Premier League Match 24 - Leeds 1 Southampton 0

 

Ruben learning that 'Never Change a Winning Team' is Bullshit

The second game of the Ruben Revolution is another away trip, this time to Elland Road and Leeds United in a 19th versus 20th affair. This game would’ve been much more interesting if it had the additional sub-plot of Jesse Marsch managing against Leeds but after last week‘s win at Chelsea, I think we’re all glad he is not here, except maybe the Leeds fans who weren’t the biggest fans of Jesse Marsch by the end.

On that note, Saints gave Ruben Selles the job until the end of the season, probably trying to ride the wave of positivity from last week but also because they didn’t have a lot of choice.  There are of course pros and cons of doing it now.  A positive is that it takes away any uncertainty for the rest of the season but there is part of me that would have liked to have seen the game today and the Leicester home game before appointing, just to see if Chelsea was a flash in the pan.

Leeds have appointed a new manager this week in Javi Gracia, who was one of the multitude of managers who was at Watford for about half an hour. From what I remember, he did relatively well for a while before inevitably becoming yet another Watford statistic. Gracia inherits squad which looks pretty low on defensive quality and one that struggles in the goalscoring department. Not a great combination.

They have a number of half decent wingers and number tens but struggle to stick the ball in the net, mainly because Patrick Bamford has not hit the ground running following his lengthy time out with injury. Leeds are always very difficult to play against at Elland Road and the key today is playing the team in front of us and not the atmosphere. We managed this pretty well recently in very similar circumstances against Everton at Goodison Park.

Jessie Marsch started assembling Team America at Elland Road before he got sacked but I’m sure that the midfield today which is likely to be Weston McKennie and Tyler Adams, will be difficult to play against despite Marsch not being there.  Jack Harrison has always been one of Leeds better players and though he was linked away in the January transfer window, he is still there and will have to be watched this afternoon.  It’s the defence that we need to put under pressure though because it’s very average and the goalkeeper Meslier, is similar to Gavin Bazunu in that he is young, capable of the spectacular but also capable of the spectacular mistake, one of which he made at Everton last week when he left a gap as wide as the M1 between Sheffield and Leeds at his near post.

Whilst both Leeds (and Everton for that matter) will rely on the home form to keep them up, Saints are doing it the other way round at the moment with the four of the five wins this season being away from home. This gives some optimism for today but it also says that the next home game is coming up and is another significant hurdle for Ruben Selles to get over.

Away from the first team there was a decent bit of news in that Tyler Dibling signed his first professional contract, having reached the age of 17. Tyler of course had a bit of a wobble a few months ago and went off to Chelsea, before returning. His chastening experience wasn’t enough to stop Jimmy Jay Morgan making the same mistake and it would be interesting to know what Jimmy made of last weeks game at Stamford Bridge.

Team news and it’s the same starting XI as last week.  Hmmm, not convinced because today is a completely different assignment against a team with a lot less attacking quality than Chelsea.  Duje has made it back as far as the bench but there’s still no Sam Edozie.  So, positive today please lads and let’s get at them.

The opening few minutes is a bit worrying.  Leeds built down the left with Gnonto at the forefront and eventually puts in a cross which Bamford flicks his head at but doesn’t make contact with. It’s all Leeds as the half progresses with another Gnonto cross being flicked on in the middle with Luke Ayling taking time off from diving on the ground to take a swing at the back post and put it out for a throw in.

Stuart Armstrong finds himself on the left and bundles into a tackle which is somehow not given as a foul and away we go with JWP on the ball.  He switches it back out to Armstrong on the left who has continued his run and with it crying out for an effort at the far post, or squaring it across to the unmarked Tall Paul, he goes for the near post and it’s crap and scuffed wide.

Bednarek, fresh from being in Garth Crooks’ Team of the Week, loses it in midfield giving Maitland-Niles a hospital pass and when the ball bounces back to him and he has chance to make amends, he loses it to McKennie who gets to the edge of the box and luckily for us, gives Aaronson a shit ball behind him and Perraud manages to get a foot in.  Straight from that, we break up the other end with Sulemana skipping around a couple of players in midfield before feeding Tall Paul on the left hand side and he tries a ridiculously optimistic curling effort from 30 yards which Meslier sees all the way.  I don’t blame Paul at all for trying it as he’s hardly been passed a ball all game.

Leeds work a short corner as the half runs down because Gnonto has already proved he can’t kick a ball far enough to beat the first man.  This time the cross comes into the mixer from someone else and Baz decides to come to try and punch a ball he’s never gonna get and flaps it down to McKennie on the edge of the box but he shows dreadful technique when presented when faced with a simple lob into an empty net and puts it over the bar.

Half time and though I’m taking the piss out of Leeds’ ineptitude, the fact is that they are far better than us.  They are at least playing with some energy and intent and look like they want to win the game.  We are basically doing fuck all.  There are no ball-wins high up the pitch and there is no counter-attack or any other sort of attack.  It’s crap.  It’s 0-0 at best for us in this game unless we get a free-kick within 30 yards.

Bednarek Assists Leeds, Just Like He Did on the Goal

Away we go in the second half and it’s still mainly Leeds, with Bamford spinning into the penalty area and diving like a motherfucker over Bednarek.  I live for the day when retrospective punishment is handed out for attempts to con the ref.  Saints are still doing absolutely nothing as Leeds build up again and a long ball sees Bamford battle with ABK but dribbling a shot through to the goalkeeper.

On the hour mark, Ruben decides to do his triple substitution thing again and it’s the same three who come off with Tall Paul, Stuart Armstrong and Sulemana replaced with Mara, Walcott and Diallo. This means that JWP moves further forward.  More energy and less quality was OK when we were winning against Chelsea.  This time though, we’re looking for a goal with our creative players now being Walcott and Elyounoussi, with Mara up front.

KWP is on for Perraud and not Maitland-Niles, who has not even got into their half today.  KWP immediately gets to work blocking a Summerville effort after an easy cross by Aaronson was allowed into the box from the right-hand side. It’s a temporary reprieve though.

Bednarek has a chance to clear and doesn’t manage it and the ball eventually goes out to Harrison before eventually finding Summerville over in the left corner. He should be penned in the corner by AMN and Mara but neither bother to get close enough to stop a pass into Harrison who backheels it past the sleeping Diallo to Firpo.  Firpo half-hits a shot which Bednarek just stands in front of and makes no attempt to block and Bazunu dives over it and it rolls into the middle of the goal at 5 miles an hour. What a load of fucking shit.

Ruben then decides to put some pressure on Leeds by playing with 11 and Elyounoussi comes off to be replaced by Adam Armstrong, so there really wasn’t much point in that substitution overall.  Someone hands Elyounoussi a tracksuit top and a drink and he immediately gives them away to a Leeds player.

Courtesy of some flowing football, we then win a corner. I’m a course lying about the flowing football because what happened was that a Leeds player had a brain fart and headed back to Meslier who had another brain fart and knocked it wide for a corner. JWP‘s corner is too high for ABK and skims off his head but is the closest we’ve come to a goal in the second half in this vital six-pointer because we are a shit football team.

There’s one final break for Leeds as Rutter heads it onto Summerville who should square it to Harrison but takes the shot himself and it goes wide of the far post. The five minutes of injury time are spent exclusively in our half of the pitch as we do absolutely fuck all.  There is no desperation to get an equaliser, no shots, no balls into the box, nothing.  Pathetic.

Well, I thought we would have a chance of staying up if we won today but as it is, I am back to just accepting that we are going to go down and we are going to finish flat last in the table.  That was absolutely fucking shit today, to lose to that Leeds team in that manner was nothing short of pathetic. We didn’t create a fucking thing and didn’t look like we were going to even test their goalkeeper at any point.

Sure we battled well against what is let’s face it a piss poor Leeds team but when it came down to it, we coughed up the most pathetic of winning goals that you could ever see. About six mistakes in a row lead to Junior Firpo’s winner and to absolutely take the piss even more, he didn’t even hit it properly. He fucking scuffed it from 7 yards and our leader defender made himself as small as possible, blocked the view of the goalkeeper who then proceeded to dive over it. I can’t even begin to describe how shit that goal was from our point of view.

The midfield two of Lavia and JWP both had very good games, but they couldn’t get anything going further forward because the four players in front of them, were all shit. Stuart Armstrong had a game he will want to forget, constantly running with the ball until he got tackled and generally seeming disconnected from the rest of the players. I don’t think he got one cross into the box I can barely remember him passing the ball to those in front of him. Kamaldeen Sulemana is not a striker. One goal in 37 fucking games for his previous club tells you he is not a striker. He is a winger so play him on the fucking wing.  We broke our club record to sign him based on his performances on the wing… so I repeat, play him on the fucking wing.

Moi Elyounoussi, as everyone knows, is just dogshit when he has the ball. You can’t even see who is aiming at most of the time because his passing is that bad. It’s beyond pathetic. I know he does a job defensively but surely to fucking Christ we have to be better than that. The only forward player who I can excuse in any way is Tall Paul because he needs service. On a couple of occasions that we got into crossing positions, we managed to put it nowhere near him.

It’s yet another six-pointer style game that we’ve totally fucked and made it easy for incredibly limited opposition to walk away with the points by actually being worse than them.  Ralph away at Villa, Luton Jones at home to Nottingham Forest and now Ruben away at Leeds.  Three six-pointers against shit opposition on terrible runs of form and every time, we’ve set up not to lose, not preyed on their weaknesses and every time, we’ve lost 1-0, barely having a shot.  Every one of our three managers this season has yet to work out if we don’t have a go then defensively, we are never good enough to keep a clean sheet. You have to have an attacking threat at the other end otherwise the other team will eventually, no matter how bad they are, have loads of possession and will create a chance and we will produce a defensive fuck up and lose the game.

I can understand Ruben Selles going with the same team that got the result against Chelsea because that’s what 99% of managers do after a decent performance. However, this drives me nuts because today was a completely different assignment. We should’ve set out to go and take the game to them and win this game, rather than try to replicate what we did against Chelsea which was basically to sit tight, defend and hope we scored a free-kick.  We have 30 players in the first team squad?  Different players were needed for todays’ totally different game.  The triple sub also seems planned in advance.  Why?  Different situation in the game today because we were drawing rather than winning – unless of course Ruben decided he was happy with a draw with half an hour to go.  Whatever happened to bravery?

The bottom line is you are not going to win many games with some of these starting players. Bazunu can’t be relied upon, nor can Bednarek.  In Bazunu’s case, we forgive him because he’s young but the bottom line is he is not reliable enough to be a first choice goalkeeper in the Premier League at present. The best Leeds chance of the first half came after he came for a cross that he should never have come for and flapped it down to the edge of the penalty area for McKennie to lift it over the bar. Then there was the winning goal which he dived over the top of, though there was the mitigation of the clown in front of him.

Bednarek did the own goal dance against Wolves, then had a half decent game against Chelsea but it is always the case that another shit show is just around the corner and it arrived today. You won’t be getting in Garth Crooks venerated team of the week this week, will you Janny B? Two mistakes in 10 seconds almost gifted Leeds a goal in the first half and his lack of contribution to the only goal in the game was absolutely laughable. What’s the opposite of putting your body on the line?  Shrivelling up and hiding away.

Leeds about to regain possession

Those are the obvious two but what about Walcott, Elyounoussi, Stuart Armstrong, Maitland-Niles, Mara, Adam Armstrong, Diallo?  How many of those can string together 3 decent performances in a row?  Ask the same question about some of those who didn't get minutes on the pitch today like Djenepo, Lyanco and Aribo.

It’s not as if there aren’t options.  Caballero instead of Bazunu, Salisu or Caleta-Car instead of Bednarek. KWP instead of AMN, Sulemana or Edozie on the wings, Charly Alcaraz to break through from midfield.  We signed a 6 foot 7 centre forward who is what he is. He is good in the air and not particularly quick. Any big striker is like that with the exception of course of Erling Haaland. Play to his strengths, get down the sides and put crosses into the box. We managed two crosses in his general direction today and both of them were shit and sailed miles over his head. How can you miss a target that big by that much?

We are running out of games of course.  Ironically, and ridiculously, we are still not too far behind, due to the number of shit teams there are in the bottom half. We deserve to be 10 points adrift and absolutely dead but somehow we are not. Selles has to make some tough decisions on some of these players but if he waits another two or three games then that will be at least another couple of defeats and that will be the end of that.

Next up is Leicester at home and he has to pick a team with creative players to go out and win that game. If an hour before kick-off I find out that Elyounoussi has been picked in an attacking position again then I may well just stay in the pub. If we are to have any chance whatsoever, then the unreliables have to be ditched now.