Good Morning. It's Wednesday 14th September, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road Leeds have missed the boat for Gakpo Elland Road journalist Phil Hay believes Cody Gakpo may be out of Leeds Utd's reach, when the Winter transfer window opens in January. Having spent much of the season chasing Charles De Ketelaere (in vain), they waited until the last 48 hours of the transfer window before securing an alternative frontman. A deal with PSV Eindhoven worth £38.4m was put into place, and Victor Orta jetted off to Holland to collect his man. Unfortunately, the rushed deal unravelled, and although the finer points of the collapse are a little hazy, we can all agree that the timing was a major influence. In a bid to save face, Leeds Chairman Andrea Radrizzani took to social media to proclaim that they would try again in the new year, but according to Hay, the boat may have already sailed! In six appearances for PSV this season, he has netted seven times, and gained three assists, as well as four man-of-the-match awards. WhoScored have awarded the 23yo an almost unprecedented 8.93 rating. If Europe's elite were not aware of Gakpo's talents during the Summer, they will be now! According to Hay "Leeds are talking about trying again with Gakpo in January, but they have to be realistic about the fact his value will rise if he has a good domestic season with PSV Eindhoven and shines at the World Cup with the Netherlands. Should that happen, his sights are likely to turn to a higher level of competition than Leeds can offer — regular Champions League football in other words — and Leeds might find that he is beyond their reach. Aaronson was slightly different in that Elland Road was always likely to be his best option this summer. Gakpo’s choice of clubs could be far broader, so yes, maybe the boat has sailed." "Leeds are talking about trying again with Gakpo in January, but they have to be realistic about the fact his value will rise if he has a good domestic season with PSV Eindhoven and shines at the World Cup with the Netherlands. Should that happen, his sights are likely to turn to a higher level of competition than Leeds can offer — regular Champions League football in other words — and Leeds might find that he is beyond their reach. Aaronson was slightly different in that Elland Road was always likely to be his best option this summer. Gakpo’s choice of clubs could be far broader, so yes, maybe the boat has sailed." please log in to view this image Redevelopment of ER is critical During a recent Q and A session on 'The Athletic' Phil Hay voiced his concern over the long awaiting redevelopment program at Elland Road. Currently, the capacity stands at 37, 792, but with a waiting list of more than 20,000, talk of expansion is never far away. As Hay states, the revenue the extra seats would generate, would give Leeds the financial clout needed to challenge for a European place, which in turn would attract better players. It's fair to say that Elland Road could do with a face lift, but we may have to wait for the 49er's to exercise their right to buy out Radrizzani before any building work takes place. "The redevelopment of the stadium is critical. It’s the only way in which Leeds can significantly hike up their annual revenue to a level that allows them to realistically aim for Europe. A modern 60,000-seater ground would generate so much more revenue than Elland Road currently does. Radrizzani said here that plans for the project are moving forward, but you only have to look at Elland Road to see how much needs to be done." "If or when 49ers Enterprises buy out Radrizzani, a transitional period is likely. The expectation is that Angus Kinnear would stay on as CEO, at least in the short term, and potentially Victor Orta, too. Orta, like Radrizzani, has said a few times that he plans to remain at Leeds until the club have made it into Europe. But generally, changes of ownership tend to mean a changing of the guard at executive level, so it’s difficult to give a definite answer." "What we can say is that over the summer there has been no move by 49ers Enterprises to increase its minority shareholding of 44 per cent. The group holds an option to take majority control before 2024, but that hasn’t been activated yet." please log in to view this image Bielsa's not finished Many may have assumed that at 67, Marcelo Bielsa's Managerial career may have been over, but nothing is further from the truth. The Argentine received his P45 at the end of February, and has been out of work ever since. He was heavily linked with a return to Athletic Bilbao, but the position was reliant on Iñaki Arechabaleta becoming Club President, and unfortunately, he lost the vote. It is understood that his team of coaches are waiting patiently by the phone, ready to reunite with him when the time is right. Rumours of Thorp Arch being renamed after Bielsa are on hold, as he hasn't yet given Leeds permission to do so. "Bielsa went to Brazil for a short break with his wife after leaving Leeds and he’s been back in Argentina since then. You’ll have seen the bid he made for the job at Athletic Bilbao (a job he didn’t get because the presidential candidate who wanted him failed to get elected at Athletic). But he’s very much in the market for another coaching position and he’s told people around him that he’s not finished. Most of the staff who were with him at Leeds went home, waiting to see what was next for Bielsa." "His translator, Andres Clavijo, has been working in a bar in Brixton in London. It’ll be fascinating to follow Bielsa if and when he steps back into the game. As for the training ground, Leeds have written to him to ask for his permission to rename it after him. They’re waiting for a reply." please log in to view this image
Morning all. Radrizzani is holding the club back at this point. even his most fervent fans can see that even if they don't admit it. No slight on Bielsa but I believe Thorpe Arch should be named after Wilko. A statue to Bielsa would be appropriate
September and we are talking about transfers already? Obvious Gakpo will be way too much money now and so Orta should be looking at the next Raphinha which right now is under the radar. Talk of a takeover is ok but the longer it drags on the more money it will cost the 49ers. The Forbes valuation last week valuing the club at over £600m would mean they would have to pay Radz way way over £300m to buy him out. Obviously a relegation season would see the value plummet. Of course the 49ers shares have increased in price too, so in reality the deal will happen at the best time to suit both parties, and it could also be that the T/O never happens as they may opt for cashing in and selling the club to another buyer. However if the 49ers want to really cash in ghey need to do the buy out and then invest in the stadium redevelopment, the club should then be worth a billion, but its up to them and its a gamble because spending a fortune on the ground and then not investing in players could mean relegation and share values wiped out
Morning all Is anyone actually buying into the thought that we were ever in with a chance of either Cody Gakpo or Charles De Ketelaere? The latter said on day one he doesn't want to join us he would like CL football, Gakpo thought he was on his way to the red side of Manchester until the final few days of the window when several teams made a late push. As for the January transfer window, give up on that now, we had to loan out a record signing to a rival in order to bring in an U21 player for under £5m so there is no chance of us splashing serious money come the next window unless we sell more players. Already this is feeling a ****ty stop start season and we've not even started the break for the WC yet
We haven’t started the international break yet before starting the break for the world cup and we haven’t finished this current break yet ffs Frustrating
much as it's fun to think that Orta is a complete idiot or to hypothesise that we put stories out in the press that we're interested in players that we are never going to sign, i don't think it's quite that simple personally. CDK's agents were reported as saying he had a preference for milan and champion's league very early. But there's a difference between a preference and saying it's milan or nothing. There'll have been constant contact behind the scenes, provisional personal terms agreed etc. which wouldn't happen if the player wasn't prepared to come. Realisticlly we know we're not anyone's first choice. It's just how it is. The challenge is, at what point do you give up and go for another target. What Orta does, in fact what most clubs do, is set up deals with first second, third, fourth choices - so we can hop from one to the other if necessary. We saw this with adams and camara. Clearly camara deal was done, but he was second choice to first choice adams. At the end of the window we saw this in reverse with moving on to other choices when we donpt get first choice... with gakpo < dieng < gnonto. Gnonto had even had a medical weeks earlier. All this is obviously complicated by others on the list also being on a stack of other clubs shortlists too. With CDK my take was we thought Milan wouldn't meet Bruges' valuation so we could still get CDK... but we dicked around too long waiting. But sometimes you have little choice but to wait for some targets... Re Gakpo -he was waiting to see if united took anthony... because just like us, united had flirted with him but he wasn't first choice. So it took the Anthony deal to happen to open up gakpo and that's when us and southampton went for him. So i do believe we were serious and it sounds like he was in two minds. Don't think we did anything wrong here. As for how can we sign 30/40m players and have to let james go just to get a 5m 18 year old come in? It comes from a different budget. CDK/Gakpo are expected to be future stars of the game but too big a risk for the big boys. Money is sourced from an investment pot not subject to standard transfer/budget balancing. It's why they couldn't stomach the same kind of fee for a 25 year old 'late bloomer' like Terrier.
I see some young lad Christoper Atherton set a record last night playing first team football and wasn't even 14. He came on for Glenavon in the third round of the Irish Cup. Orta will be drawing up a contract at this moment for January
We're sitting in 9th. Roca, Adams, Aaronson, Sinisterra have all hit the ground running. We are debt free. We look a good side. Injured players are on the way back. Youth team are top. However, seems we are going to be in a relegation battle, we're skint, the managing director didn't sign Gakpo or De Ketelaere cos he's **** at signing players, the owner doesn't have a clue and is holding the club back, we aren't building a new stadium even though we didn't own one 4 years ago, Bielsa is a **** cos he won't answer the phone. Welcome to the breakfast club. Miserable ****s! please log in to view this image
Our crap media are being torn to shreds for covering up the shyte behaviour of the scousers last night. BBC turned the volume down so nobody heard it, Henry Winter and loads of sports journos are getting shredded on twitter for not mentioning it and covering up for the Victimpool fans. Lets not show the world what they’re like……. Ref only gave it 25 seconds before blowing his whistle to put an end to this shame
