Leeds United - v - Aston Villa ***Matchday Thread***

[UbiqueLUFC33]

Meslier was outstanding too

Apart from the parts where he was flapping at crosses like a paraplegic budgie.

[bathlad61]

All things considered a decent earned 1 pt
Feel sorry for Struijk, needs to play in his best / natural position CB, ok at LB, but looks uncomfortable, not got the pace, and balls / crosses in, lack end product - not his fault, has to revert back to CB. Problem is lack of competition at LB, crazy & maybe costly.

[joellufcprice]

All things considered a decent earned 1 pt
Feel sorry for Struijk, needs to play in his best / natural position CB, ok at LB, but looks uncomfortable, not got the pace, and balls / crosses in, lack end product - not his fault, has to revert back to CB. Problem is lack of competition at LB, crazy & maybe costly.

Been saying this about Struijk for ages, I'd rather Firpo there just because he can at least get forward and link up/put crosses in. Struijk for all he tries is pretty hapless and miscontrols the ball or just outright misses simple passes to him/gets done when 1v1 with a player.

Hope he gets a run at centre back at some point, he looks so much better there when his job is to win headers etc.

[joellufcprice]

I normally don't criticize referees because they are human and make mistakes. Today though, the ref was truly horrendous. He seemed only to blow against us and wanted to give yellow cards to Leeds players. I know a villain got one too but it really seemed like ref was after us from the outset. Villa players fell over when touched and got free kicks, while Leeds players didn't seem to get anything. Ashley Young kicked/stomped on Aaronson (i think) but didn't get a card. I honestly didn't know what was going on today.

All I want is consistency, if you're going to send Sinisteraa off for petty nonsense, then book their players in first half for the exact same petty nonsense. Or book Young/Mings for the exact same tackle Sinisterra got booked for in the first half.

He was an absolute whopper, I genuinely think he forgot he'd even booked Sinisterra when he gave him second yellow and wouldn't have done it if he'd realised which makes it even worse, the ref ruined the game because he never got a grip of it.

[Tichi1]

Think Jesse very naive telling the world how to wind us up every week by either time wasting or feigning injury to get free kicks that take a couple of minutes off the time, and it works! Everton got away with it as did Brentford and now Villa, all their play acting and time wasting gets our lot wound up resulting in niggly fouls which again leads to more time used up and so it goes...round and round and we end up with rafts of cards and lacking concentration to do what we should be doing
And Cooper back shirt pulling as usual - lucky not to concede a penalty again!

Used to think it funny when Ayling did his "Flop" to win free kicks - seems now that the likes of Villa and Everton have teams full of "Floppers" as they see set pieces as a good way of nicking a goal then slowing the game right down with 10 men behind the ball, boring as f uck but unfortunately for us very effective.

[Billyni]

When you pull a shirt your conceding that your beat.
Our players are all to innocent and upstanding. We have no crafty buggers. Well maybe Ayling.

[Orgoner]

All I want is consistency, if you're going to send Sinisteraa off for petty nonsense, then book their players in first half for the exact same petty nonsense. Or book Young/Mings for the exact same tackle Sinisterra got booked for in the first half.

He was an absolute whopper, I genuinely think he forgot he'd even booked Sinisterra when he gave him second yellow and wouldn't have done it if he'd realised which makes it even worse, the ref ruined the game because he never got a grip of it.

Now you mention it, I remember thinking at the time that Attwell’s body language looked very uncomfortable, presumably because he had effectively boxed himself into a corner by going for his top pocket (not that it wasn’t a yellow card offence, just that it dawned on him that this was now going to be a red and not going to end well in the wider context of the game).

Having rewatched Bailey kicking the ball away, that was definitely a nailed-on yellow card whatever time it was committed.

As someone who still occasionally gets paid to referee (nothing fancy - mostly recreational college level at best), I have a certain amount of sympathy/empathy with what went on in that moment, but consistency is the cornerstone of keeping control of any game.

Easy to say, not always easy to do. He had a ‘mare.

Anyway, rant over. Sinisterra was an eejit and, if nothing else, we should be grateful we don’t have to watch this incarnation of Villa every week…