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Wanted to do thread on Helder Costa as was chatting with a couple of people yesterday about the fact that he looks to be completely lacking confidence at the moment.
Feels like being dropped for Raphinha has hugely affected him and we've hardly seen him in any meaningful minutes in the first team since he came on disastrously against West Ham, giving away the free-kick for the winning goal.
He started against Crawley and was a threat, as you'd expect given the level of opponent. However, you'd really be hoping that he would be more than a threat against a League 2 team and would actually make a meaningful contribution to the result, which he didn't.
I thought I'd have a look back over the West Ham game and see if that was as bad as I remembered it. To start with, I think he was playing alright. The first thing he did is basically exactly what he needed to do. Beat the man, put a good cross in. https://twitter.com/i/status/1351559134852820995
I think if Bamford anticipated this cross better this might have been a great chance, but it was easily headed away by Ogbonna in this case. This is the problem with crossing - it relies a lot on the movement of the striker as well as the ball in itself.
As the game went on he was turning the ball over a little too easily, including being muscled out of a 1v1 by Jarrod Bowen and he got switched to the right-wing, where he had this opportunity on a counter-attack. https://twitter.com/i/status/1351559242587713536
At the time this was an incredibly frustrating moment as Leeds had numbers attacking the box. However, having watched it over and over, I feel this is great covering defending. He does very well to beat the first man but both Rice and Soucek get across to snuff out the run.
Perhaps his touch got away from him here, but both players were on him before he would have had much of a chance to do anything else with it.
This was obviously the key moment, when he gave away a needless foul for the free-kick which Ogbonna scored the winner from. Can't say much to defend this. He just needs to stop his man from turning and make him pass backwards. https://twitter.com/i/status/1351559365657063427
After that, his head seemed to be gone completely and the game ended with him doing things like this. https://twitter.com/i/status/1351559528949624832
The thing is, at the start of the season I felt he was looking very good. He obviously scored 2 excellent goals against Fulham and got a very good assist for Klich against Liverpool with an excellent pass into the box.
Aston Villa I also thought was a very good game for him. This moment here is exactly the type of thing we hoped to see more of from him in the PL, where he'd have more space to run in behind defences than he had in the Championship. https://twitter.com/i/status/1351559629894004737
As well as that moment there was also this lovely run in behind and combination with Shackleton for Bamford's hat-trick goal. Of course, Pat does a lot here, but who doesn't want to watch this again? https://twitter.com/i/status/1351559725276663809
I also have to say that I was expecting far more moments like this from him this season and I think at times we've been missing this in games where we've been pressed high. He was always very good at progressing us up the pitch by beating a man. https://twitter.com/i/status/1351560016537526274
These bits of quality seem to be absent from his game right now, which is a real shame because I believe he should be the first sub when we need a change on the wings. He's certainly more of a rounded threat than Poveda, who's a lovely ball carrier but not the same goal threat.
I hope he can somehow recover, because whilst I wouldn't question Raphinha starting over him as the Brazillian is fantastic. However, I've often wondered whether Costa could do a better job than Harrison on the left. Right now, that's definitely not the case.
Still, I think he does have better 1v1 ability and is a better finisher than Harrison. It's notable that when he has come on he's often come on at left-wing, with Poveda on the right, so maybe he will get a chance there at some stage but he'll need to find his top level again.
If he doesn't do that, it feels like he's just going to drop further down the pecking order at Leeds and may want to move. It must be difficult for him having made it into the PL twice now and not lasted in the first-team for long on either occasion. Anyway, ramble over!
