A massive boost for European top clubs as Qatar and Saudi Arabia start throwing their wealth about and paying some big transfer fees and wages to some top players. Not all of them past their best and in any trickledown economy that means football as a whole will benefit simply because the usual transfer merry go round is boosted by the Arab cash too. Oh wait, Leeds have sold a top striker for a few million, but will now have to pay a hell of a lot more to replace him. Wonder why the Arabs are getting involved? Well maybe it’s just a way to stop media attacking them on “Sports Washing” yes the more football clubs accept transfer cash they all become complicit and implicated, therefore can’t say anything. Cant start moaning about Man City cheating or Newcastle owned by the Saudi State which means the Saudi Royal Family…. There is going to be a massive debate about what happened at Leeds post relegation. All these loan clauses which were used by the club to attract players, backfired when we actually got relegated. It’s obvious we were so sure that couldn’t happen and when it did it’s exploded in our faces. When a club is relegated the value of the players takes a hit, but surely getting half the value of the price we paid is better than nothing. Rodrigo even at 32yo and a year left on his contract is a £15m minimum value. Koch was worth at least £10m, Llorente £10m, Kristensen £5m, Roca £8m, Aaronson £12m. That’s £65m we could have brought in now to fund new players. Instead we brought in £2.5m in loan fees and around £4m selling Rodrigo. We now have to hope that these players show their stuff and clubs want to buy them next summer, yet another massive gamble. Lets also remember that these players still have outstanding agreed payments owing on them! Leeds were the first club to mortgage their Champions League money which backfired under Ridsdale and now the first club to have so many first team players on loan clauses which could well be the next Ridsdalebollox. Also the first club to refuse to buy an agreed contracted player and then have to pay twice for a crock. Just how poor has Leeds Utd ownership been and those saying we are not a laughing stock are living in cuckoo-land. By lunchtime Thursday this week we had seen 12 players out of the door with 8 of them being first team players. 5 of these players went out on loan. So we still seem to have more to go out of the club, but at the time of writing this we still have Drameh, Ayling, Cooper, Hjelde, Struijk, Wober, Cresswell, Firpo, Dallas, Harrison, Summerville, James, Sinisterra, Bamford Georginio, Greenwood, Bate, Gyabi, Gray, Gelhardt, Perkins, Joseph, Adams still in the building. Expecting at least another 6 to be gone before long. Basically a whole new first team required, including some 21s promoted. Yes we know that shortly we will be without a dozen first team players who walked out of the club, but lets be frank, there are also some who should have gone last summer. Cooper, Ayling, Dallas were not good enough last season and all injury prone and in decline. Yes we thank them for that amazing promotion and their work in our first season back, but let’s be honest their work was sadly lacking in our 2nd season back. Luckily Forshaw has gone now (I hope). Yes these 3 may well help us this season but our loyalty to these old lads was a big part in our downfall. So in terms of last seasons shocker we are going to probably be 15 players down if you count the 3 old lads. This is a massive job to get right and to do it within a couple of weeks is going to be impossible. FARKE will need patience from us fans even Eire who always likes to give the club 10 minutes in a new season . All blame for this fiasco should be levelled at the whole board of last season for not doing their jobs and offing the old boys and upgrading. They gave us Yank Lampard and backed him like no manager ever in Leeds history. What a shambles. Then Radz and the 49ers failed to do a deal in the event of relegation, almost like they all thought it was impossible to be relegated. The arrogance from both parties has now come home to roost and yet again its the fans who hear nothing, know nothing and a board that says nothing
All spot on in my opinion. You'd have been burned at the stake for such criticisms a couple of years back. We are in an awful mess and think the 49ers were so far in a hole, they've just had to keep digging to try find a way out. Long season incoming rapidly
I'm not expecting us to go back up this season but give it a good go the following. I think we'll start slow this term but finish strong after Farke has had half a season with them. Patience will indeed be required.
Imagine buying a club and then all the players leaving. That would never happen to a group as astute as the 49ers investment gang. Contracts it seems at Leeds only work one way it's a farce.
More I think about it, I believe Radz and Orta were going this summer anyway. Therefore didn't care what contracts they agreed to as they wouldn't be around. Also would explain the extension to LLorentes
I just think at this point in time we are an absolute shambles. Players out the door - no surprise there but all this loan fiasco is a ****ing joke. No players in as yet and 3/4 weeks before the season starts. The game versus Manure didn't exactly inspire confidence but never thought it would do - I took a 2-0 defeat as something of a positive. I do not envy Farke's task ahead of him I mean you can't make a silk purse out of a pigs ear.
These contract extensions would only work for top players to keep the price up. Llorente is not even first choice at Roma but even so they screwed us.
Can't disagree with anything Doc has said. The plonker Rads passed over all responsibility to Orta. So many lads on here warned about how bad Orta actually was and yet he was put in such a position of power. Leicester and Southampton have been so much faster out of the traps (we still haven't even completed the takeover).
Remember that when Leeds gave Llorente a massive contract extension and then sent him out on loan, our mate Phil Hay on the Square Ball podcast said you can never have enough CBs on long contracts? That was the point I realised he’s a joke. Lets be honest nobody in the media thought to question the club about what they were doing, but on here everyone thought WTF and not just here it was the same on every Leeds forum. Guess that’s what the Leeds board were told by Orta and believed him. We have managed to give Roma one of our assets for a season and a half, when the reality is we could maybe have used him to help keep us up. Sheer stupidity and negligence
When we finished our first season back in the prem many including myself knew we needed more players. Too small a squad and not enough quality. Ffs Luton are in the prem with little funding and stadium capacity. Rads/orta and bielsa started their own demise and the happly clappys cheered them on. I predicted relegation last two seasons and first one yank lampard got lucky. If we had got some quality in midfield and a better striker than bamford we would have stayed up. Players like mitrovich and toney pay for themselves. It ain't rocket science R kid just a simple game of football.
And don’t forget all the laughing at forest signing their 30 plus players. At least they gave it a go and it paid off
We need a left back. Benjamin Mendy has been found innocent of rape today lads and his Man City contract ran out this summer so he's free (on more than one account). He played under Bielsa and regularly visited ER to watch games. Are we that desperate yet?
