Just like the Johnsons, Killkennys, Beckfords ect before. Don't get me wrong Neil Warnock is a fantastic manager and I can't wait to see Leeds under him but let's not forget what Grayson did for this club. He built a fantastic squad and got us promoted and then came close to getting us into the Championship play offs. He's had his team ripped apart by Bates. Gradel sold, Howson sold, Refused to offer Beckford, Killkenny, Johnson suitable wages. How long until Snodgrass is sold and we hear the excuses ("he wanted to play in the Prem" "He wasn't worth the wages he was demanding" "He didn't want to sign a new contract"). I doubt McCormack will be far behind him. And yet some people on this board have turned on Grayson and blamed him. Called him tactically inept and said he left us in a terrible state. We're the next Sheffield United unfortunatley. Do well, knocking on the door for promotion, reach play offs. Only we'll sell our best players and rely on loan players before been relagated back to League One. History repeats. But it won't be Bates fault will it. It will be the players who were too gready, or the managers who didnt have a clue. Yes Warnock is a fantastic appointment but don't let that mask the plague on our club that is Bates. He'll continue to sell our best players and replace them with loan players, he'll continue to spend millions redeveloping executive while offering the bear minimum to the manager. He'll continue to blame everyone else. He throws figures about, like saying we spend over 10 million on player wages. Well we have a squad of 29 players and if we paid them an average 5k a week we would spend £7.54m on wages.If we paid on average of 10k it would just over £15m. And these are hardly exceptional championship wages. So we are spending money on wages just like every other club, so what Bates? Gives figures on how much you are spending on transfer fees not bloody wages. Every player no matter how good gets paid so what's the point of showing us wages. Basically in conclusion, Grayson cannot be thanked enough for what he has done for us. In Warnock we trust and Bates Out! before we become the next Sheffield United.
I havn't turned on Grayson. I have thought he was tactically inept for a while and thought he shoulda been sacked just before christmas. Doesn't take away what he did for the club though
bates has been breeding this hateful mentality for years, as soon as someone leaves he manages to turn everyone on them. No matter how good an appointment Warnock is, and cor blimey it's a good appointment, I couldn't think of one better, it should not hide the fact that bates is killing this club.
Exactly, Bates has bought himself some time by sacking Grayson & signing Warnock. But even Warnock isn't a miracle worker and will fail when his best players are sold and he is given zero money and told to hit the loan market.
It's a shame as I reckon Warnock would be brill with some backing. Definitely the kind of character that fits in at Leeds - and by that I mean an utter bastard
Loved Grayson, and appreciate all the hard work he has done, but it was time to move on. Warnock fits the bill
I'd say the position Grayson left us in was what was expected this season given the transfer activity (or lack of) and injuries to Becchio and Somma over the summer. Very poor decision to sack him for achieving what's expected because he gave everything for the club. He only joined us because he loves the club and stepped down a division when we were just above midtable in league 1. Warnock is a good appointment but if he cannot (as i expect) achieve promotion with Bates in charge after his contract is up then we have to search for another manager. Personally i wanted a bit of stability on the manager front because as soon as you get the decision wrong you start seeing situations like Notts Forest (though looks as though points deductions could be deciding their league status once again).
I'm convinced that had we kept Beckford, Howson, Gradel, Johnson, Delph etc. we would definitely be 1st, 2nd or 3rd now. I know what you mean though when you say Grayson built a good squad and had it ripped apart by Bates. However, you can't really deny that our defence has been ****e for a long time now, and that IS Grayson's fault in my opinion...
I think people also forget that its not Bates that accepts bids. He does have a say ofcourse but so does the manager. Grayson admitted to having the final say over Howson and I would imagine it would have been the same for Gradel. He doesn't offer contracts though and I do think he is a little let down on that front but once they are sold move on. Stop refferring to them and try to replace them properly rather than bring in completely different types of players to cover them
Grayson fixed the league 1 defence bringing in the likes of Carl Dickinson (short term), Sodje, Naylor and Kisnorbo which was very impressive for over 12 months. For example: Under McAllister in 08/09 we conceded 29 goals in 21 games. When Grayson took over we conceded just 20 goals in the remaining 25 games. In 2009/10 we were the joint best defensively with Millwall conceding 44. Up to before the Millwall game (Paddy's injury) we had conceded just 30 in 36 games which was the best in the division. A big factor why i believe he hasn't been able to sort it in the championship is because the proper investment just hasn't been there. Collins was a mistake no doubt about that by Grayson and thankfully just 5/6 months later we got the £500k back. Bessone looked good on paper. Connolly and Bruce were just average and the championship experience we needed to stay up. Then we improved on Collins by bringing in O'Brien. This season all we have done is bring in a poor Celtic reject who obviously wasn't that impressive at a average Ipswich. How can anyone expect the defence to be solved with these signings??
To me though it's just the same as Wenger selling Fabregas and Nasri. Of course he wanted to keep them as they are class players, but when they leave the manager has got to remain upbeat about the squad and about who he can bring in with the money. My opinion on selling Howson in the circumstances? Fantastic decision, however it should never have got to that situation. I guarantee if Leicester had a clone of Howson who was a local lad he would have been signed on a longer contract as they would have been able to satisfy both on the money front and by the fact that it is clear to see that Leicester are giving everything to reach the prem and not building executive boxes.
Grayson was tactically inept, and its only so long until the players see this and lose faith. Example - this season we are 1-0 up against Coventry, the poorest team I'd seen at Elland Rd in a looooong time, last 15 minutes we suddenly sit back and start defending the lead, allow Coventry some ball, they get a bit of confidence and push up, last seconds a hopeful ball into the box and bingo, Rac...can't get his name across my lips spills the ball and they burgle a ridiculous draw, two vital points lost. Almost as bad as sitting in the freezing cold watching Preston come back from 4-1 down!! And there was the awful 3-1 against Pompey who then end up scoring twice in the last seven minutes to rob us of another two points. Even in Lge One he messed up and almost cost us auto. Two examples - Swindon home and away, where he didn't have a clue how to deal with Ward's pace, using Andy Hughes at left back against him at the County Ground and of course I don't have to tell you the rest. At ER he switches Hughes to right back in a genius move, except of course Danny Wilson tells Ward to switch to the other wing as well and...well, we lose 3-0 again with Ward creating yet another two goals for Billy Bunter who Grayson promptly signs at the end of the season much to the delight of the Swindon fans. I can go on and on but what's the point? For those of us who go to games we saw too many instances of Grayson being clueless, but even worse was his backroom staff's inability to help him out on the touchline. Grayson had to go, he was an average manager who simply made too many bad decisions as he began to realise his limitations. Yes, I feel sorry for him losing his job but hot damn, it was coming for a while.
The momentum shifted in the Cov game and i thought when they skimmed the top of the bar it would wake us up to try and kill the game off but they just had too much of the ball. A terrible draw against like you say one of the worst sides to come to Elland Road in a while. The 4-6 v PNE, the 2-2 at Leicester and the Pompey 3-3 were all down to a lack of steel in the team which is why i thought we signed Michael Brown to give us that experience. The problem is we brought him in as Kilkenny and Johnson went out. He should have complimented our good, young midfield and played his part in certain games, not come in as an automatic 1st 11 player. Anyway lets hope Warnock is a tactical genius because with the squad we have and probably will have next season (Cheers Bates!) we will be underdogs in many games both home and away.
Well that is not completely right. Grayson was asked about it and could give his opinion about it, but he did not have the final say. That is up to Bates, Harvey and Gwyn.
I stopped rating Grayson during the second half of the promotion season. 3rd January 2010, we were 11 points clear in League One and had just beaten Man Utd, so obviously we all thought he was incredible. Then we flopped and only just got promoted. Then the next season, we had a great squad - Johnson, Kilkenny, Becchio, Snodgrass, Howson, Gradel, Somma - but didn't finish top 6. He should have been sacked end of last season IMO. People say that it was a good achievement finishing 7th in the first season back, but was it ****. Johnson, Howson and Gradel have all moved onto better levels of football, Snodgrass is widely rated by Prem teams and Becchio was on fire last season. We had a fantastic team and should have finished top 6 and under a better manager we would have. I thank him for promotion, but he wasn't good enough to take us any further. Maybe part of the reason players wanted to leave, was because they didn't see us progressing under him. He stumbled onto decisions, for example Aidan White as leftback. He had no plan of him being our first choice left back this season, but stumbled onto it. He played Johnson left wing when we were in League One, before he got moved to CM and was great. It's decisions like this that made me lose faith in him. He should be able to judge a players best position and potential. I put part of the Johnson, Howson, Aidan White etc. contract things down to him. If he'd have said when we were promoted - I see these players as important and I want them on new contracts, they have signed on cheaper wages. But he waited until they proved themselves at this level and had Prem teams interested. He couldn't see potential or situations developing in a game. Not very good tactically and terrible in the transfer market. Why has he got such a loyal following from certain Leeds fans? What has he done? He scrapped promotion from League One...why are we idolising mediocre achievements, this is Leeds United.
For me, I had a growing dissatisfaction thoughout this season. Inconsistent form, poor signings etc were frustrating enough, but for me it was the shipping of so many goals. It was the most noteably consistent thing we did - losing bad goals. Sadly, Grayson didn't do anything about it. How much longer should he have been allowed to go on without fixing it? One for the Grayson lovers to answer, methinks. I am grateful to the man for our promotion, his efforts, and his love of the team, but this is football, and unless you're exceptional (and he wasn't!), then you have a sell by date. His time was up, and I wish him all the best for his next venture. And finally, a little bit of advice to him re. his extra-curricular activities - the Yanks have a useful phrase for this - "Don't **** where you eat". He did, and I firmly believe it may have played a signifcant part in his downfall.
Simon will prove the doubters wrong when he takes his next club .I hope its Huddersfield because he deserves a good chairman and in Dean Hoyle he will have one someone who will back him to the hilt.IF SIMON GOES TO tOWN THEY WILL GET PROMOTED THIS YEAR
Except for the fact that every attempt to replace them properly is cut short when he realises he can't afford the wages of someone to replace them. It's a case of if we can't offer the player that left the sort of wages they wanted to stay, what chance have we got of signing someone good enough to replace them? None, unless we get incredibly lucky with an unproven player, which is what the board seems to rely on. Something that hasn't really happened recently except with Clayton and once he's gone, we've no chance.
