South Yorkshire mourns the death of a Notts heroine
A “largely forgettable” meeting of the two sub-Premier League giants saw the scoreline remain blank, with Leeds United‘s 1-1 draw at Notts Forest earlier in the season enough for the Whites to claim the honours on away goals.
Largely forgettable may well be right, but there will be a few Leeds fans waking from nightmares for a few weeks yet, hoping against hope that Steve Morison‘s horribly wayward strike was simply an awful dream that they will be able to forget. Sadly, it was all too true and all too symptomatic of the shot-shy striker’s current – ahem – “lean spell”.
A point is not going to be of much help to Forest, with their comically optimistic hopes of a late charge for the play-offs. For Leeds, it makes little difference to what is now a dead rubber of a season. It is to be hoped that Redders will take the opportunity to blood as many of his promising young prospects as possible between now and the time that this campaign peters out.
Young Kalvin Phillips did, after all, figure in his first elite squad, wearing 40 and drinking in the experience of a first team bench spot. We will hope to see more of him over the next couple of months or so.
Meanwhile, getting the seasonal better of the rather too cocky Nottingham Forest – the laughably nicknamed “Tricky Trees” – can at least raise a smile, even if we are depending on an away goals rule that is merely theoretical in league competition. But it’ll do to wind up those sensitive souls from the guilt-ridden Notts coalfields, so we’ll go with it here.
See you next season, Twiglets…
Life, Leeds United, the Universe & Everything 
Draw was a fair result, could have gone either way. Still need someone who can hit the target on a regular basis though. As expected, our talented prospects are being lined up. Hope we don’t lose the very thing that we need to take us up. Money is a big lure but selling off the family silver is crazy. Still, that’s football I suppose.
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Problem is, they won’t take this opportunity to play with the team, try fringe players out and basically use the rest of the season as practise matches for next year. Redfearn will stick to grinding out results and telling us what an important dead weight err I mean hard working striker Morison is. We have 9 full blooded practise matches till the end of the season, let’s think outside the box.
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That’s problematic too though. The nature of support – especially OUR support – is they tend to revolt when results aren’t going well. If we stuck the kids in and got a few brutal hammerings, the crowd would turn and some of those kids could be destroyed. It’s a balancing act, but any coach knows that results are the bottom line.
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Question is will redders be given the option do you think??
Don
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Again, it’s an imponderable, isn’t it? On his record, you’d say he merits a longer contract – and he doesn’t seem to lack self-belief. But what the suits are thinking is as ever a mystery.
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I personnally think there is more support amongst the great,good and unwashed for that very thing to occur, many in my biased opinion are desperate for that to happen. I cannot wait to see Monty….adryan….Walters and Phillips in the team…obviously not all at the same time….but still. But then my dreams are not the result of being in the loop or having the ear of redders…hey what?
Don
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As i said redders should have put Kalvin on early second half, we would have shaded that?
Don
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Who knows? Good for the lad to be involved in and around the first team. There’s no mad dash – I’m sure he’ll get some game time between now and the season’s end. The one I really want to see now is Ngoyi. MOT.
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Seconded motion carried
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They only sing when they’re scabbing.
I felt a bit deflated yesterday, despite the 30,000+ crowd.
I also heard a voice behind me asking why we call them ‘Scabs’.
It made me realise that I am officially an old git.
And that maybe I should grow up and start acting less like a Leeds fan, with all our petty hatreds and routines, and more like a normal person.
But as the lovely Mr Bates once said “Football is the most annoying, frustrating, pointless game, but there is nothing else”
He got that right. After hoping that Spurs beat Man U on Sky, there is only Poldark to look forward to. And that’s Poldark without Angharad Rees!
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Rob, I agree with you to a certain extent, but we have so many players we have barely seen yet. Let some of the blooded youngsters go back to the under 21s for a while and kick some butt in the development league. As Don said, we want to see these fringe players get a decent run out. If they’re poor and the fans get on their backs, they’ll be out during close season anyway.
We’ve heard for years about ‘tried and trusted methods to get out of this division’ and the managers we’ve employed who have got other teams up, and here we still are. (Admittedly all the off field shenanigans haven’t helped.)
Time for Redfearn to step up, show some imagination and flair which I truly believe the fans would appreciate.
Wootton has said that a top ten finish would be a ‘real positive’. I’m sorry, but anyone who says that in my opinion is a ‘real negative’.
I said at the start of the season that I accepted it was yet another ‘transition’ year but we have 5 teams basically equal , 4 teams not quite as good, a totally crap bottom 3 and the rest pretty much ‘same same’.
Shuffle the deck Redders, see if you you can pop out as top trump for the next few weeks.
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I sort of get Wootton though. In context of a team recently looking to have a real relegation struggle on its hands, top ten would demonstrate promotion form over a sustained period. But no, it’s not good enough – as such – for Leeds United. I’m sure Redders will do at least some shuffling – his quotes have been leaning that way – and we ARE safe now.
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I believe Philips is a nap to get some game time and probably this week. Morison might be working his socks off, but so did Harvey and he was ineffectual as well. Added to that, Morison’s undoubted work-rate at his age and during congested fixtures would lean Redders towards giving our “striker” a rest rather than flog our dead horse unduly. You’d think.
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