AyeDubbleYoo

But it wasn't particular taxing or intense like a PL game, and we dominated the ball for most of it. Probably no more intense than a Howe training session. I can understand if we thought sitting out Bradford too would've been too long without playing.

That's what I was asking yesterday, defenders should stop putting their hands behind their backs and start doing Schmeichel star jump saves. Surely the point is whether he extended his arm in an unnatural way which blocked the cross. It's not like he knew the exact path the ball would follow onto his arm

I don't disagree but I do think the nerves of the fans are way too exaggerated. He rarely ever makes a serious error. The more important thing is if we want to become a team that controls the ball more, we need a keeper that doesn't have to play so many long balls.

Those stats are mainly because he passes long though, surely? That in itself is because he's poor on the ball, but no keeper who mainly plays long passes will complete most of them. It's a very low-percentage way to play.

Bruno had a game off at Bournemouth and his work against Bradford was very light.

He was decent overall he just inexplicably makes technical errors and loses the ball in quite promising situations. Not that often but it does frustrate people.

I think the only main negative of our setup is that we can’t retain the ball well. So against teams like Arsenal we will always be fighting an uphill battle if we don’t kill them off at the right moment (with a second goal from a blatant pen for example). Give elite teams so much ball and it’s quite likely they will eventually find a goal. Arsenal are just worse because they also score from corners. I’m not sure what we can do about it though, because we don’t have the style or maybe even the players to kill games by keeping the ball. Perhaps take out Pope, Murphy and Joelinton (and maybe Gordon if he can’t stop losing the ball) and it could look different in these games. Otherwise we will only win when the elite team is destroyed by our intensity and can’t come back.

Having someone with that acceleration and mobility was very useful. When he makes an intervention it’s normally fairly clean and takes the ball out of danger. Looks a good signing so far.

IIRC Tino was just running normally where Gabriel slid to block a cross with his arm up in the air.

Merino is almost the same height as him FWIW. Just over an inch in it.

Need defenders to start doing star jump saves and just hope it hits their legs first.

Not sure we deserve to lose today like, that’s very harsh.

Game basically went how I expected. We tried to rattle and bully them, they relied on long balls and corners. Really scrappy game, I never thought one goal would be enough. Raging about the penalty though, that would have finished them off.

Nah.

I think he's had one good game for Leeds so far, if that. His goal was a swing and a hope which luckily went in off the inside of the post. I never rated him so I'm biased, but I think it's a bit early to be saying he's great for Leeds.

Not buying into that at all, sorry.

It absolutely must not be coupled with that. FFS.

We already have 2 LW options competing anyway.

I think the response to the negativity is way bigger than the original negativity.

Still wouldn't be happy now

Have to admit I didn't see him becoming a big player in the PL. TBF my memory isn't the best but I can't remember seeing anything that suggested he get as good as he has so quickly. You'd probably need to have seen him every day in training for that.

The Newcastle project, please.

Think he just ruined his reputation with the thing he said about concentration TBH. Before that he was highly rated. As you say, much worse keepers plying their trade in the PL.

True but I still think there are enough competitions and different profiles of player that he could be used well. A sale/loan with solid buyback option would've been OK, I guess that's why it didn't happen in the end.

Yeah, the only way we should be selling or loaning him is if we have the option to get him back. Giving power to the buying club would be pointless.