In the Press

Leeds United news here, transfer rumours, club affairs, players, fans, etc.
Specific match discussions should go in the category below.
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Re: In the Press

Post by kk white »

Davycc wrote:Sorry I'm a bit dim so am lost here !
If I'm reading it correctly Davy, I think it breaks down like this:
#: 1
Team: Manchester United
sum: 148,839
Matches: 2
average: 74.420
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Re: In the Press

Post by Davycc »

kk_white wrote:
Davycc wrote:Sorry I'm a bit dim so am lost here !
If I'm reading it correctly Davy, I think it breaks down like this:
#: 1
Team: Manchester United
sum: 148,839
Matches: 2
average: 74.420
Show and I shall see.... I blame it on the Castillero del Diablo

Thanks for that kk :thumbup:
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Re: In the Press

Post by Deleted User 5081 »

Leicester White wrote:And we'd be in the top half of the Premiership:
# Team sum Matches average
1 Manchester United Manchester United 148.839 2 74.420
2 Tottenham Hotspur Tottenham Hotspur 138.485 2 69.243
3 Arsenal FC Arsenal FC 119.764 2 59.882
4 West Ham United West Ham United 113.835 2 56.918
5 Manchester City Manchester City 161.274 3 53.758
6 Liverpool FC Liverpool FC 106.529 2 53.265
7 Newcastle United Newcastle United 155.705 3 51.902
8 Chelsea FC Chelsea FC 121.168 3 40.389
9 Everton FC Everton FC 116.529 3 38.843
10 Leicester City Leicester City 64.192 2 32.096
11 Cardiff City Cardiff City 63.036 2 31.518
12 Wolverhampton Wanderers Wolverhampton Wanderers 92.959 3 30.986
13 Brighton & Hove Albion Brighton & Hove Albion 61.118 2 30.559
14 Southampton FC Southampton FC 89.520 3 29.840
15 Crystal Palace Crystal Palace 51.245 2 25.623
16 Fulham FC Fulham FC 48.259 2 24.130
17 Huddersfield Town Huddersfield Town 69.010 3 23.003
18 Watford FC Watford FC 80.743 4 20.186
19 Burnley FC Burnley FC 40.347 2 20.174
20 AFC Bournemouth AFC Bournemouth 31.550 3 10.517
in the past number of years our ground capacity has been slowly eaten away from 40102 when we were in the Premiership and now its currently at 37000+ a few. why is this? was that something to do with Bates refurbishment of the ground? Sorry if i missed this during the last few years. :crazy:

On the teams from 10th downwards i look at these teams and still believe they are championship clubs in attendance figures compared to leeds who can pull in excess of 30,000 every home game if we are doing well and 25k when were not doing so well. Its the fan base that makes the difference to that list and the size of the capacity of the grounds. This begs the question i have often wondered myself. If Leeds were given a lot more land around Elland Road and our owner decided that he wanted to build a new Elland road stadium with a far higher capacity than we currently have. What would you guys reckon would be our new capacity be (considering our fanbase) 60,000? 80,000? or more? take into account we are in the Championship at present. My question would be based on being in the Premiership once the stadium was finished.
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Re: In the Press

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CorkWhite wrote:...in the past number of years our ground capacity has been slowly eaten away from 40102 when we were in the Premiership and now its currently at 37000+ a few. why is this? was that something to do with Bates refurbishment of the ground? Sorry if i missed this during the last few years. :crazy:
AFAIK, East Stand Upper was reduced by around 2,500 seats by Bates in place of extra corporate facilities and extension of the concourse
CorkWhite wrote:...What would you guys reckon would be our new capacity be (considering our fanbase) 60,000? 80,000? or more? take into account we are in the Championship at present. My question would be based on being in the Premiership once the stadium was finished.
Always thought 50k + would be big enough...?
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Re: In the Press

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Why Marcelo Bielsa’s faith in his Leeds United squad is vindicated

As Leeds United’s injury crisis deepens, how the squad reacts perhaps explains why Marcelo Bielsa has such faith in it.

The press conference has become part of the football circus; it can say everything without saying anything.

The best bits go viral within minutes and rather than just read about them, we can even watch them live.

Post-match or pre-match, how you handle them is part of the modern manager’s skillset, and the media briefings either side of Leeds United’s 2-0 win over Bristol City this weekend were revealing in different ways.

City manager Lee Johnson chose the classic course of denial in attempting to mask his team’s deficiencies and avert attention from the rot which saw his team’s season going only one way long before Saturday’s 55th minute red card. It was indeed this that swung the game decisively in Leeds’s favour, but a desperate manager will cling to anything to flimsily disguise the real issue. That being how a patched-up Leeds side had been allowed to coast through the first 55 minutes with their Achilles heel barely exposed.

On the back of a 4-1 defeat at West Brom, this fixture always looked like an accommodating one, until Marcelo Bielsa informed us that a grave injury situation had in fact descended into farce. This was the point where you felt Bielsa’s faith in what, on paper, looks a wafer thin squad, was misguided, and his policy of a lean squad supplemented by under-23s had finally hit the buffers. During the international break, Johnson had spoken openly about the Leeds fixture being the perfect one to arrest his team from their seemingly terminal slide, and the news that key players Pontus Jansson and Bailey Peacock-Farrell were injured, with zero credible back-up in either case, should have had his team licking their lips.

We saw with our own eyes how Bristol City responded, and a wounded Leeds were allowed to nurse their ailments without further sufferance. Debutants Will Huffer and Aapo Halme may well face a sterner test against Reading on Tuesday night, and certainly by Saturday’s game against Sheffield United, you would hope Leeds would be suitably replenished on the injury front. But what became a regulation win over Bristol City was certainly enlightening in other ways.

For someone who arrived with a fabled indifference to the media that manifested itself in a withering approach to press conferences, Bielsa has appeared more engaging and certainly more transparent than any Leeds manager of recent times. Contrary to our expectations, Bielsa is revealing, absorbing and pre-Bristol City was almost morbidly frank. His nonchalant exposing of two further injuries almost made you hanker for the robotic futility of a Garry Monk media briefing, where we were routinely hoodwinked by barely-disguised kidology, to the point where it was hardly worth speaking to him at all.

Not for Bielsa the vain ineffectiveness of mind games however. His casual sincerity is another example of his absolute faith in the players he has at his disposal and hence his coaching abilities, also, his reiterating that he is happy with his squad and doesn’t expect to supplement it in January, save, surely, for a goalkeeper. From the outset Bielsa said he would utilise the under-23s where he had to and that’s exactly what he’s done. You don’t say that without seeing what they can do, and the evidence so far suggests he was right.

But you can’t just point to Bristol City’s timid lack of penetration for Huffer and Halme getting such an easy ride, you can also see in the likes of Kalvin Phillips and Liam Cooper an assured seniority and a very able maturity that enabled them to raise their game in the dire circumstances, and help to make Saturday a cohesive introduction to first team football for the rookie duo. As such, Bielsa’s faith in his under-23s is supported by his faith in his senior squad, and in that sense you can see how players like Phillips and Cooper have grown in authority this season, regardless of what you may think of their other qualities.

In essence, Bielsa’s insistence that he doesn’t need new signings is his way of being a considerate guardian of the club. He knows we don’t have millions of pounds sloshing around like some clubs do, and while he would never be so crass, he is effectively saying “why hire a world class coach like me, and then spend millions of pounds on ready made players?” You sense that gifting Bielsa with the finished article is almost an insult, when you can use his skills to immeasurably improve players and also introduce youngsters still learning their game in the most bountiful and energising environment possible.

The resources at Leeds may seem stretched, but there always seems to be an option they can call on, and increasingly, we have to believe that Bielsa will have those players suitably prepared and mentally conditioned to do a job to a specific standard. 19-year-old Dutchman Pascal Struijk is the next port of call when Halme inevitably breaks down in innocuous fashion, by the way.

Of course, Bielsa won’t have expected the injury crisis Leeds have experienced, but if nothing else, this season is a lesson in being true to your values and having the strength of your convictions. There are times where this policy will come unstuck, such as at West Brom, but we were warned to take the rough with the smooth and continually pressing reset is not a practice that has served Leeds well.

Leeds have invested heavily in this season, simply by appointing Bielsa. Knowing now a little of how he operates, in that sense the money spent on Barry Douglas and Patrick Bamford in the summer comes as something of a surprise.

There is no doubt that Leeds need a fully fit squad to truly compete for the top two positions until the end of the season, and relying on the ‘supplements’ for anything more than emergency cover would be foolhardy. Whether this squad with everyone fit will be ‘enough’ is open to question, but the more this season develops, the more you have to insist that Bielsa is indeed a special coach. This squad couldn’t be in better hands, and might just continue to surprise.

From Leeds Live.
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Re: In the Press

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From the Telegraph

Journalists are even more prescriptive than football supporters. Barely half an hour goes by without a comment piece being published using the word ‘must’ in the header because of the common fallacy that it implies authority. Analysis cannot be simply analysis, opinion cannot be opinion. It has to be a commandment. Nuance is the enemy. Certainty is what counts and so the hectoring inclination flourishes. Who needs qualification when “it stands to reason, pal”?
In the case of Leeds United over the next few weeks, the subject of the headlines carrying many of these edicts will be the January transfer window and the club’s obligation to invest if they are serious about sustaining a promotion campaign. It is understandable - after all, most fans indulge in this. ‘Should’ usually trumps ‘could’ and ‘would’ among the five-pint post-match pundits when we dissect the match and preach glib answers for manifest failings. And they are united in believing that strengthening the squad, adding quality and depth, can only benefit the club’s chances of capping their Premier League exile at 15 seasons. “It’s a no-brainer.”

The problem is Marcelo Bielsa does not agree with that reasoning. Thanks to the work of The Square Ball’s superb Daniel Chapman, some Leeds fans will be aware of the story of Bielsa at Newell’s Old Boys in 1992 making one transfer request to his board after winning the Apertura the year before. He wanted Nestor Sensini, the bright, elegant, remorseless defender back from Udinese but when the Serie A club refused to sell, Bielsa ruled out all alternatives, told his thin squad he trusted them and they went on to finish runners-up in the Copa Libertadores and won the Clausura. Quick fixes are anathema to him. At Leeds he evaluated his squad during pre-season, addressed the weaknesses, stressed his preference for one alternative for each position and professed himself happy both with the recruitment and disposals.

Bielsa believes that the Under-23 squad rather than the chequebook is the safety net, knowing both that irregulars fight harder for their spoils and that novices who understand his structure and principles have an advantage over anyone who doesn’t. Yet during last weekend’s victory over Sheffield United - a third successive win and clean sheet following the gubbing by West Brom - Bielsa lost the third member of the defence that had started Leeds’ first six Championship matches to long-term injury when the captain, Liam Cooper, twisted his knee and joined Gaetano Berardi and Luke Ayling in the Thorp Arch hurt locker.
There’s a grace and maturity to Bielsa in public, not solely in his resistance to requests to chastise referees – for which he had fair grounds on Saturday – but also in his rejection of invitations to curse his luck over injuries. When centre-forward Kemar Roofe was forced out for six games in September at precisely the same time as the other experienced striker, Patrick Bamford, damaged his cruciate ligament, Bielsa was sanguine. “We have other solutions,” he said and elevated the 19-year-old Tyler Roberts to lead the line.

In the past he has forsworn pre- and post-match comment and swerved press conferences but has conformed to the English game’s conventions in his six months in Yorkshire.

He treats every question on merit and tries to do it justice. Some of his sentences are longer than Judge Jeffries’, as Jim Hacker would say, but there is logic, honesty and a refreshing appetite if not to persuade then to explain his methods and ideas. Even though he talks to us through the prophylactic of an interpreter, it is plain from his manner and words that he feels a sense of responsibility to his club, his players and, above all, to his values and the game itself. He exerts a moral influence with his bearing and patience. In the winter window, adding can mean subtraction if it dissolves the common understanding and he made no January signings at all in two years at Athletic Bilbao and his full season at Marseille. Why emasculate the players already at the club with a show of distrust?

It has often proved the cruellest month for Leeds – they lost Jonathan Woodgate and Robbie Fowler in 2003, Matt Kilgallon in 2007, Jonny Howson in 2012 and Sam Byram in 2015. Most excruciating of all was Neil Warnock’s heinous swap deal that sent Luciano Becchio to Norwich City in exchange for Steve Morison, a striker who averaged 15 goals a season for one who managed five in two years at Elland Road.

Players who have gone on to have successful careers were brought in on loan to help camouflage the lack of longer-term purchases. Fabian Delph popped home from Aston Villa for a month to help his rehab, Jake Livermore played five games in 2011, Andros Townsend and Adam Smith legged it before their deals were up and Ross Barkley could not displace the 36-year-old Michael Brown from Warnock’s preferred XI.

The club, living a hand-to-mouth existence, became hooked on short-term deals, chasing that quick fix and ignoring systematic weaknesses. That those days are gone for now will make January a calmer month and, unlike the past, if Bielsa maintains that the eventual return of those three defenders plus Bamford and Izzy Brown will be better than new signings, we can count on his sincerity. It is rare that a manager’s wishes coincide with the club’s over midseason signings, a period when the season ticket, player sales and television revenues have already been allocated. There ought to be a provision for an emergency – such as the requirement for a goalkeeper following Jamal Blackman’s season-ending tibia fracture – but Bielsa is likely to stick with what he has despite the clamour for a couple of major signings to prove the club’s intent.

In February 1964 Don Revie bought the former England centre-forward Alan Peacock and in January 1990 Howard Wilkinson brought in Lee Chapman. Peacock scored eight times and Chapman 12 as Leeds pushed on both times to win Division Two. We may bemoan Bielsa for not politicking for a player of similar calibre to catalyse the promotion charge but it is not his way and no outside encouragement will sway him.
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Re: In the Press

Post by Deleted User 728 »

Great piece, that.

Makes me love the guy more than ever.

Thanks for posting :)
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Re: In the Press

Post by SiMamu »

I can definitely understand Bielsa's preference towards promoting youth players to signing new players. I think that it's quite interesting that both Bielsa and Guardiola's most successful teams (Newell's and Barcelona) have been at clubs where their playing styles were trained from a young age. Since then, of course, Bielsa has not had the opportunity of the budgets that Guardiola has had to make up for not having the same influence on the youth system. The most Bielsa has spent was probably at the club that was his biggest disaster, in Lille. Otherwise, he has treated teams like national sides, and looked to promote youth players already indoctrinated in his playing style.
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Re: In the Press

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rigger wrote:Great piece, that.

Makes me love the guy more than ever.

Thanks for posting :)
Will 2nd that, I just think the guy is an inspiration, his humility, knowledge and general manners shine out for me.
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Re: In the Press

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Rio Ferdinand insists that moving to Leeds United was the best decision he has ever made.

The centre-half as the subject of Leeds' record transfer when he signed from West Ham for £18million in 2000, spending two years at Elland Road before joining Manchester United in 2002, a £29million move which broke the British transfer record.

Reflecting on his career for the Players Tribune , London-born Ferdinand has written a letter to his childhood self, largely touching upon the trophies he won in Manchester and international experiences with England, but he credits Leeds United with making him the player he was.

He would go on to replace Lucas Radebe as club captain in his second season, having played a pivotal role at the back as Leeds made the Champions League semi-finals in 2001.

“Playing for Leeds will be the best decision you’ll ever make,” says Ferdinand, who provides interesting detail on his move to Leeds, suggesting moving up north from his hometown might not have been natural for him.

“You get a call from Chelsea showing real interest, you need to do something that’s probably going to sound crazy,” he admits. “You need to get out of London. And you need to sign with Leeds.”

“I know. But right now, it’s not about money or trophies. It’s not about clubs and status. It’s about getting out of London. Detaching yourself from it all.

“Going somewhere where you can just concentrate on being a footballer. Going somewhere that isn’t London. It’s about truly becoming a professional. And at Leeds, mate, you will.”

The positive words he has for his time at Leeds and the influence it played on his career could be good news for the club, given he’s now an ambassador and player mentor for representation firm New Era.

“You’ll always be a London boy, but Leeds is going to be a special place for you. It’s a one-club city. And that’s really going to mean something. It’s a unique responsibility and it’s the only time you’ll experience that. More important, you’ll get your discipline back.”

“Something’s going to happen at the 2002 tournament, and honestly, it wouldn’t have happened without Leeds. You’re going to become a leader and you’re going to learn.”

Ferdinand would go on to become one of the most decorated English players of all-time, winning six league titles and the Champions League with Manchester United, while making over 80 appearances for England.
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