Good Morning. It's Monday 19th August, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road We’re fed up with all the excuses Leeds' financial situation and limited time frame are no secret in the football world. The pressure is on, and the Elland Road hierarchy are facing increasing scrutiny. The clock is ticking; Leeds have until Friday 30th August to secure reinforcements, or face the dire consequences. Parashoot payments are running out too, and when they do, any kind of advantage the Whites hold in the Championship have gone forever. We could still lose the services of Max Wober and Wilfred Gnonto, so unless the 49ers bring in multiple signings, there's a real possibility that we could be looking at a squad of less than 20 players! By now, every club and their dog will know Leeds have money to burn, and not much time to spend it! You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know how that one will play out! The Elland Road hierarchy are quickly becoming as popular as a Keir Starmer conference, in Clacton-on-Sea. Every season it’s the same. We struggle to find talent, or end up over-paying, whilst our elite players (with two or three exceptions) are allowed to leave for fees well under their market value! Every club makes bad signings, but has anybody ever heard of another JKA catastrophe or the the time the Director of Football allowed all their decent players to leave on-loan after getting relegated - No, well, there's a good reason for that! We lose Rutter for £40m, but then have to pay Hoffenheim almost £6m of that. That won’t be anywhere near as bad if Gnonto leaves. It has been strongly suggested that FC Zurich’s sell-on clause is between 25% - 35%. Obviously Leeds don’t have any sell-on clauses with Summerville, Gray, Rutter or Kamara. It looks highly unlikely that once again we won't come close to filling our loan quota either! Bringing in young talent from the top leagues seems alien to us, yet every other club outside the top flight use this method to excess; it was one of the reasons why Leicester City, Ipswich and Southampton finished above us last season! please log in to view this image Stalemate or just stale? West Brom and Leeds played out a soul-destroying, put your head in an oven goalless draw on Saturday lunchtime, with the only cheers from the crowd coming on 95 minutes, thankful for the final whistle. Daniel Farke sought to calm the nerves of his players after a turbulent week, opting for a defensive strategy at the Hawthorns, to kick-start Leeds' revival. A clean sheet away from home can be seen as a positive, highlighted by a solid display from skipper Pascal Struijk. However, the attacking play was dire; It lacked any kind of rhythm or coordination, with the midfield and forward line on completely different wavelengths at times. Losing your two best players, and conceding six at home in two games had a knock-on effect on his squad; he said as much during his pre match presser. Whilst a mind numbingly lacklustre 0-0 draw will do little to lift the current toxicity around Elland Road, it won’t make it any worse! please log in to view this image Leeds go all out on Clarke Jack Clarke has emerged as Leeds number one target, with a suggested price tag of up to £25m being proposed. The 23yo started his career at Elland Road at the age of 9. He worked his way up the age groups, breaking into the first team during the 2018/19 season. After an impressive campaign, Leeds decided to cash in on their star asset, accepting a £10m offer from Spurs, but failed to make an impression there. After a series of failed loan moves, he joined the Black Cats for just £750,000, plus a hefty sell-on clause, but has been making great progress ever since. In truth, Clarke offers a similar kind of service that Summerville provided, but not quite as good. With talent in short demand, and the transfer window closing shortly, Leeds may need to fork out £25m if they want him back! please log in to view this image
The Jack Clarke story I believe is false. Cannot see us paying anything like £25m for a player in the championship or anywhere else. It would mean losing the Summerville money in one bit plus there is no upside in Clarke as the only way his value increases would be if he scored a shed load, ripped defences apart and got us promoted, he would then have to demonstrate he can do the same in the premier league. Sorry but Jack is very good but would already be in the prem if any club thought he was good enough. Remember he had a good season and everyone saw him, but no prem club came in for him. Don’t think Leeds will pay big money unless for a proven player of quality with lots of upside
Morning all The only consolation is that I don’t see any of our rivals splashing it out. Hull must also have a shed load to spend after their big name sales, Blackburn have just lost their leading scorer, WBA sold theirs to meet fair play a week or so back, we’re not alone. We’re in a better position than most, Blackburn only got £10m for Szmodics, Norwich £15m for Sara, Sheffield U £14m for Archer. The PL kicked off this weekend, let’s see what movement we get this week. Personall I’d take Clark at £20m - Why have Rowe at half the price when you can get someone better who’ll probably end up Championship player of the season. Rowe downing tools and refusing to play, we really don’t need another one of those
While i understand the point about why sell Summerville and then buy clarke... I don't think we had any choice in selling the players we sold... so we need to replace them with the best available who'll come. If that's Clarke then it's Clarke. What he's worth isn't as relevant as what he's worth to us... now. I don't care whether he's good emough for the prem if he's good enough to get us there. If he's not the best player in the championship over the last 2 seasons he's certainly one of them... and he's still only 23. He's a York boy, his agent is Ian Harte, the window is closing soon.... Seriously i'm not clamouring for it, there are a bunch of other requirements we have, but there are much worse options than Clarke.
Back on Clarke, the only prem club who enquired about him was WHU back in January but a new broom in there and they went for Summerville. All the hype around Jonny Rowe is also crap because if he was seen as a potential big hit in the prem why is he still at Norwich. Yes Marseille are trying for him but nobody else and maybe it’s the huge price because there needs to be an upside in new players or you just fall into the PSR trap. Gnonto is the only proven winger in the championship and even his price scared off some prem clubs and back in Italy where he’s wanted they cannot afford him either The really annoying ghing for me is that doing an easy job like having a go for Rowe or Clarke, our new large recruitment department don’t have a list of potentially top players who will cost relative peanuts and be worth a bomb in the future. WTF have they been doing. Yes they have 10 days left and could surprise us all yet. But after all the slagging off of Orta at least he did get Summerville for £1m, Gnonto for £4m, Joseph for £1m, Klich for £2m and others and was going after players none of us had heard of that are now in top teams around Europe. Our new boys need to step up dont you think
Morning Leeds fans. It was certainly dull but after shipping 6 goals in 2 games at home I would have bitten your arm off if you offered me a point and a clean sheet away at West Brom. Let's not forget that we lost this fixture last season and I think it was a case of steadying the ship and "don't lose at all costs!". Having said that, we had absolutely nothing going forward and desperately need a spark. Eleven days to go and I'm confident (hopeful!) that with a few decent additions we would still have a chance of reaching the play-offs. Time to trot out cliche #428 - "Let's see where we are in a month's time".
Charlie Cresswell getting a new nickname in France: “The Control Tower” MoM performance huge stats for headers in defence and set pieces, blocks, interceptions and tackles and almost scored. Seems the Toulouse recruitment department have found a cheap gem
Morning all. Still nothing happening I see. If the club has PSR issues then use the loan market as Ell pointed out, it has worked for other clubs.
This is yet another FARKE issue as Roberts a proper right back was hardly a starter last season, Anthony was on the bench and he didn’t like Spence so players will not come to Leeds if going to be sat in the bench all season. Farke should have eased the load on some players and maybe we would have had a different performance in the final?
What I find strange, Farke couldn’t handle Cresswell requesting to play and they had a falling out, he didn’t rate Drameh or give him a chance, yet Gnonto, Aaronson and Wober are all given a chance
not sure its that strange... players he rates/wants v ones he doesn't? He sees these guys in training... and felt we had stronger options in their positions.
