I see the Leeds crisis lasted long...4 up before half time. 
Leeds (dirty thugs) discussion
- Thread starter Samid
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
I think they just excel against teams that don’t take the game to them. If you sit back and relax against them they’ll destroy you but if you play them at their own game they’ll exhaust themselves and you’ll grab 3 or 4 yourselves.I see the Leeds crisis lasted long...4 up before half time.
Bielsa could be well suited to a team like PSG. Some world class players, plenty of money to spend and then Bielsa's uber attacking football.
First goal in their games is certainly huge. They rarely lose when ahead.
Think being 2 down to Man. United within 3 minutes just completely threw them and they simply couldn't recover. Very rarely that happens even if team gets battered at start of the game.
I am quite curious to see how they perform against Spurs. Not expecting Mourinho to have a much different aproach than Big Sam...
An emphatic retort to anyone saying “they have to play it safe and know when to shut up shop”
This will be their 7th win of the season. The same number as Chelsea, City and Spurs.
They will have more points than the bottom three put together.
All of that, as well as being the most entertaining side to watch in the league.
This will be their 7th win of the season. The same number as Chelsea, City and Spurs.
They will have more points than the bottom three put together.
All of that, as well as being the most entertaining side to watch in the league.
And to do it with the players Leeds have makes it even more impressive
Yeah I'm sure Neymar and Mbappe would be willing to do all the running required in his system.
Exactly. They might have a big name, but they are a newly promoted side with limited resources. I think it would be extremely difficult to find a Leeds fan who didn’t love him.
The numpties in here after our game wondering why Biesla gets so many plaudits 
Good case for most exciting team in the league, with a nothing squad.
Good case for most exciting team in the league, with a nothing squad.
Yet there are some people out there who will say that promoted teams are better off taking a Big Sam style approach than a Bielsa style approach. And those people are dark, joyless souls.
Some people are just very cowardly when it comes to football. It appeals to the base human instinct rather than what makes better sense.
For some teams a Big Sam style may be better yeah. Don't see how that's controversial.
I'm a fan of Bielsa and have been following him closely since he started at Bilbao, and I'd say that most promoted teams are better off playing a la Big Sam. Only because most of those teams don't get to have a manager, who is a modern football influencer and who has the skill to extract the best from his squad, at their helms.
What teams are those?
Saying team X should take approach X because it suits them is fine.
Blanket saying that playing expansive football won't work for promoted sides and they should adopt more "pragmatic" and less "naive" tactics is what's stupid. People are quick to scoff "well that might work for them in the championship but it won't work for them in the PL" when it comes to teams attempting to play attacking football, while ignoring the many times dreary negativity has failed to keep promoted sides up too. That's how you get pundits arguing that Bielsa's tactics need to change, even as his team strolls to safety. There's a kneejerk scepticism of the idea that attacking football might actually be the most effective football, even for supposedly weaker sides.
And obviously if people are going to err on either side, it should be on the side of good football. Rather than instinctively assuming that negativity is the most effective approach, even though it regularly fails.
Burnley's done well haven't they?
For a while anyway.
Don't understand why people are in such a rush to label managers.
They’ve done very well, and Dyche is brilliant. This next bit is subjective and everyone will have a different opinion on the kind of football they find entertaining, but if results can be matched playing a more expansive type of football, I’d much rather Bielsaball than the alternative.
Swansea finished their maiden premier league season 11th, with Danny Graham leading the line. Southampton, Wolves, Reading, West Ham, there’s a long list of clubs that came up to the premier league, and stayed there playing attacking or passing football. There’s plenty of teams who came up playing defensive football who went straight back down.
Yep. Bournemouth managed to stay in the PL for half a decade too despite having feck all money.
Also while Dyche has done brilliantly with Burnley, that didn't stop him getting relegated with them in 2015 after one season up either.
And speaking of pragmatic managers, I note that Tony Pulis has been sacked by Sheffield Wednesday after just 45 days in charge, having got 7 points from a possible 30 in that time. What a loss to the PL he has been.
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They're taking offence at something said by a random pundit. Small time club.
In all fairness, most pundits barely did any research on any newly promoted teams in the PL. Leeds were already doing better and were far more focused in their second season under Bielsa. There's a myth around Bielsa's burnout which does not make sense when you dig a little deeper into why Bielsa's teams falter in the later stages of the season.
Bielsa proving that you can succeed in English football playing good football with a bunch of Championship players should be a wake up call to other small clubs to stop hiring these dinosaurs.
His Leeds absolutely destroying Allardyce’s West Brom is just beautiful.
His Leeds absolutely destroying Allardyce’s West Brom is just beautiful.
The way Bilbao played against United and Schalke (those were the games I saw) was amazing and very convincing. I am probably overreacting, but I have rarely seen such resilience, belief and determination in a team. Huge fun to watch.
He is basically repeating this in the PL. If I‘m being honest, I expected Leeds to struggle more. But he seems to have won the team over - being voted one of the top3 managers in the world certainly helps in that regard.
He is basically repeating this in the PL. If I‘m being honest, I expected Leeds to struggle more. But he seems to have won the team over - being voted one of the top3 managers in the world certainly helps in that regard.
Turned out one of the best footballl minds of the last few decades knows his craft better than people who watch very little footy outside of the PL and get their opinion from Sky/Talksport pundits.
Leeds will comfortably stay up playing the way they do and their fans will get heaps more enjoyment watching them every week than their counterparts. It’s ultimately what football should be about, remember what Sir Matt said, the fans toiled every week and paid to be entertained at the weekend and players should never forget that. It’s bizarre to see fans of this football club championing shit on a stick football over that ethos.
Leeds will comfortably stay up playing the way they do and their fans will get heaps more enjoyment watching them every week than their counterparts. It’s ultimately what football should be about, remember what Sir Matt said, the fans toiled every week and paid to be entertained at the weekend and players should never forget that. It’s bizarre to see fans of this football club championing shit on a stick football over that ethos.
Mourinho has immensely better attacking players though. I expect a similar result to when we played them, perhaps with not quite as many goals as Spurs will sit back more than we did.
Perfectly said.
Bielsa will fully embody and embrace what Matt Busby said. When he first came to the club, he made all the players pick up litters for as long as it took an average working class fan to earn enough money to watch a match in the stadium.
Bielsa gets football fans in a way few modern managers do. He's a proper old school socialist-footballer that won't be out of place in the 1950s-70s English football.
Don't know,it can go horribly wrong for both sides (related to how Mourinho/Bielsa setup their teams to play). If Leeds does something similar to what they did today and Spurs gets smashed I predict Spurs fans will start to demand questions from him. Interesting to watch this one.
Yep. I was being critic to him last week, not based on the result against United, but I was trying to guide the discussion into the generalized view that in 2020 football coaches are regarded as competent if they are offensive and defensive minded approaches are labeled incompetent or cowards.
I will never agree with that view, perhaps because I started to follow seriously football since 1990 and for me teams who defend well aren't necessarly defensive. Regarding that performance from Bilbao at Old Trafford I may be overreacting a bit here but the only team I saw playing even better in England against United was probably Barcelona under Guardiola. (European football, not Premier League)
And Bilbao didn't had Messis or Xavis. Even if it can be said that United team was already on a downward spiral, think it was 2012 perhaps.
She has made a disrespectful comment therefore she deserves a lot of criticism.
Agree 100%, especially with that second paragraph.
A tweet that has provoked both misogynist abuse towards Carney and subsequent criticism of Leeds in response. Which anyone with even the slightest clue about social media could have guessed would be the outcome. So aside from being petty, it's stupid use of social media.
Only big club he's suitable for is Bayern.
Absolutely agree. I always found it ridiculous how people are quick to call fans of clubs like Newcastle and West Ham deluded just for having an expectation that their team should play decent football. For the amount of money fans spend on going to the football, entertainment is the least teams should be expected to provide.
They will stay up comfortably.
Controversial but I was more impressed tactically how Sheffield United were setup last year. They had real shape and got points of big sides. A structure of defending and counter attacking was much more impressive and functional. Look at them now, Leeds will be found out and smashed badly again in time. Some great attacking stuff at times but holes everywhere, it's a kamikaze mess. Leeds will have to be willing to adapt in time, they will be in a fight next season in the lower half. Definetly add something new to the prem but we're useless against the real United. Should have put at least 10 past them, unless fans are present at elland road be more of the same.
Leeds destroying anyone bar Liverpool or City is never beautiful!
I don't know, I think all approaches are fine. Maybe I'm a bit older than some on here although I feel young at 41, but perhaps I'm a little old school compared to some. I do like a bit of Allardyce or Pulis, more than many I feel in online circles. I like how they can almost troll people, whether that be fans, opposition players or managers, that there exists styles of football that seem to make people really angry yet can be effective on a relative budget.
I used to love it when Wenger would get narked off with Stoke or Hughes' Blackburn. In turn I really loved it that Fergie's United could often take these teams on in their own style if need be. We could handle our wet Wednesday nights in Stoke, go there, match them physically and battle to a 1-0 win, hugely satisfying to be able to do that one week then smash another team playing lovely attacking football at home the next.
When it comes down to it I would rather watch Biesla football if it was my team but still do think there's a place for a bit of direct rough and tumble. The most bored I've been watching United was with LVG which was neither, would definitely have preferred some of what is described as dinosaur football to that.
He's a curious case. It's like having a financial genius work in the local Barclays. He's kind of born for the Utd job, a mad mix of the mid 70s hyper attacking team combined with Fergie's wildest attacking tactics.