Good Morning. It's Friday 12th July, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road Rothwell pens season long loan deal from Cherries Leeds United have agreed a deal with Bournemouth to take Joe Rothwell on a season long loan. The 29yo midfielder started his fledgling career with the wrong side of Manchester (is there a right side?), before being passed around the lower divisions. He started to make an impact with Blackburn Rovers after signing with them back in 2018. He left in 2022 upon the expiry of his contract, penning a four year deal with the Cherries! He spent the second half of last season at Southampton, making 17 appearances (only 2 starts) mainly from the bench. His lowly 6.32 Whoscored' ranking rates him 26th in their squad last season, even though he netted four times. Rothwell's biggest strength is ball-carrying, and he would regularly wriggle past players on his way to the final third. He may not be the most exciting signature, but Rothwell is solid, experienced, and reliable from the bench. please log in to view this image Hume firmly on Leeds radar Leeds are keeping close tabs on Northern Ireland full-back Trai Hume according to the Belfast Telegraph! The 22yo right sided wing-back applies his trade at the Stadium of Light, joining two years ago having come through the Linfield Academy. His stats look great. He started 46 games for Sunderland last season, finishing second (only behind Jack Clarke) with a respectable 6.96 'Whoscored' rating. He can play right sided midfield as well as central defence, but is considered by many to be the best right wing-back outside of the top flight! Reports indicate that Hume is available for £8m which is well within Leeds budget. please log in to view this image Could Dallas help Leeds to land Hume If Leeds are to land Trai Hume, they'll have to beat off competition from a host of rival clubs including Bournemouth. The South Coast outfit have become a nemeses to the Whites in recent times. They stole away Max Arrons whilst in the process of undertaking his medical at TA last Summer, signed Tyler Adams and Luis Sinisterra on the cheap (imo), strengthened both Southampton (David Brooks) and Ipswich's (Kieffer Moore) sides last January, helping them win promotion and have even beaten Leeds to the signature of highly rated forward Daniel Jebbison earlier this week. Leeds do have a secret weapon, in the form of Stuart Dallas. The former player, now coach was highly influential and well respected by his peers at Windsor Park, and was known to mentor younger players. Hume has risen through the ranks with Northern Ireland, and already has 12 senior caps for the Green and White Army. It would be so satisfying if the Whites can get one over on the Cherries! please log in to view this image
Morning all. Great we’ve yet another lad who can apparently run with a ball. Question though, when are we going to eventually sign someone who can actually kick the damn thing or better still cross a ball either from play or a set piece. Maybe there are no footballers left with such gifted ability. Wasn’t Douglas our last attempt. Hadn’t he a left foot supposedly like a wand
Good morning everyone IF we can sign someone who can actually cross the ball, we need someone who stands a 50/50 chance of finishing the chance, a predatory striker or just someone who can finish., but we would need to change our system, which is highly unlikely. One thing I have noticed with the Euro’s is Football is now based on possession, (Spain being the exception), ie if the opposition does not have the ball they will not score, with everyone else the actual chances created and scored looked very poor in my opinion. It would seem that 90% of the training emphasis is, is that a player can physically run around for 90+ minutes, the other 10% on actually shooting on target or being able to take a decent free kick or corner, wonder how many were actually scored directly from a free kick?, not many I bet., but this seems to be the Modern game Sadly.
Scored directly from a free kick least season is One - Gruev v Norwich in the Semi-final of the play offs. The time before that was one the last day of the 20/21 season, Phillips in the 3-1 victory over West Brom. TBF, There was another free kick last season, but it took a nick off Cooper, so was given to him. We don't actually have a target man, someone like Kiefer Moore. Bamford can hold the ball up, and is the closest thing we have to a target man.
You do realise that in Glasgow, 'hurling' is another name for vomiting. Loudly & painfully. I earned a Masters in it as a teenager, & am so well practised that I don't need too much prep these days ....
Rothwell in Kamara gone https://x.com/FabrizioRomano/status/1812176361106379014?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet
£8.6m for Kamara so a tidy profit, so who’s next…… been a pretty good week £40m for Gray, £4.8m for Cresswell, £8.6m for Kamara. Spent £10m on Rodon and got Rothwell on loan. Cooper gone with his wages to Blackburn, £1m coming in from Gent for Max Dean….
Let's see who comes in. 49ers and Red Bull see PL football as the main goal. They don't usually fail.
