Positives and Negatives v Leeds

I'm a little bit perplexed why Travers is to blame for our mindset switch after going 3-1 up. Did he say something to the 10 players in front of him?

Did he tell the lads, "we've done it now fellas – just sit back and let us watch the clock tick down towards our inevitable glory"

Who'd be a goalkeeper eh.
 
Jamal Fix It said:
I'm a little bit perplexed why Travers is to blame for our mindset switch after going 3-1 up. Did he say something to the 10 players in front of him?

Did he tell the lads, "we've done it now fellas – just sit back and let us watch the clock tick down towards our inevitable glory"

Who'd be a goalkeeper eh.
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It's not that simple.
The defenders in front of you need faith.
Faith was clearly lacking yesterday.
In our early PL years EH was ruthless when it came to keepers.
 
KingKieffer said:
Smith is often marking the tallest player on the opposition team. It beggars belief that we have not changed the defensive set up from set pieces. It’s become farcical. It’s not a matter of if we will concede from one, it’s how many we will concede from. We have a goal keeper who is terrified to come off of his line and a relatively small team who are instructed to mark zonally, basically making us like a lamb to the slaughter if the delivery is good as the opponent will always be attacking the ball on the run whilst our defenders are jumping from a standing position. The few players we do chose to man mark are so hopelessly mismatched that it isn’t even worth doing.
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In addition we give away needless Corner after needless corner. Stands to reason if you give away 5 or 6 per match, that will inevitably cost you, as indeed it has the past 2 games.
 
Jamal Fix It said:
I didn't see that at all tbh.

I will admit though that I have more faith in Neto's organisational attributes. He seems like a better communicator in much the same way as Begovic was.
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We did. My son said in 1st minute Senesi had no faith in Travs and made that rash challenge as a result. Whether he did or not, the fact we're thinking it makes it likely they are.

His XG is 12.42 and has conceded 25.
 
Monmouthred said:
In addition we give away needless Corner after needless corner. Stands to reason if you give away 5 or 6 per match, that will inevitably cost you, as indeed it has the past 2 games.
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Something like 35 corners over 2 games is crazy. It's a function of the team being so deep. Defend 10 yards higher up and you give away more throw-ins and fewer corners.
 
northstandmark said:
Something like 35 corners over 2 games is crazy. It's a function of the team being so deep. Defend 10 yards higher up and you give away more throw-ins and fewer corners.
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Exactly this... For me it's got little to do with faith in Keepers or lack of communication...

You sit deep, you invite pressure... in the PL, you give 35 corners away in two spells of 30 mins each game... You're going to concede goals... End of...!!!

For me, this is what the players have been asked to do. I don't believe they were pushed deeper for that long and to that severity, in two games...
 
Monmouthred said:
In addition we give away needless Corner after needless corner. Stands to reason if you give away 5 or 6 per match, that will inevitably cost you, as indeed it has the past 2 games.
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Agree . The more corners you concede , no matter how well you defend them, they will get chances .
 
bpl234 said:
Agree . The more corners you concede , no matter how well you defend them, they will get chances .
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It’s bigger than that for me. Our concern about defending corners meant we left Moore on the pitch way longer than we should even though he had stopped offering anything on the counter. He should have been removed with Solanke going up front and another midfielder on, that’s what most teams would have done with a two goal lead away. We couldn’t do this though because we needed him to defend corners despite having a much taller team than Leeds all round.
 
I don't know if its the mindset of the team or the managers instructions or both that makes us drop deeper. Only the players and manager can answer that one. We had a history of doing it last season so maybe its mentally ingrained in the side. 2 of our wins this season have been when we have conceded first and had to get on the offensive so that tells me something.
What I do know is that after we have gone in front other teams change their tactics and personnel and simply close us down quicker and press harder, we cannot cope with this and GON does absolutely nothing to counter in the way of subs until it is too late. Players were looking at the bench on saturday in the second half as if to say what do you want us to do, and no response was forthcoming.
We have the players that can keep us up, although a couple of additions in Jan would not go amiss. We are capable of finishing above 3 other teams. We have seen some awful sides so far, Leeds were there for the taking and will continue to be so. Lets get our act together and sort out a new manager a.s.a.p. The sooner this takeover is completed the better as we are in limbo.
 
kirsikka said:
This really was The Good, The Bad and The Ugly over 90 minutes. Let's start with...

The Good
The first half was exactly what we've been crying out for performance wise with this set up. Nothing wrong with defending stoically if you attack the other team on the break with pace and numbers. It's a shame GO came to this conclusion so late as we left points behind in other matches. If we'd have approached certain other games like this we'd be sitting pretty right now.

Tavernier was almost unplayable in that first 45. Outstanding half in which he was everywhere. A goal and an assist, and he had them terrified.

Until the last couple of matches, Solanke has never looked comfortable in the support striker role. Suddenly, he's bossing it.

The Bad
Having been hitting them on the break and tearing them to shreds with that approach, in about the 56th minute Travers caught an easy ball and all the AFCB players started steaming forward. However, Travers did the swan dive to slow the game down and waste time rather than try and hit them on the break with an early release. You can doubt me but I promise you I immediately said "Oh no" out loud (to nobody else since I was watching alone). We'd decided to take the sting out of a game where we were the dominant force, and hand the initiative back to Leeds. I've no idea if that was an instruction from the bench or Travers on his own but that moment was the turning point in the match as I saw it. A couple of minutes later they scored their second, and we never again looked the same threat.

Adam Smith challenging for a header on the back post. It never ends well.

Travers looks a shadow of his last season self. Four shots on target, four goals against. Last season he was a keeper that would make impossible saves to win us points. He was a genuine difference. This season he's just watching them go in.

The game should have been won and out of sight after the first 45. We wasted opportunities and it's cost us. The Moore one... oh dear...

The Ugly
We've now set a Premier League record for the most penalties given in consecutive away matches. I mean, today's was a penalty but that record is only in place due to some of the ridiculous previous ones. We aren't going to stay up if we keep giving penalties away. It was clumsy and needless from Senesi.

We must on course to set a record for goals conceded from set pieces. If we let one in every week we aren't going to stay up. I've been saying it for some time now. Nothing changes.

There aren't many teams that will let you score three against them in the Premier League. There aren't many big six fixtures where you go two goals up. If you come out of both of those with zero points you're going to struggle to stay up.

Gary O'Neil is out of his depth. The momentum of the game had completely swung after their second, and yet their manager was still chasing it with changes. The only change GO made before the 88th minute was to replace an injured player. He's been a 'sit and hope it works out' type manager for several weeks, just borne out again today. He's too passive and too defensive.

Leeds were causing us all sorts of grief when they went forward but were like a team of Under 11s when trying to defend. We should have tried to take the game to them rather than hope we can survive.

--- Positive performances ---

Tavernier - Finally showed the end product to go with his energy. I thought he was completely (and understandably) out of energy in the last 15 and probably should have been subbed. Still didn't stop running though.

Solanke - Could he be the link man we've been hunting for since Yann was moved on? Great stuff.

--- Room for improvement ---

Travers - Sit him down with a sports psychologist. Make him watch his performances from last season. He's completely disappeared and is so much better than he's making himself look.

Fredericks - For a wing back, he offered remarkably little forward thrust during the match. Stacey immediately looked more threatening when he came on. Limped off, so not sure when he'll be back.


GO watch: It's been obvious for several weeks that he isn't the man. Delighted and praise due to him for finally encouraging us to have a go, and what a 45 minute performance it was. Then fell into his old trap of letting us sit on a lead when the third went it. It felt inevitable. He simply isn't ready for the PL. RabbitHutch was a dead man walking when we played them, and GO let him save his job. Marsch was probably a dead man walking today. And again...

We've carelessly cast away a bunch of games in which we could have picked up enough points to make the second half of the season not so much comfortable but much less of a challenge by refusing to make the appointment. It's cost us. Time to be bold and get the new man in place in time for next weekend.
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Spot on report - having made the trek to the ground I was absolutely elated with the performance till the 2nd Leeds goal hit the net - then we just capitulated with only Stacey making any real difference - we needed to change the game much earlier in the second half. Travers has to man up and look like he's in charge rather than a rabbit in the headlights - the crazy thing is he can be a quality keeper but the edge is missing. An in form Travs would have put the ball that went off for an unnecessary corner into Row Z or even up the pitch. Nothing came from that corner but it was the start of the rot!!
 
redharry said:
I don't know if its the mindset of the team or the managers instructions or both that makes us drop deeper. Only the players and manager can answer that one. We had a history of doing it last season so maybe its mentally ingrained in the side. 2 of our wins this season have been when we have conceded first and had to get on the offensive so that tells me something.
What I do know is that after we have gone in front other teams change their tactics and personnel and simply close us down quicker and press harder, we cannot cope with this and GON does absolutely nothing to counter in the way of subs until it is too late. Players were looking at the bench on saturday in the second half as if to say what do you want us to do, and no response was forthcoming.
We have the players that can keep us up, although a couple of additions in Jan would not go amiss. We are capable of finishing above 3 other teams. We have seen some awful sides so far, Leeds were there for the taking and will continue to be so. Lets get our act together and sort out a new manager a.s.a.p. The sooner this takeover is completed the better as we are in limbo.
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It’s natural when a team is two goals behind they will throw the sink at it and you will have to do more defending. Especially at this level. It’s how you manage it that makes the difference.

Most managers would have withdrawn one striker, made sure there was pace up front to drag the whole team up the pitch and the extra midfielder would have given us someone close by to pass it to, someone else to take a tactical booking and forced Leeds to move the ball wide where they were getting little success rather than allowing them to play through the middle.

I think that’s why a number of players turned to the bench rather than each other with their arms stretched out when the fourth went in. We have a very inexperienced management team though, it’s arguably not their fault although I am surprised how little they do seem capable of, especially around substitutions.

We’ve wasted a lot of winnable games and the frustrating thing for me is the PL is not as strong as I feared it would be coming up (outside of the top eight or so). We aren’t looking like Norwich last year we’ve been in every game apart from Liverpool, Arsenal and City.
 
Cheerupcherry said:
Spot on report - having made the trek to the ground I was absolutely elated with the performance till the 2nd Leeds goal hit the net - then we just capitulated with only Stacey making any real difference - we needed to change the game much earlier in the second half. Travers has to man up and look like he's in charge rather than a rabbit in the headlights - the crazy thing is he can be a quality keeper but the edge is missing. An in form Travs would have put the ball that went off for an unnecessary corner into Row Z or even up the pitch. Nothing came from that corner but it was the start of the rot!!
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Leeds will probably end up mid table (or slightly above). One thing was evident is that they have game changers on the bench. Apparently investment is being made in January with a view of bringing in a new striker. They might invest in another CB and FB. They have been chelsea, liverpool and I would not be surprised if they take something out of the spurs game at week-end.
The Cherries will bounce back from this and will not be in a relegation battle this season. Forest, currently Wolves and certainly saints look as though they will struggle all season. Just my opinion.
 
redharry said:
I don't know if its the mindset of the team or the managers instructions or both that makes us drop deeper. Only the players and manager can answer that one. We had a history of doing it last season so maybe its mentally ingrained in the side. 2 of our wins this season have been when we have conceded first and had to get on the offensive so that tells me something.
What I do know is that after we have gone in front other teams change their tactics and personnel and simply close us down quicker and press harder, we cannot cope with this and GON does absolutely nothing to counter in the way of subs until it is too late. Players were looking at the bench on saturday in the second half as if to say what do you want us to do, and no response was forthcoming.
We have the players that can keep us up, although a couple of additions in Jan would not go amiss. We are capable of finishing above 3 other teams. We have seen some awful sides so far, Leeds were there for the taking and will continue to be so. Lets get our act together and sort out a new manager a.s.a.p. The sooner this takeover is completed the better as we are in limbo.
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I didn't go on Saturday so I cannot comment on the players looking to the bench or arm waving after the 4th, but for me, the answer to your opening question is it's probably both... But compounded by the manager's mindset to dig in and defend the lead...

As has been said, it's natural for the balance of power to swing back and forth through games... You never dominate a game for 90 mins... But this makes it worse, as GON and the players must have known that having played on the front foot and dominating for so much of the first half and being 1-2 up, meant Leeds would come out and throw everything at us in the second... Even more-so when the score went 3-1... These were the moments to tactically shuffle... reinforce the midfield, add some pace for tired legs, swap formations to offer more cover, but still pace and attacking threat (ala Stacey/JZ and back 5... Pearson for Cook etc.) We seem to just batten down the hatches and prey we can win everything thrown at us... No attempt to regroup further up field when an opportunity arrives...

If only Senesi had just fouled their lad on the half way line for their 4th... :-(
 
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Neil Dawson said:
It’s bigger than that for me. Our concern about defending corners meant we left Moore on the pitch way longer than we should even though he had stopped offering anything on the counter. He should have been removed with Solanke going up front and another midfielder on, that’s what most teams would have done with a two goal lead away. We couldn’t do this though because we needed him to defend corners despite having a much taller team than Leeds all round.
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Agreed , it is natural that when conceding loads of corners there is no way you would take Moore off , that would be madness .
My take is no matter how well you defend corners , after a while one or two chances will be given.
When momentum changes in a game you have to try and take the sting out of it, mainly by keeping the ball well.
Tgat 4th goal to watch was horrible …
 
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