Luck Of The Draw

Well, well, well... Simon Grayson has barely got his feet under the table and the ghost of Lee Clark is already haunting him. A standard and efficient victory on Saturday against Exeter was a good start for the Leeds man, even if there were signs of recent problems, but then Deja Vu hits us.
It was brilliant to see Joey back in the starting line-up for the match down at the Lamex this evening, possibly that lynch-pin in the centre of the park that would offer us more stability, as oppose to Anton Robinson... The two goals came and the team seemed to b playing well, but then it happened as it has 14 times this season. That's right we've drawn 14 times this season, 13 of which have come from and the one we didn't mess up was that horrible evening at Victoria park, when my highlight of the day was eating not one but two pies.
So we did it again, and it's now becoming inevitable and to an extent mildly amusing how we always manage to shoot ourselves in the foot. There will be many of you reading this that are still incensed by what happened, but I have now become far too accustomed to this sort of result that I can type this without rage ebbing through my veins.
The management need to address this problem as soon as possible, as it's clear that Lee Clark could not find a way to fix it during his time at the club. The solution is not so easy however, as I think it is largely a mental problem that the players have. Are we a team full of losers? A team full of bottlers? Or do we simply fall into an arrogant complacency? These are issues that Simon Grayson, Glyn Snodin and 'Dusty' Miller need to sort out. My method would be to get the players in tomorrow morning and spend the entire day playing out small matches off attack and defence. It might be an idea to give the defending team a match situation to envisage, let's say perhaps that of defending a 2-0 lead, on the other side we would have our most potent attacking threats, and practice this scenario until they got it right. If they don't get it right, then Grayson and company should berate them and go ape-sh*t at them, and maybe in a match they might be able to see out a lead through fear of what may be waiting for them in the dressing room if they don't
You don't see a Manchester United team regularly doing this sort of thing, because the players know for a fact if they did that Ferguson would destroy them in the dressing room, and maybe this is what we need.
The play-offs are a certainty for us this season, as we clearly don't posses the mental strength to secure second spot, and we all know what happens in the play-offs. As Larry has said himself, we won't begin to see his influence on the team until probably the start of next season, I don't know if this is a pre-excuse, but hopefully for us he's wrong. Hopefully his influence rubs off on the team in time for the play-offs, and we can shake off the ghost of Lee Clark, the one that is prone to self-destruction and falling at the final hurdle. Hopefully, just hopefully.