Dear readers, another Leeds story post has been prepared for you. It's a little bit sad one due to unredeemed promises of title challenge. This season we appeared to fail our target in Premier League.

Leeds matches and results

Here is Premier League table where you can find Leeds at the 9th position:

Well, of course we have 2 additional matches to play taking into comparison amount of played fixtures by the most teams. Nevertheless I don't think there is a good chance to get to the 4th position. Just Europa League place again .

Let's try to figure out why the result doesn't correspond to seasons expectations. First of all take a look at last series of matches:

It doesn't look bad actually. So many games were won. There are only 2 losses and 2 draws in Premier League matches:

- Leeds – Man Utd 1:1. It was almost equal game. We had slight advantage but Red Devils defence didn't allow us to make it fulfilled.

- Aston Villa – Leeds 3:1. My mistake in tactical approach: I should choose Counter Attack strategy instead of Control.

- Leeds – Newcastle 0:2. Absolutely stupid game that crossed out my hopes on Top 4 place. I put the corresponding screen shot below.

- Man City – Leeds 0:0. It was a good away game against the strongest English team (PL winners in 2012, 2013 and runners up in 2014).

The match against Newcastle must be won. But unfortunately it happened so that two important first team players leaved Leeds for their national teams: Vincent Eneyama and Stephane Mbia. Marco Verratti was missing the game due to excess of yellow cards. As a result we were are not efficient in attack and conceded 2 stupid goals that are conscience of young GK Areola and mistakes of defenders.

League Cup final

Story of Leeds in League Cup didn't turn out a fairy tale. We beat Manchester United and Tottenham, Chelsea and Wolves in this tournament overcoming ruthless draw. The last step wasn't successful. Unfortunately Arsenal outclassed Leeds in the final:

And I can't even say we had chances. We were simply outclassed. Probably I made some tactical mistakes, don't know…

Europa League

We had no problems with neither Dinamo Moscow nor Feyenoord in Europa League. Both our opponents had weaker squads so the results are logical. Leeds went through to the quarter final where threatening Tottenham awaits us. They are very strong this season competing with Manchester City for PL title…

Players

Regarding Leeds players here is the squad sorted by Average Rating:

Don't be surprised much by Roger Johnson at the 1st position in the list. He's a backup player who earned his rating in FA Cup and Europa League matches mostly.  Andre-Pierre Gignac is not so great scorer as in the last season (remember he got European Golden Boot?). Though other forwards – Marquihnos and Anichebe - pulled their performances up.

Most of squad have 'Slt' sign – they think that club is underachieving…

Victor Anichebe

I am happy having such kind of striker in my team. He is quite quick with very good finishing skills. Victor's absolutely important feature is his ability to win headers. It differs him much from other 3 forwards in my team. 14 goals in 11(16) matches – it's a pretty surprising efficiency from Victor Anichebe as for me.

English Footballer of the Year

In the end I want you to look at the screen where names of English Footballer of the Year award are shown:

2 Leeds players – Verratti and Tosic - are pretending on the award.

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Finally just to entertain you: Maradona versus Ronaldinho video.

True Football Manager