EYEBALL119

Having seen Oldham 1st hand on Tuesday when Leeds reserves gave them a hiding you have nothing to fear... they are terrible and couldn''t muster a single shot on target. It could have been 4 or 5 nil if their keeper was as bad as their outfield players. Don''t expect many away fans either 7,400 on Tuesday night (4,500 Leeds fans) embarassing...

Why do you assume that Leeds can''t maintain their current form but Norwich can?? Oh and to answer an earlier post - Beckford was rested at Oldham for tomorrows match against Huddersfield

You all must be congratulated on having a thread with opposing fans views without it descending into a slanging match - a rarity! I''ll concede I don''t know much about Norwich, in terms of their squad depth but I can''t imagine many teams in this division, with the exception of Leeds have the resources to have the players you do. This division is a case of the ''haves'' and ''have nots''. On Tuesday Leeds beat Oldham with 10 players that I would consider 2nd choice (only Jonny Howson would be part of our strongest team) a strong reserve team in truth, went to Oldham and restricted the home team to zero shots on target and had it not been for their GK it would have been 4 or 5 nil. Most teams in this division struggle if 1 key player is suspended or injured (a fact that will be more than evident in the next 10 weeks or so)

I agree with that, since the defeat at Millwall we''ve been a far better team and it woke us up out our mini-slump that was mentioned earlier in the thread. Returning to the main topic, I think its fair to say that Leeds are the best team in the division although probably not the best footballing team... we built a solid defence and worked from there. Last season McAllister had us playing some beautiful football but there was no plan B and pretty passing doesn''t always work. This season we''re playing some good ''effective'' football that is winning us games and has the ability to brush teams aside. For the record I think it''ll take an almighty collapse from Leeds to not get promoted from here and I think Norwich will go up in 2nd. What is interesting is that nobody has mention Charlton in this thread - they''re currently 2nd on merit but even a bookmaker last week or so had Norwich at shorter odds for the league title than Charlton and they were 5th at that point!! As Leeds found out last season, pretty football is great but its a results business...

[quote user="spainboy"][quote user="Lambo"] If you don''t care what we think why come to a Norwich message board starting this topic asking us what we think?? Prat. [/quote] The fact that other fans just think we are all bad. Why are we still called dirty Leeds? Something that happened in the 70''s, not the 80''s or 90s or even now but we have been called ''Dirty Leeds'' for over 30 years.!!. Before we got relegated from the Prem why were we still a hated team? Some fans never forget and that''s a shame in the modern world of football. [/quote] As a Leeds fan I wouldn''t wish to be called anything else. I love the fact that they ''all hate Leeds scum'' Another ''lucky'' win last night eh...?

Jesus, there is some mis-informed rubbish in this thread, either that or people hear half a stroy and make the rest of it up. With regards to Beckford Leeds have stated that he will be there ''til the end of the season, at which point he will be offered a contract suitable to the league we''re in. If he stays - great! if he leaves but managed to get us promoted then good luck to the lad. In all fairness there aren''t many clubs outside the premiership that are as big as Leeds or can offer what they can in terms of facilities and playing in front of a decent crowd each week. He has never expressed a desire to leave or commented on the situation at all... Leeds took the stance that Beckford is worth more at the club than he is if we sold him, we don''t need the money! (contrary to popular befief)

[quote user="ncfcstar"][quote user="EYEBALL119"]You can all bang on about how poor Leeds are/were and how well Norwich passed the ball around. Leeds dominated almost every game last season in a similar manner, we recorded almost 75% posession at Pride Park in the Carling Cup but lost 2-1, same old story! I know its a cliche but you get nothing for performances, this league is about points on the board. Granted you''ll beat most teams in this division with your movement alone but the better teams with the better defences will be able to hold you at bay. I noticed the other day you have a rubbish record against the other top 6 teams.[/quote]Ahem....Norwich City 5-1 Bristol Rovers.Colchester was a one off shocker, Charlton we so easily could have beaten but had to settle for snatching a draw at the end, McDons kicked us out of the game, and you beat us due to a ridiculous goalkeeping error.[/quote] so thats 1 win in 5 then...? good argument!

You can all bang on about how poor Leeds are/were and how well Norwich passed the ball around. Leeds dominated almost every game last season in a similar manner, we recorded almost 75% posession at Pride Park in the Carling Cup but lost 2-1, same old story! I know its a cliche but you get nothing for performances, this league is about points on the board. Granted you''ll beat most teams in this division with your movement alone but the better teams with the better defences will be able to hold you at bay. I noticed the other day you have a rubbish record against the other top 6 teams.

What I would say about Beckford is that he is available for a free in the summer so I can''t see any team shelling out on him in January. Leeds are fully prepared to lose him in the summer but hope to persuade him to stay by winning promotion. Any transfer embargo would surely help Leeds'' cause of keeping Jermaine Beckford. Beckford is by no means the finished article, as mentioned his first touch is poor and at the moment he is lacking a bit of confidence. What he does have is the ability to win games (Monday being a prime example) He did something similar at Walsall earlier in the season. Losing with 8 mins to go - get an equaliser and with 2 mins left hooks a shot over his shoulder from 25-30 yards - 2-1 and 3 points!

not really, you didnt really create 1 major opportunity. Bottom line is for all the excitement around Norwich and the way they play you were beaten by a depleted Leeds side and for all your posession struggled to really test our goalkeeper.

beaten by 1 mistake?!?! you cant argue that you should have been at least 3-1 down at that point!

What I will say is that as much as the injury time winner was cruel, especially the manner of it and the fact you''d bossed posession. Had Beckford had his shooting boots on we could have been out of sight by the time your keeper decided that it was unfair to keep saving all Beckford''s shots.

Thats funny because him and Patrick Kisnorbo (who wasn''t playing last night) are our best defenders. I''ll settle for conceding 1 goal every 2 games from now until the end of the season.

Your defence would worry me... on another night it could have been 4-1 and you''d all be contemplating suicide right now. Its not a coincidence that the teams with the best defence are at the top

Its not necessarily a striker you need as someone who can play the killer pass. Yes you dominated posession last night but only had a handful of shots on target and very few clear-cut chances. Whereas Leeds split open what looks to be a shaky defence a number of times when they did get on the ball. All that said Leeds'' defence is the best in the league - only conceded 6 goals in 12 games and only 2 from open play!

[quote user="Old Shuck"]Eyeball119, well said-Leeds are a very powerful, strong, pacey side-clearly lessons learnt from the Gary Mac era. Don''t think you''ll have any trouble getting out of this league this season. We look great when we''re passing it about, all the little triangles and movement, Holt is also more than "the big bloke up front", with some pace, and a bit of rejigging in the defence, I can see the positions come May being 1.Leeds, 2.Norwich, as we shouldn''t have much to fear from anyone else. Incidentally, do you post on WACCOE?[/quote] Yes you''ll find me under the same username.

As an amateur referee in my spare time I tend to keep an eye on the ref more than most but for a game that barely had one bad challenge how can he justify booking 8 or 9 players??

I don''t know of any financial trouble Leeds have!? We''ve just recieved £8M for Fabian Delph, £800kfor 2 14 year olds to Man City and £1.7M for a young defender to Everton. We also made a £4.5M profit last year! We couldn''t afford or wouldn''t stump up the cash to activate a buy-back option on our training complex but Grayson was told he has the money to strengthen in August... he just chose not to.

Will also add that I thought the referee was terrible last night 2 yellows inside the first 4 minutes!? I''m led to believe that the 1st one was correct but the Norwich one wasn''t, he made a rod for his own back because he had to book everyone for a similar challenge all night. The less said about the getting in the way and then giving a free kick the better...

First of all this isn''t a view from the TV, I was sat behind the goal opposite to yourselves so any opinions on actual incidents do not have the benefit of TV replays. I''ll start of by congratulating the fans that made the horrific journey from your part of the world (and probably a worse journey back) didn''t hear a lot from you but thats always the way as the acoustics in Elland Road aren''t that great - I''m sure you came across a lot better on the TV. Now to the game, it was clear from the first whistle that when the ball was on the floor Norwich were going to be a threat, neat passing at a high tempo from a mobile attacking team. I thought it took us a while to come to terms with it but we did eventually and the goal came at a good time. From a Leeds POV the turning point of the 1st half was us losing our GK. His replacement just can''t deal with crosses into the box as you probably noticed. Had Higgs still been in goal Grant Holt wouldn''t have had the opportunity to score. I think its fair to say you were the most accomplished team to visit Elland Road this season without really having that cutting edge or ruthlessness. Similar to Leeds last season under Gary McAllister, we passed teams off the park and steamrolled the smaller teams but lost so many games due to our inability to defend. For Leeds this season is all about getting out of this division, 2 failed attempts make it a MUST this year. A lot has been made of the last 20 minutes or so and although at the time it was more frustrating than enjoyable, we did actually come into the game a lot, the extra power and pace the substitutes brought negated the need for Leeds to have to play through midfield, which I thought was your strongest area of the pitch. You will notice on replays that a lot of the chances late on came from long balls up to the front men. The goal itself although a huge amount of luck/misfortune should have been academic by that point, Beckford had enough chances to win the game on his own and 9 times out of 10 he doesn''t miss the open goal... As much as you played some pretty football you never really got behind our back 4 and our GK made few saves. I don''t think for a minute that anything other than a draw would have been a fair result but on gilt-edge chances created Leeds were bound to snatch one. I''ll take another 34 of those this season. I''m sure you''ll be up there come May, Charlton aren''t a great team and the rest of the squads up there aren''t big enough and always have the ability to lose a game or two. Automatic is a real possibility for you if you keep playing but teams do find it easy to play well at Elland Road. We''re 11 points clear of you now with a game in hand - that''ll take some catching!