Holding on to a lead

One area in which Malky's team and Dave Jones' teams seem to be similar is an inability to hold onto a lead, especially away from home.

If we score early in the game, it's almost as if all the ambition disappears from the side. Today we were on a par with Leeds until we scored and then we never looked remotely like scoring again until after they equalised.

All of a sudden we put them under a bit of pressure but if they hadn't scored when they did I am sure that we would have spent the rest of the game being battered until the inevitable happened.

I can understand that in many ways it is human nature to think that "we'll hold what we have" but with a 5 man midfield it was disappointing to find ourselves pushed back so far and showing an apparent unwillingness to do anything other than defend when we were a goal up.

leeds are a good side a point is excelent at ellend rd.

Totally agree, I was talking to my dad after the game and we discussed the number of times we have dropped points from a leading position already this season. The fact we had 5 in midfield and still got battered wasn't good enough. I thought it was a mistake taking Conway off as he was our only outlet running with the ball to take the pressure off. A very disappointing performance and definitely a point gained.

Totally agree with you. I can think of at least 5 games this season where we've lead and not gone on to win those games, it,s cost us at least 10 points. We all said last season the defence would cost us promotion and it did. This season, same old problem-centre of defence. What ever combination we use it will not make any difference, the players we have got for that position are simply not good enough for this division.Just like Arsenal,they can't win anything because they're soft at the back!

Totally agree we just cammot close a game out. After goimg on up we always see, to say "thats it" we'll defend qwhat we got but or defenders, and to be honest they all played well today just cannot keep a clean sheet when it matters.

This with a lightweight attack makes it very difficult to go on andwin games away from home. Rant over a great point away to a team who is in good form.

I would agree under DJ.

Think we look a lot more solid under MM.
Burnley last week we closed the game out perfectly.