lets not be to down hearted

Simon Grayson contemplates the start to the season 

lets not be to down hearted about how the season has gone so far yes we have now lost 3 of out first 5 games and apart from the appalling display at St Mary's on the first day of the season we have gone down to teams after we have had men sent off  , 2 men off at elland road a few weeks back against Middlesbrough and again today Aidy White sent off away at Ipswich without these men being sent off I firmly believe we would have won both of those games . The first half of today's game we totally dominated Ipswich but as so often happens we fail to add more than 1 goal when we have these spells of dominance and in the end went down to a long range strike and a deflected loop of Lonergan.

We have a two week break now before our next league game against Crystal Palace we should use this time to work on squad discipline and try to cut out these needless red cards and lets finish games off while we are in control of them .

41 league games to go and a small matter of Scum rocking up at Elland Road before the end of Sept .

KEEP THE FAITH IN GRAYSON WE TRUST
MOT

The Season so far

Great Support 

We are now almost one week into the season and what a week it has been , I was one of the very unfortunate Leeds fans in attendance at St Mary's last Saturday evening to witness a appalling display of overall football from every one in a Leeds United shirt apart from Adam Clayton , Clayton himself wasn't outstanding but he appered to be the only player in blue trying to get anything going for the away team along side him in central midfield were Captain Jonny Howson and new signing Michael Brown , I'll get to Howson in a moment but lets look at Brown for a second he was bought into the team to be the enforcer of our otherwise lightweight midfield he promptly was book after little more than 10 mins after a few nasty late tackles and at one point even trying to take out the ref with a tackle from behind , for his own sake he was sacrificed not long into the second half otherwise he would already be looking at a suspension . As for Howson he was hardly invovled in the game which seemed to mostly pass him by one problem we have seen a few times from Howson over the last few years is his lack of ability to stamp any authority on the game.

On the wings we had Max Gradel and Robert Snodgrass, who both have been transfer targets from other clubs this past off season both looked well off the pace from the start with Snodgrass almost seeming not to care some even saying his head may have been turned by the interest from his Premier League suitors , Gradel was later to score from the penalty spot for a very undeserved consolation goal for United.

Now on to the back 4 who between them looked like they had never seen a football before with Andy O'Brien being the main culprit of inept defending  he was repeatedly turned inside and out by the Saints strikers and failing to close down the ball for Saints 1st goal ever since we signed him on a long term contract he has looked like bambi on ice when forwards run at him. Patrick Kisnorbo we can give a little slack to he has been out with a very serious injury for the past 18 months so he is still getting back up to hopefully the level he was at before that night against Millwall where he suffered the horrendous injury in the first place but after Saturdays match it seems he's still along way from his previous level. Darren O'Dea only joined Leeds on a season long loan from Celtic the day before the game so we can let him off for now as he is still learning to play along side his new team mates .

In goal we have new recruit from Preston Andy Lonergan who signed after a protracted contract negotiation and so far he must be wondering why he left Preston having to play behind that back 4 , as someone mentioned on Twitter after the game on Saturday its no wonder we signed two GK's who can both be number 1 the mental damage of playing in goal for Leeds is more than one man can take for a whole season , Lonergan for me though has so far been fairly impressive he had no chance with any of the goals against Saints after being wildly exposed by the defence , he did pull off one great save towards the end of the game pushing a ferocious shot on to the post  to keep the score from getting even more embarrassing .

*** EDIT*** 

This piece was written just before the Middlesbrough game , when the team performed very admirably in the face of a awful ref who does seem to have a vendetta against us , we did very well to only lose 0-1 after losing Gradel and Howson to terrible decisions but they served there suspensions during our mid week game vs Hull in which we got our first 3 points of the season thanks to a fantastic 4-1 win thanks to goals from McCormack , Lees , Snoddy and Nunez only a own goal from Lees somewhat spoiled the game but he more than made up for it with a grat strike at the other end , Lees now has the same amount of goals for us as our FORWARD Billy Paynter , he looks a great prospect at the back and seems to have been a constant threat from corners and free kicks already . 


We head to West Ham this Sunday lunch time with both teams coming of the back of big wins in midweek  , this    is going to be our biggest test of the season so far with WHU being many peoples pick for the title this year , knowing Leeds this is the kind of game we will get a result from we normally play very well against the bigger teams in the division take the QPR results last year for the proof of that so here's hoping we can get some sort of positive result 


MOT 


I'm @RossBell1984 on twitter follow me there 

What a Week

Well what a week I've had this week , I normally work set shifts that are Tues,Wed,Fri and Sat but this week we've had holidays , Sickness and people on courses so I've been all over the place I ended up working Tue,Wed,Thur and tonight (Sat) it feels very weird to be awake during a Saturday daytime without any football to look forward to at 3pm .

But the good news is the fixtures have been released for this coming season and even better news is that Leeds kick off away at Southampton which is great news as there is a good chance I can actually get to that game , we have a tricky first month with games vs Middlesbrough , Hull , West Ham and Ipswich if we can get 9 points from those 5 games ill be very happy with that return

We thought it would never happen !

Preston 1 v 2 Leeds 08/03/2011


I thought it would be a good idea to document this rare occurrence who knows when it will happen again , of course I mean a BILLY PAYNTER GOAL !

The Upcoming Football League Season

So with the Npower football league kicking off on Friday night with the televised game between Norwich and Watford i thought id give a little run down on the teams i think will be making a splash this season 

League Two 

For league two i don't think you can look beyond Rotherham for the title , with Adam Le Fondre leading the line they will have plenty of goals in them and they also look good at the back 

for the other promotion spots i think Shrewsbury , Crewe and Aldershot will all be fighting it out with which ever finishes forth going on to win the Playoffs 

as for relegation to the conference its a tricky one obviously the two promoted teams from last season Oxford and Stevenage are going to the favorites but i think they will both stay up with southends recent financial troubles i can see them having another season of misery.

I also think the football league will be saying goodbye to Stockport this year they have been struggling badly for a few years now 

League One 

As for league one this is a league i know very well and it is one of the hardest leagues to get out of for the big clubs down there , with that said i don't think you can look beyond Southampton if they can keep a forward 3 of Rickie Lambert , Lee Barnard and Adam Lallana fit all season they will have more than enough firepower to shoot them out of league one 

In second position i'm going to plump for Swindon even with the departure of Billy Paynter to Leeds in Charlie Austin they have one of the most exciting young Strikers in the whole country who is surely destined for big things 

As for the playoff winners i think Huddersfield will be the team to take the third promotion spot they were a tough team last season and with Lee Clark now having another year of experience as manager they could very well win the playoffs 

To be relegated i think its going to be a long hard season for both Bournemouth and Notts County with the Notts County losing one of the best young keepers in the country in Kasper Schmeichel who kept 24 clean sheets last season is a big blow and bournemouth have had a really hard time bringing players in along with bigger clubs sniffing around there talisman Brett Pittman it could be a very long season were they to lose him 

Hartlepool and Tranmere both stayed up by the skin of there teeth last season so they are my other two picks to be relegated 

Championship

 Middlesboro are far and away the bookies favs for this season with Gordon Strachen stregthening his team with lots of players from the old firm clubs i cant see beyond them to be champions especially is Kris Boyd can reproduce his SPL scoring achievements 

to take second place im going to go for Notts Forest they looked very strong last season only losing to eventually play off winners Blackpool in the semi final if they can keep there squad fit and healthy i can see them nicking second spot from Cardiff who i can see finally taking that giant leap into the (so called) big time , they lost last season playoff final and have since lost Joe Ledley from there midfield but i think with Dave Jones as manager he will be able to get them up and going again no problem 

Going down from the championship its a tough one but with Portsmouth's troubles i can see them staying up , as i write this they have 6 senior players on the books and are under a transfer embargo as for the other two im going to have to go with the bookies again and say its going to be Scunthorpe and Barnsley heading into league one this season 

Top Scorers 

Championship - Kris Boyd 6/1 a excellent choice along with Michael Chopra 10/1 and Nicky Maynard 14/1 both looking good value 

League One  - the 3 players pointed out in my league one section of Rickie Lambert 4/1 Lee Barnard 10/1 and Charlie Austin 14/1 all represent good value 

League Two - Adam Le Fondre is your best bet at 7/1 but i also like the look of Jack Lester at 14/1 

all odds provided by http://www.skybet.com/betting