| Clarke 17:37 - Dec 23 with 4450 views | gtsb1966 |
Anyone else think that he may not be good enough for what we need. Not a criticism more of an observation. |  | | |  |
| Clarke on 22:13 - Dec 23 with 902 views | Churchman |
| Clarke on 22:04 - Dec 23 by Godzilla |
So do I, but if you think we are defending well, I cant agree. Lots of room for improvement. |
No, we are not defending well. The stats and todays thrashing show that. But defending isn’t just down to one individual. Good teams defend from the front back. Against lesser performing teams we do that e.g. Middlesbrough and Watford. Not today. All I’m saying is that Clarke is not alone in not playing well. |  | | |
| Clarke on 22:14 - Dec 23 with 900 views | PioneerBlue |
| Clarke on 22:04 - Dec 23 by Godzilla |
So do I, but if you think we are defending well, I cant agree. Lots of room for improvement. |
But that’s exactly the nature of developing, improving and progressing as a player and group as you mention earlier but still we are back to questioning single players and course it’s much better to simply replace rather than put the hard yards in as per premise of this original thread. |  |
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| Clarke on 22:20 - Dec 23 with 872 views | pointofblue |
| Clarke on 22:13 - Dec 23 by Churchman |
No, we are not defending well. The stats and todays thrashing show that. But defending isn’t just down to one individual. Good teams defend from the front back. Against lesser performing teams we do that e.g. Middlesbrough and Watford. Not today. All I’m saying is that Clarke is not alone in not playing well. |
I'd argue the problem is we're not very good at defending from the front - and it all stems from there. For the most part, we haven't really needed to, as we've dominated in terms of chances and possession for the most part. But when we fail to do so we end up, more often than not, in trouble. | |
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| Clarke on 22:44 - Dec 23 with 826 views | jayessess |
| Clarke on 22:20 - Dec 23 by pointofblue |
I'd argue the problem is we're not very good at defending from the front - and it all stems from there. For the most part, we haven't really needed to, as we've dominated in terms of chances and possession for the most part. But when we fail to do so we end up, more often than not, in trouble. |
Statistically we're one of the best teams in the league at winning the ball back close to the opposition goal.
High turnovers (4th)
Shots from high turnovers (2nd)
Goals from high turnovers (1st)
Passes Per Defensive Action (5th)
If there's one thing we're good at, it's defending from the front. |  |
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| Clarke on 22:50 - Dec 23 with 809 views | pointofblue |
| Clarke on 22:44 - Dec 23 by jayessess |
Statistically we're one of the best teams in the league at winning the ball back close to the opposition goal.
High turnovers (4th)
Shots from high turnovers (2nd)
Goals from high turnovers (1st)
Passes Per Defensive Action (5th)
If there's one thing we're good at, it's defending from the front. |
Fair dos, but when the team beat that press we're horribly exposed. I guess that's the risk. | |
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| Clarke on 22:52 - Dec 23 with 806 views | Dennyx4 |
| Clarke on 19:04 - Dec 23 by MVBlue |
He did OK mostly. But that letting the ball roll out for a goalkick when we could have got (our only) corner, together with the own goal summed up the errors today. Just not quite on it. [Post edited 23 Dec 2023 19:12]
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He let it roll out, as it was a corner. You can’t legislate for poor officiating.
Also Clarke did not score an own goal, thought he was probably our best defender today. |  | | |
| Clarke on 22:55 - Dec 23 with 799 views | Churchman |
| Clarke on 22:20 - Dec 23 by pointofblue |
I'd argue the problem is we're not very good at defending from the front - and it all stems from there. For the most part, we haven't really needed to, as we've dominated in terms of chances and possession for the most part. But when we fail to do so we end up, more often than not, in trouble. |
The table after a heck of a lot of games says ‘not very good’ are not the most appropriate words to use on a team in second place. | | | |
| Clarke on 23:12 - Dec 23 with 772 views | pointofblue |
| Clarke on 22:55 - Dec 23 by Churchman |
The table after a heck of a lot of games says ‘not very good’ are not the most appropriate words to use on a team in second place. |
Maybe a bad choice of phrase! When the press is beaten, what follows isn't exactly a strength. | |
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| Clarke on 23:35 - Dec 23 with 742 views | jayessess |
| Clarke on 22:50 - Dec 23 by pointofblue |
Fair dos, but when the team beat that press we're horribly exposed. I guess that's the risk. |
That's every team playing with a high press really. You could argue that we shouldn't do it so aggressively away from home, but (a) it's big part of what makes our game effective (b) Leeds scored early from a set piece, we knew they could hurt us in transitions, but what are we supposed to do? Not attack? Let them have possession so they can manage the game that way?
Really, the way to not get hurt in transition today was first by keeping the scoreboard level as long as possible, so we didn't have to commit so many men to chasing possession, and failing that to try and hurt them going the other way. | |
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| Clarke on 00:38 - Dec 24 with 718 views | BigCommon |
Firstly, think we have to take todays game in isolation.. Clarke was up against one of the divisions best winger's, in red hot form. For the last 5-6 weeks, Summerville has been chewing up and spitting out fullbacks for fun. Terrific little player.
Still think HC gave 100% today, from what I saw. And looked like he cared..
My take in general though. Players like Harri , can not get away with any thing less than an 8/10 by their own standards. He's played quite well by his own standards in a couple of games lately. Which has made him look "ok". But not spectacular, imo.
He's not the only one in the squad, imo.. We've got players that need to be on top of their game in order for us tp compete at the top of the table..
Going forward. When you consider that Williams isn't our player atm. And Clarke is our first choice "contracted" player in that position. Then its probably a position that we could strengthen.
But having spent a large chunk of our budget on Harri, last season. I feel that, KM is compelled to try and get a bit more from him.
Imo, it's noticeable, that we get targeted a lot down our right side. Couple of Leeds pods, prior to this one, identified Clarke as a possible weakness... Read into that, what you will.
Harri having an 8/10 looks an ok Championship player... Anything less and he can be found wanting, imo. But he's not alone, in that respect. We don't have tens of millions to spend in each position. We need to get the best from every player, in every game.
And, tbf, for the most part of the season so far, we haven't been far off, doing that.
Huge caveat to all of this. We work so hard as a collective, in attack and defence. That, imo it's wrong to single out a player, for good or bad reason..
If a player has a MOM performance, a lot of that is down to his team mates working hard around him.. Likewise, if a player looks like he's struggling in a game, you can be sure that one or two others are not doing their bit , around him, to a good enough standard, at moments in the game. |  | | |
| Clarke on 06:39 - Dec 24 with 632 views | ElephantintheRoom |
Donacien probably. And McKenna too as he has brought in another Man U discard to replace him.
Leeds probably feel the same about Davis. | |
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| Clarke on 07:44 - Dec 24 with 606 views | ibbleobble |
| Clarke on 18:58 - Dec 23 by pointofblue |
He played against Sunderland, Stoke and QPR at the start of the season. We conceded one across those three games. |
He also played a full season when we were relegated, it’s still Championship experience. He’s in the squad because he’s a competent defender. I wonder if with hindsight McKenna and Pert know they made a mistake thinking we could go to Elland Road and play our full backs the same way. Hindsight tells me Donacien would have been a much better fit to quell the early threat of James and Summerville. | | | |
| Clarke on 08:02 - Dec 24 with 563 views | itfcjoe |
| Clarke on 07:44 - Dec 24 by ibbleobble |
He also played a full season when we were relegated, it’s still Championship experience. He’s in the squad because he’s a competent defender. I wonder if with hindsight McKenna and Pert know they made a mistake thinking we could go to Elland Road and play our full backs the same way. Hindsight tells me Donacien would have been a much better fit to quell the early threat of James and Summerville. |
He played about 8 games the season we were relegated, so hardly much experience. |  |
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| Clarke on 08:17 - Dec 24 with 551 views | ibbleobble |
| Clarke on 08:02 - Dec 24 by itfcjoe |
He played about 8 games the season we were relegated, so hardly much experience. |
As few as that? Blimey. My memory is worse than I thought! | | | |
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