Leeds 1-1 Saints - Match Thread

[Toadhall Saint]

13 hours ago, The Kraken said:

Kalvin Phillips. Now, I know I’m old and deeply unfashionable, but wtf?

Good grief- why is he wearing mr bumps shoes?

[East Kent Saint]

Salisu made a couple of good tackles but at the end the Philips one was nearly a penalty . On slow mo he seemed to catch Philips's foot before getting the ball but unusually VAR gave Saints benefit of the doubt !!

[Charlie Wayman]

17 hours ago, Nordic Saint said:

That's the third time in the last month, Obafemi has scored 2 goals. At the rate he's progressing, he'll be converting those into hat-tricks soon..

In the Championship, yes! Was useless in the premier league.

[Charlie Wayman]

9 hours ago, Saints foreva said:

Such a waste of £15m. 

Sounds very familiar. It goes on season after season. Proves our scouting is a bit hit and miss but that is to be expected in the segment in which we are shopping.

[Turkish]

3 hours ago, Fitzhugh Fella said:

That’s what I thought. The irony of being criticised from a Saints fan stood with the Leeds fans sums the poster up to be honest. 

Why? Care to explain? Surely being able to see and hear the full away end without being in it gives a much better perspective of how good or bad it was.

BTW do you still hate the club and it’s owners or have they let you start selling your books again?

Edited 3 April, 2022 by Turkish

[Chez]

3 hours ago, Toussaint said:

I have a feeling he will be off at the end of the season. I wouldn’t be surprised if we shipped a few out, it will be refreshing if we have more control over who stays and goes and who we can buy under the new regime. 

To another Premiership side?

Not sure our change of ownership makes much difference when it comes to `moving players on'. Redmond will be here next season if he wants to be. As will Theo. They are the ones that decide, they have the power. All be it, they face a season being paid not to play.

[saint1977]

7 minutes ago, Chez said:

To another Premiership side?

Not sure our change of ownership makes much difference when it comes to `moving players on'. Redmond will be here next season if he wants to be. As will Theo. They are the ones that decide, they have the power. All be it, they face a season being paid not to play.

Theo yes, stuck with him for final year. Poor decision whoever that was to offer 2 years. Nathan is a few years younger and could easily do a job for a promoted side in their first couple of seasons eg Bournemouth (no need to move house) or Fulham. Inconsistent, but can be a match winner and puts in a shift defensively. All as long as Saints aren’t greedy on the fee eg £12-15m. He’s only 27/28 so another season of not featuring pretty much finishes him as a PL player anyway and I can’t see him being the type of player being happy to kick his heels for 2 years. 

[Tank]

16 hours ago, Shroppie said:

I'll take a point. We should have had a free kick when Broja was fouled on half way but didn't and they scored. Forster should have done better 

Leeds' midfield press pushed us into too many hopeful punts forward and we never flowed.

Blue line. Move on.

a lot of luck and a bit of applied science from Prowsey. I like Forster but sometimes I think it's only a statue of him stood there.

[Pamplemousse]

Yeah surely Redmond is off. And in all honesty, that's not a bad thing. We can do far better.

 

When is McCarthy back fit as well? He's so much better than Forster. Although that's another area for a summer upgrade.

[Chez]

1 minute ago, saint1977 said:

Theo yes, stuck with him for final year. Poor decision whoever that was to offer 2 years. Nathan is a few years younger and could easily do a job for a promoted side in their first couple of seasons eg Bournemouth (no need to move house) or Fulham. Inconsistent, but can be a match winner and puts in a shift defensively. All as long as Saints aren’t greedy on the fee eg £12-15m. He’s only 27/28 so another season of not featuring pretty much finishes him as a PL player anyway and I can’t see him being the type of player being happy to kick his heels for 2 years. 

I didn't realise he was only 28. Its been a roller coaster of a career at Saints, with his form and confidence coming and going. There's been a lot of negativity from fans at times, so if an opportunity arises in the top flight, I can see him fancying it. A fresh challenge, a new start. Difficult player to set a fee for. We really could do with some funds to bolster our transfer kittythis summer. The attacking `flair' players like Djenepo, Theo and Tella haven't done much this season - so we might need a couple in that area of the pitch. Our issue then becomes finding new talent at a price we can afford. Minamino seemed to be the player Ralph wanted, but that move seems less and less likely. 

[Chez]

10 hours ago, Saints foreva said:

Such a waste of £15m. 

have you given up hope that he gets his confidence back and it just all clicks next season? Or do just think he doesn't have `it' and never will?

[Chez]

16 hours ago, Shroppie said:

Leeds' midfield press pushed us into too many hopeful punts forward and we never flowed.

I think thats why the two strikers didn't have good games. So many long balls that gave them little chance to get attacks going. Apart from a couple of short periods were second best and always seemed to be running towards our own goal. When we did play it short it was in crowded areas and lost the ball. Leeds have done this a few times over the last two seasons and the end result has been ugly. Less so yesterday. Our by fault of design we had men behind the ball and didn't get caught. I hope it was by design and we have learnt from previous mistakes.

[Teddeer]

Just watched the highlights and all I can say is 'Anthony Taylor should have gone to Specsavers'. The foul on Broja just before Leeds scored was about as clear and obvious as it gets. Absolutely criminal that he either did not see the incident or chose to ignore it.

[Whitey Grandad]

2 hours ago, East Kent Saint said:

Salisu made a couple of good tackles but at the end the Philips one was nearly a penalty . On slow mo he seemed to catch Philips's foot before getting the ball but unusually VAR gave Saints benefit of the doubt !!

That was a dive. Both legs collapsed under him like an aircraft whose undercarriage folds. You could never say that he was tripped.

Edited 3 April, 2022 by Whitey Grandad

[Toussaint]

2 hours ago, Chez said:

To another Premiership side?

Not sure our change of ownership makes much difference when it comes to `moving players on'. Redmond will be here next season if he wants to be. As will Theo. They are the ones that decide, they have the power. All be it, they face a season being paid not to play.

I only meant from the point we don’t have to sell, therefore have more control over comings and going’s 

[saint1977]

3 hours ago, Chez said:

I didn't realise he was only 28. Its been a roller coaster of a career at Saints, with his form and confidence coming and going. There's been a lot of negativity from fans at times, so if an opportunity arises in the top flight, I can see him fancying it. A fresh challenge, a new start. Difficult player to set a fee for. We really could do with some funds to bolster our transfer kittythis summer. The attacking `flair' players like Djenepo, Theo and Tella haven't done much this season - so we might need a couple in that area of the pitch. Our issue then becomes finding new talent at a price we can afford. Minamino seemed to be the player Ralph wanted, but that move seems less and less likely. 

Nathan just turned 28 last month, no talk of a new deal so I reckon he will be on his way with good wishes and I think we will get buyers. Djenepo - harder to predict like the player himself. Still only 24 so we’ll probably get a loan fee of £5-8m that is effectively a transfer fee. Upper level Turkish clubs such as Fenerbache linked. 

Ely will be interesting - done well this year but rumoured to be on £60k pw already and can’t see Saints wanting to go beyond that with an extension. Could be a cash in for £12-15m, lots of seeming interest in the player. 

Tella looks good when he features but to what extent has he impacted on games with goals and assists, less than Ely, Nathan and even Theo. Signed a new deal and 23, so needs to either kick on in pre season to force a regular XI spot or could be making an impact in the Champ like Obafemi now finally is. Could be another sale to a promotion chasing team. Hope not but there is a lot of summer re-shaping to do and some additional funds needs to come in from trading.

AA is a difficult one - do the club think he can ever cut the PL? If not, probably better to offer on a loan-perm, could get quite a bit of the money back. He could be a useful impact sub off the bench I think but assuming Broja doesn’t join permanently and Long goes (surely?) that only leaves Che.

[Chez]

1 hour ago, Toussaint said:

I only meant from the point we don’t have to sell, therefore have more control over comings and going’s 

gotcha, but £140m of losses over the last three years and a £90m debt mean we certainly will have to sell players over the coming years. If we can get good money for players we don't need/want like Vestegaard, brilliant, but in general interest will be for players we would like to keep.

[Chez]

21 minutes ago, saint1977 said:

Nathan just turned 28 last month, no talk of a new deal so I reckon he will be on his way with good wishes and I think we will get buyers. Djenepo - harder to predict like the player himself. Still only 24 so we’ll probably get a loan fee of £5-8m that is effectively a transfer fee. Upper level Turkish clubs such as Fenerbache linked. 

Ely will be interesting - done well this year but rumoured to be on £60k pw already and can’t see Saints wanting to go beyond that with an extension. Could be a cash in for £12-15m, lots of seeming interest in the player. 

Tella looks good when he features but to what extent has he impacted on games with goals and assists, less than Ely, Nathan and even Theo. Signed a new deal and 23, so needs to either kick on in pre season to force a regular XI spot or could be making an impact in the Champ like Obafemi now finally is. Could be another sale to a promotion chasing team. Hope not but there is a lot of summer re-shaping to do and some additional funds needs to come in from trading.

AA is a difficult one - do the club think he can ever cut the PL? If not, probably better to offer on a loan-perm, could get quite a bit of the money back. He could be a useful impact sub off the bench I think but assuming Broja doesn’t join permanently and Long goes (surely?) that only leaves Che.

all sounds about right to me (except I think Long will be offered a new deal), lots of decisions for the cub to make this summer, but in the end it will be the players that dictate how things go. None have to leave if they don't want to. Increasingly, players seem to be seeing out contracts (which is a worry if we need to make funds from transfers to survive).

[david in sweden]

3 hours ago, Teddeer said:

Just watched the highlights and all I can say is 'Anthony Taylor should have gone to Specsavers'. The foul on Broja just before Leeds scored was about as clear and obvious as it gets. Absolutely criminal that he either did not see the incident or chose to ignore it.

OR ...why didn't we see the goal line decision from the byline, the cross into the box looked a very close call, before Leeds scored .

but then again .....look who was on VAR.    We ran out of favours from him years ago.

[david in sweden]

19 hours ago, Turkish said:

Watched this one the Leeds end and drank before and after with Leeds fans although nice to bump into a few saints during the day. They were raving about JWP after.

draw a fair result, both teams pretty well organised defensively but offered little up front. Adams is a bloody brilliant footballer, has it all apart from being able to finish. 🙄 Their goal very soft, our goal brilliant free kick. 
 

assume Romeu was injured as we were controlling midfield at that point when he was subbed and obvious they’ve being Phillips on with 60/70 mins to go to try to wrestle back control, seemed crazy to take him off otherwise 

KWP great again, Broja poor again and Armstrong seems so far down the pecking order it beggars belief

Looked like and end of season game with two teams without much to play for slug it out, competent but lacking any real quality 

word on the fans, Leeds fans were good but watching our lot you barely heard them. Really poor. Travel all that way and stand/sit in silence, why?

.....then of course we had Gary Linekar arguing about an incident that he thought was a Leeds penalty...

whilst Richards and Shearer disagreed and laughed him into embarrassment.

Really . ....that man couldn't agree with himself if he looked in the mirror. 

[Dr Who?]

1 hour ago, david in sweden said:

OR ...why didn't we see the goal line decision from the byline, the cross into the box looked a very close call, before Leeds scored .

but then again .....look who was on VAR.    We ran out of favours from him years ago.

Now this is my concern with VAR they are manipulating the shots. Liverpools goal against Forest in the FA Cup was offside. They failed to show the decision from side on, and the lines where not in line with the other lines on the pitch. It needs to be side on. You can make the decisions look correct with the lines and angles to suit your agenda. Then the majority football fans see it and say ‘yeah it’s been checked, look that proves it’. When it proves shit all. 

[SaintZamboni]

1 hour ago, Dr Who? said:

Now this is my concern with VAR they are manipulating the shots. Liverpools goal against Forest in the FA Cup was offside. They failed to show the decision from side on, and the lines where not in line with the other lines on the pitch. It needs to be side on. You can make the decisions look correct with the lines and angles to suit your agenda. Then the majority football fans see it and say ‘yeah it’s been checked, look that proves it’. When it proves shit all. 

I don’t know about you but they showed the by line replay here and the ball was well in play. Barely even grazing the line.

[saint1977]

5 hours ago, Chez said:

all sounds about right to me (except I think Long will be offered a new deal), lots of decisions for the cub to make this summer, but in the end it will be the players that dictate how things go. None have to leave if they don't want to. Increasingly, players seem to be seeing out contracts (which is a worry if we need to make funds from transfers to survive).

Depends on the player and the position. Fraser has been able to see his contract out in his 30s because no one else would pay him whatever crazy sum his extension put him on, allied to the fact Gunn and then McCarthy were unable to secure the number 1 consistently. 

Ditto Bertrand, 30s again, one of the top earners and no other LBs at the time. Redmond at just turned 28 would waste a valuable year if he can’t see a way regularly back into a starting berth, and it’s a position that is less specialist. Free agent at 29 but barely played in 2 years - would be a recipe for the Champ. Whereas I think he could get a PL move this summer.

Theo definitely won’t be going anywhere though! Ely will be the interesting one - no talk of his being offered an extension despite a much improved campaign, plus he has seemingly plenty of clubs interested with a year to go. 

There will be interest in JWP and especially Salisu, and that’s where we will find out what impact the debt has or whether the new owners have a plan as part of the much lower purchase price to service those and offset any early repayment penalties. 

[Nordic Saint]

On 03/04/2022 at 09:31, Toadhall Saint said:

Good grief- why is he wearing mr bumps shoes?

Dressed like that he wouldn't look out of place at Fratton Park.

[Warriorsaint]

On 02/04/2022 at 20:58, Stud mark of doom said:

Odd - atmosphere seemed really good in away end. Lots of singling. Great atmosphere all round I thought. 

Agree with this. Thought the atmosphere was very good helped by two very enthusiastic teams. Ref helped raise the temperature and was very little aggro btn the two sets of fans which always seems puerile to me. Stewards were a good lot too. Love the northern grounds. Still feels like a link to their community.