My refelction on todays loss...
Well done Crawley a dream match up in the fairytale world of the FA cup, today you showed a professional attitude,played as a team and it ended with a deserved win for you and your supporters. And what stories to tell your grandchildren.
Leeds today were picked apart by a team of motivated Lge 2 players, most if not all of them playing the biggest game of thier lifes. It is unfair to critisise the young players in our squad, there was enough 1st team experience involved to have won that game , if not easily, at least comfortably. That said, it does show how weak our depth is. Constructively I will say that not one of the young ones who played/came on showed any confidence or desire to take the opportunity to show they deserved to be there. There was just no effort.
MB has to accept as the manager, his decisions today were indeed baffling. But as has been pointed out eloquently by Gessa, there is not another manager around who would have done with the team he took on, what he has done... Only MB can answer to what was in his head today, (and hopefully he will offer an explanation) particularly regarding the 3 man swap at half time. IMO that was the game changer, we took a loss as opposed to what should have been a "struggled" win.
Two regular experienced players have also a lot to answer for (there are others but primarily) and those are Hernandez & Phillips. Neither showed leadership to the youth and the extra desire you need to win when playing attrociously. Hernandez a seasoned international and Phillips the up coming England stalwart showed no leadership... As professionals of their stature they have to show up every single minute of every single game, "off" days and occasional bad performances can and will be accepted as long as they show to be trying to fight to the very last minute of every game.
Casilla has proved (yet again) he should be embarressed collecting his wages, and needs to be removed from the team sheet asap... the remaining 1st team players who played today need to do some real deep soul searching and ask themselves do we deserve the respect of the fan base?
Today highlighted how close we have been sailing to the wind all season, due to the injuries we are carrying and lack of depth we have, the whole game plan can fall apart at any given moment.
I believe in the magic of the FA cup, but today was frustrating to me as a life time supporter, defeat I can (eventually)accept, lack of pride, team spirit and resignation I cannot. And that to me summed up today's performance.
As a club we have survived worse, but the question is can we afford not to go into the transfer market right now? If we want to keep our positive attitude about "comfortable" survival in the prem.
Leeds today were picked apart by a team of motivated Lge 2 players, most if not all of them playing the biggest game of thier lifes. It is unfair to critisise the young players in our squad, there was enough 1st team experience involved to have won that game , if not easily, at least comfortably. That said, it does show how weak our depth is. Constructively I will say that not one of the young ones who played/came on showed any confidence or desire to take the opportunity to show they deserved to be there. There was just no effort.
MB has to accept as the manager, his decisions today were indeed baffling. But as has been pointed out eloquently by Gessa, there is not another manager around who would have done with the team he took on, what he has done... Only MB can answer to what was in his head today, (and hopefully he will offer an explanation) particularly regarding the 3 man swap at half time. IMO that was the game changer, we took a loss as opposed to what should have been a "struggled" win.
Two regular experienced players have also a lot to answer for (there are others but primarily) and those are Hernandez & Phillips. Neither showed leadership to the youth and the extra desire you need to win when playing attrociously. Hernandez a seasoned international and Phillips the up coming England stalwart showed no leadership... As professionals of their stature they have to show up every single minute of every single game, "off" days and occasional bad performances can and will be accepted as long as they show to be trying to fight to the very last minute of every game.
Casilla has proved (yet again) he should be embarressed collecting his wages, and needs to be removed from the team sheet asap... the remaining 1st team players who played today need to do some real deep soul searching and ask themselves do we deserve the respect of the fan base?
Today highlighted how close we have been sailing to the wind all season, due to the injuries we are carrying and lack of depth we have, the whole game plan can fall apart at any given moment.
I believe in the magic of the FA cup, but today was frustrating to me as a life time supporter, defeat I can (eventually)accept, lack of pride, team spirit and resignation I cannot. And that to me summed up today's performance.
As a club we have survived worse, but the question is can we afford not to go into the transfer market right now? If we want to keep our positive attitude about "comfortable" survival in the prem.