Good Morning. It's Wednesday 27th April, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road Johnson firmly on Leeds radar this Summer Brennan Johnson is a firm target for Leeds this Summer according to the Daily Mail, but only if they can avoid the drop. The 20yo has set the Championship on fire this season, recording fifteen goals, and ten assists so fat this season. His endeavours have given Nottingham Forest an outside chance of automatic promotion, though the play-offs seem more likely. Johnson, 20, has been tracked by Leeds for the last twelve months, but have been reluctant so far to make an offer. He has little more than twelve months left on his contract. Brentford and Newcastle are also credited with an interest in the Welsh International please log in to view this image Leeds approaching 100 bookings for the season Premier League referee's have dished out 93 yellow cards to Leeds players so far this season. In many cases, as you'll see from the data below, Messrs Pawson, Friend, Kavanagh and Taylor have dealt Leeds (circa) twice as many cards as their opponents. It's not all one way traffic, Darren England, who oversaw Monday's encounter at Selhurst Park is one of four referees (along with Simon Hooper, Mike Dean and Robert Jones) to have booked more opposition players. Leeds least favourite men in black this season are Chris Kavanagh and Kevin Friend! What a waste... Leeds have a mountain to climb this Summer should they survive the drop. They have an ageing squad who are sitting at the wrong end of the table. Even with most of their players fit, they have shown in recent games, that they find it difficult to string passes together, let alone create opportunities. Whilst fans can gloat about uncovering the exceptional talents of Raphinha, Meslier and Ben White, there is little else to get excited about when you look at the signings made during Bielsa's tenure. Jean Kevin-Augustin 18m (though hopefully not) Izzy Brown (loan) Jamal Blackman (loan) Lewis Baker (loan) Kiko Casilla Helder Costa 15m Barry Douglas 3m Eddie Nketiah (loan) Rodrigo 27m Diego Llorente 18m Junior Firpo 12.6m Dan James 25m Whilst it would be unfair to lay blame solely at Bielsa's door, he did have the final say on all incoming transfers (apart from Diego Llorente which Orta insisted on signing). Leeds record signing Rodrigo has shown he has a future at Elland Road next season, but spending 27m on a player who is almost 30yo is difficult to understand. please log in to view this image
Morning all. Not sure that I agree we have an ageing squad. There has to be a balance between experience and youth. I think the future will look much clearer in a few weeks when we know where we'll be playing next year. I think that was a good result for us last night. The last thing Pep will want before the 2nd leg is a war at Elland Road. This weekend I'll be cheering on Watford and Chelski.
Agreed. We don’t have an ageing squad. Our oldest players are Klich (who’ll probably be leaving anyway) Dallas and Rodrigo, all 31. When you look at the top Champions League sides a lot of them have players in their mid-30s - Fernandinho, Modric, Benzema etc. We shouldn’t be so quick to write off players just because they’ve reached 30.
Morning all from very sunny Skopje. Looking forward to my dentist visit this after. 2 extractions of molars 1 on each side of my mouth. Last one took 5 hours! Btw, Ell, just glanced at your signing list there. Don't see Harrison, Firpo, Koch, or James on it. It seems that we now have a new true fan ... https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2022/04/...-in-away-end-v-palace-posts-photo-on-twitter/
Perhaps we're a bit wrong accusing the likes of Burnley of being a bunch of dirty rotten cloggers .... https://www.football365.com/news/fe...ouls-fair-play-table-leeds-liverpool-man-city
I think the transfer policy has and will be largely based on the monchi (Seville) model where Orta cut his teeth. Basically buy young - where player value should be on the up. I think Rodrigo was a one off. They knew there would be no resale but figured a Spanish international with experience of English football would be worth it if he could hit the ground running and help keep us in the league. Hasn’t really turned out that way, in terms of the contribution but I think there was a ‘logic’ to it.
I think the man marking system of bielsa accounts for dirty Leeds and our number of yellows. It leads to a lot of holding, shirt pulling, tactical/professional fouls that are all ‘cardable’. Burnley are a physical side but it seems if you stay on your feet you can various forms of Gbh without sanction.
yeh modern training and nutrition and professional lifestyle means players can play longer… to some degree depends on the style of football the side plays unless they’ve been over-trained of course- then they’re ready for the knackers yard at 25
Think it was Jammy the other day who pointed out best not to discuss transfers until we know where we are next season. Good idea too. Well shortly have three or four months to fantasise about the millions we might spend and dreaming of the millions well get for the players were trying to off load
Morning all… Based on our two seasons so far in the PL I’m more than happy with how much we have spent and how we’ve not sold players to fund that spend. I find it questionable how anyone could claim Radz has been tight? The one thing I wouldn’t argue with is the quality or the positions we’ve made those signings for or the positions we’ve neglected. You can only blame Orta and Bielsa for that. It doesn’t matter if you rate Rodrigo or not, we signed him to replace or compete with Bamford, that was a waste. We signed Koch a defender he plays more in midfield and when you throw in Llorente and the emergence of Hjelde, Cresswell and Struijk the signing of both Koch and Llorente is strange. We signed James, we’d already spent out on Harrison and James is not a striker, we allowed Alioski to leave and signed Firpo. Augustin what a joke of a contract offer. Unless Orta has put the blame solely at the feet of Bielsa I’m amazed he’s still got a job
I believe the balance is too vast (between youth and experience). There's no inbetween. Llorente, Cooper, Ayling and Firpo will all be a year older in August too
Ayling, 31 in August Cooper, 31 in August Rodrigo 31 Klich, 32 in July Dallas, 31 Forshaw, 31 in October llorente, 29 in August Bamford 29 in September All these players are more or less guaranteed starters, and by the time next season gets into full flow, the average age of 8 of our 11 will be 30.6 yrs old. If we had a Fernandinho, Modric or Benzema, they have the experience, and skill levels to play into their mid thirties, but its like comparing Laurens De Bock to Jordi Alba
I'm not sure how many of our players we'd be able to even get our money back on, apart from (big profits on) Phillips, Raphinha and Meslier.
Stop being a knob elland. Dallas 31 Rodrigo 31 Klich 31 Cooper 30 Ayling 30 Forshaw 30 - - - - - - - - - Llorente 28 Bamford 28 - - - - - - - - - - Phillips 26 Harrison 25 Raphinha 25 Koch 25 Firpo 25 James 24 - - - - - - - - - Roberts 23 Meslier 22 Shackleton 22 Struijk 22 - - - - - - - - Summerville 20 Greenwood 20 Joffy 19 McKinstrey 19 Cresswell 19 Bate 19 Hjelde 18 Seems perfectly balanced to me age wise....quailty however is a different debate.
Thing with a small squad strategy is you buy/select players who can cover more than one position - which was a bielsa requirement... flexibility. Both Koch and Llorente can and have played DM... Koch has played DM for Germany. We've never played LLorente as a DM, which surprises me actually as he always looked the best equipped for it. With a larger squad you can buy for a position rather than buying 1 player who can cover 2... or 3... or 4. It's a generalist v specialist thing. I think feedback on llorente signing was that Bielsa relented to an extra CB to give more flexibility for playing 3 at the back. Struijk wasn't a first teamer then,Cresswell still in nappies and hjelde not signed. Think we were all happy signing Koch and Llorente to have 3 senior centrebacks at the club, after White's loan period ended.
Some niche things to look at in the future squad or signings are a dead ball specialist (assume Raph carries on doing that), ability to clear corners (tall DMs or whoever and a system to do it) and an ability to score from corners - so heading practice. Last time I looked our conversion rate from corners was awful, and our ability to defend them was woeful - though JM has improved the defence.
Those are the facts, I'm sorry you don't like them. How are the age groups 'perfectly balanced' when there is such a gulf in quality?
