05 Mar 2022 04:49:45
Thanks Bielsa, forever grateful but now time for JM to take us on and hopefully the next stage.
Good luck to JM and hope he can steady the ship and keep us in the premiership, we need to be there.
Be interesting to see his selection and how we going to play under him, hope as he says, not too dissimilar with high intensity.
Really need the defense to tighten up, I'm hoping that there is a LB in Firpo, maybe Beilsa's system didn't suit and now he can concentrate on defending.
Think the last 4-5 games the whole defense has looked exhausted, let's keep our shape and defend.
Wonder if JM has picked out any fringe players that may step up, would like to see bates get a run and I personally would prefer to play him over Dallas/ klich.
This be my starting 11 as a 442
Meslier
Ayling Cresswell Struijk Firpo
Raphi Forshaw Bates James
Rodrigo Geldhert.

1.) 05 Mar 2022
05 Mar 2022 08:21:41
Hopefully with the man to man marking dropped it should be harder for opponents to drag us out of shape defensively. Firpo, coming into Bielsaball only this season, will have found it difficult trying to play some part in the key overlapping/ underlapping runs going forward, while also trying to keep an eye on his man, particularly against the better teams/ managers who were better at setting traps by moving their offensive players all over the pitch. Now, if he’s involved in an attack there should be someone covering behind him and he can concentrate on getting into positions to affect the play, and when not involved he should be concentrated on providing defensive cover for those who are. It’s not that long since he played in a more zonal marking system at Barca, so it should be relatively easy for him to return to that way of playing.

Most of the rest of our squad will also previously have played zonally at Leeds prior to Bielsa, or elsewhere and also most have fairly recent experience of playing zonally while playing at full or youth international level - so hopefully it won’t be as difficult for them as some pundits are suggesting to adjust to it here. I guess we’ll find out this afternoon how easy or otherwise they’re finding it so far.

2.) 05 Mar 2022
05 Mar 2022 10:11:00
Hopefully he can sit easily into a zonal system but the frustrating thing watching Firpo was his tracking back, at the speed of a one legged snail. That must stop.

3.) 05 Mar 2022
05 Mar 2022 10:35:07
Totally agree clue, must have been hard for them and hasn’t been working this season.
How nice would a clean sheet be.