Good Morning. It's Wednesday 7th December, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road Leeds to rescue Brereton Diaz from La Liga nightmare Leeds have been linked with a surprise move for former Blackburn Rovers forward Ben Brereton Diaz in New Year. The 23yo Chilean International joined Villareal in the Summer when his contract expired at Ewood Park, but has not been able to settle in Spain. He has been afforded just 223 minutes of game time this season, and has a 'Whoscored' rating of just 6.03. Brereton Diaz has been linked with Leeds several times, but his £20m+ price tag was always a big deterrent. In his last two seasons with Blackburn, he registered 38 goals, and 7 assists. Whilst Leeds have one of the deadliest strike forces in the Championship, they do not have the strength in depth, should they face an injury crisis. Patrick Bamford and Joe Gelhardt have fallen down the pecking order in recent times, whilst Matteo Joseph is still unproven at this level. If Leeds were to cash in on Gnonto, they could secure Rodon's long term services, and could have enough for Ben Brereton Diaz! please log in to view this image Quartet of top flight clubs tracking Greenwood A quartet of top flight London clubs are monitoring the progress of Leeds midfielder Sam Goodwood. The former Arsenal academy prospect joined the Whites during the 2020 Summer transfer window in a deal worth £1.5m plus add-ons. After missing out on pre-season due to injury, the 21yo was allowed to join Middlesbrough on loan, where he is currently flourishing. As well as being their joint top scorer (4 in just 750 minutes of game time), he has quickly established himself as being one of their best players. This has caught the attention of Premier League quartet Brentford, West Ham, Crystal Palace and Fulham, as well as Southampton and Leicester City. Boro have a £1.5m option to buy Greenwood, but the lure of the top flight may be too hard for Greenwood to ignore. please log in to view this image Marsch - I'm a TV personality now Former Leeds Manager Jesse Marsch has ambitions of Managing top European sides with Champions League aspirations, but will wait for the right opportunity to come up. Following his dismissal from Elland Road, the 50yo considered taking the reigns at St Mary's, and was on the short list for the Leicester City role, before upping sticks and moving to Italy, where he is currently enjoying punditry work. When asked recently where his future lies, the former USA International cheekily replied that he was a TV personality now, before giving a more pragmatic response. "I'm focused on what I'm doing here in Europe, which is trying this (punditry work), but I really still think that my future lies here in Europe and finding good clubs to coach here. I'm a little bit more of someone who enjoys the daily grind of being part of a team, and I feel like that's the way to really impact a group. "So I mean, let's see what happens. You never know you can never say never, but I'm really happy living here in Europe. I'm really happy with with the challenge of getting to know new cultures, languages, teams leagues... Champions League, right there's nothing for me bigger than Champions League." please log in to view this image
Jesse is a real Yank, so far up his own arse it's unbelievable. Useless would be a far better description but Im sure he got a nice parting present from his Buddy Victor to keep him going. Football one of the few businesses or sports where you're handsomely rewarded for failure. Stevie G on his 300k a week springs to mind too
Something smelly about the BBD situation. A former Man Utd kid who spent a long time there but moved on to Stoke. Forest signed him and then Blackburn. In the 21/22 season he scored 22 goals playing mainly left wing but doubled up as a 9. The following season he scored 14 goals from left wing, he was also and still is a regular for the Chile national team and has scored 7 goals for them. Bielsa wanted him but Blackburn wanted too much money and in fairness we carried on trying to get him. He did however refuse to move and probably as he wanted to run his contract down and go on a freebie for big cash. It’s not working out for him though and he has played in 11 La Liga games this season but all from the bench and not many minutes. He would be great in our system but the left wing has plenty of cover unless we are offloading Gnonto. Hes a big lad for a winger and why he’s useful as a 9 and he can hold the ball too?
The best time to refresh and improve the squad is in the summer as many a good team have meddled mid season only for it to upset the alchemy of what was making them successful up to that point. Tino Asprilla & David Batty to Newcastle spring to mind as they went from near title certainties to falling away badly after strengthening in January. If you don't agree then look at our last 10 game record where we're averaging 2.5 points per game.
On the subject of Yank Lampard, he got rid of Leif Davies and only for a million quid when we didn’t really have a LB alternative to Firpo. He got rid of him probably because Bielsa rated him so highly, so we sold him and even to this day we haven’t replaced him? “Kieron Dyer believes former Leeds United left-back Leif Davis is the only Premier League quality player in Ipswich Town’s squad…………….”
To be fair to those that made the decision on Leif Davis we were a PL club at the time and it's doubtful he was ready at that stage of his career to perform consistantly against top quality opposition. However a season long loan at Bournemouth and then dropping into L1 with Ipswich have provided him with the pathway to learn his trade and now he's probably ready to see if he can play in the PL. Difficult to answer if we were right to let him go because he might not have played as much for Ipswich if he wasn't there on a permanent and he may not have performed to the same levels as a loanee with one eye on his parent club.
Get what you’re saying but when Bielsa was giving him individual coaching and then giving him bolloxing on the touchline “Very good Davies” you knew Bielsa thought a lot about him. His stats are top draw with last season playing 43 games, a few goals and 14 assists from a LB is phenomenal. This season in 18 games he has 9 assists. All the time we have not had a LB but had this kid and we got rid. I used to watch a lot of the 23s and 21s and I can say that our defensive future looked bright. I would say that the back four unit of Drameh, Cresswell, Struijk and Davies was on a par with the first team and we even had another top draw LB in Niall Huggins another one we sold too early. I think we have gone about it in the wrong way once we sacked Bielsa
I think Gnonto will go in January. If we can get £15m and Rodon, that's good business, though we'll have to pay Zurich at least £5m. If we can pick up Diaz for between 10 -15m, its a no brainer, and Farke being Farke could probably get the best out of him.
I don't care what any of them cost as it will be a bunch of billionaire overpaid sports stars footing the bill anyway
I’d be amazed if we let him go for so little after turning down more just a few months ago. Don’t forget we have a large sell on fee to pay his old club. If Gnonto goes it has to be for £25m and sell on fee attached. Wait until the summer when we’re back in the PL and see what offers we get then if we don’t intend on using him
Don't care in the same way you don't care about Bamfords "stupidly long contract", the money lost on JKA or the dross that got loaned out in the summer or don't care in a different way?
It actually doesn't bother me. Now if it was my cash they'd blown on JKA, Id be upset. It's the nature of most clubs anyway, pissing money away as quick as they can get it. Anyway as I said we've billionaires now willing to foot the bills so all will be well even when we have to donate a truck load of rats next summer to impoverished clubs. Need to get John Rahm on board next. He has an additional 500m burning a hole in his wallet
Liked the look of Davies as well and that was at first team level as he at least showed the necessary pace and energy for a high level of football. Incidentally most of his assists have come from set pieces which is definitely an area we could improve upon.
You'd just be upset if they blew £45m of your money. That's like an entire years ale for Shako. please log in to view this image
it’s no guarantee that’s for sure. But you think Newcastle blew up because of those two? The rest of the team faded… Bats and Asprilla were among the better players. An argument that accommodating them upset the team balance? Maybe. Hard to say. I think there’s a feeling as Leeds fans we’ve not strengthened in Jan before and faded so I get why people want to invest to secure we keep the form you’ve referred to. I don’t think it’s necessarily about ripping up what got you into a good position, it’s as much about ensuring you have adequate squad cover in key positions. It’s a fact that most injuries come later in the season and the championship is a slog. That said, we’re a team that spreads the goals around so maybe we don’t have to fret too much about losing a key striker which is the usual worry. If DF is happy that we have adequate cover everywhere then fine. Ryan Kent seems the obvious solution to mitigate risk.
it’s down to how ipswich play too. Their right back had almost as many assists last season. Davis looks a decent player but as you say… we were in the PL at the time… and was he ready for that then? I’m more concerned we didn’t replace him and still haven’t - though as per our match day debate, can’t really complain with the job Byram has done
Milky mentioned January transfers in and he is right when he says our post Xmas firm has let us down quite a lot. This year I believe is last chance saloon to try and guarantee promotion at the first attempt. We cannot afford to do what Bates did to Larry when he refused a couple of transfers because we were top of the league and had been in the top 2 all season. He refused him cash and we blew up as usual and finished 7th. We along with Southampton were on for back to back promotions but only Saints went up and how many more years before we followed them. Crucial we have a couple of biggish name signings in January. Defence shored up, midfield creation and goals
