Ye, bad start this time. Unfortunately change of goalkeeper and defence renewal influenced my squad harmony much…

Leeds results in tournaments

First of all let's look at the Premier League table after 12 fixtures played:

4 wins, 4 draws and 4 losses – this is what my Leeds managed to gain. The reason of such poor performance is 3 new players in defence + new goalkeeper. Additionally all my forwards started to fail goal moments more often for some reason… So I don't even know what I can analyze here. Everything is simple. New Leeds players need time to blend into the squad and learn playing together well. So now let's just look at played matches:

We see here the start was awesome – Chelsea lost Community Shield conceding two goals made by Gignac (as scorer) and Marquihnos (as assister).

Euro Super Cup was gave up to Juventus. We didn't have chances because of higher class of Italian team. They are simply better and the best club in Football Manager 2010 now.

If you look again at the list of played Leeds matches and filter only losses using eyes you'll see that my team lost all games apart from 0:2 from Arsenal in goal. I think this fact confirms player collaboration problems in the squad.

Unfortunately we got out of League Cup: Tottenham is very tough this season, seems like they are going to win the title…

Regarding our attempt of 'Europa League winner' status protection I can say that it's OK for now:

The group is not that hard for us, of course. I think Leeds will take the 1st position.

Players: new and old ones

Traditionally Leeds squad for you:

New players cause 2 serious problems.

Goalkeeper problem

Julio Cesar was considered a main goalkeeper who should perform better than Vincent Eneyama. But, but, but… It appeared a big mistake. You see he played 10 matches and has 6.76 average rating. This is because the 36 years old Brazilian made around 5 stupid errors! Guys, I didn't expect it could happen. If we look at his attributes'  values  we will see the only serious weakness – speed (Pace=5 and Acceleration=6). So we can make a conclusion: speed is important for goalkeeper in Football Manager 2010.

Silviu Lung replaced Julio Cesar in the first squad… Fortunately his performance is much better! Certainly I like this Romanian already.

Defence renewal problem

New defenders - Javi Garcia, Pablo Sanchez and Sergiy Kryvtsov – have been trying to blend into the squad since the season start. For now they are not synchronized at all, they don't play well together with Mevlut Sahin (other my main squad defender this season). Too many conceded goals. I have some thoughts regarding every new defender in the team:

- Javi Garcia failed his start completely. I am not even sure now if he can be a good defender for our team at all. May be I will use Javi Garcia in the centre of the midfield.

- Pablo Sanchez settled down feeling of contradiction in my mind. Several times he made great tackles, important headers and scored goals. On the other hand Pablo managed to make 3 bad mistakes that resulted in 1 straight conceded goal and 2 penalties (both goals). Anyway I think he'll be a great defender in year or half of year.

- The most confident adaptation process is shown by Sergiy Kryvtsov. He made rare errors and this is great. What I like most of all - Kryvtsov is the new king in air winning all headers one by one. He may become equivalent replace for Hangeland.

And my main total conclusion - obviously Leeds defence needs time.

Poor attack at the start

Here is the fact of weak attack by all our main forwards Marquinhos, Gignac and Anichebe. They all scored 9 goals together… How do you think could it be caused by new 4 players behind them in the pitch? I hope, the answer is yes. Though it's too early to make any conclusions.

Adolphe Teicou

Adolphe Teicou is the only old footballer in Leeds who has been playing since the first season in League 1! And he is the first squad player!

Interesting that attributes' values of Teicou are mostly lower than Mbia, Delph or Vidal have. But his rating is better now, his performance is more efficient. Even in the national team of Cameroon: Mbia is on substitution bench, Teicou – in the first squad. He is the real working horse of Leeds.

True Football Manager