S-Clarke

The reality is he can't do much, but it's better to at least have a crack than to recycle the ball backwards. Who knows, it may hit a defender on the backside and go in.

Yeah I was probably being kind, either way it's a shit position to be in. Cheers Les.

Can't be all on Tella, but he's the only one with a bit of life about him in the final third. He's still got some way to go though as whilst his keenness and appetite got him into good positions his quality/final decision often let him down. If you put better players around him we'd be having a laugh I think.

Not so much final third shot conversion, just general chance creation. We played well in between the lines, got right at their back 4 but the final pass was often rushed, poor, miss timed, it was all a bit too hectic which usually equates to a lack of quality. There's a lot good about certain parts of this team in terms of how we press, play between the lines, but the lack of quality in key areas really does show up against decent sides.

I would agree that this isn't a stick to beat Redmond with, he was better placed on both occasions to take a shot. Like you said, he often passes up responsibility so it was better to see. Although he still lacks any real quality, which isn't going to change. Need to replace him truth be told.

Played well enough in the first half, just not enough quality at the top end. Tired in the second half and the better players Leeds have came to the fore. Sometimes you just need to hold your hands up and say the opposition are better in terms of quality and guile, and Leeds are - especially in the final third.

Exactly, not sure what people are getting their knickers in a twist about. Another thing to bat Ralph for I guess. Same as Jankewitz not playing.

None of our goal keepers are good enough. It's a shambles that as a club we've got ourselves into a situation with 3 goal keepers who cost us nearly £26m between them, earn upwards of £100k+ between them and they are all pretty much the same - average as hell. Capable of decent stuff, but equally capable of howlers. We probably don't have the funds to get better because there aren't any clubs out there willing to provide us an return on investment on any of ours at the moment. Sad state of affairs really. Still carrying the left overs from the Reed and Wilson era.

I'd probably describe that performance as all talk but no action. You have to be honest and say that Leeds are just a much better team than us, it's sad that a promoted team can overtake us so quickly but that's what a lack of investment can do. Overall we played well enough between the lines, but the difference was at the top end. Tella was lively, but a bit erratic and manic. Theo, umm. Yeah. Mousa...yeah. Adams battled well but he needs better around him. JWP and Armstrong played well, but tired massively towards the end I felt. Vestergaard did ok, Salisu was ok. McCarthy's performance summed up our goalkeepers really, capable of pulling off a decent save but equally capable of being an absolute moron. I know we don't have the funds to replace but we really, really, really need a top goal keeper if we are to be competitive. Bit of a disappointing evening really, but better quality teams will always hurt you if you are so blunt in the final third.

It seems to be setting up for a Bournemouth v Swansea final tbh. Very boring. Brentford always seem to choke in the games that matter, so I don't hold much hope for them next week.

The table has pretty much taken shape now, bar the top 4. For the purposes of the league remaining interesting then Liverpool needed to win. If they'd have dropped points than pretty much every game left would have had nothing on it, bar prize money. At least we might get the entertainment of them screwing it up on the final day. Everton look to have blown any chances of European football and you'd have to think, based on their start and their summer spending, that equals a bit of a let down for our dug out friends. I think their squad is still a little unbalanced though, not many goals in that side apart from Calvert-Lewin and he just had a purple patch at the start of the season. I see Everton fans calling for Carlo to get the sack though, who do they think they are? Yes, a disappointing season in context of their expectations, but their squad isn't all that and it came clear in the end. There are probably mentalists in their support base who'd sack Carlo for Eddie Howe.

Mike Dean was VAR I believe. Mason was ref. The double acted reunited a week later in that 9-0 abomination, with Dean as Ref and Mason and VAR and we had the Jan red card etc. A very costly couple of weeks which probably cost us our top half finish.

The Villa game was an aberration for VAR. The handball, clear and obvious even in real time, which was missed. Ings offside which wasn't offside and the lines weren't even drawn correctly. Shambles that game.

Entertaining game that, Palace deserved winners though. You can't defend like Villa did against players like Zaha and Eze and expect to get points. I wish we'd have signed Eze, imagine him in our 11 rather than Redmond or Moussa - we'd be so much better.

I don't mind Stephens, he's improved enormously since Ralph has been in. Although, as he saw against Palace (the Benteke chance) he is still liable for an absolute nightmare. Although most of our CB's are, to be honest. No problem with him being part of our squad, I wouldn't have him as one of our starting centre backs though.

It was also mentioned in other places Convict, I'm just waiting for MLG to dismiss insidersport as a poor source as well. But this certainly did happen. The rules were tightened to stop another Gao taking over a PL club based on professional conduct criteria, sadly just after he'd taken over us.

Isn't this threatening to go down the road of 'nothing is ever going to be enough', though? The key statistics they need to look at are the infection rate, the amount of deaths and the amount of people going into Hospital. I'd say going forward the key stats need to be hospital admissions and deaths rather than infection rate though, the vaccines aren't designed to stop an infection entirely, they are there to reduce the severity of it. So if we still get people going for tests and it coming back positive, but they don't end up in hospital, then that alone isn't a reason to to panic. The reality is that deaths and hospital admissions are at an incredibly low, low level now, thus they should continue with the easing as they have been. The chatter about bringing in local restrictions and stopping the ease of the restrictions just 'in case' and because it 'might' do x and y is entering very dangerous territory and a never ending lockdown cycle for the rest of our lives.

If the fit and proper persons test was taken tomorrow, he'd fail it and his takeover would have been blocked.

Nothing to do with Semmens though, it's Gao who'd need to be on the phone. I think stuff is happening in the background though, but Gao will only sell to who gives him the best value, he won't care about their plans for this club. We just have to hope we get lucky and the fit and proper owners test actually works this time.

Don't disagree, we did kind of show up in the first half of the game up there...but we were then just picked off in the 2nd half. Raphinia is the game changer if he's on form IMO, Harrison is equally very important to them. Over the course of the last month, since we've had players come back, our performances and now results have slowly improved though. These next two games will be a show of our progress for sure though.

I just think it removes balance. We saw Vestergaard move to right sided CB the other night, only to quickly revert that right round. He doesn't look as comfortable to me.

Haven't we been looking for a number 10 for years? Boufal, Ramirez spring to mind. Tadic wasn't actually signed as a number 10 really, he played on the flanks for us most of the time. And we do miss his quality and guile in that attacking third for sure. I don't even think our formation suits a number 10 per say, especially if we play two up top. We have two inverted wingers who come very narrow towards the middle - so adding a number 10 there would just congest things. What I think we need is just a much, much better attacking wide player. Someone who can play the flanks and play that inverted role equally as well.

He's what i'd call a patchy player, he's liable to go on huge stretches without a goal, but when he does get a goal the door opens and he pops up with 5 or so in a short space. But even during his runs of no goals, he's not ineffective by any means. Assists, hold up play, stretching CB's etc. He's still doing all of that. It's not worth underestimating his partnership with Ings either, which has really flourished since the Lockdown football last year - the period between June - Dec. From December onwards Ings has just had injury after injury, so that partnership has been disrupted a lot and it's all fallen on Adams shoulders. 'If' Ings can stay fit next year there is easily 30-35 goals in that front two, IMO. And for a club of our size that's huge.

But do we need two of the the quality of Vestergaard and Salisu, who can't actually play together at CB by all accounts? Not sure we can for a club of our size. So if we need funds, Vestergaard looks to be the most sensible place to generate them given our ready made replacement there. In my opinion. Then we can go and get a loan CB to fill that 4th spot. Did you not agree that our attack looked markedly better then? He was stretching the game and doing things from the 'up front role' that Redmond should have been doing from the wide role. There's no defending Redmond's lack of attacking impact on this side.

This will be a much tougher game than the last two. Trying not to get too carried away because Palace and Fulham are new levels of shit. Leeds are actually a decent outfit and will provide a test. I reckon we'll get a draw here and I'll take that.