For whatever reason,maybe something changed in his family cicumstances,he wanted to go to France,& obviously it was circulated among French clubs that this was the case,as so many were interested in signing him-Nice,Lille,Sochaux,St Etienne. He just wasn't interested in going to another English club. When he said he wanted to stay at Leeds a while back perhaps his personal circumstances were different & would have been happy to remain in England & therefore Leeds United. It begs the question why he wasn't offered a contract last January. He would still have wanted to return to France this summer but we could have got a lot more money for him. Gradel's done everything by the book it seems,if he hadn't for whatever reason wanted to return to France he would have stayed at Leeds. I don't think even the allure of a PL team would have made him want to leave Leeds. Anyway that's the way I see it. Max Gradel I'm sure will always be remembered fondly by Leeds fans-always gave his all.
Leeds 18 one biggest wages in this league because of Grayson poor signings 2 of them being biggest earners and do not get used!!! Go read what he says ffs it's on the website in black and White money was there and has all ways been there. Better manager it would have been sorted in the summer
If you believe you're a good player and a club wants to sign you, surely you take that as a sign that they're ambitious? It's up to Grayson to project the ambition of the club anyway, even if it means lying. He has no problem lying to the fans, so why can't he convince players that we're going to get promoted?
Clive sorry fella your wrong ...the ambition of a club comes from the board...its called investment in the team....i know you hate grayson but come on...he has no money this yyear having sold two players for 3.5m and let 5 go of the the bill..we bought in 2 keepers and a DM?
Read what I bloody say! If you're trying to sign a good player then there must be money there! If a player turns round and says they don't want to come because you're not investing in quality, then you only have to ask why they think you're trying to sign them!
Grayson: ""It was a bad day at the office as we were working extremely hard to get in the targets that we had. A plus side, to a certain degree, is that the loan market with emergency loans opens next week so if we are short on bodies still then we can go down that market." In other words, no signings but look, the market for cheap dregs opens next week. Let's go nuts. If we are short on bodies indeed. How small does the squad have to be for Grayson to admit there's a problem?
Bottom line is if Gradel had been offered and he had signed a new contract club xyz could have placed bids and Leeds could have just said he is under contract he is not for sale, you are not permitted to talk to him.
Could the reason there was no contract on offer because when the discussions started at the end of last season, Gradel and his agent had made it clear Gradel wanted to move back to France? So what would have been the point of hammering out a contract if there was no intention on Gradel's part to sign it? A player under contract can still hand in a transfer request (like Arteta).
Marko and Boggers - Alan Hutton. middlesexwhite - returning to France was a late development by all accounts - Greadel, Bates and Grayson.
JLA, France being a late development is not the way I read the interview. Bates says that the agent came and made it clear about moving to play European League football and then goes on to state that "Then, from Max’s point of view, it started going wrong because all the clubs that were supposed to be coming in for him didn’t and then we got enquiries from him from English clubs". We know West Ham had tabled a bid very early in the summer - so not a late development.
That's true of Gradel, middlesex, if you read my posting carefully, you will see I was talking about Greadel! WOW, talk about a Freudian, Dickensian slip, eh? That's a good point on your part. Unfortunately, that REALLY makes the club look bad as they then had loads of lead time to have a plan in place in case it happened. Should have done a deal that he could go, initially on loan if not before the window closed, only once we had a replacement. Or maybe, the club feels fine that we have lost the YEP, Players and Fans Player of the Year last year.
No one on this forum knows what is true or what is bollox. All I know is Bates is an ex- Chelsea bollocks, who hates Leeds UNITED fans and club and in my paranoid mind is trying to kill my club. Grayson is just a stool-pigeon.
Arsenal and Fabregas last year, Spurs Moderic this year, we know Moderic will go next year but at least it will be on Spurs terms. Yes players can hand in a request but those requests can be turned down. We accepted Gradels because it was panic stations, 1.75 million now or nothing next year. If he had been on a 3 year contract we could have said no but we will listen to bids and review it next year. Then quietly behind the scenes we could have lined up possible replacements and negotiated a top price for him. This is what I said before about wages.... Give Gradel £20k a week, keep him for an extra year that might earn us promotion if not sell him for top price in excess of £5 million? His £20k a week would have cost us just over a million but doing it this way 12 months from now we would still have been 2.2 million up on where we are at now.
Also ....the club have know he wanted a move during pre-season and we lined no replacements up. Bates decided to sell Kasper with Grayson then we pissed about looking for a replacement and Lonergon was our third choice after Westwood and Stockdale.... so yeah work can be done behind the scenes before moves become public... but if you wont pay the money and want the deal all your own way... (bates) you get no one... point proved!
Load of old toast. Leeds never had anyone lined up. To suggest we were close to signing Puncheon is a joke. And other "International" quality players? Please!!!! Josh, where do you come from? You defend Bates to the hilt and then spout this nonsense about so-called signings we were trying to get but were unlucky not to. Rubbish!!!
