We signed them last season, so a season or two, we'd be in Division Two with them all still playing by the time they came good
Was Clarke brought in by anyone,according to Wiki he just came through the youth team and Man city have been showing interest for over a year,we were going to play him against Leicester a year or 2 ago but as we hadn't even got him on a contract,we didn't play him as we didn't want other teams to see him.
Only joking. Had watched it by that time. As it happens, I inadvertently picked up the result from a Leeds United FB page before I got to the end of our recording.
Milky Orta has signed plenty of players since he arrived and they fall into 3 groups (My Opinion) Group 1 are crap Group 2 yet to be seen as either played out of position or not given a chance or form in and out. Group 3 good signings. In Group 1 I have got 5 players CBJ, Felix, Sacko, Lonners and Bouy. In Group 2 I have 10 players LDB Anita Nessy Ekuban (maybe group 1) Pennington Roberts Ideguchi Baker Harrison Lassoga Group 3 (Inc loan reports) Bielsa Cibicki Grot Klich Alioski Pontus Forshaw Saiz Douglas Bamford Blackman Brown Edmondson Miazek Halme Diaz Struijk Dalby Haughland Stevens Dont let the really poor players cloud your view of what Orta has actually done. As far as the U23s and academy is concerned we were dying a death and Orta has bought top players from the UK and Europe and from coming last in a poor league we won he league last season. This season in a much higher standard league we are top of the league and our U20s and Under 18s are also top of their leagues. Carlos Corberan has quality and with Bielsa's strategy this club is now building foundations for the future. The U10s also won the cup on Saturday too
Doc, I have consistently not criticised Orta re the u23 strategy... its a longer term plan and you can only judge it as such. You also have to accept there will always be a high individual ‘failure rate’ on youth signings. I have only ever queried whether we had the money to prioritise the u23s AND the first team squad... at the time all these u23 imports were coming in... something that retrospectively radz has flagged too. Tbh, that debate is down to what budgets they agreed between them and whether they stuck to it. No doubt that the u23s and academies had been run down by Cellino and are now doing well. People in the club will tell you that results are not the priority, but they are showing promising signs of providing first team capable players which is credit to corboran/coaching and Orta/scouting team. To date though the breakthroughs have largely been local/academy boys. My comments on Orta have always been first team based, and I’ve voiced my opinion enough on that. Re your list classification. You have a large list of young players who may prove to be good, but are only looking good in boys football at the moment. You are including players who failed here and have done ok since in lesser leagues (they did well in lesser leagues before we signed them too). You include ‘signing’ players who were already here, and some strange ones like miazek, who came to us free having been released by previous clubs and is behind two younger keepers at the club. Fair to say my lists would look very different, but it’s all just opinions.
Milky agreed as everyone would have different players in different groups. Leeds have now been awarded Elite Status for their development squad which means if we win this seasons U23 league we will be promoted into premier league 2 so we are moving forward
Top of the league, u23s and academies doing well. Who cares where the credit lies as long as it continues?!
A few names (LDB crap and Pontus came before?) could be debated there but I think that’s a good case made all the same.
Pontus was a loan player but the deal was agreed with Orta and Pontus’s club so he signed for Leeds and Orta did the deal
You could also say the same about Sacko because he was already here as a loan player but Orta when he arrived agreed to sign him like he did with Pontus
But both Pontus and Sacko had showed what they were capable of, if at the time, you’d showed 100 Leeds fans the contracts with fees attached and said are they worth it, 100 fans would have said yes to Pontus and no to Sacko. It was a simple yes answer to sign Pontus, it was a massive balls up to say yes to Sacko
But if Cellino signs a loan deal with a clause that states that at the end of the loan you are obliged to buy then you have to buy and the only thing you can do is bargain the price down. No point in arguing about it I just stated facts that it was Orta responsible for signing some of these players even though they were on loan before he arrived. Thats his job
