Chez

My memory might not be great, but his saves/blocks with his feet, to shots that were close to him, possibly in the second season, seemed to be the thing that impressed most and really got fans on his side. Bazunu perhaps needs to watch some videos of De Gea and emulate that technique.

Forster was excellent at saving stuff close to him. He got in the right position, made himself big and did what needed to be done to keep the ball out. Bazunu doesn't stop nearly enough of shots that are close to him. He tries to `save' them rather than block them, if that makes sense. Unlike Forster, he seems to get smaller not bigger. He makes the goal look massive. I'm not sure he (Bazunu) really makes up for the failure to save stuff close to him in terms of agility and saving stuff outside of his arc, low and in the corner, which was Forster nemesis. Forster saves that Leeds shot. I am trying to think of the saves Bazunu has made that Forster wouldn't have made. There are probably quite a few, his speed off his line is bound to have got us out of jail several times, but he has to stop more shots that are close to him. Probably a good thread for one of those XG or XS stats.

This is the issue and has been for a while. If we want to prevent goals, our full backs need to sit in and as a side we need to be more compact and less adventurous. That has perhaps happened in recent times and lead to less goals being conceded. To then score goals, you are reliant on having genuine quality up front that can create and score goals out of nothing. We don't seem to have that individual quality. Or at least it's not showing itself at the moment - and I am looking at Sulemana here. So we must then return to being a bit more gung ho, with fullbacks pushed high and try to create overloads out wide, but doing so will leave us open to the counter - and we are terrible defensively when running back towards our own goal. Finding the balance between attack and defence is critical. I don't see an easy solution here.

Do we? Talk me through this talent pool we are overlooking?

good post. We were fucking shit defensively before Bednarek was recalled. It pains me to say it, but maybe the other options are no better. DCC is slow, Lyanco poor and Salisu has been all over the place. Bednarek is just a easy target, but maybe we should be blaming the guy who should have been marking the goalscorer? Diallo was faced with a two on one because Walcott goes towards the ball near the corner flag rather than inside with Firpo. That's why we conceded, not because Bednarek failed to block the shot. You are always going to concede goals in the Prem, so we have to be creating chances and scoring some goals to give ourselves a chance of winning games. Since Onuachu and Sulemana have got here, we have scored 2 goals in four games. One of those was a JWP freekick. Has Sulemana created a chance yet? There are flashes of skill and pace, but his inconsistency perhaps explains why he only played 356 total minutes in the entire first half of the season at Rennes. Onuachu certainly hasn't made us more of a threat either. His fitness levels are embarrassing. He led the line well last week, but in terms of a goal threat, he basically is only useful if someone puts a great cross in and that happens once every thee games.

you are right, he should adapt to the situation, but there is obviously a concern about pushing these guys beyond their limits and them getting injured, plus it could be argued that all three were doing fuck all and could have been subbed earlier. We may have spent £40m on Sulemana and Onuachu, but it doesn't mean they have a divine right to play.

as do the other players in the side. Bednarek may not have done enough to block the shot, but the defeat is not on him. The rest of the team did little. Strikers that don't score, attackers that don't create, midfielders that don't dominate...need to share the blame.

AMN is lacklustre. He could have shown a little more bite, but McKinnie is decent so perhaps didn't want to dive in, Diallo then has two. Not his fault. I honestly can't work out what Bednarek is trying to do. It's like he is trying to defend the near post, but then he turns side on, almost trying to not to deflect it in perhaps. Weird. Bazunu is the worst keeper I have seen at this level at blocking things close to him. I can appreciate the odd one goes in, but pretty much every one gores through him. He's like the polar opposite of Forster. However, I don't just want to moan about those two. The rest of the side was fucking bollocks. I thought JWP played well, and Lavia looked as classy as always, but the rest?

A game where we absolutely marmalised them, but if they had taken their two guilt edge chances at the death, could have got away with a draw. Even Norwich, a truely shit premier league side, were able to create a couple of decent opportunities. We couldn't even do that today.

describe it to me if you don't mind? I cant face MOTD when we lose. I thought the blame was entirely down to AMN and maybe Mara for their casual defending. But who should have been marking Firpo? Could Bednarek and/or Bazunu really do anything to stop it?

they do their best. It's just that their best isn't good enough. Leeds are terrible. We made them look good. I watched some of their recent games and they were not good enough to cope with the pressure put on them by opponents, but against us they had so much time, and were so comfortable as a result.

We are the shittest team in the league and not just because we have the players the forum hates, it's also because the ones the forum doesn't hate aren't all that either. We ain't getting 18 more points. We have scored just 19 goals in 24 games. Only Wolves and Everton have scored less, while only Leicester, Forrest and Bournemouth have conceded more. Can't score and can't stop conceding. What a terrible combination. Without JWP's free kicks, we'd already be pretty much down.

So a tackle wont be your season's major highlight then?

It was exactly the kind of performance we were getting under RH for the last 25 games or more. It demonstrated our lack of quality throughout the side, which is why we gave the ball away, couldn't beat the press, created nothing and offered pretty much no threat at all.

Can't say I was terribly impressed with Onuachu either, although clearly he is reliant on someone putting a chance on a plate for him, because he ain't going to create anything himself. But our midfield doesn't seem to be good enough to get behind teams or create enough crossing opportunities. And when we do, the crossing is crap. I think there was a one good opportunity for Onuachu in the first half when we played the ball over the top and it looked like he was in, but sadly he wasn't because he was too slow and the chance was gone. When Mara came on he was too loose with the ball, trying to be too fancy. He kept trying it and there was a couple of nice bits of skill and turns to be fair, but still nothing was created. Very frustrating. We some how look even less threatening than ever. How is that possible?

Sulemana was even worse than his Chelsea display, which was bad. Haven't seen any criticism of him so far. £20m and he has been completely invisible for two games. Got to do much more.

Who was it down in the bottom corner (AMN or Diallo) that was so casual, letting Harrison find Firpo with ease? Fucking killed us.

Brutal. I wonder how much injury time they end up playing?

Yeah, I was thinking that. He's never 23 or 25, deffo 24.

Very good points (there was the Mraa chance too). I guess I just don't want to get my hopes up too much that what we saw will be replicated from now on it. If it is, then we have half a chance of staying up. At this point I don't see anyone else offering us a better chance than Selles.

I'm happy if we give it to him for the rest of the season. He seems confident and capable. The previous two managers have tried pretty much every formation and failed to get a tune out of the players, so returning to the 442 (or 4-2-2-2 of you prefer) makes sense and he knows it as well as anyone. I wonder how we would all have felt if we had turned to him as the manager after Ralph. With Grey and Wigley both being disasters, I suspect there would have been a fair bit of apprehension. With hindsight, he simply could not have done worse than Jones, but we obviously all hoped for better than Jones.

yeah, the Barnsley website here (2022 information) says the top tier is 2008 tickets. 803 for the lower. https://www.barnsleyfc.co.uk/news/2022/august/leeds-further-allocation/ I've not been to Elland Road since they moved the away fans to the John Style stand. If the away team just sells the top tier (I assume that has been the case with us of most occasions), do they sell the lower tier to home fans?

seem fair. There aren't any other `outstanding' candidates anyway are there?

I don't want to put too much of a dampener on the whole Selles is our saviour thing (it's great to have something positive to talk about), but Chelsea did still dominate us in the second half and we had to ride our luck to get the victory. On another day, that luck may have been out. They didn't score, and some good defending was the reason for that, but I am not sure we had a lot of `control' of the game in the second half and if the cross to Mount is six inches lower he has a free header inside the six yard box. Preventing that opportunity wasn't down to good defending, it was just our day. That said, it's players that play the game. All the manager can do it pick the right side, give them the tactics, motivate and make good in game decisions. He seemed to get all those things right. We certainly looked an awful lot better in the first half and that victory has brought us some hope, but maybe see how we do in a few more games before we give him the job full time. He can't do worse than Jones, but let's see if he can put out the right team and tactics to beat Leeds. If players make mistakes we can then argue whether that was down to the manager picking the wrong guy or the player just being human and doing what they always do - make errors. Question: Why didn't the board appoint Selles after Ralph? From the outside, he always seemed like the natural successor and a number 2 just waiting to become a number 1. Why didn't they believe in him?

According to footballgroundguide.com: "1,566 seats in the upper tier and if required then a further 1104 seats can be provided in the lower tier, making the overall allocation 2,670."