have probably tried to take the game to us more and left us gaps to exploit.

I don't know if there is such a thing as a 'hardest run of the season' when it comes to the championship. If you look at our last 10 matches we have won 8 and lost 2 but the 2 we lost were probably the 2 matches where we would have been comfortably expecting to win (v Rotherham and Stoke).

I do think in the last four matches we hae looked shakier at the back. On the flip side though I think we have also looked far more likely to bang a few goals in during those matches. As such I would think that we have perhaps played slightly different and what we have gained going forward has made us weaker defensively - it might just be something as simple as Kamara being more attacking.

[Kennyb41]

2nd coming of Jurgen Klopp.

Happy?

But if you really think we battered Boro etc and they didn't look a well coached team that lacks quality (and is injury ravaged incidentally) then you aren't the football oracle you've claimed.

We didn't.

Incidentally aren't you going to go shout at Leon? His comments hardly reflected yours about Boro.

Shout ?

Perhaps i just wish you'd give us something Cjay, like when you comment about defensive or coaching woes, why don't you tell us what you'd do, why it is going wrong in your view, where it's going wrong and what's causing it.

You cannot have it ALL these days, if you want our attacking flair/creativity and goal scoring ops, then things are sacrificed elsewhere.

He's been getting some cracking results, and we've had some cracking clean sheets, but some days are going to be a bit off, some days other teams will have their chances and take them. Appreciate our forward play. I myself have concerns probably along with everyone else when we face a corner/free kick, and yes it becomes squeaky arse time sometimes, but i appreciate what he's trying to do, and i'm not expecting miracles in such a short space of time.

I'm of the opinion you just can't wait to pounce on any negative happenings,

At least we are not parking the bus, and far from it.

So instead of telling us 'we're wide open at the back' or 'being played straight through' perhaps tell us what you yourself would do to put it right or 'fix it'....coz you just cannot have it all these days in 'football'

[Chilli D]

Fine margins all round yesterday
Leicester score a 94th minute winner, Coventry miss a penalty in their 2-1 loss to Ipswich and Boro hit the post at 3-2.
All three results could have been different.

[weasel]

Shout ?

Perhaps i just wish you'd give us something Cjay, like when you comment about defensive or coaching woes, why don't you tell us what you'd do, why it is going wrong in your view, where it's going wrong and what's causing it.

You cannot have it ALL these days, if you want our attacking flair/creativity and goal scoring ops, then things are sacrificed elsewhere.

He's been getting some cracking results, and we've had some cracking clean sheets, but some days are going to be a bit off, some days other teams will have their chances and take them. Appreciate our forward play. I myself have concerns probably along with everyone else when we face a corner/free kick, and yes it becomes squeaky arse time sometimes, but i appreciate what he's trying to do, and i'm not expecting miracles in such a short space of time.

I'm of the opinion you just can't wait to pounce on any negative happenings,

At least we are not parking the bus, and far from it.

So instead of telling us 'we're wide open at the back' or 'being played straight through' perhaps tell us what you yourself would do to put it right or 'fix it'....coz you just cannot have it all these days in 'football'

I think a good lesson would be to see George Graham's Leeds. Made us a lot tighter at the back by playing low risk football. As such we scored feck all - think we scored 28 in a 38 game season. George then brought in Hasselbaink and we were better purely because we had a more clinical striker, same as in George's day at Arsenal where he had Alan Smith and then Ian Wright.

To attack the way we do then we inevitable put a lot of pressure on our defence and will often see times where we are stretched or outnumbered at the back. Man City play the same way but have rapid players so they can get back in position, they also give the ball away far less so they get exposed less often and they have basically the best player in every position and players that would probably rank at 90%+ in each of the attribute needed for that position. Similar to with Bielsa we are Man City Lite. So we get exposed but playing the way we do we should get far more opportunities than the opposition - if the law of averages works out (seeing as we can't play football with robots) we will win most games but of course there will be times when the opposoition score 2 of their 3 shots on target and we miss plenty. We saw it often under Bielsa in the champiosnhip where we were often the better side but didn't get the results we should have

[Kennyb41]

I think a good lesson would be to see George Graham's Leeds. Made us a lot tighter at the back by playing low risk football. As such we scored feck all - think we scored 28 in a 38 game season. George then brought in Hasselbaink and we were better purely because we had a more clinical striker, same as in George's day at Arsenal where he had Alan Smith and then Ian Wright.

To attack the way we do then we inevitable put a lot of pressure on our defence and will often see times where we are stretched or outnumbered at the back. Man City play the same way but have rapid players so they can get back in position, they also give the ball away far less so they get exposed less often and they have basically the best player in every position and players that would probably rank at 90%+ in each of the attribute needed for that position. Similar to with Bielsa we are Man City Lite. So we get exposed but playing the way we do we should get far more opportunities than the opposition - if the law of averages works out (seeing as we can't play football with robots) we will win most games but of course there will be times when the opposoition score 2 of their 3 shots on target and we miss plenty. We saw it often under Bielsa in the champiosnhip where we were often the better side but didn't get the results we should have

Tell it to the blind please Weasel

[Leeds1000]

Farke obviously didn't trust his back-up players holding onto a 3-2 lead against a strong Boro' team, leaving it late to make changes. Daniel probably realises, we become worse with each substitute that enters the pitch.

DF Needs to lean to trust a bit more. Bringing the fresh legs of Gnonto & Anthony would have given us a bit more impetus. Rutter was having a stinker by that point so Bamford also made sense and with them having 10 men for the last 30mins a perfect time to let Spence ease himself back into things. Credit Boro they never stopped attacking.

[Leeds1000]

We will always pick fault in this age of perfection. After the last two years of dour football and almost ending up with Big Sam. I just pinch myself now and again to let myself know how thrilling the football currently is. Its Keegans Citeh all over again...

[Kennyb41]

We will always pick fault in this age of perfection. After the last two years of dour football and almost ending up with Big Sam. I just pinch myself now and again to let myself know how thrilling the football currently is. Its Keegans Citeh all over again...

Oh jeez, i thought with all the garbage we had that Big Sam was about the only guy that could plug us up and start some sort of building work from the back.

[Leeds1000]

Oh jeez, i thought with all the garbage we had that Big Sam was about the only guy that could plug us up and start some sort of building work from the back.

He would have sorted the last bit out Kenneth. He would have bought in all the tallest players we could afford and then we would have murdered teams at set-pieces. A bit like the Monk stint.