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Friday 20 February 2009

Leeds United v Cheltenham Town preview


Another week flies by and we're again on the cusp of the weekend.  One thing for sure is that I won't be sad to see the end of this particular 7 day period as I seem to have spent the entire time with a black cloud hovering over me containing my collective memories of the two depressing defeats we have suffered at the hands of Huddersfield and Hereford.  To top it off last night Channel 5 ran a documentary on how the West Yorks Police utilised CCTV to try and control the crowds at last years clash with Millwall.  Needless to say it didn't paint a very good picture of the Leeds faithful as a mixture of young and old chavs had running battles with the boys in blue before and after the game as they tried to get at the not so innocent foes from South London.
So all in all a pretty crap week on the football front.
It's been no good trying to lift my spirits by watching the news as first the newspapers  gorged themselves on the story of the alleged 12 year old father and 14 year old mum, spiced up by claims that the baby could be anyones on their estate, ensuring an unseemly scramble by the redtops to pay top dollar for any scrap of info and gossip relating to the case............Anybody remember the Shannon Matthews scam?
Next we discover that the grinning Graham Gooch lookalike, Allen Stanford, has duped not only the cricket world but the rest of his 1000's of investors and dispapeared into the sunset with a multi million $ black hole behind him.  The esteemed gentleman at Lords have tried all week to remove the large dollop of egg on their face after chasing the dirty dollar from the Texan conman..............it just goes to strengthen the old adage that fools and their money are soon parted.
Back at Elland Road there has been a lot of soul searching after Tuesday's woeful showing and we are assured by both Larry and Bam Bam that the team have thrashed out the issues in a post match "cards on the table" meeting.............time will tell.  By the tone of the various threads on the Leeds forums I wouldn't be surprised if the Leeds branch of the Samaritans have seen an increase in calls from 10pm Tuesday onwards! What disappoints me though is that already there are a minority of fans, probably armchair fans, who are already calling for Larry's head after just 10 games ffs.  In reality a manager needs a minimum of two years to mold a team into his a vision of perfection so let's lay off the "sack the manager" bandwagon......................Capt Birdseye is a different matter though and I can see the rumblings of discontent becoming louder the longer the season goes on.  Only promotion will repel the tide of critiscism of the lack of apparant ambition by our Chairman in the transfer market.  Relying on journeymen and stars on the wane in the loan market is a high risk strategy that could result in another year in Div 3.
Tomorrow is unusual in that it's the first time for a long time that we have had real selection problems due to unavailability of players.  Both full back positions are weakly covered with Ben Parker due to continue at LB with anybodies guess who will fill in on the right with Hughes and Frazer still unavailable.  
Mr Beckford continues his enforced absence up front in doing so leaving Larry with a distinct lack of options................the Becchio & Trundle partnership doesn't work and I hope that is broken up in favour of Snoddy or possibly Robbo partnering Becchio. I don't think the American, Grella, is ready on the basis of his two short appearances.
Out of the dark clouds of depression we are desperate for a player or players to step up and grab the game by the scruff of the neck and instill some confidence into the club.  In short we need a new hero...........Mr Delph, Mr Becchio, Mr Snoddgrass are you listening?
With Cheltenham languishing at the bottom of the table, as Hereford were, and Leeds having won their last three at home it should be a safe three points...........................god help us if it's anything less!  Can't wait.
MOT

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