So after the seven goal demolition our thoughts turn to next season, and more importantly the players we need to push for promotion. It is clear that the squad Grayson built simply can't do the job for Leeds United, and so the expectation is that a large number will leave in the Summer and Warnock will be bringing in players he wants and trusts will do the job. The key is that Bates must now realise that investment is needed, and not a small amount either. Something that seems to be overlooked when considering players for Leeds United is their ability to cope mentally with playing for a club of this stature. The pressure of wearing a White shirt and the expectation that comes with it is tremendous, therefore a Leeds player needs to have a certain temperament to play at Elland Road. And being outside the Prem doesn't make it any easier. Every game is a Cup Final with the opposition raising their game especially at Elland Road, and every club's dream is to claim the scalp of Leeds. This means that when you wear the White shirt you have to be at your best every time, and more importantly you can't switch off, not for even one second. I believe Warnock understands this, and knows what type of player he needs to sign. The majority of our current players certainly don't seem to have the mentality required to cope with the pressure of playing for Leeds. The players I would look to definitely keep for next season would be McCormack, Snodgrass, Becchio, Clayton, Lees. Those who should definitely go are Connolly, O'Dea, Paynter, Forsell, Kisnorbo, Bruce, O'Brien, Parker, Bromby, Vayrynen and Brown. Players worth keeping but who may go include White, Rogers, Nunez, Somma, Lonergan and Pugh. Warnock will definitely bring in a couple of strikers at least (he loves strikers), and no doubt a complete back line and 'keeper will also be found. We want players with talent but they must also have the ability to cope with playing for a big club with massive expectations. Leeds cannot afford to linger in the Championship for more than one more season. The financial penalty for not being in the Prem and being able to progress the club is far too great. Unfortunately even though other results have gone our way in the past few weeks the players have shown they don't have the capacity to push Leeds over the line. Certain areas of the team have been lacking, and that has hurt us a lot. With Bates' support Warnock will fix it, but unfortunately no matter what Ken says about being prudent and all that, money is required to bring in the correct type of players who can lift Leeds out of the Championship. Let's see if Warnock can get some coins from the treasure chest, and let's see how serious Bates is about promotion.
Billy "We want players with talent but they must also have the ability to cope with playing for a big club with massive expectations.” The last time we made a push for promotion from this division required immense amounts of money for its time. If we had not been promoted, we would have gone under then. Sgt Wilko spent the equivalent of probably £20m in today’s climate of player transfer fees and wages. So, if I’m being realistic, I just can’t see it happening. Even if Jesus was our manager, we’d need a miracle to get up. But there’s always hope. And there’s always Eddie Gray and Peter Lorimer telling me that it’s defeatist to think we can’t go up. Problem is I think it’s dickheadish to believe we can go up when there isn’t a cat in hell’s chance and these people have their heads in the sand and won’t invest to do it. “Leeds cannot afford to linger in the Championship for more than one more season." We have no choice. So we have to cut our cloth to suit. What do you think will happen if we do stay in this division for another 5 years? The answer, of course, is “nothing much”. Nowt will be different, the world will continue to go round, and we will continue to have the occasional mebarrassing night and we will occasionally embarrass others.
Lonergan- questionable signing. Overall he's done ok, and he is the long term option, as we though Kasper would move on. Rachubka- When i heard how far down the pecking order at Blackpool he was, alarm bells started to sound, but then again he was only back-up (ALLEGEDLY). Connolly- Derby reject. Came for one reason SURVIVAL. Kisnorbo- League 1 signing. Bruce- Similar to Connolly. May have been regarded slightly higher by Ipswich fans, but again he only signed with championship survival in mind. O'Brien- Better than Collins, available in January, we failed in our playoff push, the rest is history. Rogers- Who? Might be another Becchio/Somma, might be another Grella. Vayrynen- Free transfer, never played in England, arrived a month into the season probably because all our other replacements had failed due to a lack of funds. Not helping the footballing side of the club that at all. Brown- Free transfer, lacking match fitness, on the way down. Paynter- Free transfer on the back of a good season, survival in mind. Becchio- Signed in league 1. Sam- Signed from league 1, decent back up/competition for last season. Clayton- Good signing, we paid a fee, he is still young and based on a loan spell at Carlisle a player improving in the game. Pugh- I understand why we got him initially, because Bates left us short, but the fee paid seems way too high. I suppose he can fill in at many positions, we have been lucky with injuries this year in Pugh's potential positions. Forssell- Free transfer, in September, says it all about the ambition. Also never really prolific in goalscoring terms, especially recently. Parker-Youth, not good enough. Nunez- High hopes at one point, hasn't lived up to them though. Lees- Youth Snoddy- League one, great signing, paid a fee. Bromby- league one signing, poor player. Somma High risk footballing wise, low risk financially, good player. O'Dea- Poor loan from Celtic and not very good with Ipswich. Unless we can get Micah Richards on loan next season, don't rely on loans Batesy for such an important position. Add in all the short term loans to make us look as though we're being busy, yet the only reason they come is to replace stars that have left i.e. Howson and Gradel. Basically our signings are nowhere near what is required to win promotion, especially when you factor in who has left. I don't blame Simon, because the squad building/transfer activity seemed illogical when we supposedly going for promotion. If i were told i had a budget to spend i would want players in ideally before August 6th and at the least before the transfer window closes. Probably a lot of signings failed due to lack of money, therefore we were still messing about in September getting the leftovers, and still getting necessary players in January such as Townsend who was Gradel's replacement but 4 months too late.
When Howson, supposedly one of our star players, was on 4000 a week, you have to question whether the £12 million "pot" is even true. I doubt it is, this man lies at every opportunity to make himself sound innocent.
The 'pot' was initially supposed to be £9.5(?)million this season. That also includes fees for players- which bates tries to hide. Thats a piss poor amount for a club turning over £30million-ish. Especially when you consider we also sell off our best players, BATES OUT
If the club can't afford to spend £20 million of a £30 million turnover - which we would have if the club was run properly - then the club is being run terribly. Last night showed us it wasn't the manager that was the problem. It showed us the depth of the squad was the problem. So our "big squad" that "costs loads" is ****ing ****, because we can't afford to get decent squad players. Good players don't want to be squad players unless they're being paid that bit extra. I'd rather have players earning more and being used than cheap players who never get used because they are ****. Vayrynen, Forsell, Nunez, Kisnorbo, Parker, Bruce, O'Brien, Paynter, Bromby, all soaking up wages and not getting used because they are ****. Countless more soaking up wages and not getting used because they are ****, then having games like last night because the only players good enough to actually play are knackered. And even they aren't good enough. O'Dea, Pugh, Conolly, all being used regularly but are holding the team back because they're just. Not. Good. Enough. I don't blame Grayson anymore for having built a poor squad. I bet the transfer "pot" figure is significantly lower than has been claimed. The budget is £9.5 million supposedly, we're over by 2 million, I bet that covers non-playing staff to bulk it up a bit and make it sound better than it is. Pathetic.
I agree with everything you have said here. We make a turnover of 27m (a number that Ken Bates has said), of that I think we should be spending around 15-16m on the playing staff, currently we are probably spending around 11m (considering when bates said the 12.5m, we still had Delph, Townsend and Smith, loans cost more in wages than permanently signed players). The investment should be increased and with that we will no doubt see us contending.
not only that, i am 100% sure that increased spending on the team, would lead to increased turnover as more people would come to watch a team with more quality in it and that has a realistic chance of going up
oh definitely, Its obvious if we were in an auto spot and playing good football we would not be getting lower crowds than last season. You saw with the West Ham game that when there is hope around the club, we get big numbers in
thats what i dont get. if we, as mere fans, can see it, why cant a supposed experienced and 'successful' business man see it?. unless the conspiracy theories are true.
IMO is probably because he has been successful in different circumstances and wants to continue with what he knows. Its like the old guy at work when a new piece of equipment or software comes out and he refuses to use it because he has been doing it for 50 years his way and its never gone wrong before. Also we aren't living inside Leeds United so we can only say what seems easy when in reality we have no idea. Could be a case of easier said than done as well. I truly don't know
Have we made 1 (ONE) signing this season that has shown we mean business and hope to challenge for auto promotion. All we seem to do is sign players to cover for injuries and sign players to replace our star players that we can't keep hold of or would rather sell because it's a "good deal". If we at least made one big signing like Brighton did with Mackail-Smith then you could kind of justify it all but there's NOTHING!
A concept I've been introduced to recently is that people who are incompetent are generally not aware they are incompetent. They think they are the dogs bollocks. People like ken bates take criticism personally, so a combination of him thinking he knows best plus that means when people point out what he's doing wrong, he lashes out thinking "I'm right and you're wrong and suggesting I'm wrong is an insult to me". He will never listen. He will never leave. It's sad that there are people in football (let alone the world) who have a genuine contribution to make yet have tragic things happen to them. Nigel Doughty springs to mind, someone who genuinely loved Nottingham Forest and put £75 million of his own personal wealth into the club for nothing more than the love of the club, who died at the young age for 54, yet horrible cretins like bates who have nothing to contribute to the world, who live with the "take what you can, give nothing back" mentality continue to plod on for years and years, sucking the life out of everything and just generally being a pain in the ass. What a ****ing horrible little worm.
He has never left a business in a better state than he found it. The only success he's had is with his own personal bank account, he's sucked the life and money out of everything, genuinely believes he's the dogs bollocks because he's got a lot of money, completely unaware of the fact that all he's ever done is destroy everything.
Nope, signings aren't made to show intent, they are made to paper over the cracks. We get rid of players first then think "who can we get to replace them?". It's in the wrong order. There are some obvious clearouts to make. After those are done we should be getting players because those players are the right players to make the squad what it needs to be to get promoted. Then the squad should be reevaluated with the mindset of "we have these new players, who doesn't have a place here anymore?". The squad will be inflated with new players and we'll have old players that we can't shift. I don't give a ****, we've got the money, or we should have the money, we can afford the overheads of getting in quality players and not being able to shift the deadwood. Ridsdale was reckless with the clubs money. bates is the opposite, he won't take any risks at all, not even calculated risks, evidenced by his ventures into low margin businesses to bring in "steady" income to "build a club, brick by brick". He's a ****ing coward. We can afford to risk spending a bit more to cover the costs of getting in new players who are actually good enough regardless of whether or not we can shift the ****e, but he won't spend a penny more than what can be covered without speculation. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. He's a ****ing bottleless coward, which is why he's never at the ****ing ground.
Also the excuse that is often put forward by Bates saying the squad is too big is a load of rubbish. Looked in the back of the programme last night and once again Forest had 1 more squad member than ourselves. Bates is either a liar or plain deluded. We have now got a manager who has proved himself at this level, whether he can do it at Leeds under Bates is a completely different matter, but Bates has got to give everything to ensure promotion next season. I don't expect Snoddy to extend his contract at Leeds, why would he? What i do expect is the same determination to keep hold of him as with Beckford where any transfer request or bid from another club is turned down. Warnock needs all the help he can get to achieve promotion next year. He should have done the same with Gradel back at the end of August, but the player is "King" when it suits Bates, when they ask for money he tells them to f off. We also need a much more professional approach this summer. The goalkeeper situation was a nightmare last summer and took a lot of the managements attention to sort that problem out. Additionally the season starts at the beginning of August, so it is wise to have the majority of your squad in as early as possible so they get to know each other and the manager can plan tactics and gel them together in friendlies. I don't want players (like Vayrynen and Forssell) signing in September because all our other targets have failed. A month of the seasons gone which we started terribly due to the tough fixtures and the feeling among fans was anything but positive.
Last season we averaged around 29,000 a home game and we played 23 of them. Not sure what the average ticket price was but let's say £30.00 - £20 million on gate receipts alone, it doesn't take a genius to work out 27m was a lie. Add to that programme sales, food and drink sales, corporate events, merchandise and shirt sales, TV rights, cup games I think you will find 40m is a true reflection. Yes gate receipts are down this season but this years budget was worked out on last years end of year...
Our average attendance so far in League games this season is 23,600 which is way down on the 29,000 from last season. It is shocking that for a home game against Southampton we only got in 20,000 which is bad even if it was on Sky. Leeds fans normally go stadium first, TV second, but it is clear there is intent to show Bates he can't carry on the way he has been. He can make any excuse he wants for a 30% drop in the gate, but there is only one reason - him!! I fear our average gate may well slip below 20,000 next season if Bates and Harvey don't wake up and show positive intent to get promotion by backing the manager with complete faith.
Totally agree with Marko the man is a parasite and is quite happy to plod along as he his making a lot of money not as much as O.I.OYSTON who gave himself £13m recently for is investment in Blackpoolso Bates will have a word with him no doubt when we play Blackpool to find ways to get more money out of us!
