I really respect your veiws WTF but will differ on Alioski as I've watched the fellow play many times in matches and his style is unorthodox in whatever role he's played in or conditions he's endured pitch wise or hostile crowd wise.
He lacks the element of composure in my opinion.Yep, others can lose,keep,regain or maintain their composure but they also appear to have the ability to stay calm (excepting Coopers rush of blood tackling) overall.
He is a live wire for sure and very mouthy off the ball to linesmen and the opposition and sometimes loses valuable concentration because of it - yep,he winds up players but also they can wind him up to,I've often even seen him engage in ding-dongs with the opposition bench during the game when in progress.
But he is one of the squad players that is a true family man and is not one of the regulars seen around Leeds city centre and the players always speak kindly of him according to my elder brother who mixes with them when over in town.Obviously his families strong Muslim Faith will be a major consideration to his next move one would assume.
Whatever his next move I wish him and family well.
Look,What boils my piss IS any player being criticised,Why?,Because this is the first season for all of our players at this level, correct me if i am wrong but we are comfortably mid table and have given EVERY team in this league on our day a game of football, been very exciting at times, been poor at times but in the main exciting, This is my only point, again my opinion, Certainly MB will be able to tell us who is good enough and who isnt for the premier league for next season he knows much more than all of us put together..
Reality from that game was:
No Raphinha, No Kalvin, No Rodrigo (unfit and not match sharp) and even no Costa.
Starting that game short of all of those players was never going to yield a great result agains a team that plays with back 5, should probably have been a 0-0. Alioski did his usual idiocy and the game turned there.
Move on and who cares was a weak team and we are safe, not going to judge the team on that just highlights maybe how we need more quality next season to make that next step and again pushed home the fact that we desperatley need someone who can fill in for Kalvin with any level of competency as none of our squad can currently, think we have lost 7 of 9 that he hasn't played.
Spot on.
We don't have effective cover for Phillips.
He's not flashy, but he certainly gets the job done.
And there's the rub. At what point (in time, games played, any metric you want to choose) does it become legitimate/permissible to criticise a player?. Any by criticism, just so there's no confusion by what I mean, I'm not talking about name-calling (Clown, fool, idiot etc, the kind of things we ought to leave behind in the schoolyard), but about critique of skill, capability, effort, commitment when applied to what a player is supposed to be doing when playing for Leeds United (Players private lives are just that, private, and unless infringing on the law of the land, I don't give a flying f00k who they are diddling, as long as it doesn't interfere with their performance on the filed of play).
It's neither possible, nor desirable (IMHO) to have a "cut-off" point, other than when the player signs on the dotted line. From that point on, their performance is subject to as much examination and criticism as a player who has been with the club forever and is now in their testimonial year (doesn't happen much nowadays!), by the club, pundits, supporters etc, nothing else is workable, or healthy.
We probably won't agree, even though I suspect we (and others) want the same thing.
Last edited by hopelesslyoptimistic; 03-05-2021 at 07:47 PM.