Anyone notice that Ampadu played more right sided in his holdering role. Also noted that Kamara played more left sided. This seemed to unbalance things. In the game before it was the other way around.
Other notable change was that The passing between the back four was extremely slow miss placed which meant players were always under pressure.
Southampton basically man marked James, Ampadu, Kamara and Summerville which nullifying most of our play. Added with our slow and inaccurate passing and the end result is terrible loss.
If Cooper plays then he needs a right footer next to him to balance his play. It better suited him as a player and to our team.
Ampadu needs to play a middle DCM as it look more free.
Kamara needs to play as a CM in front of the DCM allowing him to move left or right as needed.
James is like a Tasmanian devil, best in being used short burst. 90 minutes he becomes 1 dimensional and easy to mark out of the game.
Missed the whole of the second half (connexion went).
Certainly agree about the ball being passed very slow at the back & often so in midfield.
In a lot of the games we dominated our cb's, Rodon and Pascal (more often) bring the ball forward out of decence. With Gray and mostly Ampadu in center of midfield receiving the ball. At times Ampadu drops deeper and sets things of.
From what I saw in the first half, neither center back brought the ball out of defence.
To me Pascal being on the right hand side hampers his ball control, passing and fluency. When Pascal received the ball from Cooper he virtually always had to turn it on his left foot. Coops himself either goes long or passes it sideways/back to Meslier. Makes it all very predictable and easy to read.
Southampton's high press did the rest.
As you say, the passing so slow and with Kamare dropping deep to try and help set things of proved counterproductive. Ampadu didn't get on the ball and we were chasing shadows. Piroe in the nr. 10 role was even more of a passenger.
Someone pointed out the defence and by extension the rest of the side yesterday (first half) looked like last season's, all over the place with little or no unity or balance.
Hope the defeat motivates us to put things right on wednesday.
While not a Cooper fan ( think he is past it for our team through injury) I believe that his biggest weakness is his lack of passing decisiveness. Generally his passing is slow & accurate, but because he takes so long to decide if it is forward or back means he put his team under pressure. Under Biesla he did not have this problem as much as he was trained to pass based on body position a situation which simplified the game allowing his whole hearted approach to work.
Examples
Cooper received ball from Meslier and had to play short pass to left back or long ball to right winger.
Cooper slide wider left and received ball back from left back and passes to Phillips 4m away who then pings a long ball wide left or right.
Under Farke he has to decide to to pass forward, backwards, sideways or carry the ball forward which is more total football styled. Cooper can do this but just not at this level as it is not natural for his game. On the other hand this suits Struijk, Rondon and even Cresswell (to a certain extent).
Ampadu playing style is dependent on how much movement is given from out wide left and right as he turns forward looking for movement and space to pass to. Without him getting fast ball from CB's he must generate ball speed himself meaning he has to hold the ball longer and not be able to pass, move, open space and time for others.
Basically Farke's system needs fast ball movement with 1 or 2 touch football. While not as regimented pattern based as Biesla's, it still is and allows for extra player thinking.
In a nut shell.
Biesla system created players to almost robotically shine through extremely exact detail of positioning, play and stamina.
Farkes system created for players to shine by taking the next step on the above by allowing individual flair shine through.
Imagine a Viduka, Kewell, Hernandez or Raphina in Farkes system? Or even a Batty & Speed pairing would shine as well.
Anyway you are so right that we need to ditch being the prefered opponent ASAP.
We need Farke to make sure our team considers each & every game equally important. Each game is a cup final, it certainly is for every of our opponents.
Found it strange how the team looked that disjointed, still feel Farke got it wrong in not selecting Rodon at CB. Things in general had looked fairly secure with him & Pascal.
OK not perfect, but in general the defence looked far more natural and at ease with one another.
Also felt the whole dynamics of the team seemed to change with Kamara's presence & more importantly with his role in the side today.
In the first half it looked like as if Kamara was our first outlet each and very time and it felt like Ampadu didn't know what to do or what even his role in the team was.
Defensively we were at least a couple of yards of the pace (sleepwalking?).
Our lack of any dominance in midfield rendered our wingers and strikers redundant.
Add to that guys like Ayling & Bamford on the bench (tongue in cheek, I know and get it Daniel) and it should be no surprise we got stuffed.
The one way to get beyond this is obviously a good win against QPR.
The performance look scary similar to last season. Maybe a coincidence that it happen when for first time this season we have Ayling, Cooper and Bamford back in the game day squad... 🤔
We looked since the first whistle 5 steps slow. The whole squad seem to believe the smoke that blew their way this week.
Sluggish, of the pace, lead in their shoes, throwing and passing straight to the opponent, lots of pointing but noboby marking or even tracking their man.
A side that seemed to think, we just need to turn up and we'll walk over them.
Quite the opposite happened. Saints must be thinking, what pub team are we playing today.
Of those 11 Leeds players (did we start 11 vs 11?), I'm trying and struggling big time to find a couple who would deserve to start the second half. It has been dreadful.
I missed their goal. We looked rattled for a good few minutes after they scored. We are settling in now and getting on top. Nice to see the ref dish out a couple of early yellows, something I've been critical of previously with our players not getting any protection. Having said that Smallbone should be off the field for what was clearly a second yellow card.
If you were a loan player and you came to Leeds united. Started games and played well but for a double questionable yellow card incident and now must sit the bench how would you feel? Wonder what's going through Rondon head right now.
It is Interesting that Cooper keeps his spot. Is it because he is club captain?🤔. If he drops to the bench, does that mean Ayling starts because he is vice captain?
Cooper keeps his place because he's club captain, our best defender, has three years premiership experience and over 250 games for the club. A bit of a no brainer.
As for loan players, how do you think young Cresswell feels, having played well then seeing another CB brought in on loan and take his space. That's life and I'm sure Rodon will get over it.
Agreed I shouldn't not be an issue to Rodon (doesn't matter if he a loan player or not). Long season and all that.
Would have prefered Rodon's return, because Coops isn't as quick & mobile and having Pascal on the right somewhat hinders Struyck's passing (makes it more predictable & slows it down a bit).
Again I don't know what kind of attackers (pacy, strong?) Saints our defenders will face. Farke should.
We know how Cresswell feels as it was just 7 days ago he made a move at the club about playing time. It the reason why we suddenly had the manager saying how good he is.
Seems like Farke - Farked about with the set up yesterday and Farked it up!
Anyone notice that Ampadu played more right sided in his holdering role. Also noted that Kamara played more left sided. This seemed to unbalance things. In the game before it was the other way around.
Other notable change was that The passing between the back four was extremely slow miss placed which meant players were always under pressure.
Southampton basically man marked James, Ampadu, Kamara and Summerville which nullifying most of our play. Added with our slow and inaccurate passing and the end result is terrible loss.
If Cooper plays then he needs a right footer next to him to balance his play. It better suited him as a player and to our team.
Ampadu needs to play a middle DCM as it look more free.
Kamara needs to play as a CM in front of the DCM allowing him to move left or right as needed.
James is like a Tasmanian devil, best in being used short burst. 90 minutes he becomes 1 dimensional and easy to mark out of the game.
Hard luck Steve, nice little run tho👍
Teams on a cr4p run, like Southampton today, must sooooooo love it when they see they play us next, cos they just know their cr4p run will end.
So why do we end every team's sh1t run?
Complaicancy?
Can't be arsed to/no need to 'get up' for 'these lot' cos they're sh1te and everyone is beating them?
Someone (DF) aught to be seriously asking our players this question, because it has been happening for far too long, with far too much consistency!!
I didn't see the game today, only the highlights (lowlights), but reading player ratings, it would appear we were dire??
So why can't we get motivated for these types of games?
Have to hope that was something of a one off.
Found it strange how the team looked that disjointed, still feel Farke got it wrong in not selecting Rodon at CB. Things in general had looked fairly secure with him & Pascal.
OK not perfect, but in general the defence looked far more natural and at ease with one another.
Also felt the whole dynamics of the team seemed to change with Kamara's presence & more importantly with his role in the side today.
In the first half it looked like as if Kamara was our first outlet each and very time and it felt like Ampadu didn't know what to do or what even his role in the team was.
Defensively we were at least a couple of yards of the pace (sleepwalking?).
Our lack of any dominance in midfield rendered our wingers and strikers redundant.
Add to that guys like Ayling & Bamford on the bench (tongue in cheek, I know and get it Daniel) and it should be no surprise we got stuffed.
The one way to get beyond this is obviously a good win against QPR.
Nice turn and finish by Struijk
Repeat of 2005 anyone?
We down by 3... I would do the following.
Cooper bench.
Ampadu bench
James bench
Rondon on
Anthony on
Gruev on
The performance look scary similar to last season. Maybe a coincidence that it happen when for first time this season we have Ayling, Cooper and Bamford back in the game day squad... 🤔
We looked since the first whistle 5 steps slow. The whole squad seem to believe the smoke that blew their way this week.
Sluggish, of the pace, lead in their shoes, throwing and passing straight to the opponent, lots of pointing but noboby marking or even tracking their man.
A side that seemed to think, we just need to turn up and we'll walk over them.
Quite the opposite happened. Saints must be thinking, what pub team are we playing today.
Of those 11 Leeds players (did we start 11 vs 11?), I'm trying and struggling big time to find a couple who would deserve to start the second half. It has been dreadful.
I'd probably switch James for Anthony at half time. Also switch Piroe and Rutter around.
My comment about us getting on top didn't age too well.
Knife & butter or something, Jeeezzz.
Pity Soopa, but there's plenty more wrong than just Meslier.
For instance, just now was about the first time I noticed Ampadu was on the pitch.
Is Rodon injured? Not sure why he isn't playing otherwise.
That defence is a shambles. Can't find anyone with pass marks so far
There's something very wrong with Meslier.
He came out of the tunnel last, like he was late out of the changing room - he normally comes out second behind the captain.
Today he's been easily beaten at his near post twice.
Typical.
I missed their goal. We looked rattled for a good few minutes after they scored. We are settling in now and getting on top. Nice to see the ref dish out a couple of early yellows, something I've been critical of previously with our players not getting any protection. Having said that Smallbone should be off the field for what was clearly a second yellow card.
Not the start we wanted.
Well that's started well
good luck 3-0 leeds win
If you were a loan player and you came to Leeds united. Started games and played well but for a double questionable yellow card incident and now must sit the bench how would you feel? Wonder what's going through Rondon head right now.
It is Interesting that Cooper keeps his spot. Is it because he is club captain?🤔. If he drops to the bench, does that mean Ayling starts because he is vice captain?