Leeds looking forward to cup reunion with Burnley’s Chris Wood
With Romelu Lukaku scoring against Everton and Wayne Rooney receiving a generous ovation from fans of Manchester United, this week has already seen two top-flight strikers make notable returns to their former clubs and it promises to bring a third, as Burnley’s Chris Wood prepares to face Leeds United, the club he left 29 days ago, in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday night.
It is a little over three months since Wood was named Leeds’s player of the year. In all he scored 30 goals last season, earning a reputation as one of the most feared forwards outside the Premier League and a summer move for a fee of around £15m.
By then he had played a minor part in the Yorkshire side’s success this season as well, appearing in their first three league matches and contributing a goal and an assist in the 3-2 win over Bolton Wanderers on the opening day. Leeds went on to maintain their unbeaten start until Saturday, when they lost 1-0 at Millwall, but remain top of the Championship, if only on goal difference.
Thomas Christiansen, the Leeds manager, said “perhaps there will be some changes” to his side for the cup tie and the same is surely true of Burnley. Sean Dyche made eight when they beat Blackburn Rovers 2-0 in the second round, when Wood came on as a substitute in the first half. “If he plays and I see him I will say hello to him, like other players,” said Christiansen of the striker. “He’s started well in his team. If he plays we know which type of player he is, and he knows our team.”
Whether Wood is picked or not there is a strong chance of Leeds fans recognising some of their opponents. Another member of the team who narrowly missed out on the play-offs last season, the left-back Charlie Taylor, moved to Turf Moor on a free transfer in the summer, while the striker Sam Vokes played eight league games for the club in 2009 during a period on loan from Wolverhampton Wanderers.
“That’s football, players come and go,” said the Leeds winger Stuart Dallas when asked about the potential reunions. “It will be good to come up against them and I’m sure that will give us extra motivation, as it will do for them as well. I’m sure they’ll be looking to get one over on us. But we’ve got to show them that, though they’ve gone to the Premier League, maybe they’ve made the wrong choice.”
Leeds’s success this season is particularly impressive given how heavily they relied on their departed striker in the last campaign. Wood’s 27 league goals constituted 44.26% of Leeds’s total, considerably more than any other player in the division. His goals won a total of 23 points, again by some margin the most in the league.
Christiansen has criticised the tactics employed by Garry Monk last season for being unhealthily over-reliant on their New Zealand forward. Notably while last season only eight Leeds players scored more than once in the league, just eight games into this campaign five have already achieved that feat.
Jürgen Klopp says ‘fortune was not wearing Liverpool shirt’ in Burnley draw
Read more“We were disappointed he left but there’s more to life than Chris Wood,” Dallas said. “I don’t mean that in a bad way but the players we’ve brought in are more than capable of doing what he did last year. Everybody’s looking in the right direction. When he left, that was it. When you leave, you’re nothing to us.Woody was a big player for us last year but with him going new lads have come in. this year we’re getting goals from all over the place. Last season we depended a lot on Woody and he carried us a bit in games. This season everybody’s chipping in and that can only be a good thing.”
In analysing Manchester United’s 4-0 win over Everton on Sunday, in which Rooney and Lukaku featured, Danny Murphy spoke about the difficulty of facing former sides, asserting that “to go back to your old club is very tough, mentally”. It is a challenge that Wood must be getting used to.
At 25 he already has nine former employers, five of whom were in the Championship last season. He has, for example, a goal and an assist in three games against Ipswich since his loan spell there in 2015; four goals in seven games against Birmingham City since he played there in the 2011-12 season, and five in as many games against Bristol City since his time there ended in May 2012. Nor is facing Leeds going to be a novelty: he has already played against them six times, for five different clubs, scoring once, though never before with close friends and former team-mates in their ranks.
“I don’t need to explain how good Woody is, he showed that last year,” Dallas said. “First and foremost he’s a good lad. He was good to have about the place and he’s still a good friend but when we step over the line, whether he’s playing or not, we’re enemies for a night.”
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/sep/19/leeds-burnley-chris-wood
It is a little over three months since Wood was named Leeds’s player of the year. In all he scored 30 goals last season, earning a reputation as one of the most feared forwards outside the Premier League and a summer move for a fee of around £15m.
By then he had played a minor part in the Yorkshire side’s success this season as well, appearing in their first three league matches and contributing a goal and an assist in the 3-2 win over Bolton Wanderers on the opening day. Leeds went on to maintain their unbeaten start until Saturday, when they lost 1-0 at Millwall, but remain top of the Championship, if only on goal difference.
Thomas Christiansen, the Leeds manager, said “perhaps there will be some changes” to his side for the cup tie and the same is surely true of Burnley. Sean Dyche made eight when they beat Blackburn Rovers 2-0 in the second round, when Wood came on as a substitute in the first half. “If he plays and I see him I will say hello to him, like other players,” said Christiansen of the striker. “He’s started well in his team. If he plays we know which type of player he is, and he knows our team.”
Whether Wood is picked or not there is a strong chance of Leeds fans recognising some of their opponents. Another member of the team who narrowly missed out on the play-offs last season, the left-back Charlie Taylor, moved to Turf Moor on a free transfer in the summer, while the striker Sam Vokes played eight league games for the club in 2009 during a period on loan from Wolverhampton Wanderers.
“That’s football, players come and go,” said the Leeds winger Stuart Dallas when asked about the potential reunions. “It will be good to come up against them and I’m sure that will give us extra motivation, as it will do for them as well. I’m sure they’ll be looking to get one over on us. But we’ve got to show them that, though they’ve gone to the Premier League, maybe they’ve made the wrong choice.”
Leeds’s success this season is particularly impressive given how heavily they relied on their departed striker in the last campaign. Wood’s 27 league goals constituted 44.26% of Leeds’s total, considerably more than any other player in the division. His goals won a total of 23 points, again by some margin the most in the league.
Christiansen has criticised the tactics employed by Garry Monk last season for being unhealthily over-reliant on their New Zealand forward. Notably while last season only eight Leeds players scored more than once in the league, just eight games into this campaign five have already achieved that feat.
Jürgen Klopp says ‘fortune was not wearing Liverpool shirt’ in Burnley draw
Read more“We were disappointed he left but there’s more to life than Chris Wood,” Dallas said. “I don’t mean that in a bad way but the players we’ve brought in are more than capable of doing what he did last year. Everybody’s looking in the right direction. When he left, that was it. When you leave, you’re nothing to us.Woody was a big player for us last year but with him going new lads have come in. this year we’re getting goals from all over the place. Last season we depended a lot on Woody and he carried us a bit in games. This season everybody’s chipping in and that can only be a good thing.”
In analysing Manchester United’s 4-0 win over Everton on Sunday, in which Rooney and Lukaku featured, Danny Murphy spoke about the difficulty of facing former sides, asserting that “to go back to your old club is very tough, mentally”. It is a challenge that Wood must be getting used to.
At 25 he already has nine former employers, five of whom were in the Championship last season. He has, for example, a goal and an assist in three games against Ipswich since his loan spell there in 2015; four goals in seven games against Birmingham City since he played there in the 2011-12 season, and five in as many games against Bristol City since his time there ended in May 2012. Nor is facing Leeds going to be a novelty: he has already played against them six times, for five different clubs, scoring once, though never before with close friends and former team-mates in their ranks.
“I don’t need to explain how good Woody is, he showed that last year,” Dallas said. “First and foremost he’s a good lad. He was good to have about the place and he’s still a good friend but when we step over the line, whether he’s playing or not, we’re enemies for a night.”
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/sep/19/leeds-burnley-chris-wood