awful in all areas

[SouthIslandWhite]

Cav is a complete mystery to me. What does he provide? Mitro must start from here on in.  8 Wembley Finals left for us now. Praying that Newcastle and Brighton lose lots in next 5 or more games.

[Fernhurst]

I feel sick, and I have a headache, so I'm off to bed. goodnight fellas and I fear after that performance it's good night FFC.

[Matt10]

Look, we know who we were playing today. A team that sets up with man-marking throughout the pitch. We had plenty of time to prepare for it. I doubt Parker's instructions were to say that "beat the first man in a 1v1"..." beat the second man in a 1v1"..." right, go ahead and beat the third man in a 1v1". Yet, that's exactly what most of our players tried to do. Every single one of them was guilty of it. I understand Leeds hound all areas of the pitch, but we do not have to keep playing to feet to be effective. Heck, we almost scored from a nothing back-pass of theirs. Instead, we yet again were looking for the perfect pass to indifferent targets. Mitro comes on and couldn't care less to be posted up against one single defender. Lookman stays as wide as possible when we're in the attack, so Ayling can just stay goal-side and never let him get inside. No switching of the wings between Lookman and Cav either so we could offer some options for Tosin and Andersen.

In the dying minutes, we have Lookman going offside, Lookman heading the ball to their keeper for no reason - and then Mitro doing the same. Sod the tactics, what was additionally poor was the decision making in crucial areas. Lookman wants to shoot despite 4 Leeds players in front of him (which means at least one of his teammates is open), and Mitro choosing to pull down their defender rather than stick his head into the ball for a sure goal.

Among some of the players' decision making, to me, this was Parker being completely out-coached because he was being too complicated again. Commentators said it at the start that when we played against City, Parker was playing the opponent - which is why we didn't have a striker on the pitch. Yet here we went again with Parker trying to sacrifice our strength of width for the sake of defending Leeds. There were no outlets for our defenders, let alone our central midfielders - which is why Lemina didn't learn his lesson the first time and coughed up the eventual match-winner.

Leeds were not an easy team, but neither was Man City. We are starting to see self-inflicted concessions now though, and that can only mean that parts of the system need tweaking again. I'm just not sure Parker is going to change things up for the 3rd time this season - but if we have more performances like tonight, it may be too late. I still believe, as I always will until the final whistle on final matchday, that we will stay up - but performances like these sure are tough to swallow. It's going to be a long international break.

[SP]

I feel sick, and I have a headache, so I'm off to bed. goodnight fellas and I fear after that performance it's good night FFC.

Can't blame the Astra Zeneca vaccine for this unfortunately.

[bod]

Second best tonight. Leeds don't allow teams to rest on the ball.
We could not cope with this.
Disappointed and fearing the drop after this performance - games running out!

[RaySmith]

Leeds were so much better than us ,knocked up off our style of play - but we did have a period after we scored when they were on the back foot, but we  lack a goalscorer,.We did have chance's but couldn't put them away.
Lookman was the biggest culprit.

That was our worst since earlier in the season -Leeds seemed  the opponent we found it most difficult to play against, even compared to  Chelsea, Spurs, Liverpool, City.
I think we began with a more attacking style than usual, and therefore couldn't cope with their attack .

I also think the City loss has knocked confidence.

But there's still hope - we  can do a lot better
We've done  so well to claw  ourselves back into contention..

[SP]

Good summary Matt10.

Despite odds of 6/1, it's nailed on Newcastle will get a flukey win over Brighton.

Gutted.

[LittleErn]

Can't disagree with any of these posts. Wrong decisions from all concerned tonight; Parker for tactics, selection and subs, various players on the pitch, and me for deciding to watch it!

[love4ffc]

I'm in no way a Scott out person but, I think he got tonight all wrong tonight starting with the lineup.  I love Robinson, he's an American, but tonight he was off.  Would have like to have seen Tete start instead and Robinson come on as his sub later in the match. 

The subs, I just don't get the subs tonight at all.  I was happy to see RLC not start but was surprised to see Anguissa start over Lemina.  I just think Lemina is more creative and is much better at defending.  Speaking of defending, really get taking off Reed and bringing on RLC.  Nor do I understand why take off Maja who was doing fantastic and leave Anguissa on?  God I would have loved to have seen Mitro and Maja together. 

Feeling like this was the match that might have ended the season.  I need to regroup and get some mojo back for the next match. 

Not sure what game you watched but both Frank and Lemina started, and Lemina gifted them the second goal?

I misspoke about Lemina.  I know Anguissa Started, though he was useless tonight.  Gave away passes, did not defend well at all, constantly pointed at players for other to defend and hardly created anything.  He would have been the second sub for me right after taking off Robinson. 

[Dodgin]

Forward balls to players with there backs to the Leeds goal met a lot of interceptions. There keeper was very accurate with his kicking to the wings

[RaySmith]

Look, we know who we were playing today. A team that sets up with man-marking throughout the pitch. We had plenty of time to prepare for it. I doubt Parker's instructions were to say that "beat the first man in a 1v1"..." beat the second man in a 1v1"..." right, go ahead and beat the third man in a 1v1". Yet, that's exactly what most of our players tried to do. Every single one of them was guilty of it. I understand Leeds hound all areas of the pitch, but we do not have to keep playing to feet to be effective. Heck, we almost scored from a nothing back-pass of theirs. Instead, we yet again were looking for the perfect pass to indifferent targets. Mitro comes on and couldn't care less to be posted up against one single defender. Lookman stays as wide as possible when we're in the attack, so Ayling can just stay goal-side and never let him get inside. No switching of the wings between Lookman and Cav either so we could offer some options for Tosin and Andersen.

In the dying minutes, we have Lookman going offside, Lookman heading the ball to their keeper for no reason - and then Mitro doing the same. Sod the tactics, what was additionally poor was the decision making in crucial areas. Lookman wants to shoot despite 4 Leeds players in front of him (which means at least one of his teammates is open), and Mitro choosing to pull down their defender rather than stick his head into the ball for a sure goal.

Among some of the players' decision making, to me, this was Parker being completely out-coached because he was being too complicated again. Commentators said it at the start that when we played against City, Parker was playing the opponent - which is why we didn't have a striker on the pitch. Yet here we went again with Parker trying to sacrifice our strength of width for the sake of defending Leeds. There were no outlets for our defenders, let alone our central midfielders - which is why Lemina didn't learn his lesson the first time and coughed up the eventual match-winner.

Leeds were not an easy team, but neither was Man City. We are starting to see self-inflicted concessions now though, and that can only mean that parts of the system need tweaking again. I'm just not sure Parker is going to change things up for the 3rd time this season - but if we have more performances like tonight, it may be too late. I still believe, as I always will until the final whistle on final matchday, that we will stay up - but performances like these sure are tough to swallow. It's going to be a long international break.

I think we found leeds much tougher to play than v City, when we    did quite well apart from a 15 minute period in the  second half.

But we couldn't cope with Leeds closing us down style right from the start, though did manage to get back into it, and look as though we'd survived the onslaught, after scoring. But in the second  half Leeds just  upped the pace and looked so much faster and  fitter than us.

We also failed to take the chances we did create, whereas Leeds  took theirs well. We just don't have the  quality attacking players of Leeds.

I think we will do better against other teams we play, when we can play our passing game more easily.

[SP]

Think it demonstrated tonight why the Leeds manager earns £9m odd a year.

[JoelH5]

Realistically if Newcastle win tomorrow we are down

[RaySmith]

Think it demonstrated tonight why the Leeds manager earns £9m odd a year.

But look at the players they've bought.

[Pock]

Why don't our wingers, Cav and Ade, do what wingers used to do? Beat their man, get to the byline and cross the ball into the box. Neither Josh, Mitro or any other striker is going to score without that kind of service.
Ade in particular is beginning to look like a one trick pony. His one thought seems to be to beat the entire opposition defence on his own and score worldies.

[FFC In Oz]

For God's sake try one of our youngsters up front. The players we have aren't good enough. I want to support Parker but I am losing faith in him. By the way RLC is a total waste of space. Get rid of him now. 

Don't worry we might put Cav back up top next week and RLC on the right.