Here we go again.

Leeds United news here, transfer rumours, club affairs, players, fans, etc.
Specific match discussions should go in the category below.
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Aces
Don Revie's bingo caller
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Joined: 04 Jun 2013, 19:10

Re: Here we go again.

Post by Aces »

The problem we have got, are our youngsters good enough to improve in the next year or two to, firstly get us out of this league? And secondly are they then going to be good enough to keep us up along with some shrewd buys and loanees from other premiership clubs.

I personally don't see it myself, so the only other route is investment, both in new players and paying more wages for quality premiership loan players, like Macheda and Lingaard, or getting a good proven quality signing like Vaughn, we should be these players first choice in where they want to go, not Doncaster, Birmingham or Huddersfield.

But if there's no investment and yes I agree our new owners will benefit in us getting in to the premiership, but no real investment, will see us staying where we are, mid table in the Championship.
We are Leeds, we have to believe our new players are good enough, encourage and support them and help them grow in to a team to be reckoned with. MoT
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johnh
Bielsa's English Teacher
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Joined: 24 Jan 2012, 15:26

Re: Here we go again.

Post by johnh »

Like many businesses GFH are not having the easiest time at the moment. We know that there are limited (or zero) funds available for transfers in. It would also appear that funds are limited for loan player wages, which may explain why some quality loan players have gone elsewhere. The problem is that businesses like GFH don't come good overnight and it could take several years before investment in a football club is prioritised. In the meantime, our one saving grace is that we have a good, sensible manager who can be relied on to make the best of the situation. He is not infallible, the acquisition of Hunt is an example, but he will make far more good decisions than bad.
It may be that GFH sell further shares in LU and/or bring in someone with funds to invest in the playing side, but if this doesn't happen then I think we are, at least, two or three years away from Premiership football. Lets hope that, as with the Revie days, some good young players come through the system.
I once played against Don Revie.
Deleted User 728

Re: Here we go again.

Post by Deleted User 728 »

I've been fairly quiet on this, and most other subjects too, of late ... just fed up with it all, really ...

I have to agree though: there's no point going mental, demanding instant promotion from BMac. He's a decent manager, with a proven track record of getting out of this division on tight(ish) budgets - remember Madjeski would rather spend money on his edifice (the stadium) than the team and ultimately sold up anyway. McDermott has always squeezed the best out of the resources available to him, even if it's sometimes taken him a while to get things in place. As someone else mentioned, the first year Reading went up to the EPL they were languishing around the foot of the table at Xmas, yet they stormed to promotion in five shorts months after it.
I honestly can't see us doing that with this squad, but we're on the right lines just having him at the club.
I believe he's the right man at the right time and it's the first time I've been able to say that since ... O'Leary.
(let's just hope that long-term it works out better than it did with him, eh ?)
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dangermouse
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Joined: 21 Jul 2010, 15:38

Re: Here we go again.

Post by dangermouse »

I don't want to go into the specifics of Saturdays performance, that has already been covered by others. At 5pm on Saturday I can't say I felt angry or shocked like I would have in the past, just a sense of resignation. I suppose years of this type of thing has now desensitised me at this stage. At the beginning of the season I didn't see us rising above mid table and that is where we are right now.
Firstly I don't blame Brian McDermott for where we are. He inherited the majority of this squad and hasn't really been given the resources to stamp his mark on this team. On saying that I have been underwhelmed by the players he has brought in so far, perhaps Wootton aside. To be fair its possible his signings were not his first choice targets, but you live and die by those decisions as Warnock and Grayson found out. The last two managers were popular to begin with, and both had promotions with other clubs under their belts before they came to Leeds. Warnock inparticular now is seen in a very negative light compared to 12 months ago, but he too was not able to get his top targets in and had to make do with lesser players, who we are stuck with now. McDermott has been clever enough to see this, and he is reluctant to bring in anymore players he isn't convinced will make a difference, as they could end up a mill stone around his neck. The problem with that is, and the problem the previous managers had is that we never seem to be able to get the players in with the recognised quality to make the difference, and that for me is where the owners need to step up to the plate.
People talk about giving McDermott 2 or 3 seasons to build a side. Then we will get back to the Premiership. I have to say that I find this a little naive. Firstly I think up until Saturday Nigel Clough was the longest serving manager in the division at under 3 years. I'd say the average term of a manager is under 2 years. Being realistic it is unlikely Brian McDermott will be at Leeds in 3 years he will likely been sacked, or indeed moved on to a better job. Secondly, people assume that when we find a good player for a position, that's part of the puzzle sorted and that player will be here 2 or 3 years waiting patiently until we stumble across the right men to fill the rest of the team sheet. If a good player does not see a club matching his ambitions he will not sign a contract and leave, or indeed the club may sell him.
Finally no matter how good a team we are able to nurture over 2 or 3 years, whether it gets us promoted or not ultimately depends on the strength of the opposition. In a few years there could be up to 9 teams in the division who may be benefiting from Sky TV parachute payments in the multi millions. There will also be clubs like Forest, Cardiff, Leicester with rich foreign owners. Competition is going to get more fierce than ever and it will be harder to get promoted than ever. Football has changed, like it or not, and I don't. We don't have the luxury of time to nurture a team over 2 or 3 years. The Premiership is moving further and further away from us with each passing year. We need to invest and build a team for now, or else accept that we are, what recent years have shown us - A mid table Championship club.
Deleted User 2

Re: Here we go again.

Post by Deleted User 2 »

dangermouse wrote:In a few years there could be up to 9 teams in the division who may be benefiting from Sky TV parachute payments in the multi millions. There will also be clubs like Forest, Cardiff, Leicester with rich foreign owners. Competition is going to get more fierce than ever and it will be harder to get promoted than ever. Football has changed, like it or not, and I don't. We don't have the luxury of time to nurture a team over 2 or 3 years. The Premiership is moving further and further away from us with each passing year. We need to invest and build a team for now, or else accept that we are, what recent years have shown us - A mid table Championship club.
Minor point to make on this is that it's an argument made so lightly and taken at face value too much. Technically speaking (and without counting which of the teams relegated 3 years ago have gone back up already), there should be 9 teams with the parachute payments already in this division, almost every single season. Yet in practice we see every year how some of them fall off the promotion pack quite easily, and Wolves' case of relegation even lower isn't even unique (though I think they're the first to drop in the first year back in the Championship).

I'm not arguing how big a financial commitment a team must make for promotion, as that is another discussion and I don't disagree with the principle of it. However, the scarecrow argument of the wealthy relegated teams that need to be matched has long stopped to be absolutely true, and there definitely is a case to be made for building steadily - we had the foundations for that straight after promotion from League One, but team building went in the opposite direction. It wasn't a squad built on loads of money, and it wouldn't have needed loads of money more to make it highly competitive at this level.
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dangermouse
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Re: Here we go again.

Post by dangermouse »

I understand what you mean Bogdan. My point is that there could be up to 9 teams with parachute payments we will be competing against. Ofcourse, as you point out, it is likely some of these sides will be in such a mess that these payments may not be enough, like Wolves. The other side of that is that parachute payments have increased dramatically from this year so they are likely to have an even greater effect on widening the gap between the "haves" and the "have nots" over the next few years. I thought the way QPR ended up at the end of last season with the players they signed and wages they paid that they risked financial meltdown, but look at them now.
What we risk seeing is maybe half a dozen "yo-yo" teams developing that move between the PL and Championship every few years. Not good enough to stay in the PL for any sustained length of time, but always able to ensure that their TV millions keep them ahead of the rest of the Championship clubs. It doesn't seem fair, but we all know football is all about money nowadays.
What it boils down to as far as I can see from a Leeds perspective is that it is going to become harder with every passing year to get promotion. We have went backwards in League position every year since we got back from League 1 and this season so far looks like there will no significant, if any improvement on that. I wouldn't have expected us to be automatic promotion candidates this year, but I would have at least expected us to have built a squad over the summer to be among the top 6 or so clubs in the league and give us a chance of the playoffs. I would have thought that would have been a minimum requirement of a club which claims it wants to get back to the PL in the next few years.
The bar is being raised every year to reach the Premier League. We are moving very slowly or maybe standing still while the rest of the pack race ahead. In a few years TV finances may mean we may never again stand a realistic chance of getting back, so that is why I feel we need to show some more urgency in developing and investing in the squad.
Deleted User 2

Re: Here we go again.

Post by Deleted User 2 »

Well, I can't argue with most of that, although I do think the widening gap is positioned more towards the middle of the Premier League than in the PL relegation/Cship promotion. It doesn't look incredibly difficult to get to the PL (I know it's ironic stating that while we scratch our heads trying to figure out how we end a ten year period out of it - but we pretty much shot ourselves in the foot for the first 6-7 of those), some sensible business and you can do it off the back of a League One promotion the year previous. It's increasingly easy to stay in the PL too, for at least a season, because there seems to be a mass of a good 6-7 teams lingering below mid-table never really making strides forward. It's just that strange a division, the Championship, that hard graft compensates for so much, and again, I'm not making a case for counting on "winging it" for promotion, just that you can genuinely bounce from one season to another into promotion without having necessarily firmly been into it for the season before for example.
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dangermouse
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Re: Here we go again.

Post by dangermouse »

I know what you mean about a team coming from nowhere in the Championship from one season to the next. I'm still scratching my head wondering if Crystal Palace are really in the PL, and Watford came close too. I think, however with the money filtering down now to the relegated PL teams we are not going to see as much of this type of thing. With wads of cash winning out over well run clubs with good managers and players using their skills. Most of the clubs with money, QPR, Reading, Forest, Lecester are up there already with Watford who have their Serie A loan system.
isrodger
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Re: Here we go again.

Post by isrodger »

dangermouse wrote:I don't want to go into the specifics of Saturdays performance, that has already been covered by others. At 5pm on Saturday I can't say I felt angry or shocked like I would have in the past, just a sense of resignation. I suppose years of this type of thing has now desensitised me at this stage. At the beginning of the season I didn't see us rising above mid table and that is where we are right now.
Firstly I don't blame Brian McDermott for where we are. He inherited the majority of this squad and hasn't really been given the resources to stamp his mark on this team. On saying that I have been underwhelmed by the players he has brought in so far, perhaps Wootton aside. To be fair its possible his signings were not his first choice targets, but you live and die by those decisions as Warnock and Grayson found out. The last two managers were popular to begin with, and both had promotions with other clubs under their belts before they came to Leeds. Warnock inparticular now is seen in a very negative light compared to 12 months ago, but he too was not able to get his top targets in and had to make do with lesser players, who we are stuck with now. McDermott has been clever enough to see this, and he is reluctant to bring in anymore players he isn't convinced will make a difference, as they could end up a mill stone around his neck. The problem with that is, and the problem the previous managers had is that we never seem to be able to get the players in with the recognised quality to make the difference, and that for me is where the owners need to step up to the plate.
People talk about giving McDermott 2 or 3 seasons to build a side. Then we will get back to the Premiership. I have to say that I find this a little naive. Firstly I think up until Saturday Nigel Clough was the longest serving manager in the division at under 3 years. I'd say the average term of a manager is under 2 years. Being realistic it is unlikely Brian McDermott will be at Leeds in 3 years he will likely been sacked, or indeed moved on to a better job. Secondly, people assume that when we find a good player for a position, that's part of the puzzle sorted and that player will be here 2 or 3 years waiting patiently until we stumble across the right men to fill the rest of the team sheet. If a good player does not see a club matching his ambitions he will not sign a contract and leave, or indeed the club may sell him.
Finally no matter how good a team we are able to nurture over 2 or 3 years, whether it gets us promoted or not ultimately depends on the strength of the opposition. In a few years there could be up to 9 teams in the division who may be benefiting from Sky TV parachute payments in the multi millions. There will also be clubs like Forest, Cardiff, Leicester with rich foreign owners. Competition is going to get more fierce than ever and it will be harder to get promoted than ever. Football has changed, like it or not, and I don't. We don't have the luxury of time to nurture a team over 2 or 3 years. The Premiership is moving further and further away from us with each passing year. We need to invest and build a team for now, or else accept that we are, what recent years have shown us - A mid table Championship club.
:thumbup: Absolutely spot on - theoretically there could be twelve sides with Parachute payments as they extend for four years now I believe.
Secondly I am not sure you can build long term - if Byram continues to progress he is more than likely to leave in the summer. If Mowatt progresses we will start getting offers for him. From their agents perspective - its what will you let him go for? Well we value him @ £6m but we would like him to stay - Well he wants £35k per week then (as that's what £6m footballers get paid) etc etc.

We have to break the cycle & unless we are lucky, granted like palace, blackpool etc then our owners need to follow the Hull, Cardiff, Leicester Model. The plus for them is there is a greater upside with us than the others given the clubs potential to attract additional support & commercial revenue.
Deleted User 2299

Re: Here we go again.

Post by Deleted User 2299 »

Firstly, i would like to say at no point did i ask for GFH to buy Leeds Utd. It was their choice and a choice they made knowing full well what Leeds Utd is about, our history and the present state under KB. Like anyone who buys Leeds i will view them with an open mind and judge them by their actions and not by their words. For me personally, i don't mind paying £20 or £50 to watch Leeds play, even if it meant i couldn't afford to go, i still want Leeds Utd to be in the premier league. Thats where i firmly believe we should be.
GFH repeatedly ask us to support our manager and team and in fairness the fan's have done just that, home and away. What i find hard to swallow is why they are not doing the same. I didn't ask them to buy Leeds, don't buy my club with no money or precious little, then ask me to understand your company is going through hard times; whilst all your high earning directors and investors are creaming off Leeds.
I totally agree no clubs who heavily fund their team are guaranteed of promotion partly because so many teams now have big funding and only a limited amount can go up. Unless you're one of those clubs you can pretty much write off your chances - period. I believe there is becoming a divide in this league similar to the Premier league, teams who invest heavily and have high wage budget and the ones who invest next to nothing with low wages. Time and time again we see good players going to smaller clubs due to wages.
I'm not saying GFH are awful owners if we want to sit around this league waiting for someone to buy us out and show them healthy books but if we want to get out this league they are awful in my view. We need owners who are willing to gamble their money and invest in Leeds with the view of the jackpot the Premier holds, not owners happy to cream off us hoping we go up or that some buyers comes along.
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