am on a roll palace leeds MDT

I watched the city game last night and am extremely concerned as to what they will do to us on Saturday. In December we were thrashed 7 - 0 and the BBC reported ' Manchester City tore Leeds apart with an attacking masterclass to increase their lead at the top of the Premier League to four points ' To be fair we were man marking but not effectively as was proved.

City have an embaressment of riches in their squad and could field a second eleven and still win most games. We can only hope they come with a omplacent attitude of we only have to turn up to win. I shall probably spend the whole of the match hiding in the greenhouse away from the radio and tv, It worked for the Watford game!

Looking at City/Real last night its scary to see what the citizens are capable of, they ripped RM's defense apart on countless occasions, the movement the crisp passing, it was mesmerizing at times tbh, and fair play to any Club that can get a manager in and set his team out this way.

Real tried to go toe to toe with City and were 2 down, should have been 4 down inside the first 15mins.

We must learn from this.

I hope Jesse breaks the game into blocks (get through the first 10 mins then the next 10, then to half time, etc). Lets call a spade a spade we cant compete with the quality they have all over the park, and give credit to City they will fly into a tackle too, so we gotta match their aggression (and more), we MUST maintain concentration levels switch off for one second and these guys see it and bang they are in behind us.

I can see Pep make a few changes on Saturday night to freshen up the team but the players coming in will want to impress on the manager that they should be starting in Madrid next Wednesday night in the second leg, a managers dream everyone itching to play, wanting to show the gaffer "hey boss look what i can do, look what you are missing when im not play".

Its going to be very interesting to see what JM does when selecting his starting xi

Will he go with a back 5?

Play 2 holding midfielders?

Will he go 4-4-2?

Will he revert to a back 3 and flood midfield and try to breakup the attack in the first place?

Its a tough one because if we sit back (like Brighton did) its only a matter of time before City find that foot of grass of space to punish you. If you attack them (like Real last night) you can be 4 down in a matter of minutes.

Only way i see us getting something "if" pep makes too many changes like 8-9 but with the PL title still in the i cant see him doing that especially if Liverpool beat barcodes Saturday morning, we need to concentrate on what we do with the ball and try and hold it for awhile. Our passing must be accurate, with none of these round the corner flicks or blind passing "hoping" a white jersey is there. Kalvin was fairly quite on Monday night and i'm certain he will want to show Garth Southgate that he can hold his own even playing against the best players, If RK is in midfield we are goosed simple as, if Palace can expose him, i dread to think what the City midfield will do to him.

Fingers crossed

Butterflies already fluttering

Tin hat on

Already putting the beer and packet of crisps behind the sofa

Hoping for Norwich to help us out and beat Villa, just to keep them in the mix, but on my knees praying that Chelsea & Watford both do us a huge favour and win.

I can feel more age wrinkles starting

MOT

Thank Danish. To be frank, a fair number of us saw it like that.

Palace at home are a decent to good side, but I feel we struggled to create any real goalscoring opportunity. That's certainly a worry when our next 3 games are against teams at the top of the table.

JM has gotten us on unbeaten run and there certainly has been a major upturn in results. Realisticly, can't see how just another 2 or 3 pts would be enough to keep us up.

Very much hope the Hornets & Chelscum do us a favour this weekend.

Congrats Steve

Keep the run going and you may end up a legend like Ice Ice Baby

It could prove to be a vital point, the performance was average at best.

Must agree with a lot that has already been said, Meslier our best player, CB's did well, fullbacks struggled defensively with their respective opponents and Palace got in behind them quite a lot. Going forward both Dallas & Bill were okish. Took me 20 - 25 mins to notice that Rapha was playing, afterwards he got a bit more involved, Philips looked pretty pale, Klich was poor and his replacement Koch again proved he's not a midfielder.

In general all our used forward players looked ineffective.

The amount of misplaced passes and missed controls was staggering.

A half decent final ball was completely missing.

Honestly on this performance and considering the quality of the opposition over the next 3 games, it's hard to see us adding to our 34 points tally.

Brighton at home and Brentford away also look daunting, can't count on other teams doing us a favour.

Decent point last night would have taken it at 6 o clock yesterday evening just to keep the unbeaten run going and a second clean sheet in a row was also good to get. Defence played well despite looking on the rocks a few times.

I read things from leeds fans all over social media (cant miss them these days) but we must be realistic in what this squad of players can do and achieve against Clubs that have been playing in the PL for donkeys years compared to us.

Palace have been a PL side for the past nine years and haven't finished higher than 10th place, for me this has been the most consistent Palace side i've seen in that time and still they are struggling to breakthrough the ten barrier, PV is a decent manager playing a decent style of football, Bill was up against Zaha last night i just don't see how people thought Ayling was awful last night. If anything Palace caused us more problems on the other side especially in the first half.

Well done mouseman time to run out and get another copybook to pen MDT NUMBER 5

34 points now after 33 games played i think 39 points is needed just to be sure (our GD is worth a point to all other teams in the drop zone)

Chelsea 1 Point

Seagulls 3 points

Brentford 1 point

Not unrealistic and "if" we get anything from either of the other two games (i doubt but "if") thats a bonus.

We will be very unlucky to be relegated on 39 points imho.

Here is my three question for you all.

1. Is strange that our players first touch seems to be deteriorating by the game?

2. Does anyone else notice that K.Phillips seems to be very hesitant with some of his passes and movement. Do we think it is because he is Rusty from the 14 weeks he had off?

3. Does it seem to others that our ability to pass the ball correctly to our own team has left us?

It's clear to me that playing this system requires the full backs to take the game to the opposition, and both Ayling and Dallas were run ragged today. Thought the two CBs performed well and won a lot of decisive interceptions. Midfield was anonymous, Phillips isn't quite match fit yet, and Klich hasn't adapted to a more central role. Imagine if we had Conor Gallagher playing in that role for Leeds. It's very clear to me that a creative CM is the number one priority. Thought the forwards did ok. James was starved off support for much of the first half but never stopped running. Harrison has been consistently our best player in recent months. Raphinha was a bit off his game but is always a threat. I like what I see of both Greenwood and Gelhardt, and personally I would play Joffy from the start.

Anyway that's one of the three points we needed. Just gotta get two more.

Some really shaking performances from the team, especially in the first half. . Passing was dreadful all game. Although Phillips plays in a 2 man central midfield role for England, it all seemed alien to him and others in a Leeds shirt. Maybe more time needed to adjust.

Klich was extremely poor and should have been hooked well before half time. Dallas was off the pace as well as was Cooper, however as the game progressed they did get better. Llorente continues to mystify me. Some sublime defending at times and then pure sh*te. Koch seems to press the panic button at time.

That being said, the game was in London and we came away with a point and a clean sheet.

For me, the game against Citeh will be a free hit. Even the most ardent supporter will have to accept that beating them is going to be nigh on impossible, so the team should be more relaxed and who knows, maybe the impossible becomes possible!

Got the feeling it will be between us and Everton. Don’t really like our goal difference…. We needed Forshaw today, and Marsch definitely needs to reconsider our attacking formation. Meslier our best player tells the story of the game. MOT.

Ayling was pure sh1t. His performance today so so bad that i thought i was watching a sunday league 45 year drunk right back. Klich had a bad night and thought James and Rodrigo were anonymous.

Wow still city to come

come on LEEDS

Mouseman you march on!

Not pretty but a decent point given the pattern of the game.

2 clean sheets in a row isn't very Bielsa - let's see what Saturday brings

Scrappy first half - boiling over a bit at times.

If we could pass we'd be dangerous!

I suppose the idea is James runs them ragged then goes of Rodrigo then takes over

No Summerville on the bench.... Is he injured?

Very worried about him leaving in the summer with no game time....

Quality MDT Mouseman and good luck for a prolonged run....

We need to get something out of this game before we play the big teams....

I'm very confident we'll pull away from this whereas others will be panicking.... Bumley CANNOT keep picking up points as their results prove over the WHOLE season. They've picked up 7 out of the last 9 but that will be it on their little run....

I'm going for a positive 1-0 victory with Raphinha back on fire and notching....

Good luck mouse. Are you going.

Pity about Forshaw, luckily Philips ready to start. I think it will be a tight game but the best I can see is a draw.

1-1

RAPHA

8c for the match which is disappointing but expected as the bloody weather usually turns a bit rubbish when we play. Cold wind and cloudy.