Well we won - we kept a clean sheet, we have now won 6 out of 6 at home So everything in the garden is rosy - yes ? Well - no This was as poor a game of football as I have ever seen - 2 poor teams, playing badly in front of a small and disinterested crowd. On my way down the stairs of Revie Stand I heard a lad on his phone saying "that was shite" - I turned and told him he should be happy we had won - he went off on real rant and then realised I was being sarcastic. Then on the bus afterwards someone said 'we have won 6 on the trot -we should all be buzzing' - everyone agreed that we should be and everyone agreed that we were not buzzing, in fact we were all moping around. We bossed this game from the start till the end - we had the ball all the time and spent the whole game camped in their half, yet in that time we managed to go the whole of the first half without a shot or chance worthy of the name. Second half we did up the tempo etc but all I can remember is the goal, a shot by Austin that fizzed across the face of the goal , a yard one way and it would have gone in, a yard the other and Becchio or McCormack would have nudged it in, plus a header from Lees which went straight to the keeper. That was it for 90 mins - oh and a great run by Byram when he beat 3 or 4 players. Bristol were awful but even they managed to bring 2 saves out of Kenny which could have taken 2 or even all 3 points off us. A crowd of just over 18k braved the cold and the snow and for what ? The atmosphere was dreadful - we really needed the players to lift the crowd and to get us going but it never happened. On paper we have not a bad squad - Diouf is as good as anyone in this Division, Barkely is highly rated at Everton, Byram is the best young player for ages, White and Lees are young home grown talents who may go on to have great careers, Austin is still referred to as the beast, Becchio is amongst the top scorers in this league, Ross Mc is quality, Kenny is a top keeper at this level, Brown has had a good career and Peltier is well thought of. So why are we so poor ?
We seem to have no plan, no idea, no shape. We just do not seem to play to our strengths and no-one really knows where they are supposed to be playing and what they are supposed to do. We are not George Grahams keep a clean sheet, nor Graysons score one more than them, or McAllisters keep the ball and pass it. We are a mixture of all of them but for some reason the bad points of all of them. We are lightweight like under McAllister, we attack like Grahams side (ie not at all) and defend like Graysons team (ie not at all) Whatever Becchios weaknesses we all know (apart from RW) that he is great inside the 6 yd box , heading it in from a yard out or shooting from 2 yds out, running onto the ball but we never give him the service he needs. Ross Mc is a really creative player and a goal scorer in and around the box so we play him out wide. Byram is shaky in defence and yet we persevere with him at right back and not in midfield. We have no width and no 'out' ball. Someone on the bus tried to claim we played 4 2 3 1 today with Brown and Austin as the 2 and Bechhio as the 1. I'm glad he told me that cos I could not work out what formation we were supposed to be playing. The goal when it came was decent - Barkley beat his defender and chipped it to the far post where McCormack (all 5'8" of him) got above the defender and nodded home (he deserved the goal for his all round effort) but instead of going on and getting a couple more we seemed to decide that that was enough and just stopped playing a shut up shop. I realise this report is a bit all over the place but it is so hard to report on game that had so little incident and action but a game that we won and won comfortably in some ways so it is not fair to slag them off too much I hope the cheap tickets v Peterboro and Blackpool brings all the lapsed match goers back to ER but if this is the sort of fare they will be served then none of them will be returning to the fold long term So to finish on a high - 3 more points in the bag - 6 home wins on the bounce and a clean sheet - what more could we ask ? Dave _______________________________________________ Leedslist mailing list Info and options: http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/leedslist To unsubscribe, email leedslist-unsubscr...@gn.apc.org PETE CASS (1962 - 2011) Rest In Peace Mate
