@dark knight Chasing Leeds again: Brenden Aaronson - pbp thread Aaoronson is on the bench today, Leeds 2-2 Portsmouth, early second half. Edit: Still 2-2 at 70', yet no subs from Farke in a 'must-win' home match. Edit2: Farke heard me - Aaronson + 2 on at 72'.
And disaster has struck: Leeds 2-3 Portsmouth on a stoppage time PK. Woe betide the player who conceded the penalty. But wait! G O O O A A A L - Brenden Aaronson is on target! 90+5'
Aaronson equalizer! Great footwork to open up an inch of space, hit low and through traffic, sneaks past the outstretched arm of the keeper.
Aaronson equalizer in the 96th minute in stoppage time. He tucked the shot right under the GKs arms. Not / bad way to start ooff. Yikes…. Just as I say that….. off…. And big shank from hiim for a potential winner.
Farke should start (after they buy Sarge from Norwich ) -------------sarge ---joseph-rutter-brenden He could also try : -------------jos-----sarge -----------------rutter ----brenden-ampudu-gruev He might find it helps to have 3 mids get the ball to Rutter higher. Rutter was 13/20 passing(65%) on 54 touches. He was fouled 6 times. Funny we didn't hear more from people about how he should go to the gym and bulk up, take a step down to league 1, etc. That's all I heard when Brenden was getting mauled playing up the middle. Rutter didn't help much when picking up the ball wide in midfield. Also the defense was sparse around the top of Leeds' box which Aaronson could help with. Aaronson was 96th percentile in Bundesliga in blocks The right back looked sketchy but it was his first game so........plus they might play Wober there?
Not sure what went wrong on the missed shot for Brenden. I suspect it was the plant foot but I'm not sure.
He hit it with the inside of his foot, instead of on top, or w/ his follow thru inside-out. Either that's a technical issue or he froze up in the moment. Probably the latter, given his history. Being more a killer in front of net will be his next step. He's already added more of a physical component. If it all comes together, there's still a difference maker in there in the EPL/UCL.
He turns 24 in October and has over 14,000 pro minutes plus 42 national team caps. He's had a ton of pro experience, so if he hasn't already, there's not much chance (if any) that he puts it all together in the future. This isn't a raw college grad entering his second pro season; he made his professional debut more than 7 years ago now. Plus, how many players go from Championship at 24 to Champions League difference maker?
To put things in perspective, Brenden also has 42 NT caps at age 23, which is very, very high. Dest, who's like two weeks younger, only has 33 caps. Weah, 10 months older, has 41 caps.
The minutes & caps are good things. 23 is still pretty young. At 20-21 he was already good enough in UCL & overall to net $35m. Then he was top 10 in chances created in the EPL the first few months. The last couple months at Union he was arguably their best player. He's already made a difference, outside a 1 yr funk. It's a matter of continuing to get back to the player he was & then adding physical & mental maturation. He appears to have added the former. We'll see on the latter. But Pulisic had his ups & downs, then just had by far his most productive season in his mid 20's. If Brenden does a watered down version even, we're in biz.
He just missed it. If you think of a clock face, and he’s facing 12 o’clock, he shot it at 10:30 instead of 11:00. A bad miss, I’d guess an XG of .5 or so.
Watched that Leeds Portsmouth game. Would've been a great game in the Prem 20 or so years ago. Can't believe Aaronsen missed the last chance to win the game, much easier than the 1 he scored from moments before.
According to all of the sites I've seen, the miss had an xG of 0.45 while the chance he scored on had an xG of 0.07. Meaning he outperformed his xG by nearly half a goal on the day.
Aaronson starts, though perhaps more as punishment than reward. Leeds hosting Middlesbrough in the EFL Cup.
Aidan Morris starting for Middlesbrough as well. Presumably Aaronson on a wing, Morris in a double pivot from the personnel.
Aaronson playing on the left. Very active early with Firpo at left back. Aaronson got an early shot blocked that deflected right to Firpo for a good chance, and subsequently, Brenden and Firpo combined nicely in tight space in the attacking box that built up to another chance.
Aaronson had a ridiculously good feed to Firpo - vision and touch on a square ball - that I didn't recognize as being as good as it was the first time around. But it didn't result in a goal.
Not a bad shot by Morris between two sets of legs but saved as deflection not big enough. Good idea, tho