Big Scary Leeds

[Jimmy Fleck]

Still annoyed at wilder showing them all this respect. Said the same again in interview yesterday. They’re nothing special. Hope he doesn’t do the same tonight, because that mentality will lose us the game.

 

[Chief]

It wasn't like the Leeds wankathon from last week, but he did spend a bit of time talking up his time at Boro and his admiration for the club in the pre-match presser. Not all that weird in itself, being respectful to a previous club and whatnot.

But then he basically said Gibson was right to sack him because Carrick is a brilliant (better?...) coach and started gushing over him instead.

I'm not overly fussy about these things but it is a it odd that he'd go into another game with a similar attitude after dropping an absolute stinker at Elland Road. Felt like he's setting expectations low again.

 

[Jimmy Fleck]

It wasn't like the Leeds wankathon from last week, but he did spend a bit of time talking up his time at Boro and his admiration for the club in the pre-match presser. Not all that weird in itself, being respectful to a previous club and whatnot.

But then he basically said Gibson was right to sack him because Carrick is a brilliant (better?...) coach and started gushing over him instead.

I'm not overly fussy about these things but it is a it odd that he'd go into another game with a similar attitude after dropping an absolute stinker at Elland Road. Felt like he's setting expectations low again.

I meant how he mentioned leeds being a good side again yesterday. It’s like… we’re a good side as well why not big your own players up?

 

[mattbianco1]

People need to give him some slack.

He went very defensive against Leeds and WBA in his last promotion season with us.
We beat them both 1-0.

If we'd got that other night, people would be claiming a tactical genius is at the helm.

It didn't work last week, but, You live by the sword, you die by the sword.
He knows he got it wrong

 

[SUFCinks]

Wilder showed Leeds way too much respect, It's fucking Leeds not Man City and pathetic that he's gushing over our rivals so much. How is he expecting the players to raise their game or feel confident about playing them again or Burnley or god forbid we get promoted and then need to face genuinely big & good clubs. If we park the bus against a club who are virtually our equal in this division then gush about them what message is that sending to our players. It's that Wilder thinks they are shit and not capable. Its the exact mentality that caused us to get embarrassed week in week out in the prem. Wilder was winning me over a little but the whole Leeds thing has raised a fair few red flags again.

 

[AWetFlannel]

They’re nothing special.

What are you basing this on? Every other manager, pundit and analyst thinks they're comfortably the best team in the league, the stats back it up.

 

[S64 Blade]

People need to give him some slack.

He went very defensive against Leeds and WBA in his last promotion season with us.
We beat them both 1-0.

If we'd got that other night, people would be claiming a tactical genius is at the helm.

It didn't work last week, but, You live by the sword, you die by the sword.
He knows he got it wrong

That's maybe part of the issue though, Matt. You can't repeat something 5 years later, with an entirely different squad of players, now playing under a different system and expect the same outcome.

 

[Badger Blade]

Wilder showed Leeds way too much respect, It's fucking Leeds not Man City and pathetic that he's gushing over our rivals so much. How is he expecting the players to raise their game or feel confident about playing them again or Burnley or god forbid we get promoted and then need to face genuinely big & good clubs. If we park the bus against a club who are virtually our equal in this division then gush about them what message is that sending to our players. It's that Wilder thinks they are shit and not capable. Its the exact mentality that caused us to get embarrassed week in week out in the prem. Wilder was winning me over a little but the whole Leeds thing has raised a fair few red flags again.

There's nobody in this league that we should be gushing over. Fair enough maybe if we were up against City or Liverpool but not fucking Leeds.

They wear the same colours as Real Madrid but that's where the similarities end. If we were bottom of the league and happy with scrapping for a point then fine but we've proved so far that we're right in the mix at the top of the table and should be giving as good as we get.

He likes to push the whole underdog mentality but the reality is that we aren't underdogs in this league, far from it. There are plenty of players in our squad that others would give their right arm for.

 

[Carlton Blade]

It was one game at the end of horrendous period for the club. Maybe cut everyone involved a bit of slack?

 

[BalticBlade]

Interesting that in his two pre-match press conferences since his recent meeting the the Prince, Wilder has seemingly been waving the white flag...

 

[brownblade]

People need to give him some slack.

He went very defensive against Leeds and WBA in his last promotion season with us.
We beat them both 1-0.

If we'd got that other night, people would be claiming a tactical genius is at the helm.

It didn't work last week, but, You live by the sword, you die by the sword.
He knows he got it wrong

Exactly. Baffling backlash. Like we've never played for and successfully snatched a 1-0 before.

Edit: We've been pretty wasteful all season (as it's a work in progress) so would going toe to toe with the best attacking players in the league seem sensible on paper? Arguably not. That's pretty much the end of the discussion in my opinion unless you want to argue until you're blue in the face.

 

[brownblade]

Interesting that in his two pre-match press conferences since his recent meeting the the Prince, Wilder has seemingly been waving the white flag...

Not that you like to shit stir...

 

[ChipButtyBlade]

Is Wilder a tactical introvert when it comes to playing the "big clubs".

 

[Snowflake]

Still annoyed at wilder showing them all this respect. Said the same again in interview yesterday. They’re nothing special. Hope he doesn’t do the same tonight, because that mentality will lose us the game.

In this league they look better than the rest, with the possible exception of Burnley.
Showing respect for the opposition doesn’t necessarily mean you give up.

 

[GrunkyPeep]

Interesting that in his two pre-match press conferences since his recent meeting the the Prince, Wilder has seemingly been waving the white flag...

Or maybe something else happened in Wilders life recently that might have negatively affected his mental health...

Probably worth considering how people react to grief first rather than stirring shit up.

 

[bladesince64]

Wilder did set up a lot more defensively against Leeds and also in the away games in the promotion season like somebody said.

The problem was that the players didn't stick to the plan and so many had a mare. We didn't press and we gave the ball away almost every time we got it.

Check the footage.

Nothing CW can do.

 

[3Cheers4Ramirez]

The Great Leeds only managed to beat Watford 2-1 at home last night despite being 2-0 up in 7 minutes

Almost as if they're not that great and are just another championship side who are vulnerable if you don't surrender to them and maybe have a bit of a go.....

They were even chanting Wilder is a wanker yet that did absolutely nothing to get in the way of his awestruck reverence for them it seems

Hopefully he hasn't given it the powerful powerful football club powerful powerful football players talk for Boro because if he has we know what's to come

 

[Carlton Blade]

Wilder did set up a lot more defensively against Leeds and also in the away games in the promotion season like somebody said.

The problem was that the players didn't stick to the plan and so many had a mare. We didn't press and we gave the ball away almost every time we got it.

Check the footage.

Nothing CW can do.

You do have to play to your players strengths too. The 18/19 team was full of experienced pros who were strong tactically and had lots of knowledge of how to defend in that set up, who rotated to cover when required etc. This current team is much younger and has players like Souza, Hamer, O'Hare etc who are less tactically aware and less likely to stick to a rigid plan.

 

[Slim Man]

He's done nothing in the interviews but try and justify the choices he made. Not once said it was wrong.

I don't think he'll line up the same tonight, but I wouldn't be surprised considering.

 

[Tony Currie]

All managers talk up the opposition and manager. If they went the other way and berated them that is the best motivation they can give them!

 

[Sharp as a blade]

Bloody hell the overreaction to the Leeds performance, result and pre match bullshit is still going on?

We're 10 games in and we've only lost 1 after an absolutely dismal season previous and a huge squad turnover. Were it not for the 2 points deduction we'd, be 1 point off top and 1 point behind 2nd placed Leeds with a game in hand. People said judge Wilder after 10 games and I don't think before the season started we could have reasonably asked for any more.

The pre match shite bigging Leeds up was an attempt at mind games and to take the pressure off our lads, it didn't work but hey ho that's life.

For reference go and look at the time Sam Allardyce said he was as good as Pep and watch the interview for why he did it. All the talk was then about his comments and took everything off the players.

The change to the team and formation didn't work but that's with hindsight. It's not as if it's guaranteed that if we were to pick the same team as the previous game, Leeds were gonna just let us win.

There's been a few games this season where Wilders got it tactically spot on. Hull being one that stands out to me.

It's a 46 game season. We're gonna have games where we're not at our best. Like another poster said above, regardless of tactics and formations. Too many players also had an off day against Leeds and our passing was not good.

Hopefully we win tonight and we can all go back to being happy.

 

[SwissBlade]

Watched their game against Boro and Boro gave them a real game… but still lost.

But that’s not my point…

When Leeds went ahead again late on their fans were chanting about being top of the league, albeit because we were playing a day later

Nice to put them back in their box, at least until Saturday when they play early. Wankers

 

[bornablade]

Just watched the BBC Look North bulletin at 9.15am. No mention of our result andf where that now puts Leeds in the table. Yesterday the Leeds result was featured and the fact they were top of the table.

(I will admit I didn't see any of the other earlier Look North news bulletins).

 

[North Shields Blade]

Apologies if it’s already been pointed out elsewhere but it’s worth mentioning that we have now played nine home games against eleven away whereas it’s the other way round with Leeds - eleven at home and nine away. There’s a significant difference so far between their home form and away form.

 

[Flumps]

Watched their game against Boro and Boro gave them a real game… but still lost.

But that’s not my point…

When Leeds went ahead again late on their fans were chanting about being top of the league, albeit because we were playing a day later

Nice to put them back in their box, at least until Saturday when they play early. Wankers

And I really really hate being this type of person but we really should be taking all 3 points comfortably on Saturday.

HOWEVER! we are Sheffield United and at some point this season a team will completely turn us over, it's very 'us' to allow a team in the relegation zone to do that. Similarly it's hardly like Leeds don't have a history of bottling it when it matters plus Hecky could want to do us a nice favour so this weekend will be quite entertaining to say the least.

 

[Kozzy_is_my_Dad]

I think we're a very calm and considered side. We like a battle, we try to play, we love to defend. The blips to our season so far were feeling a little overawed when Leeds and Boro expected us to play a bit. We need to try and show up to the reverse fixtures.

 

[Classof85]

If we keep doing this, leeds play earlier go top and we then get the result to go back above them, it will play on them mentally.

They will start thinking no matter what we do the blades always go back above us and could cause them to lose a couple of games they shouldnt

 

[Loco Blade]

Said it before these pricks like Florist Manure live in the past . Still have fly in fans met some in hotel after we played them . It’s called BRAND football and if the yanks take over be afraid be very afraid

 

[LS16Blade]

Indeed.

The Dirties have managed 3 wins from 9 away games so far this season. A continuation of that flaky away form over the upcoming run of the 3 away fixtures that they have in their next 4 games, would deliver them 1 win and 4 or 5 points.

I don’t bother watching any Leeds games but would hazard a guess that some teams have been prepared to have more of a go at them when they are on their travels and, presumably, they still have a bit of a soft underbelly. The goalkeeper certainly seems to come in for some criticism, and all Blades will be aware that, for all his ability going forward, Leeds’ right-back can be ‘got at’.

Benjamin Bloom often highlights the importance of the ‘Saturday/Tuesday’ double-headers that the Championship fixture list throws up 7 or 8 times a season.

So far this season, contrary to what the daft deniers in S6 say about us having easy fixtures, we’ve been dealt a really tough hand on those, with 3 of them handing us consecutive away games - Leeds/Boro; Blackburn/Bristol City; and now WBA/Millwall. They were pretty testing fixtures to have on a short turnaround yet we took 10 points (Leeds scraped a total of 2 points from their trips to Blackburn, Bristol City, Millwall and WBA). In contrast, Leeds had consecutive home games on 2 of those weeks and 1 home/1 away on the other. Altogether less onerous.

Nonetheless, we’ve still managed to be 3 points better than Leeds (on the pitch) to this stage.

And, we can look forward to the weighting of home and away fixtures being evened up slightly in the new year. Leeds will eventually have consecutive away match double-headers in February (Coventry/Watford) and April (Luton/Boro), whilst we have home double-headers against Portsmouth/Boro and PNE/Bristol City.

 

[Shadota]

Apologies if it’s already been pointed out elsewhere but it’s worth mentioning that we have now played nine home games against eleven away whereas it’s the other way round with Leeds - eleven at home and nine away. There’s a significant difference so far between their home form and away form.

To expand on that, here's the separated home and away stats for each side (Note that this data does not incorporate our points deduction).

Home:

	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Scored	Conceded	Points
Blades	9	8	1	0	14	2	25
Leeds	11	9	1	1	25	6	28

Away:

	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Scored	Conceded	Points
Blades	11	5	4	2	14	9	19
Leeds	9	3	4	2	11	8	13

I do think Leeds are the best team in the division. Farke is playing to their strengths, and implementing a "the best defence is a good offence" mentality. This works simply due to the absurd level of quality and depth they have in forward areas, which almost nobody else, ourselves included, can compete with. Despite a number of sales they made in the summer, they still have the likes of Gnonto, Dan James, Piroe, Aaronson in the squad, plus players like Solomon in on loan to bolster that front line further.

I don't think they're infallible though, and their league performance so far proves it. While we didn't perform well there, Burnley were able to go and win at Elland Road. They've also lost at Millwall and Blackburn, which as of last night, are both venues we have won at already this year. I also took note of their 3-3 draw with Portsmouth on the opening day of the season.

I think they'll have moments throughout the season, where their forwards just don't get it together for some reason, and those moments are what we need to take advantage of if we want to get promoted.