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  • 4 months ago
This week on the Inside Elland Road Podcast, Graham Smyth and Chris O’Connor dig into the big questions facing Leeds United as the international break arrives.
Top of the agenda is the ongoing Dominic Calvert-Lewin conundrum — what is and what’s not clicking? The lads also debate the one key change they’d make as judgement time looms.

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Transcript
00:00I don't think he's getting the credit that he deserves
00:03for the way Leeds United have started.
00:06I made a decision.
00:08Remember we talked about Bogle on right wing.
00:10I put it out as just a pre-game thought
00:12that I'd like to see Bogle on the right wing
00:15with Justin behind him.
00:17And somebody said, we'd see it
00:19if Farker had a flexible bone in his body
00:21or something like that.
00:23And my response to that was,
00:25well, have you not seen the way Leeds United
00:27are playing this season?
00:28I mean, from a very rudimentary level,
00:31they're not playing 4-2-3-1.
00:33They're not playing the same style of football
00:34that they played.
00:36They're more compact.
00:37They are, I would say, more disciplined defensively.
00:40And they're definitely taking fewer risks.
00:44He has been flexible.
00:46He's been very flexible.
00:47He's not been dogmatic.
00:49He's not stuck exactly to the blueprint
00:54and the plan that got him to the Premier League.
00:56I think he's learned from his time
00:58in the Premier League previously.
01:00And he's learned from watching
01:01how other newly promoted clubs have fared
01:04over the last couple of years.
01:05And he has set Leeds United up
01:06in a very specific way
01:08to be competitive
01:10and to stay in games
01:11and to give themselves a chance
01:12and to not be porous
01:14and to not concede loads of goals.
01:15That, to me, says that he's more flexible
01:18than I think any of us
01:19perhaps would have predicted.
01:20I'm not sure I could have seen that come in.
01:24You know, if you said to me
01:25towards the end of last season
01:26that Farker would be this pragmatic
01:28in the Premier League,
01:29I don't know that I would have believed you.
01:33Yeah, I completely agree.
01:34It's one of the points I made down,
01:36actually, was to say
01:37I think Farker deserves more credit.
01:39There was a couple of
01:40these kind of football analytics accounts
01:43that do tactical breakdowns on Twitter.
01:45And I was looking at a couple
01:47and breaking down Leeds, Eschen.
01:49And also, I think we're, you know,
01:51I want to say four
01:52for at least we're in the top five or six
01:54for expected goals conceded.
01:56And I think they've put a lot of effort
01:59in the summer into
02:00this is how we're going to play
02:01in the Premier League.
02:02This is how we're going to compete.
02:04This is who we need to recruit
02:07in order to do that.
02:08And I think they deserve a lot of credit.
02:10Look at the last two seasons
02:11what the promoted teams have done.
02:13We need to remember
02:14what we're walking into.
02:15This is not easy to be competitive.
02:18And like you said,
02:19Spurs have got a squad worth,
02:21I don't know how much,
02:22but a huge amount more than Leeds.
02:25And we were really competitive.
02:27And Spurs were celebrating at full time.
02:29Like they knew they got
02:30a valuable three points
02:31in a really, really tough
02:32competitive fixture.
02:34So I think he deserves loads of credit.
02:37I think it's unfair to call him
02:40inflexible, unflexible.
02:43Not sure what the word is.
02:44Also, I don't think bones
02:45should be flexible.
02:46That's the job of joints, isn't it?
02:47So I'd go back to the kind of biology
02:50there as well,
02:51that you don't want flexible bones.
02:54But yeah, it reminds me of
02:56every game this season
02:58where we haven't got
02:59what we've deserved.
03:00I'm starting to think that,
03:02you know, that's becoming
03:03a bit of a theme.
03:04And at some point,
03:05you need to get what you deserve
03:07in this league
03:07because otherwise
03:09it can run away very quickly.
03:12And already,
03:13I'm kind of seeing a...
03:15People are already looking
03:17at that bottom six.
03:18And I think a lot of neutrals
03:19and maybe fans,
03:21even of the clubs involved,
03:22are probably looking at it going,
03:23right, that's our kind of
03:24mini league this year.
03:25Maybe Sunderland might drop
03:27into that and make it a seven.
03:28But that kind of Brentford,
03:29West Ham, Wolves,
03:31Leeds, Burnley, Sunderland.
03:35I think that's all of them.
03:36Yeah, I think that's already
03:37looking like a mini league.
03:39I still think Leeds can be
03:40better than all those teams.
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