maggy wrote:
I was at Elland Road in early October and my husband said to me (we were sat right behind the corner flag), `that James his feet move faster than his brain.
Well that is an interesting and disagrees with lots of fans.
Our only home match in early October was Watford and James was our 3rd best player in the POM vote on this forum. He got 13 votes (Shackleton 15 & Llorente 14 the two above him).
Also scored high on the BBC website.
Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you.
maggy wrote:I have nothing against Dan James and i dont believe in singling out a specific player but he IS the problem.
Welcome Maggy - nice to have you on the forum. But to respectfully disagree, the problems we're facing go a lot deeper than playing Dan James as a false 9.
'When he plays on snow, he doesn't leave any footprints’
If I'm being honest, I can sort of see the point Maggy is making, even if it was a bit harsh and excessively put. We've seen plenty of pace, graft and endeavour from Dan James but precious little quality. I have wondered myself a few times about his technical ability and his footballing brain with movement, decision making etc and so far those things haven't been up to much. I wouldn't say 'he is the problem' specifically but he hasn't been particularly good in my opinion.
Heads up - im not going to say anything new here.
I agree that DJ has no end product, didn't have it at scums and he's making wrong decisions time after time, however it is still early to deem him useless, no to mention blame our situation on him.
He plays in a team which is collectively in a bad form, and often out of position - he's not a forward whatever you'd say. Besides on average I'd argue that firpo is much worse than james. you probably have something against DJ since he came from Scums for 30mil rather than barca for 15 mil.
Im tired of writing that, but time is important. I agree that he needs to improve massively so let me bring up several points:
* everyone knows what point "Bamford" bring up, so im not going to dwell on that one.
* Same goes for cooper who brought us to 9th place in PL as captain (elected by his teammates).
* Im criticizing TR endlessly, yet he gave 2 of his better games lately and as oppose to last season where he was the absolute worse player on the pitch, this season he is not
Last edited by Aqua- on 16 Dec 2021, 20:17, edited 1 time in total.
The tone of this original post is way off what we normally see on this forum and I'm commenting on it because it doesn't seem to be isolated. The last couple of match threads have had some new members or otherwise "stalker-mode" members (people who read but don't post much) coming out of the woodwork and expressing views that are more extreme, more directly/bluntly phrased and more directly bashing players than we normally see on this forum.
I consider this to be a relatively safe space to talk about the team we all love and, as a relative newcomer myself, I would personally hate to see our standards slip.
Also respectfully disagree that Dan James is even a significant share of the problem at the moment and it's really unfair to call him out. He's being asked to do things he's not trained or practiced for to anywhere near the level required in the Premiership. Asking Dan James to play false 9 is the footballing equivalent of asking a vet to perform a lung transplant on person.
CheeznOnionPasty wrote:The tone of this original post is way off what we normally see on this forum and I'm commenting on it because it doesn't seem to be isolated. The last couple of match threads have had some new members or otherwise "stalker-mode" members (people who read but don't post much) coming out of the woodwork and expressing views that are more extreme, more directly/bluntly phrased and more directly bashing players than we normally see on this forum.
I consider this to be a relatively safe space to talk about the team we all love and, as a relative newcomer myself, I would personally hate to see our standards slip.
Also respectfully disagree that Dan James is even a significant share of the problem at the moment and it's really unfair to call him out. He's being asked to do things he's not trained or practiced for to anywhere near the level required in the Premiership. Asking Dan James to play false 9 is the footballing equivalent of asking a vet to perform a lung transplant on person.
I am not saying James doesn't have flaws in his game, but In any team game, in an employment team, you strive to bring the weak link up to standard by coaching,training, support. You do not make personal attacks as in "He doesn't have a brain'.
Constructive criticism we get it on here, Roberts for example recently, but that's as far as it should go, and nothing personal.
We are all concerned about our current situation, at this time we should be giving all the players support to be the best they can be.
I can see some merit in the statement question - But certainly DJ alone is not the problem
Take the City game this week - 3/4/5 times during the match we had a good break, got the ball in the box, yet the final pass/cross that should be asking all the questions and/or creating the goal scoring chance was poor/non existent - In short our final pass never once asked any question of their defence and/or keeper - You could argue part of the issue was no striker there, in the case of Bamford - But 2nd half Joe G was there, but he was never presented with an appropriate chance
This final pass has been an issue most of the year - 20 yard shots that go in, look great - AA's goal last night for Liverpool was a corker - But equally I always think they are opportunist scenario's - Most are saved/go wide/go over - But when they go in we all cheer - But we need to create more clear cut chances - If the keeper saves them then fine as he is doing is job - Recently TR and Joe G's goals were what we need more off, but to date (this season) such chances are not happening often enough
Playing players out of position is not ideal - TR and DJ out of position to often - Injuries have not helped
I think we need Rodrigo firing more often - Yet on a few occasions this year he has not played - Him and Raphinha need to be allowed to develop a relationship - On paper they are our 2 most 'exciting' players
As an overview we are not clicking as a team, for whatever reason - Part of this may well be that very really have we had a settled, full options available, team
In some ways the signing of Dan James reminds of when we bought Peter Barnes back in the early '80s - another winger we didn't need, who we then promptly stuck up front for some reason.
Barnes then floundered around, we fell apart and went down that season...
