Good Morning. It's Thursday 29th July, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road Stalemate at Ewood Park Leeds came from behind to grab a share of the spoils at Ewood Park last night as Bielsa's Whites kicked off their pre season campaign in front of 5000 travelling fans. As to be expected, Leeds controlled large periods of the game; stats tt were firmly in favour of the Premiership team, but it was Blackburn who broke the deadlock first. A clumsy tackle from makeshift centre forward Costa game the Lancashire team a free kick 25 yards from goal. McBride's strike 18 minutes from time took a lucky deflection; Meslier could only watch as the ball looped over him and nestled in the far corner. Leeds were not to be denied. Nine minutes later Harrison found Struijk in space in the box, and hammered the ball through a hoard of players to level the scoring. It's fair to say Leeds looked a little rusty, especially with their wayward passing, but lets be fair. It's their first competitive game since they hammered West Brom on the final day of last season, late in May! Talking points Llorente's first half tackle to deny Rovers a one on one with Meslier Unfair or justified criticism of Costa Firpo's debut Rodrigo - stay or go please log in to view this image Gallagher turns down Whites Conor Gallagher has rejected a loan deal to West Yorkshire, opting instead to stay in London and join Crystal Palace. Leeds had already agreed terms with Chelsea, and had given the youngster a tour of Thorp Arch, but whether he was concerned about the amount of game time he would get, or wanting to stay in the Capital, the 21yo has decided against joining the Whites. The England Under-21 international scored twice in 32 appearances for the Baggies last season. please log in to view this image Footballers to be restricted on heading the ball in training sessions Bosses of English football have recommended a new set of guidelines for heading the ball, giving the emphasis on restricting the number of 'higher force' headers players make in practice sessions in order to reduce long term injury, including dementia! Professional players should be limited to a maximum of 10 “higher-force” headers in any training week. Higher-force headers are defined as any that follow a pass of more than 35 metres or corners, crosses, goal kicks and free kicks. Amateur players should limit heading practice to 10 headers per session, once a week. FA chief executive Mark Bullingham commented:- “We already have the most comprehensive guidelines in the world for youth football and now we are introducing, in partnership with the other football bodies, the most comprehensive adult football guidelines anywhere,” Premier League, Richard Masters, explains: “This is a long-term piece of work — we will now build on these studies and we remain committed to further research to ensure we have the right approach in place to protect the welfare of all players.” Thoughts? please log in to view this image
Morning all Gallagher wanted to remain in London, I’ve nothing against the lad but I’m glad we’re not developing a player for a future rival. Give the chance instead to one of the U23s It was only 4-5 years ago we could only dream of signing a player for £1m+ now we’re littering the U23s with them, surely this is the year for at least a couple to step up. I wasn’t worried about yesterday’s game apart from coming away from it with no serious injuries so job done we’re a step closer in preparation
Morning all, Palace are desperate for players, over twenty of them were out of contract at the end of last season, so they won't mind just having him on loan without an option to buy. From Gallagher's point of view he's guaranteed to be playing at Palace. He probably rightly thinks there's no point in moving from Chelsea reserves to Leeds reserves.
Morning all The new heading directive wont affect us as we’ve been using it for 3 seasons already If Gallagher has turned us down for Palace then he isn't ambitious, so frig him. It will be good to see our first team together but we wont see it just yet. We may get to see the makings of it against Ajax but Fleetwood will be a mix of 23s and 1st team. It will mainly be bout getting those triangles sorted and improving passing. We wont really get to see Phillips but will see Koch and Jenkins play that DM role. Hopefully we will get to see Gelhardt play up top, but importantly it would be good to look at the options of who plays alongside Rodrigo, because there is no doubt Rodrigo is a starter. Where is Poveda? Not seen in either game yet. Did Costa do enough last night in a makeshift position because for me right now Summerville is a better option than both Junior did pretty well even though he was linking well with Harrison they didnt get the attacking option working as Harrison ended up passing backwards rather than playing triangles for Junior. It will come and apparently Jack and Junior are welded at the hip. Bielsa has them doing everything together and Jack even comments on Juniors social media posts…
Seems Junior has fit into the dressing room well and is giving some serious bantz out. He is calling Struijk Khel Drogo from Game of Thrones (The Jason Mamoa guy) dead ringer I’d say
Didn’t really think anyone looked spectacular last night, some hideous passes by Struijk, Firpo and Koch which will hopefully be ironed out but they also made some really good passes. Thought Firpo looked nervous but he is in a new country and team so that’ll take time. There was a good bit of play in the first half with him, Harrison and Rodrigo I think? Can’t look into individual performances too much. I think we need better than Costa but saying that I didn’t see much threat from Rodrigo and Harrison either. Klich did some nice stuff but also got caught out by pace occasionally. Meslier didn’t have loads to do but did what he needed. Thought Shackleton looked good but I don’t think he’ll get in over Ayling? Loan needed if Bielsa thinks Drameh can cover, if not keep Shackleton as RB cover? Ayling and Dallas both looked pretty solid. Greenwood looks promising and I actually thought Roberts looked like he had something about him and was unlucky with his chip, denied by a good save. Disappointed with Gallagher as he’d be a good addition and something we need but oh well, we move on. Obviously wants to live in London and be guaranteed first team. If we couldn’t get an option to buy then it’s a blessing in disguise anyway.
Seen the highlights and wee shakleton is no fullback. Way way too short to be of any use. Roberts chip (laugh) was weak and straight at the goalie. Oh it looked good but plenty of space to goalies left. This is the time for the u23s to stake a claim. I will be so disappointed if non of them break through. I have no faith in Bielsa giving them a go as he has history. Roberts will do the same as last season and should be sold. Three years now i have watched him and see nothing in him.
Funnily enough whilst I tend to agree with you Wakey, being the sad man that I am who likes to look at stats, I found the following quite interesting. Of the premier league squads from last season, who have players that are presently 21 or under, and managed to play at least 180 minutes in the premier league last season: Wolves had the most with 7 of their 22 players being aged 21 or under. Second was Leeds with 5 out of 19, third was Arsenal with 4 out of 25 and Sheff Utd with 4 out of 24. Ourselves and Everton were the clubs that had the least number of players play a minimum of 180 first team football. City and Chelsea had 3 players currently aged 21 or under who played last season. Liverpool (edit : sorry they had 3 players, forgot the guy the had on loan from Schalke), Leicester, Newcastle, Brighton and Burnley had 2. Whilst West Ham, Villa, Palace, Fulham and WBA only had 1. Spurs, Everton and Southampton failed to play any player presently aged 21 or under last season for a minimum of 180 game time. So only Wolves managed to play more players than us that would be classed as under 21 players for this season. Obviously there is an argument over the quality of players from each of clubs, but it would also suggest that the jump up from under 23 football to first team premier league football is huge and only the very talented are likely to make an impact. Thus unless we have the equivalent of Phil Foden, Mason Greenwood, Ferran Torres, or Wesley Fofana, then given that the majority of our under 23's are not even 20 yet, I am not expecting them to make as much of an impact that maybe we are hoping for. I do have to add the disclaimer that not having seen any of the under 23's play I'm just basing this upon the law of averages, but maybe that is why Bielsa has stuck to using only the 5 players aged 21 and under that he did last year, because they are still the best of the bunch.
To add my little piece to this and use historical data. Every year we play Guisley and we use mostly first teamers with a smattering of U23s. The results are not important and we usually get a good game and good practice. On the odd occasion we batter them…. This time we used all U23s are played consistently better than the last time we played them using mainly first teamers. Gelhardt is a bit special Greenwood almost as good Drameh is just behind Ayling for me and Shackelton isnt a RB Summerville at the moment is better than Costa Amari Miller too soon to say McGurk and Batenot seen yet We will see more of these kids Tomoz and then again in the next 2 so we should with luck get a better feel. Those at Guisley were raving about Cresswell and Kenneh also Summerville and everyone thought he was better than Costa.
Just watching the olympics for first time these games. Next up Bmx bike riding. Absolutely riveting stuff i think not. Kiddies bikes are now an olympic sport.
It It was stated we were buying young players to develop and sell on. Looks like this is the plan to me.
Looking forward to 3am when we have a good chance of gold in the Leggo house building comp. At 4am we get to see Kerplunk but the yanks are fav for the gold
He is more like former wrestler El Gigente... please log in to view this image please log in to view this image
Think a lot of it is about a loan fee. Man Utd demanding £3.5m loan fee plus full player wages for one of their players and Southampton refusing. Connor Gallagher has earned Chelsea plenty of cash so far, Orient, Milwall, Swansea, WBA now Palace. we paid £2m plus full wages for Fast Eddie. We paid Man City 3 loan fees plus his full wages and then bought him for another £11m, so in effect a decent transfer fee for City. So I reckon running a business means getting a loan fee and having wages paid. You will notice that every player send out as his contract extended that keeps his retail value
