Grayson looks for players to correct mistakes and halt slide

SIMON GRAYSON has warned his players they face another hammering against Cardiff City next Monday if they turn in the same level of performance witnessed against Leicester City on Tuesday.

After conceding five at Barnsley and six at home to Preston in earlier Tuesday night fixtures, Leeds turned in another midweek horror show against Sven Goran Eriksson's attack-minded and purposeful Foxes, who were far better value than the 2-1 scoreline suggests. And with big-spending Cardiff next on the horizon, and the devastation the pace of Craig Bellamy can reap if he is fit, Grayson is demanding his players improve.

"Cardiff are a good team, one of the favourites for the division with the players they've got and have brought in," he said, in the aftermath of Tuesday's defeat, Leeds's third in four games.

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"We have to be better, regardless of who we're playing. If we play like we did on Tuesday we won't win.

"Players need to look at themselves and see how they can improve, we also do as a staff because we win and lose together, but we need to put one or two things right."

Grayson also hinted he is losing patience with the players that helped Leeds end their exile in League One who are now struggling to adapt to life in the higher division.

He resisted the urge to make wholesale changes to the squad in the summer after they limped over the League One finishing line but with the loan market now re-opened, the manager may step up his efforts to strengthen.

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"We know we need to be better, we've tried to be loyal to players and work with them to help them get better, but we're always looking for better players to improve us and take the club forward," said Grayson, whose impatience is born out of Leeds's inconsistency.

"You want players in a football club that are consistent with their performances and at the moment we're not getting that from a few of them.

"It's frustrating, we wanted to try and build on Saturday's result but it probably typifies our season so far – we're very inconsistent.

"We had energy, desire, quality, a really good attitude at the weekend.

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We didn't do any of those Tuesday, we were dictated to by Leicester from the very start. Give them credit but we didn't do the good things we're capable of.

"We had to change the system within half an hour – which is something I've not had to do very often since I've been here – just to stay in the game. We got to half-time with the score luckily still 0-0, but we still didn't have that spark second half or the quality to cause Leicester any problems.

"It's frustrating that we can't go from a good performance to the next game and produce another good performance or at least a grinding-out performance to enable us to put a run of six or seven results together

"I sound like a broken record, there's only so many things you can say and ultimately it comes back to the same things – you've got to be consistent, eradicate mistakes.

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"For all the chances Leicester created, it was two mistakes by us that allowed them to score. We have to make sure we cut those mistakes out. That though is papering over the cracks, we didn't have any energy."

Grayson's options could be bolstered in the coming weeks by the return from injury of Federico Bessone, Billy Paynter and Aidy White who all featured in a behind-closed-doors friendly at Stoke yesterday.