Likes of Lafferty not the answer to Leeds United's problems - Whelan

Saturday's loss against Nottingham Forest was a disappointment.
Mustapha Carayol. PIC: Bruce RollinsonMustapha Carayol. PIC: Bruce Rollinson
Mustapha Carayol. PIC: Bruce Rollinson

You looked at the Bolton game and you were hoping for a little bit more of the same.

We knew how Nottingham Forest would play. They came and put every man behind the ball. In doing that, you have to find a way to break them down.

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Leeds did not have any answers. It was a lackluster performance, with too many side-to-side passes and the ball going backwards.

I understand what Steve (Evans) is saying. Possession is great, but possession means nothing to me unless you are hurting a team in opposition. You can have all of the territory in the world and possession in the world, but if you are not hurting them in any way and scoring goals, you are not going to win games.

Once again it came down to a simple mistake.

Souleymane Doukara should have got himself back a little bit quicker to defend the ball. He let the right-back, Eric Lichaj, run all of the way, 20 yards past him, and then he reacted.

That was phase one. Phase two, the ball coming in, could it have been stopped? Possibly.

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Phase three, they just were not marking the man. They were ball watching. The discipline inside the box has to be there.

The crosser is not going to score the goal, it’s the man in the box, it’s the strikers, it’s the midfield players.

Unfortunately we switched off again. We got punished. We keep talking about it but they don’t seem to learn.

The Whites have struggled to break teams down at home all season – under both Uwe Rosler and Evans.

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I don’t see the point in playing two defensive midfield players when you have a team that comes to be negative. You need to be positive.

I think Liam Bridcutt was great on Saturday, but you can afford to put another exciting player out there. Put Mustapha Carayol out there. He can unlock defences, he can take people on, he can put crosses in, he can make a difference. We have seen that.

To play the way they did, without answers or any clue in the final third, that worries me.

I think we need somebody that has that little bit of magic, that little bit of inspiration. Someone who can pull something out of nothing.

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It was very easy for Forest. There was no movement from the strikers. At one point we had three strikers on – they were all just standing in a row. That’s criminal. That’s easy to mark. Defenders would be over the moon at that.

We need somebody that is going to be a little bit clever, running off the back of a defender or dropping into a hole where they can receive the ball. We should have been hitting the touchline and stretching the opposition, so we can find those gaps to slide the ball in, but it was all too easy.

Leeds’s transfer business was slow, but January is a difficult window to get who you want.

A lot of the players that you want in are either fighting for promotion with clubs or fighting against relegation. Clubs will want to hold on to them. I don’t want to waste money on a player that is just okay when you can save that money for the summer and get someone who is fantastic.

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The emergency loan window opens on Tuesday – are we going to get the quality we need in the loan window?

Probably not.

Kyle Lafferty, for me, is not going to be the solution to our striking problems.

The solution is a seven or eight million pound player.

Mirco Antenucci’s contract has been back in the media this week.

If the club wanted to keep him, they would have done it by now. It sounds to me as though the player wants to go home or has another option in mind.

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He has been there for a couple of years now. We have seen what he can do. It’s up to whether the club feels he is worth another contract at his age. We do know Massimo Cellino does not like to hand out contracts to players when they get to that age.

Based on Saturday, we do need something up front. We need something in midfield.

There was nothing there for me. There was no threat. The passing was sloppy. When we are not creating chances at home, there is a serious problem there.