|
Just a few observations:
This is a game where all Blackwell's annoying tendencies finally caught up with him, to wit:
- Playing players out of their best position. We had probably the most skilled center-half in the Football League playing left back, while two of the three specialist left backs Blackwell has brought to the club didn't even make the squad, let alone the first XI. What is the point of spending the club's limited resources to build depth in a position when you don't use it? And on that point, why on earth did Blackwell spend all season saying we'd have been playing a different style if Stone had been fit, and then, when Stone was available, leave him on the bench while playing a right back at right wing? (Of course, it could be argued that it was Blackwell's insistence on playing a center forward like Marlon King at right wing last season that REALLY came back to haunt him today. Just imagine if he'd seen what Boothroyd clearly saw in King.)
- Long ball football. Is Blackwell that blind that he doesn't realize that every time we put the ball on the ground and pass it we look more dangerous? Yes, Hulse is a decent target man, but the tactic of having the defence thump it over the midfield towards him, with him facing his own goal, is never going to work against a well drilled, physical side like Watford. The way to use Hulse is get down the wings and cross it into positions that he can attack the ball. Of course, one of the reasons we play long ball football is that we don't have a really creative, goalscoring central midfielder. We had one last season, but hardly ever played him. He was on the winning side today.
- Leaving Healy out of the first XI. Healy is a proven finisher, an international goalscorer. Why he doesn't start is beyond me.
The bottom line to me is that Blackwell has brought the club as far as he can. Yes, he's proud to be the Leeds boss and says all the right things. I do believe his heart's in the right place. But he was outwitted today at every level by a much younger manager at a smaller club. Boothroyd's made a promotion-winning squad out of Blackwell's castoffs, has got them (apparently) fitter, and has them better drilled at set-pieces (supposedly Blackwell's forte). Blackwell got the tactics and, arguably, the team selection completely wrong in the biggest game in the club's recent history. Unless we look like we're doing a Reading next season (highly unlikely) I suspect he'll be gone by Christmas.
Of course, as I have said before, no-one with a sense of history would have expected us to win today. I started supporting the club in 1973 at age six. I'm now 39, and we haven't won a single knock-out competition in the meantime. At the beginning of the game, as the cameras panned the massive Leeds support, all the flags and banners reminded me of nothing more than Parc des Princes, 1975. The difference was that we deserved to win that game.
Cheers!
Sean Naylor (looking forward to August, to see which international players will be kept out of next season's first XI by Blackie's favourites)
|
