South Africa first off this weekend and wonder how serious the story of Leeds and Celtic fighting over Luke Baartman? The 17-year-old has also picked up two caps for South Africa’s Under-19’s. Baartman predominantly plays as a striker and he is being backed for a huge future over in South Africa. Cape Town Spurs CEO Alexi Efstathiou told SNL24 earlier this month that he thinks Baartman has ‘got the X-factor’ and has ‘that little bit of something special’ in his game. Efstathiou added that he knows interest will come but Cape Town Spurs don’t want to see Baartman leave just yet, having seen him rise through the ranks. Baartman allegedly scored 84 goals in one season for Cape Town Spurs and we could see him with Celtic or Leeds in the near future. Lewis Bate’s contract is up in the summer so what will we do. Leeds United rejected numerous summer bids for Lewis Bate from clubs outside of England, according to Football League World. The online source has reported on its website [21 November] that one of those clubs would have offered European Conference League action to the young midfielder. Going to be interesting to see who we bring in after Xmas which should be loans. But if they are loans with a buy clause if we get promoted, it will give us a steer about how serious we are about staying in the prem this time. Lets say these loan players are from top half prem clubs and first choice for us, they will be youngish with huge potential. Will we cash in on the likes of Gnonto, Meslier etc? Story about Jo Paintsil doing the rounds in Belgium because FARKE wanted him in the summer and he wanted to come to Leeds but the deal fell through as his club Genk stalled and were trying to sort a new contract for the player. He’s still at Genk and scored 5 and has 4 assists so far this season, which isn’t bad from the wing. If hes still wanted it must mean we are losing a winger or two? Real Betis have been told the price of Marc Roca as they want him permanently. Apparently they are not happy as his valuation has gone up and if he carries on in the same form to the end of the season Betis won’t be able to afford. Football outlet in Spain says his value is more than Betis can afford if Leeds are promoted and Betis hoping that Leeds are not promoted as Betis stand a chance of another loan deal? However the same journo saying there are other La Liga teams who are looking at him and may put an offer in? Matteo Joseph Fernandez scored a great goal for England U20s on Monday night in a 2-3 win in Germany. What will happen to him come June? Darwin Nunez praising Marcelo Bielsa for asking him to do something that gets him a lot of goals and will help Klopp and Liverpool. Another 3-0 win in the South American World Cup qualifiers sees Uraguay in 2nd place just behind Argentina and opening a gap to the rest. Bielsa now has a 75% win ratio for Uraguay. With Georginio out tonight it means Bamford gets a chance to shine but won’t last 90 so Joffy will also get a go. It must be last chance saloon for these 2 and I was Gelhardts biggest fan and expected a lot more from him. Paddy has done nothing for 2 and a half years so not expecting much from him. FARKE has spoken about Joffy as a 10 so maybe I would prefer to see Pirro at 9 and Joffy at 10 and Paddy benchwarming.
As Bamford has never scored 20 goals in a season and Piroe does it every season seems logical to me to leave Bamford on the bench. Joffy or Summerville could play 10 and Gnonto on the wing if Jimmy does it?
Fools sake Cooper and Fitpo but George is back thank fook https://x.com/LUFC/status/1728126341990740084?s=20
Well that feels as bad as a loss and needs calling out. Cooper was left for dead a few times and yes he made good block but is way too slow and now out injured again. Not sure we got a good comparison between Firpo and Byram but no big mistakes from Firpo but he wasn’t there when Cooper was left for dead as he was further forward was that Farkes plan or Firpo. Summerville did well yes but he holds the ball too long and makes too many wrong choices, he could have played Rutter in, Piroe in, Gnonto in etc. Bamford was pointless and a headless chicken. We spend too long playing tippy tappy without penetrating and in the last 20 minutes we needed the ball in to Piroe and Bamford who were both screaming for it and making themselves available, 2 No9s redundant. Not good enough and yes 75% possession means bollox as the striking unit wasn’t connected today. Gutted and angry
Serious question: who benefits from the transfer window system? FIFA/EUFA insisted on it but why? Surely clubs and players would be better off arranging transfers as and when and that would mean there would be no stupid inflated prices which would benefit all clubs. Seems to me that it’s an agents charter as they spend 6 months plotting a scheming to move some of their players so they get a big chunk of cash
Hearing that Luke Baartman has just signed a new long term contract, but that probably means they want to make sure they cash in https://x.com/Football__Stage/status/1726944230264971408?s=20
I am reading that junior asprin did his usual past the halfway line and lost the ball. This i have read led to Rotherhams goal. The guy is a fecking liability and might just be national league standard... Maybe.
Was looking forward to the WBA v Ipswich match today but not going to bother now and I'll stick with my pre season prediction of finishing 3rd, although it wouldn't surprise me if that turned out to be 4th as Southampton are definitely going to be in the mix for the Top 2. Missed opportunity last night and we'll probably have a few more stumbles over the coming weeks as the team is not yet mature enough in their decision making and game management, which is a shame as the talent is definitely there.
Summerville lost the ball on the half way line and he should not have done that with 20/30 seconds left to HT.
We have the makings of a top championship team. Anyone though believing promotion is some form of foregone conclusion and a few signings would turn them into a mid table pl team. At this moment we don’t have one player that would get into a mid table pl team. That’s the size of the rebuild needed and I don’t see it happening anytime soon
With their goal, there were something like 5 specific parts of the play, where one or more of our players should have dealt with the situation, so whilst Firpo did indeed lose the ball, it wasnt in a dangerous position, and we had more than enough opportunities to deal with it, so you could probably portion the blame between about 5 players
You can't become a mid table PL team in the Championship though. Kinda obvious I know but you don't seem to have grasped it yet
When I looked at some of the performance ratings sometimes I wonder what game they were watching. Example Piroe 5. Piroe did some heavy lifting in midfield tackling and winning the ball. He also had 4 shots and all were on target, so a 6 to 7 for me. Firpo given a 4 but why, yes he was struggling to get into the game but. ….. cooper 7 ffs he was too slow and besides one block and a couple of headers out of defence… 4 from me. Nobody was excellent and that was the problems Summerville caused problems all game but let himself down with decision making. Piroe, Summerville, James, Gnonto, Struijk, Bamford should all have scored last night and just one would have been enough to pick up 3 points. Yes Summerville did score but he could have had an hatrick and a few assists Djed Spence and Byram plus Struijk and Rodon to make the back 4 on Wednesday. Ampadu and Kamara in the middle so Archie Gray benched but can cover the middle or RB. Georginio will be fully fit so FARKE has Anthony, Poveda, James, Summerville, Gnonto and Piroe to sort out
This team will be lucky to make the play offs, you've got to blame Farke for that, the defence is ****e with Cooper and Firpo playing. Maybe the problem is when we play some of the bigger teams like Leicester it's us who raise our game because it's our cup final then when we play the lesser teams we go back to being just an average championship football team. We should be beating teams like Rotherham for any chance of being in the race for promotion, sadly I can't see us doing that. Sort it out Farke you twat.
We are a very good Championship side. Maybe not got the experience to get top 2 but we'll definitely finish top 6. Farke has done a good job at settling the dressing room but there have been one or two questionable moments by him. His selections at times are a bit baffling and I'm sticking by the fact that Georginio is a 10 and Piroe is a 9. Meslier should be keeping more out than he is too and for **** sake sort out a ****ing left footed ****ing left back. Archie is a wonderful talent but he ain't no right back.
