Online Users

Questions -   What team would you pick? Dieng Jones McNair VDB Clarke Bangura O’Brien Azaz Howson Latte Lath Silvera   What's your favourite thing about Leeds? The countryside that surrounds it. I’ve got family in Rawdon and Yeadon and it’s beautiful around those parts   What are the odds on Bamford cheating yet again? It’s odd because he never cheated when he played for us! 👀   Will we derail their promotion push even further? I’d like them to go up, I hate playing them, but I bet we draw with them.  

Nothing in it for us except help prevent Leeds getting into an automatic spot.

The issue isn't playing out from the back, the issue is decision making on when, where and how.  If the opponents are closing, down, swarming and pressurising it can be effective by unlocking them and catching them up field however it is also far more likely to result in being bullied out of possession, putting us at risk or as we seen recently a poor ball to O'Brien leaving us stuffed. Having outlets making and creating space and time is crucial whether you play out from the back or go long. Simply hoofing it isn't the answer any more than playing a suicide ball to a player being rapidly closed down 20 yards out from our own goal. It's not the tactic that's at fault, it's the application and implementation of it which comes down to the skill, intelligence, awareness and ability of individuals. Chuba was great at holding the ball up and playing in team mates, we don't have that skill set this season and it's showed, having a Giles to be unleashed down the left hasn't been available this season, both were key to how we played last season. The loss of those outlets haven't helped us and those are just two examples. That said with the speed of Jones and ELL, playing it long can also be a serious threat to our opposition but neither tactic will work if players aren't looking up, alert and aware of their next pass/movement and to me that is the biggest difference between last season's passing it out from the back and this season. We passed out at speed and with cutting accuracy last season, this year we seem less confident, hesitant, slow and have created more problems for ourselves on many occasions because of it.  The massive summer upheaval in personnel hasn't helped and confidence and belief won't have helped with the start to the season that ensued. I'm sure many of the new signings were less than convinced as we set that record poor start statistic. Over time it's improved but nowhere close to our ability to pass out that we had last season, hence the frustrations and discussions.

I'd quite happily take a draw now, it keeps them down, keeps the unbeaten run going and keeps things very interesting in the promotion race.