Interesting to see so many voices on twitter claiming it may actually be a good thing if Leeds United get relegated. Some of their reasoning includes getting rid of the board, flogging off half the squad and giving young players the chance to step up and win promotion. The consensus seems to be that Leeds will stroll the Championship next season, so no real harm done. Really? Do you really believe this? Reading all these “relegation is good” tweets took me back to 2004 and a conversation I had with a Maltese friend who’s a Leeds nut. When relegation started to look like a real possibility, he said that it’s probably a good thing because the club could then have a clear out and come straight back with a better equipped team. That went well. Let me put the gist of my response to him in this thread for you, because it’s very relevant today, and as it applied back then it applies now. Firstly, the Championship is a beast of a division. Secondly, there’s the obvious loss of serious income. Thirdly, it becomes very hard to attract players or managers of the right quality to take the club forward. CHAMPIONSHIP If you think Leeds will stroll to promotion next season, think again. The Championship is a beast of a division, and for a massive club like Leeds it’s just plain evil. Promotion is not guaranteed, in fact it will be an achievement just to get to the play-offs. How can I say this? Simple. In the Championship, Leeds United is the big scalp, the one team everyone else wants to beat. Leeds will be facing motivated opponents every week, desperate to turn us over. When teams come to Elland Road they’ll grow ten feet tall and turn into prime Brazil. Most of the players in the Championship will relish a trip to Leeds, the chance to shine on a big stage. For many it will be a first ever visit, and they know they may never get to play there again. They will play to 110% of their ability, they’ll fight and scrap, they’ll run faster and further in their big game of the season. Imagine Leeds having to travel down to Plymouth on a cold, wet Tuesday night. Rain teeming down at Home Park on the hill, wind sweeping across the field. Plymouth are a decent team, well organised and coming off a title winning season. They’ll be well up for the visit of Leeds, no team talk necessary. First five minutes and three crunching tackles later and the game’s decided. Plymouth will fight until they can’t breathe anymore to say they beat the mighty Leeds. EVERY TEAM WILL!!! The Championship is a hard enough league for clubs like Huddersfield or Hull. It’s an impossible league for Leeds. It will be 46 Cup Finals that will have to be navigated. No game will be easy, every game will carry the burden of being expected to win, and if Leeds start slowly, the pressure will mount. It's hard to have to play 46 games in a season, to be mentally ready and focused, to retain the desire to go and win every game. It’s even harder against teams that are organised, and whose mission that season is to beat YOU, regardless of where they may be in the table. The Championship is a beast for most clubs, for Leeds it's a monster. It's not a level playing field because teams won't show the same passion and desire when Stoke, QPR on any other club rolls into town. It's Leeds they want to beat the most, and these battles will have to be fought 46 times. That's savage. FINANCES Getting relegated will do serious harm to Leeds financially. Players will need to be sold to get in line with FFP, the club won’t be able to easily rebuild the squad with the quality needed to improve, and any growth plans will be put on hold. A quick example is TV money. In the Prem Leeds get £1.2m for every televised game. In the Championship it was £30k, although that is set to increase but nowhere near Prem cash. This will set the club back at least three years, and if promotion doesn’t happen right away, even longer. Relegation is fraught with financial danger, and Leeds can easily slip into another mid-table Championship spiral if things don’t go right on the pitch. I don’t think it’s necessary to go into detail on finances, everyone knows it will be a huge blow to take. PLAYERS/MANAGER Leeds will find it hard to attract the quality players needed to take the club on to the next level. It will be hard to compete on wages alone, never mind transfer fees. Good players will rather go to Wolves or Brentford than come to Leeds in the Championship. That’s just a fact of footballing life today. Prem or bust. Tough to build a team not just capable of promotion, but also able to stay in the Prem and kick on. Now the biggest problem, getting the right manager. Top managers won’t risk dropping into the Championship, not even for Leeds. So how do you get the right manager? More importantly, who do you get? It was mentioned to me last week that Leeds should go after Hecky, after all, he got the Blunts promoted. Oh dear. Hecky, along with the likes of managers like Wilder, are very capable coaches who thrive at clubs where the expectation to achieve isn’t as great as it is at Leeds. Sheff Utd were among the list of ten clubs expected to challenge for a play-off spot, but there was never any expectation for them to go up automatically. This lack of expectation eases the pressure on the manager and players, it allows them to play with more freedom. If they do well, they've over achieved. If they fail, no matter, they can try again next season. You don't get that luxury at Leeds. Every team also won’t be going up to Sheffield frothing at the mouth in anticipation of turning them over. It’s a massive difference to managing at Leeds. Hecky wouldn’t cope with the pressure of having to win promotion, and as champions to boot. The new manager will also be expected to win promotion in season one. This will apply every season Leeds get a new manager, and that's a bridge too far for at least 90% of managers out there. I wrote this piece the week news broke that Leeds were going after Bielsa, which I didn’t know at the time of writing it. It is so relevant right now, even if Leeds do manage to stay in the Prem. Have a quick read: https://www.not606.com/threads/leeds-must-get-the-right-manager.362749/ If you think it will be good for Leeds to go down, think again. Relegation is fraught with danger, and promotion will take a monumental effort to achieve. Bielsa made it look relatively straight forward, but that’s what the great ones do. We need another manager who is at Bielsa’s level. A manager who can cope with the massive pressure the Leeds job brings, who can get the respect of the players and their belief in the style of play. Nothing else will do for Leeds United. The impostors will crumble at Leeds, and the Championship will once again become home.
Lot to digest there. I’ll start with the obvious. Perhaps people are trying to put a positive spin on what appears inevitable. Secondly, we were in the prem but the players we weren’t interested in (or their manager) Brentford have stayed in comfortably. Thirdly, don’t really care who we sell as they’ve proved they are not good enough for the Premier League. Can’t go through every point you make but if I were you I’d get ready for the evil next season brings. And no we won’t get an elite coach, we need one who can get us back up first time of asking and be ruthless and sack immediately if someone better is out there, though our history there leaves a lot to be desired
Great post Billy but on top of that we have some players who couldn’t cope with the Prem but will get smashed in the Champs, for example Aaronson. Roca would be sent off and suspended a lot, Cooper, Ayling, Dallas, Forshaw and Bamford are already broken so no chance of 46 games from them and don’t think we’ve seen 46 games in total from the lot of them combined in the last 2 seasons. Joffy cannot play as a lone striker so he must play behind a No9 which we don’t have because Rodrigo will not be here, we would have to rely on a lot of kids like Bate McGurk, Joseph, Perkins, Gyabi, Gray, Monteiro and Cresswell leading them, but these kids didn’t win auto promotion from Prem2Div2 but still could but realistically these kids cannot cope as a unit against Championship teams so these kids will need experienced heads around them but there will be no Koch Llorente or Firpo, no McKennie, no Greenwood or Summerville Drameh has already been shat on and Shackelton and Roberts I don’t want back or Dan James or Poveda. Its a fooking mess a disgrace and the club gambled and lost everything inside 18 months
Really really hope you lot survive this year. You belong in the prem and even this season have added more excitement/enjoyment than a few other teams that deserve the drop. I also think you are a good bunch of posters and will miss you if you go down (keep dropping in on the general thread if the worst happens). Gay as **** I know but I have so far enjoyed your contribution to the prem board.
Some great points made to destroy the "it would be a good thing if we went down and could reset bull manure." Many opposition fans would read a lot of that and accuse us of arrogance but 16 years outside the prem proved it all to be right. I got sick to my back teeth of terrible teams coming to Elland Road and turning into 70's Brazil.
Worth pointing out we have a squad of players whom are mainly young or mid twenties so ideal to have one season in the Championship and bounce back in style. Also enough older heads in there, Cooper, Dallas, Bamford to add the necessary experience The worrying thing is we will have no manager and are without a DOF to bring the plan together. Relegation is never good but the damage can be offset if a stellar promotion season follows.
Relegation and trying to return stronger, it is a gamble but here is how I personally see it. Drameh, Cresswell, Joseph, Joffy, Gyabi - They are not quite ready for the PL. They are five players (or half a team) that coached correctly could set the Championship on fire, add a few who have been there and done that on a promotion campaign and automatic promotion should be doable. Those players would have a season under their belts, improving all the time and hopefully they would hit the ground running in the PL Summerville and Gnonto another couple who you could add to the starting 11, we really would not need to spend too much. No team that gets relegated sells or 7-8 players, we should ignore the media scaremongering, YES we will probably lose a few but you would need to if you are building for the future and some of the U21s are seen as a way forward. Edit* Sorry Jammy I see you have said the same, I was putting this together as you replied
If "surviving" in pl is best we can aim for season in season out where's the benefit in that. At the moment were not competing in the PL, were just in it. We may not be better off in Championship but we do need that reset. Management, senior players currently ay club not fit to wear the colours in the PL
You're 100% correct that keeping the young talent is key and Summerville & Gnonto have to be top of that list with Rutter not far behind once he's given a chance to show what he can do. Potentially three £50M+ players there and they are all still on a massive upward curve. What I'd like though is a core of players in their mid twenties such as Wober, Firpo, Kristensen, Dan James etc to bring it all together. Those older players who seem to be constantly struggling fitness wise can go if they wish. Robles Drameh, Cresswell, Wober, Firpo Gyabi Summerville, Gnonto, Dan James Rutter, Joffy Something like that anyway.
Would love Tyler Adams to stay but that would be down to the 49ers to work their magic and persuade him to give us one season in the Championship.
Unfortunately we aren't as big as we think these days, the playing field has long gone when we where at our peak in the 70's and the Wilko/0'leary sojourns where a pleasing but ultimately short stay at being on top again, a title for wilks and some lovely footy from Dave's babes.... sixteen years of hurt in the wilderness before el loco appeared to put the joy back with football that enthralled not just us but everyone who suddenly appeared to have us as their second team! then after a ninth place finish, the slump with sheer incompetence from 'the management ' involving bad recruitment and wasted opportunities to put a solid base down to really push for a seat back with the 'big' boys...it is a bafflement as to why no oligarchs with the wads(and I mean proper,proper wads) has never deemed a one club city with the fan base and tradition we have had has never picked us out as a project worth taking on...has the Don's perceived curse on elland rd been a myth or
It's entirely possible that mega rich owners are wary of the way our support turns on every aspect of the club when things aren't going well. It's basically bankroll us to be at/near the top of the PL every season or they'll get hell. That's why many of us on here have said we wouldn't want the hassle that comes with owning Leeds United.
Nothing to do with it Jammy. The Abramovic's or Arab oil sheiks don't give one damn about the supporters or their comments, and certainly don't mingle with the rabble down the local. They don't spend their time on footie forums or twitter. They're only interested in the exposure the game gives them.
The fact is that there are 14 teams in the Prem who are "just in it" every season ... to be able to build a team that can compete, you need to be in the Prem for a while ... dropping out fks your ability to move forward and improve, and promotion isn't guaranteed
That may be true of some but others actually want to come to games and are therefore potentially putting themselves in the firing line. Cellino's family we forced to leave Leeds and now Radz has had plenty of abuse and doesn't attend as many matches as he used to. Only owners like Steve Gibson at Boro seem to have a good relationship with the fans, come what may, but as I'm not a Boro fan that might not be the case either. Fans only like their owners when it's all tickety boo, or at least that's how it seems. All I can say it thank god we have Radrizani and not that awful middle eastern investment bank GFH who were utter charlatans.
Unless you do a Fulham. Go down a couple of times and eventually able to compete at least for this season
