Largie Ramazani's Leeds minutes explained

Graham and Joe discuss the reason for Largie Ramazani's limited Leeds United minutes lately

Transcript

00:00Let's go back to the West Brom game, or rather the post-match press conference.

00:09There was a discussion online afterwards about why Laji Ramazani has been, or rather why

00:15his minutes have been limited.

00:16Now, there's an obvious explanation to that, and that's that Manon Solomon has been in

00:20excellent form and it's very difficult to bring a player who is in a really good rhythm

00:24out of the side.

00:25But Farka went a little bit further in answering a question on that, didn't he?

00:30Yeah, he basically explained his entire thinking about substitutes and why he only brought

00:33two in.

00:35He started in the midfield and said, I already have my two most offensive central midfielders

00:41in and Rothwell has got set-piece ability and Tanaka has got quality from distance,

00:46so you don't want to take them out.

00:48He didn't want to replace Dan James because Dan James, at the minute, is absolutely Dan

00:54James-ing the championship and he has got a lot of goals and assists and if something

01:00good is going to happen, he's probably going to be involved in it and he'd already set

01:04up the goal.

01:05He didn't have his best game in terms of end product, but he set up the goal.

01:08Solomon, as you said, he's been tremendous, but when he did start to flag, he came off

01:12and he put Nyonto on and you could see why, because Nyonto had a little bit of momentum.

01:17He'd come on against Sheffield United and not given them a second, he was straight at

01:21them.

01:22He came close to a goal, didn't he?

01:23It was from his shot that Cooper so brilliantly saved, so characteristically brilliantly saved,

01:29that Leeds then scored a goal.

01:32So he brought Nyonto in, hoping to get a little bit more of that spark from him and he didn't

01:38want to take either full-back off because he had his most offensive full-backs on the

01:41pitch.

01:42Bogle, obviously, is in this incredible partnership with James right now that you just wouldn't

01:47tinker with because they seem to have a real understanding of who will go and when and

01:51who will overlap and where and it just seems to be flowing and working.

01:56You wouldn't take Firpo off because he might head in another goal, he might set one up

02:01with a great cross across the front and you're not going to take off a central defender and

02:07put on Largi Ramazzani when it's 1-1 against a good West Brom team at Elland Road and you're

02:13top of the league and you're going to go 17 unbeaten.

02:16It wasn't a game that Leeds desperately needed to win.