Here we go again.

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NottinghamWhite
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Re: Here we go again.

Post by NottinghamWhite »

I think the really sad thing is we had a better team with better players as a League 1 outfit. Beckford, Becchio, Snodgrass, Johnson, Gradel and Howson all spring to mind, the basis of a team that may have been challenging this season. Alas Uncle Ken had a vision that saw millions getting poured into a white elephant instead of keeping those players and with a little more of a cash injection on the player front. People keep saying we should be patient and GFH have a long term plan, 10 years almost we have been patient just how much longer are we expected to wait ? As others have said we are getting left behind and without proper investment will remain a mediocre championship side.
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Nic
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Re: Here we go again.

Post by Nic »

I must be watching a different game? I don't see GFH coming in riding rough shot over our history, in fact reducing ticket prices, re-engaging with the supporters trust, encouraging more fans to attend seem to me that they know the history of leeds united! Our fans can make Elland Road a daunting place to come, so getting the seats filled, putting in schemes to hook the next generation of fans into becoming regulars they are preserving our history. Why should they "splash the cash"? I get sick of so called "fans" who expect this but usually don't support the team by splashing the cash and attending matches - if its well they can't afford to, then should we say I'm sorry I didn't ask you to be a fan!

I would be more concerned if they had come in and wanted to move us 40 miles to a new stadium or hike ticket prices up to £50. Yes we do belong in the premier league (we are champions of europe), but splashing cash on players and hiking price up to £50 to cover the cost is not the way to go, unless you want half empty stadiums with corporates and guests watching a bit of football whilst they wait for the next course to arrive.
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Re: Here we go again.

Post by Deleted User 2299 »

Nic wrote:I must be watching a different game? I don't see GFH coming in riding rough shot over our history, in fact reducing ticket prices, re-engaging with the supporters trust, encouraging more fans to attend seem to me that they know the history of leeds united! Our fans can make Elland Road a daunting place to come, so getting the seats filled, putting in schemes to hook the next generation of fans into becoming regulars they are preserving our history. Why should they "splash the cash"? I get sick of so called "fans" who expect this but usually don't support the team by splashing the cash and attending matches - if its well they can't afford to, then should we say I'm sorry I didn't ask you to be a fan!

I would be more concerned if they had come in and wanted to move us 40 miles to a new stadium or hike ticket prices up to £50. Yes we do belong in the premier league (we are champions of europe), but splashing cash on players and hiking price up to £50 to cover the cost is not the way to go, unless you want half empty stadiums with corporates and guests watching a bit of football whilst they wait for the next course to arrive.

Last game i went to Newcastle cost me little under £200. It isnt just about the price of ticket, its a day out with expenses. Next generation of fans? I cant see anything more damaging than being outside the Prem. Not all our fans were born in Leeds, many choose their teams via success, why choose a team in the lower leagues?

In my view GFH have not got what it takes to get us promoted.
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Mellor
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Re: Here we go again.

Post by Mellor »

It will be interesting to see how many turn up tomorrow night given our form 'versus' cheap tickets. I don't feel any more engaged under GFH than I did with Bates. Engagement increases as results improve I think. Patel and Haigh's 'smiley' nonsense and the like on twitter is positively disengaging. I don't expect to be patronised/positively stroked. Only interested in deeds. So my cheaper season ticket was great - I assume the club can afford to drop prices/has generated sufficient funds through increased gates to cover any loss. Against that I know many who feel (more) cheated in The Pavillion. I don't buy a program but that looks to be half the size although the price has dropped by 25% only (I think). Engaging with the trust is irrelevant to me. Neither they or the SC represent my views. Indeed they/the SC can't even agree amongst themselves as I understand it.

Only thing that matters is results - that doesn't mean 3 points every game but it does mean 'progress' on (and off) the field. That in turn means, for me at least, a settled side in which the players know their jobs, they look like they've played together, they play with confidence, they look like they won't concede, they bring saves from the opposition goalie and so on. We have regressed since Wooton replaced Lees I think, this might be too simple an explanation. But BM has made mistakes. Only Kenny is guaranteed to start IMO. Making Rudy captain surprised me. Big heart but a weak link in a passing side. Building the team around Ross, a striker playing in midfield. Not finding a player with pace - as an ex scout I naively assumed BM would put his finger in the pie and pull out a plum from somewhere. No team I have seen at ER and when I travel struggles to pass the ball like us or is as slow. There are fundamental issues to resolve, none of them have been really.

Having said all of that I look forward to tomorrow's game and I always expect to win. I do however realise it's on a knife edge and we are as close (closer) to a relegation battle as we are to a tilt at the play offs. I hope BM is a big enough personality to handle the burden that is LUFC. The weight increases over time as expectation turns to despondency. We are not far from booing on the Kop I fear (never helpful and part of a downward spiral from which it can be difficult to escape). Shame. A win is vital now. With a win and a clean sheet things would look an awful lot brighter. Things can change very quickly. Grinding out a result would be a start.
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BigLeedsFan72
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Re: Here we go again.

Post by BigLeedsFan72 »

Mellor wrote:
Things can change very quickly. Grinding out a result would be a start.
Trouble is we seem to be grinding out draws and losses. A good team can grind out wins when they are not playing at their best, so what does is say about our squad of players?

I am not one to want players/managers/owners to win everything or get out and am happy to let the current situation unfold as it may. We are struggling and it may take longer than we want to get things going in the right direction. Scoring would be a good start or maybe hitting the target more often would be more realistic, that being said, where are the sharpshooters going to come from?

Ross has been playing out of position in the midfield, Varney and Smith I don't think will ever score enough goals in this league. Poleon is still too green and Diouf hasn't got the legs anymore. Our back line leak for too many soft goals and I won't even go into how bad our passing has been...

Throwing money around like an octopus having a fit almost cost us the club so I never want to go down that track ever again. I may be we have to wait for a lot of the current players to go off contract before we get rid of them as it seems like no other club will touch them with a 20 foot pole. I think BMD is keeping players he doesn't think will have a part in his plans well away from the first team and I for one think that is a good thing!

This approach may hurt in the short term but in the end what else is the manager to do with:

Too many below average players :thumbdown:

No real investment until squad is culled :(

Fighting to keep any promising players here :?

I could go on all day but I think you get the gist... :silent:

All I ask is give the current set up a chance to right a few wrongs and if it means we may not see the promised land for a few more years then the wait will be well worth it. Moses was in the wilderness for 40 years and because of his pride never got to the promised land, so our 10 or so doesn't seem too bad :lolno:
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dangermouse
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Re: Here we go again.

Post by dangermouse »

Mellor wrote:All I ask is give the current set up a chance to right a few wrongs and if it means we may not see the promised land for a few more years then the wait will be well worth it.
That's the thing we were discussing yesterday. The Premier League isn't going to wait around for a few years until we gradually build a good team. The standard required to reach the PL is getting higher every year. The top teams in this division are developing and improving at a faster rate than we are, or in the case of the relegated PL teams, they are more able to keep their squads reasonably intact due to the parachute payments than in the past. While we may be able to develop a better team over the next few seasons, we may then find that we are still nowhere near challenging for promotion.
Revie Boy
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Re: Here we go again.

Post by Revie Boy »

Cash isn't the only criteria for a successful team because, how can teams like Blackpool under Ian Hollaway emerge, with no cash to speak of and a fan base of less than 12000? In my view success can still be achieved by some without hugh cash reserves, but with a vibrant scouting system and youth training scheme, spotting potential quality early enough, instilling in them a work ethic and loyalty to the club, with favourable contracts where necessary then, get them to work their bloody socks off. All of which seems to be missing at present day Leeds.
As far back as I can remember Burnley have always seemed to be a club that can produce good young players and when you think of a club like Swansea who were nearly relegated from the League in 2002, to where they are now. Well!
I know this will be a far too simplistic approach for some of you out there but how else can you explain why some clubs emerge from relative obscurity to prominence without the need to spend big time?
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Wilfred Martin
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Re: Here we go again.

Post by Wilfred Martin »

BigLeedsFan72 wrote: I am not one to want players/managers/owners to win everything or get out and am happy to let the current situation unfold as it may. We are struggling and it may take longer than we want to get things going in the right direction. Scoring would be a good start or maybe hitting the target more often would be more realistic, that being said, where are the sharpshooters going to come from?...

...Throwing money around like an octopus having a fit almost cost us the club so I never want to go down that track ever again. I may be we have to wait for a lot of the current players to go off contract before we get rid of them as it seems like no other club will touch them with a 20 foot pole. I think BMD is keeping players he doesn't think will have a part in his plans well away from the first team and I for one think that is a good thing!

This approach may hurt in the short term but in the end what else is the manager to do with:

Too many below average players :thumbdown:

No real investment until squad is culled :(

Fighting to keep any promising players here :?

I could go on all day but I think you get the gist... :silent:

All I ask is give the current set up a chance to right a few wrongs and if it means we may not see the promised land for a few more years then the wait will be well worth it. Moses was in the wilderness for 40 years and because of his pride never got to the promised land, so our 10 or so doesn't seem too bad :lolno:
A sensible approach in my opinion.
According to information on other websites, Ashdown, Cairns, Nathan & Lewis Turner, Diouf, Norris, Varney, Drury, Green, Pugh, & Brown all have contracts that expire next summer. That's an awful lot of wages spent on players who are mostly not first team regulars under McDermott, which will be off our books by next summer. (I still don’t understand how Warnock was allowed to get away with giving Brown enough substitute appearances to trigger a contract extension.)

Now admittedly, these 11 will need to be replaced by better players if we are to aim for promotion. If you couple that with the maturing of some of our better young players in the next 9 months (Mowatt, Poleon, Dawson, Killock) and the likely sale of Hall, probably White and the resolution of Morison's future, there is the potential for a far better balanced and stronger squad emerging next summer.

We would be left with a nucleus of Kenny, Peltier, Byram, Lees, Wootton, Pearce, Warnock, Austin, Murphy, Tonge, McCormack, Smith and Hunt, plus the emerging youngsters. Adding 5 or 6 higher quality players to that nucleus could give us a squad of around 22/23 capable of making a serious challenge for promotion.

Combine that with the end of the Ticketus deal (I believe), our ability to pay, say, 5 or 6 incoming players good wages is likely to be substantially improved over now. Bates may be gone physically, but we will still suffer cash-wise for the rest of this season from his decisions made prior to takeover.

I suspect that GFH are currently needing to use available funds to maintain cash-flow to keep the operation running, and the timing of the Enterprise sponsorship extension may have helped our cash-flow.
I guess the financial impact of the above players out and Ticketus is in the £10Million to £15Million per annum bracket. That’s a lot of cash to add to our core nucleus squad.

For those reasons, despite the frustrating performances during September, I don't wish to judge GFH or BMcD at this time. They are in a position that they inherited, where they can’t clear out the unwanted players until the end of the season and the only ways of generating income rather than investment is through ticket sales and commercial activity (or selling our “star” players – something they seem, thankfully, reluctant to do). It’s a “catch-22” situation.

I genuinely believe that success this season for BMcD will be "making a silk purse out of a sow's ear", keeping us in the top half of the table if possible and developing the youngsters as much as he can, so that they can slot into the first team when required, by next season. Hopefully, Mowatt, Poleon and Dawson at least, will progress to become regulars. I think that most fans on this forum (not all, admittedly) would be content this season just seeing us develop an entertaining style of play without the fear of relegation appearing like last season.

What's missing from this theory is the ability to pay substantial transfer and/or signing on fees, if required, to bring in those 5 or 6 "key" players next season. The club will still need to sell enough shares to generate new investment for this. It's a challenging balancing act!
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isrodger
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Re: Here we go again.

Post by isrodger »

Nic wrote:I must be watching a different game? I don't see GFH coming in riding rough shot over our history, in fact reducing ticket prices, re-engaging with the supporters trust, encouraging more fans to attend seem to me that they know the history of leeds united! Our fans can make Elland Road a daunting place to come, so getting the seats filled, putting in schemes to hook the next generation of fans into becoming regulars they are preserving our history. Why should they "splash the cash"? I get sick of so called "fans" who expect this but usually don't support the team by splashing the cash and attending matches - if its well they can't afford to, then should we say I'm sorry I didn't ask you to be a fan!

I would be more concerned if they had come in and wanted to move us 40 miles to a new stadium or hike ticket prices up to £50. Yes we do belong in the premier league (we are champions of europe), but splashing cash on players and hiking price up to £50 to cover the cost is not the way to go, unless you want half empty stadiums with corporates and guests watching a bit of football whilst they wait for the next course to arrive.
GFH have rectified most of the Bates 'No brainers' - for which they should be applauded. However its not like they are the local business man made good who saved our club - because they supported it man & boy. They are an investment bank who's only desire is to make money of the transaction. Fine - no problem with that whatsoever. They came into this stating they had the necessary funding to deliver premiership football & achieving that status would ultimately see them make 'the' return on their business. It clear they haven't got that funding in place - that's MY issue with GFH.

As for your comments re the fans putting their in their pockets. I liken it to this - I bought a pub - it was run down, I refurbished it, sorted out the pricing, put a bit of free food on, got the appropriate management and bar staff in. The punters responded and turnover is significantly up - I can probably put prices up now as I am serving up a significantly better product. I didn't expect the punters to drink sub standard ale, served by ugly bar staff, in a tatty environment whilst I saved up enough money from the cash flow, to refurbish / decorate it room by room. GFH did six months due diligence on the company they knew about the £16m whole in the cash-flow left by bates, they were told by Warnock that the club need needed a good three quality additions which would cost in excess of £5m and their wages would be beyond present levels. They can also see their competitive set are spending significantly more than they are committing to. If they get us into the premiership, they will doubtless hike up prices and sell us for £100m plus. They and not going to turn round to all the season ticket holders and give them £1,000 each and say thanks for supporting us on the journey. Its their investment, they deliver on the pitch and we as punters will roll up & support; and then they get their big pay day. Its a can be virtuous circle & self funding, but it starts with major investment.
Nic
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Re: Here we go again.

Post by Nic »

isrodger wrote: As for your comments re the fans putting their in their pockets. I liken it to this - I bought a pub - it was run down, I refurbished it, sorted out the pricing, put a bit of free food on, got the appropriate management and bar staff in. The punters responded and turnover is significantly up - I can probably put prices up now as I am serving up a significantly better product. I didn't expect the punters to drink sub standard ale, served by ugly bar staff, in a tatty environment whilst I saved up enough money from the cash flow, to refurbish / decorate it room by room. GFH did six months due diligence on the company they knew about the £16m whole in the cash-flow left by bates, they were told by Warnock that the club need needed a good three quality additions which would cost in excess of £5m and their wages would be beyond present levels. They can also see their competitive set are spending significantly more than they are committing to. If they get us into the premiership, they will doubtless hike up prices and sell us for £100m plus. They and not going to turn round to all the season ticket holders and give them £1,000 each and say thanks for supporting us on the journey. Its their investment, they deliver on the pitch and we as punters will roll up & support; and then they get their big pay day. Its a can be virtuous circle & self funding, but it starts with major investment.
I've seen plenty of local pubs, bought up, done up, and become soulless entities that only get packed on a friday/saturday night as people make their way to town and desolate the rest of the time. Maybe you'd prefer us to now be called Red Bull United?
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