17 Jul 2019 21:45:25
Well the two legged day of friendlies has finished in a 5-5 draw! Probably learned more from the Leeds 11 than the Australian extravaganza!
Good effort by the Leeds boys. Ryan Edmundson hatrick, enjoyed the service provided by JC who looked more like his old self and completed a full 90! Klich, Captain and took it seriously, leading the team well. Robbie Gotts took a goal and looked good. Not a bad second team this! Lots of these lads want to be in the first team squad!
White looked good again to me, very calm and collected. Not sure why Pascal only got 30 mins but when he came on we had a back four of Gotts, White, Struick and Davis, that looked good to me. You can see why Bielsa likes both White and for me Pascal has got to get more game time. Tall, physical, strong, comfortable on the ball, give him a chance.
Don't know what is going on with the goalkeepers, no Bailey or Huffer?
All in all good run out for all involved and everyone took it seriously! I think we've got more depth this year in most positions, one more good CB would round it off for me.
17 Jul 2019 22:47:47
Edmonson should be our main striker next season, Gotts should be on bench and get game time. Davis not ready but better at left back than CB. Would have liked to have seen more of Pascal. Clarke looking a lot sharper and Klich was top knotch. Costa is class. KunT put a good shift in playing out of position. White is more then capable but needs some one solid alongside him as he likes to get forward. Alioski looked to be enjoying himself. Not much opposition but we did what we were supposed to do which we have not always done. Perth game not worth mentioning really just proved Coops is average Dallas is not a full back and that we can't beat them with only four first team players.
17 Jul 2019 23:05:50
can i ask why we learnt more from the game we won than the game we lost?
man utd closer to our opposition in championship than the team we beat tonight right?
not sure what has taught what but overall things must improve surely?
17 Jul 2019 23:15:49
Good comments bud. Edmondson is definitely doing everything he can and he has a good relationship with Clarke. Don’t understand the rationale with Pascal, either he has things to work on, so give him time, or he has already made his mind up about him. I’d have him and White playing together as much as possible at this level. It’s going to be interesting to see how he divides the final preseason day teams!
18 Jul 2019 00:00:14
Bermo fair questions, although I don’t understand your final question.
What I meant is that we already know a lot about the players in the Auz side, I thought their weaknesses would be exposed and they were. No championship side is going to pose the range and extent of problems that Man Utd are able to do for 90 mins.
In the Tadcaster team, excepting the opposition, more about attitude, who was up for it and who out of this group is going to be looking to be regular first team squad members. Lots of positives tonight. White and Struick need to have the time to show how good they are.
Don’t know if that makes any sense, but I thought Man Utd in Perth, a bit of a waste of time.
What about Harrison, still changing your mind?
18 Jul 2019 00:09:37
Would agree Pascal need to be given more game time over the rest of pre-season. Maybe it's just that Davis was involved with the first team last season so Bielsa started him tonight with Pascal possibly starting the next game. Or maybe Pascal was carrying a slight knock from training. Whatever the reason, hopefully they'll have learnt that Davis is no CB and Pascal is more competent there. White looks assured and must surely start ahead of Berardi post-Oz.
Clarke does indeed look back to his best and if anything seems to have bulked out a little, as indeed has Harrison.
Seen some criticism on here of some players in Perth playing long balls, contrary to the Bielsa way. I have a feeling that this may be more a feature of our play this season - and is possibly something Bielsa had intended to introduce last January, had we actually got more pace through the purchase of Dan J - playing ball over the top for a very fast counter attack, or more likely to counteract the high press some teams were playing against us. With the speed of Costa and perhaps Clarke or Kent/ wilson or someone else in that mould, we will now be able to do this. It was noticeable that the long pass was also employed in the first two games and again tonight. White in particular seems quite adept at this. Also seems that traditional 'get to the byline' wingplay will be more in evidence this year.
It will be really interesting to see how the players are split for the next double-header, and how they play, on the last weekend of pre-season, as it obviously only then that we will have a clear indication of Bielsa's true intentions for the Brizzle game. As Spanish suggested, it may be that we were given more pointers this evening than in the game v scum.
18 Jul 2019 00:22:29
BW did not say i did not learn anything from Perth game we were never going to win it with the players we took. If we had our full team out may have been worth analysing. Harrison played well. Defence was crap, 2-0 down and we did not seem to have an answer. Bam disappointing again missed a couple of chances so are you happy now BW.
18 Jul 2019 00:26:08
With you Spanish if its a choice between Pascal, Coops and White would have White and Pascal, even if i think he needs a bit more time.
18 Jul 2019 09:10:35
Not quite sure where Bielsa is with Pascal, either he likes him and feels he doesn’t need to test him more, or he doesn’t like him but keeping him as back up, so he is testing out other options. He played 30 mins of the York game, so missing out on more game time at Guisley, doesn’t go on the trip to Australia, missing out on the chance to partner Cooper, then subs bench against Tadcaster missing out on the chance to partner White all the game? He is 6ft 2, well built, aggressive, reasonable at bringing the ball out and showed last night he is capable of team splitting passes out of defence. Guess we have to wait until the Sardinia game for more clues!
Beradi is banned for the Bristol game, so he is one CB who won’t be playing the first game. At the moment, seems to me like Cooper and White with Beradi and Struick as back up. I think we’d all be more comfortable with one more so, I’d, tall, aggressive cab in there and then it would look ok!
18 Jul 2019 09:33:17
see what you mean Spanish and yeah that makes sense,
bit of a pointless excercise taking half a team to get beat by man utd, just hope the long term damage ain't going to be as bad as some of us think
I agree the other game was chance to see less well known players although i would say playing tadcaster, guliesy and york is also pointless
man utd is a closer mark of what we will be up against rather than tadcaster so 4-0 seems closer to the mark in terms of score lines.