Good Morning. Its Friday 20th December, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road. Kev Holroyd, alias Lucas the Kop Kat dies Kev Holroyd, known to thousands as Lucas the Kop Kat died peacefully at Wakefield's Pinderfields hospital. He had stomach cancer. He first contracted the terrible disease over a decade ago, but with the help of Chemotherapy and surgery made an almost full recovery. Bouts of severe pain due to his worsening vertebrae were not going to change his lifestyle. The cancer recently returned. Kev decided to keep quiet about it, keen to keep living his life for as long as he could. Holroyd was born and raised in Dewsbury. In the 80's he has heavily involved in the punk scene where he met, and formed a close relationship with Mick Reed. For three decades Kev was Mick’s drum tech for tours with 1919, Ship of Fools, and Anathema, and the pair would tour as road crew for Cradle of Filth, Porcupine Tree, Evile and countless others. As you would expect, Lucas the Kop Kat had a mischievous side, notably demolishing a tower of champagne flutes in Ken Bates’ hospitality suite with his tail, and getting into an altercation with Roy Keane during his Sunderland tenure in 2006. He told the story to a friend a little like this: "I saw him walking towards us and went to shake his hand. I grabbed it as tight as I could and went “I’ve got yer, ya b*****d”. I wouldn’t let go. He had a face like thunder and could just hear me laughing my head off inside the suit. A load of other staff were circling, thinking he might kick off. But he couldn’t. He was a Manager now. The next day my dad says, “you’re int paper, son.” It was ace." please log in to view this image Post Match press conference It was a mistake by Bielsa - Whelan Noel Whelan has spoken of his disbelief last weekend when 'totally cold' Pascal Struijk was introduced as a late substitution for Berardi “I have no idea why Struijk played instead of Casey,” “The young man had looked so impressive against Huddersfield. “To bring Struijk on against Cardiff for Berardi was baffling. It was a mistake by Marcelo Bielsa. “In my opinion, the substitution was wrong. He should have kept Berardi on and gone to three at the back to try and weather the storm. “I know Struijk is taller than Berardi, but he was put on totally cold after not playing all season.” Does Whelan have a point? Surely with Berardi's experience, he should have stayed on the pitch? please log in to view this image
Morning all... There is a reason why Whelan is not a coach or manager and instead he scratches around for work with the local media.
Of course Whelan has a point, no doubt he'll take a drubbing for being a mouthy old git. Those of us at the game knew it was a stupid move to replace Berardi with a novice defender, yes bring the kid on to bolster the defence not take off your 3rd choice defender. RIP Kev
Morning all. Whelan was right and anyone watching the game or highlights without the rose tinted glasses could see it was a mistake. Wont stop the anti Whelan bias of course, everything he says must be wrong despite having see maybe twice the amount of Leeds games than most of us. Again, painfully thin squad means this could happen again. Anyway, sorry to hear about KopKat. A few years back I pushed my way in front of a few kids to get my picture taken with him
Morning all whelan please STFU. Pascal Struijk is the best CB in the U23s and the most experienced as he was doing it last season along with Halme and Diaz. Casey is an U18 on his way to a great career but is actually understudy to Struijk who was injured the week before and why Casey got the nod. RIP Lucas back in the subject of CBs at the club we also have the U18 captain Charlie Cresswell who is also on a par with Casey. At the start of last season we were all moaning that we didnt have enough CBs and we dont in the traditional sense, but Bielsa knew we had plenty coming through but they play football and are more like White than Jack Charlton.
Easy for Whelan to point out the obvious afterwards, but never before, that why he will never be a manager.
Berardi's second choice defender, 1st choice for 4 positions as sub, and a better defender than Ayling and Dallas put together. Bielsa stuffed it up. Personally I think Bielsa gets lost within himself sometimes and loses focus, especially with subbing.
Under 23s ended 1-1 with another Edmondson strike and yet another fine penalty save from Meslier, somLeeds now really in contention again for the title as Forest stay top and Leeds move into 3rd with a game in hand still
Anyone else wondered what kid of family the Bielsa's are. A family of lawyers and architects and one son decides to leave the family business to play football and go on to be one of the best coaches in world football. His sister an award winning architect is now Argentina's Minister for Housing and his brother a well known lawyer goes on to become Argentina's Ambassador to Chile. So Bielsa's siblings are now as well known as him, how unusual is that
Martin Peters just died, apparently. Only a few years older than me. I’d say he died 10 years ahead of his time. (Sorry for the bad taste)
Cruise over & now in Santiago, Chile for a few days. I've spoken to quite a few people about Bielsa & it's true - he's regarded as a God over here. I did wonder if it was an urban myth, but not now!
I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this. Couple of months ago I had my hedges cut and one chap was Argentinian, it turned out. (I’ll send Chesh and OLOF the details so they can get him deported). Anyway, I mentioned Leeds - no reaction. I mentioned Bielsa and - eyes lit up, 20 minutes monologue about everything he’d done.
