It’s better to lose one game 6-2 and win another 5-0 than to get two 0-0 draws. I find it weird how the adage of “a good point” is still widespread in the old school when three points for a win has been around almost 40 years. Pretty much the only time settling for a point is a strategy worth taking is in a “six pointer” situation where stopping the opposition getting three points is more important.
Leeds (dirty thugs) discussion
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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?
He had the prime Ander Herrera, Javi Martinez, Llorente, Iraola, Muniain, and Susaeta. That was one of the greatest young team in europe, so much energy and passion.
I believe that team would be a power house if they managed to stay together for another 5 years.
I remember a lot of Ferguson teams who weren't attacking at all. Just need to look into his last 10 years as a manager and they were 80% of the time a functional counter attacking side. And before you disagree there are a lot of professional journalists who said it before.
They aren't similar at all, even less Ferguson teams being chaotic, even the 99 team with the Yorke/Cole partnership was vey strong defensively. Bielsa isn't made for supeclubs, he can do what he likes at Leeds.
Muniain never performed at the same level as he did under Bielsa.
I was going to disagree before you said there are a lot of professional journalists who have said it before. But in my defence I did say "mad mix of the mid 70s hyper attacking team combined with Fergie's wildest attacking tactics" -not that he's simply a mad professor SAF.
Yep, last part I agree. 80% was hyperbole, but it’s not far from the truth to say the best offensive moments from his sides were counter attack movements from the front 3 Ronaldo/Rooney/Tevez.
And by the way even Rooney on some interviews dismissed the notion that under Ferguson was always attack, attack, he didn’t had a problem at all to adapt to the opponents.
What pissed him of was losing. Bielsa doesn’t care about winning. 2 different worlds, only that.
The biggest mystery about Bielsa was how boring and uninspired his Argentina team looked at the 2002 World Cup. Even playing an ageing Batistuta ahead of Crespo (or Saviola who wasn’t in the squad) seems so opposed to what a pressing fundamentalist like Bielsa would normally do. Pekerman’s 2006 Argentina was the closest thing to a Bielsa side they’ve produced in the modern era and even that was built around a pure 10 in Riquelme which is pretty antithetical to his philosophy.
In terms of entertainement, whether it's goals scored or conceded, they often deliver
Because there is this crazy need to have your opinion the one that truly matters without any room for a possible change in the future
This simple logic cannot be repeated often enough. The same applies to the clichéd "I'd take a draw before kick-off". This only makes sense when the gulf in quality is really huge or denying your opponents points is of some importance.
"Leeds will found out again and smashed badly". This is such a weird thing to say considering how often they run rampant themselves and the level of quality Bielsa actually has at his disposal. I don't think he's losing much sleep over "being found out" by Manchester United, a much better team with much better players.
Leeds had a meltdown v Utd but it seems they were unfairly criticised because fans, not just opposition fans, had to find a way to dilute our win.
I broadly agree but those footballing truisms are a little black and white.
Moving on from the purely mathematical differences between 1 and 3.
Being hammered or beaten in a key fixture can affect morale and an entire season, as can winning by emphatic margins or in key moments. Similarly a draw amongst wins can retain an unbeatable feeling as opposed to the possibly derailing effect of a loss.
Broadly agree though, points are bad, play to win.
There was a thread on this in the summer about that which was interesting. I think the common belief was he just made the wrong calls in key positions. Batistuta starting as you say and Veron was coming off the back of a poor club season and wasn't fully fit so he was dropped halfway through. Not starting Claudio Lopez for England game was weird call and he probably should've trusted Aimar a bit more at that tournament given him coming on at HT in the England game got them playing through the lines a bit more. Sorin was still bombing on down the left so that was similar to how he gets Luke Aiyling constantly charging forward.
He still won the Olympics with Argentina in 2004 and they should've won Copa America same summer but yeah shame he didn't carry on for 2006 world cup and his one shot at it with Argentina he made a bit of a mess.
I do wonder once he'd done with Leeds whether they'd consider giving him another chance for 2026 although Messi will probably retire straight after 2022 world cup so they'd need to rebuild without him.
I don’t know why the Carney comments have caused such a stir from people. Didn’t they burn out the year before last when they looked nailed on for promotion earlier in the season?
They'd won 5 straight before lockdown is the fact not checked I think.
She said the lockdown saved them. They won 5 on the trot right before lockdown last season.
They didn’t burn out. They dropped a bunch of points but they were still playing good, intense football. They were just really profligate during the period. They were still covering the same distance and playing teams of the pitch. The burnout thing, from his tenure at Leeds at least, doesn’t seem to hold up.
Think it was stupid of the Leeds account to highlight it, they knew what they were doing and how their fans would react to hearing something they disagreed with, which is to revert to their usual cnutish state
Yeah she deserves all the misogynistic abuse, right?
Look at the manner in which Leeds lost against you guys. Even when Leeds was 5 goals down, they kept attacking. Some teams lost all their beliefs in the middle of the match as a result of a hammering, but Leeds kept attacking without any care of the scoreline. If anything, that helped the team's belief more than anything else.
They've already done pretty well against most top-6 sides. A close defeat against Liverpool, an intense draw against Man City has already given the players all the belief they needed that they can compete in the top tier.
Losing 6-2 but retaining the team's belief in attacking football is far better than a nil-nil draw after abandoning the team's philosophy.
Getting smashed badly isn't that big of a deal when the point difference between a smashing and a nil-nil draw is a mere one point. West Brom's draw against Liverpool is utterly meaningless given that they lost 3 points at home to a fellow promotion rival.
The logic behind it makes sense and Leeds shouldn't have basically called out her opinion as wrong (especially on an official club account within the cesspool that is Twitter, that was always going to end badly).
But the way she went about it was fecking daft to be honest - specifically saying 'I think they went up because of Covid' - as if they are happy this all happened despite the misery and loss of lives because it meant they got a welcome break to recharge the batteries.
I know she wouldn't have insinuated it in such a manner, but the way she specifically said it was highly insensitive IMO and if Leeds were going to say something, this is what they should have highlighted instead. Again I know the intent may not have been there, but these people are supposed to be media trained, if you can't put an opinion across on live TV as a pundit within it being insensitive then you aren't qualified to do the job.
Both sides should be copping some flak to be honest.
Pundits generally deserve more criticism than they get when they start making things up.
I think what amazes, and slightly irritates me about last night's situation, from the Leeds point of view, is how incredibly sensitive they come across.
They've been getting more than enough praise for the team they are. Infact they're starting to transcend into the mythical with some pundits. Yet the second someone has the nerve to suggest the long break last season could have helped them recover (what with them being renowned for their high energy and what not) -they throw a paddy on twitter and their chairman calls out a negative comment about them, labeling it disrespectful.
For what it's worth, I think Carney's opinions on football are probably worth more than the minimum wage keyboard hero that runs Leeds' Twitter page.
I think what amazes, and slightly irritates me about last night's situation, from the Leeds point of view, is how incredibly sensitive they come across.
They've been getting more than enough praise for the team they are. Infact they're starting to transcend into the mythical with some pundits. Yet the second someone has the nerve to suggest the long break last season could have helped them recover (what with them being renowned for their high energy and what not) -they throw a paddy on twitter and their chairman calls out a negative comment about them, labeling it disrespectful.
For what it's worth, I think Carney's opinions on football are probably worth more than the minimum wage keyboard hero that runs Leeds' Twitter page.
I think it's a bit sensitive from them too. You expect fans to be outraged by everything but clubs not.
Only time I'd expect a club to comment on what a pundit said is if they came out with something outlandish like a claim of PED abuse, bribery against refs or similar. And then you'd get an official statement type of press release, not a silly tweet with emojis.
I do think she was talking bollocks, but who cares from a club's perspective? Pundits do all the time. I still remember Mike Summerbee talking crap after a derby years ago and all us United fans having a good laugh at him. It would have been odd for the club to join in.
Only time I'd expect a club to comment on what a pundit said is if they came out with something outlandish like a claim of PED abuse, bribery against refs or similar. And then you'd get an official statement type of press release, not a silly tweet with emojis.
I do think she was talking bollocks, but who cares from a club's perspective? Pundits do all the time. I still remember Mike Summerbee talking crap after a derby years ago and all us United fans having a good laugh at him. It would have been odd for the club to join in.
I don't think what Leeds tweeted was that bad but coming from an official club source is a bit grubby and small time.
Leeds twitter always seems to want to play the pwn game. They do it all the time: Wound up Rennes supporters with a picture of fish and chips when we signed Raphinha, took the piss out of Agbonlahor when we beat Villa, etc. It is a bit smalltime but can also be quite funny off and on. Carney came out with a crap take, Leeds twitter did what it always does.
If she's now getting sexist abuse as a result I'd like to see the club come out and condemn it. Criticising the bad take, though, is fine.
Yeah, that's what he said.
Best not to pay attention to social media. Who knows how much actually comes from the clubs themselves. Probably all done by some PR firm in California.
I'm a bit on both sides here.
On one side, yes social media is a cesspit for misogyny but in terms of equal treatment, female pundits, male pundits etc should all get the same treatment.
I wonder if Leeds would have posted the same had it been Souness who said it. My guess is yes.
And it's not like the tweet said anything about her gender...
The issue is social media itself.
Leeds did nothing wrong, they didn’t misrepresent Carney, who was talking utter nonsense. They can’t be held responsible for misogynistic abuse. If Carney can’t stand the heat maybe she should get back in the kitchen!
I mean the season before when they didn’t get promoted.
Leeds should not really be commenting on what Karen Carney said in the way they did. A club of their size and stature should be above petty comebacks like that.
They can't be dumb enough to know that it would not put a target on her for all the fecking morons to pile on.
She's out there making these statements so she should be open to criticism. There are memes about Evra, Ferdinand, Souness, Micah, Keane. Are we saying Karen Carney should be held back from criticism? I'm never for the misogynist replies of course, I'm just speaking in context of the criticism or gender neutral banter she'd receive.
Agree it's a dick move from the club, and small-time. However she did say something a bit disrespectful that has come back to prove her wrong in this point in time. I think its a storm in a teacup.
what an utterly clueless statement, how exactly did covid help them win promotion? It affected each club the exact same, They were by far the best team in the championship last season And deserved promotion.
I guess Carney’s opinion echoes what many people think. It seems a frankly reasoning but in fact has logical flaw. That Leeds out-runs the opponents doesn’t mean their running distance is a constant from match to match. In fact, it depends on how much the opponents run. There is a table from sky I saw before our game against them. It shows from match to match their running distance fluctuates a lot but always more than the opponents with a certain margin, in average 4 km, i.e., 400 m per player. Thus, it is kind of exaggerated to think their workload is too high to carry through an uninterrupted whole season.
Her opinion in some sense is advocating crab mentality, and implies that their hardworking ethnic somehow becomes an unfair advantage to the other teams working less hard. It is disrespectful really.
But I agree that Leeds really doesn’t need to single her out to produce the political fight. But in reality, I don’t really feel that the Twitter post is offensive. Do I miss anything?
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It gave them a break that helped them from running themselves out as they crumbled from the same problem the season or 2 before... Would be her logic.
I think unless the person says something really bad, clubs should not comment at all. It shines a spotlight on an individual and all the fans pile on.
I can call her a moron, a premiership football club should not.
Yeah, I agree with that.
“I’m the way they did”? There wasn’t much way about it, didn’t they just re-tweet her video? She deserves a bit of stick, as long as it’s not illegal/threatening. Male pundits get loads of it.
No, they didn't just retweet her video.
As for "male pundits get loads of it", If you can show me the Man United or Chelsea or Liverpool official Twitter account doing the same, I'll believe you.
A seemly reasonable but actually non-sense opinion was spreading out through mass media platform. It would misinform a lot of people and change the public view of their club and hurt them in long lasting effect. It should be disputed right away.
Despite yesterday, Leeds aren't good at finishing the chances they create. I can see Kane and Son picking them off during the counters.
I love to watch Leeds, but I'd also say that Burnley deserved to win against them last week. Their defense minimized the Leeds attacks and their attackers were constantly creating dangerous situations in the Leeds penalty area. I can definitely appreciate teams like that just as much as gung ho Bielsa teams. What I loathe the most is teams with world class talent like Kane and Son, parking the bus ie packing their penalty area and throwing men before shots, with no skill for defensive organizing and having no desire to attack once they score a couple of goals. You can understand Burnley being defensive since they have Wood and Barnes playing up front, but doing the same with talents like Kane and Son, is just wasting away world class talents. I also don't think there are a lot of defensively competent teams apart in PL this season. I can only think of Wolves and for short durations Chelsea, Everton, Burnley.
I don't think you're overreacting at all. That was the game after which I started playing closer attention Bielsa's teams.
The 2-3 scoreline massively flattered United.