Good Morning. It's Thursday 28th October, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road. Swapsies for Phillips According to the Daily Express, Liverpool are weighing up the passibility of a swap deal to bring Kalvin Phillips to Anfield, and are willing to dangle a carrot in the form of one of their players as part payment. Divock Origi, Takumi Minamino and soon to be 36yo James Milner are all surplus to requirements at Anfield, and could be sacrificed, in their quest to snap up the England midfielder. Attacking midfielder Minamino was signed from Salzburg on New Year's Day 2020, after Liverpool activated his £7.25 million release clause. He has played 19 times for them, scoring once. In January this year, he joined Southampton on loan. In 10 appearances, he netted twice. He has represented Japan on 33 occasions, finding the back of the net 16 times. Origi will be a more familiar name to Leeds fans. The Belgium forward has been linked to a move to Elland Road on multiple occasions. He's 26, and has over a hundred appearances (and 19 goals) under his belt for the Merseysiders. Milner will always be a Leeds favourite, but at 35 and over 500 appearances on the clock, how much does he have left in his tank? please log in to view this image Leeds line up Swift bid Multiple media sources are this morning claiming that Leeds are primed to snap up Reading forward John Swift in the January transfer market. The versatile midfielder learnt his trade at Chelsea before Reading snapped him up five years ago. He has netted 26 times in 156 appearances for Veljko Paunovic's team. The 26yo has started this season brightly, with eight goals and six assists for fourteen appearances so far this season. Leeds have only managed eight goals and five assists all season, and are in desperate need of fresh legs in the centre of the park. please log in to view this image Leeds aren’t as creative or threatening as last season Leeds aren’t as creative or threatening and goals have become an issue! Those are the words from Leeds journalist Phil Hay. The former Chief Football Writer for the Yorkshire Evening Post went on to say that without Bamford in their team, Leeds lose their balance! "I know some people don’t like xG (expected goals) but it’s a good metric for how dangerous a team are and there’s been a definite decline on that front this season. Leeds aren’t as creative or threatening and goals have become an issue. It’s fair to say that the team is at its most balanced with Bamford up front and it would help to see him come back in now. We’ll find out later in the week if he has a chance for Norwich." please log in to view this image
Morning all Leeds this season are how I expected us to be last season. For me we need to avoid the drop and hope that the likes of Gelhardt, Summerville and Drameh are ready for next season. We’ve seen that it’s very hit and miss in the transfer market. If Phillips asks to leave we need to forget player exchanges, cash is king and buy who we want not cast offs. It’s lazy journalism at its best, who on earth would take a 35 year old Milner? He’ll be available for free and I wouldn’t be surprised if those other Liverpool players were too
Morning. Swift is a very underrated player. I'd take him. Probably should have done after Bielsas first season.
Lots of bollox written about our team and players and West Ham summed it yesterday when they said it would take a bid of over £100m to let Declan Rice leave. Put up or shut up! Remember Rice has been wanted by Chelsea for 3 transfer windows and expected back again along with whoever doesn't bid for Kalvin Phillips. The Swift thing is genuine and was going to do a piece on it in the weekend debate tomoz. But whilst all the talk in the summer about Nahitan Nandez and how Gallagher opted for Palace and O’Brian was £3m and then £15m bollox, there was an approach for Swift. This is yet another one like Connor Gallagher at Chelsea where Reading were allowed to buy him. He has been wanted for the last couple of years by Leeds, Newcastle, Southampton and Palace. He is about to run his contract down and is refusing to sign another deal at Reading. He has scored 8 goals so far and 14 assists in the Championship. Hes a box to box player and creative as hell. Leeds can speak to him in January and he will deffo be playing Prem football next season somewhere, hope its with us. A much more positive transfer rumour is John Swift than the shyt the red tops are dragging up. Omar Colley has raised his head agai, but why the hell would we buy an over 30 CB when we have 3 full Internationals and a couple of U21 Internationals all wanting to play.
He signed a new contract when Leeds pulled the plug and the dogz put a buy out number in it, so he will be going nowhere
Glad Paddy has a sense of humour Bamford was full of praise for Gelhardt. “Joffy, I’ve said it before, but he’s like a little Wayne Rooney and he is very good and he showed there what he can do. He’s 19, but he’s built like a 26-year-old and he has that baby face as well. I did text him after saying well done, but he should have scored two though,” Bamford said.
Morning all, More paper talk about Kalvin leaving and on the cheap as well. Sorry, I meant more lazy paper talk. Of the three pool players mentioned I don't see how about of them make us better. My heart is crying out for Milner to come back and finish his career with us but realistically he is too old now. Maybe he'd be happy with very low wages and a bit part role but don't see it.
Has that rule changed then Doc, as I thought only clubs from different national footballing associations, could agree pre contracts with players 6 months prior to expiry. Players under the same national football association have different rules, and thus in England, pre contracts for a player moving between two English clubs, can only be signed one month prior to the expiration of their contract, unless approval is given by the existing club the player is registered with, or have I just misinterpreted what you meant ?
Thought there was no difference but will go with your reading of it. I will however say that in ghis particular case its well known who wants him and who has spoken to Reading in the past and would bet Swifts agent is up to speed? Unofficially speaking
Yes we did enquire about Noa Lang but Bielsa decided the massive inflation of his price was a joke and we walked away. Now the red tops yet again have us linked with Lang and this time we are competing with PSV, AC Milan, Juventus, Liverpool, WHU, Man Utd and get this the asking price is now no less than £40m they are having a jiraffe. Facts involved the kid was one of Ajax best players but unruly, so he was loaned to Brugge and an agreed sale was completed at the end of his loan period. Brugge actioned the sale last June for only the agreed €6m. They then were touting him around for £25m the same week they bought him, they now want a minimum £40m how do Ajax feel about all this I wonder
What I hate about our woke sports journalists like Adam Pope, Phil Hay and Graham Smyth they saw The Athletic story about an Australian footballer who has come out as gay, and immediately retweeted about it as if it makes them right-on, inclusive, diverse. No your just a bunch of woke cnts and even the Square Ball are at it too. Ok a footballer is gay, so what, there are quite a few gays around but nobody sticks a flag on them. Guess what there are quite a few black players around too…….. oh but you’ve done that already
I'd be happy if we got Swift and also Harrison Reed from Fulham. Him and Conor Gallagher were my two picks in our promotion season to fulfill the Klich role. Swift would play at 10. Rodrigo on the left, Rapha on the right.
No problem Doc, I knew that was the rule since Bowman was ratified and was still active last season, but thought maybe I'd missed an amendment. Then when I read your post again, thought you may have been coming at it from a different angle than the pre contract one, hence why I asked the question.
Leeds certainly are not as threatening as last season, unless Raphina is playing. Summerville is a good player but he gets knocked off the ball too easily, he's not built like Raphina. As for the other side, Dan James looks promising and is still settling in but Harrison has become very wasteful.
Back to the Rodrigo argument and Bamfords take: "For me watching on, it was one of them games where I am frustrated thinking I wish I was playing in this," said Bamford, speaking on the Official Leeds United podcast. "But I did feel like it was kind of chalk and cheese from the week before. e got to say that I felt from watching it that Rodrigo was brilliant which was nice to see. "I felt like he showed what he can do which was important and looking at it from the selfish side of me, I am If he is playing like that and he is behind me then that's brilliant because he was good and I felt like he helped turned it. "It was a toss up between him and the fans in the last half an hour that helped change that game. "All of a sudden, as soon as the flags started going that just kicked it off and it was so loud then. "I knew that we were going to at least get a point. "And then Joffy, he is like a little Wayne Rooney. "He is good, he’s very good and he showed there what he can
For £25m I’d expect him to be beyond the ‘looks promising’ stage tbh. He actually appears to be a speed merchant with no end product.
