----------Johnson----Clayton----------- Snoddy----------Howson----------Gradel would probably be the best midfield in the league. Put Brown, Pugh, Nunez and White in the squad as well and we have decent cover, Webber would also add 2 good players for each position there. Couple that with having McCormack who wouldn't be able to make the team along with signing Keogh and we would be unbelievably strong attacking wise. The key in the summer was keeping our players and adding defenders which we just failed abysmally at. The Lonergan deal was the only one I was particularly happy with. Its just so annoying how if we looked at that summer positively instead of negatively how well we coulda done.
Which is why the 'Bates out' chants started at the Southampton game because the fans saw that the team was nowhere near good enough to compete for promotion and we had gone backwards from a team that managed to finish 7th. We were making great progress under Grayson, but a disastrous summer, despite having an advantage on other clubs with us not being involved in the playoffs and yet our transfer activity was painfully slow. ----------Johnson----Clayton----------- Snoddy----------Howson----------Gradel That midfield 5 are all young players, and with experience and time together could have took Leeds United to the Premier League, making it all the more frustrating.
And until they go, our club is going nowhere, it does not matter who is brought in on the coaching or playing staff.
Need not just quality players, but players who are given not just a few games but a couple of seasons to really mould together. Every time we sell a top player saying it's "good business", the club gets set back. Even if you can sufficiently replace them with a player of equal calibre for a lot less money, that player hasn't had the time with his team mates to make as big a contribution. The dumbest thing we've done this season is breaking up the Snodgrass/Gradel partnership. Those 2 on the wings were completely and totally unstoppable. In fact I think our worst performances last season were when one or both of these weren't available.
Personally i thought selling Gradel and replacing him with Townsend 4 months later and selling Howson to replace him with Delph was great business, you only have to look at how well they are doing.
I'm not on this keogh thing again but you'd be a bloody idiot not to want him in your squad at championship level, we could do with him now to at the very least give variety up front
Even if it is just competition for places or to give someone a rest, as said previously competition for places is just really low in our squad because outside the first 11 there is very little quality
I assume that you are referring to earlier than this from the YEP last Friday: "Warnock admits he’d be ‘gobsmacked’ if Whites finish in top six "
Well yeah, I suppose you are right there but 12 months ago that was not the case. The first 11 just needed tweaking and now we need a new one
I find it hard to understand how anyone can feel these were good moves? Gradel was fantastic down the left his goals and his assists, his running at players and taking them on. Howson was the club captain, what does it say to the team selling him half way through a season - No ambition? What did Delph do and are either with us now, how many games did they play between them and how many did we win lose or draw with them playing??
Sorry guys i was being sarcastic. I thought the 'you only have to look at how well they are doing' would have given it away. 4 months for a near like for like replacement was shocking and it was obvious Townsend wasn't the finished article like Gradel was. Selling Howson was also a disgrace, and replacing him with Delph (lacking fitness) and only here for a month was also a gamble and so it has turned out we are left with nothing. The way this club is run selling any player for any amount of money is a bad deal. You only have to look at the sale of Delph and even the big fee for him did nothing to increase our expenditure in transfer windows or use it to offer better wages to existing players or indeed purchase the training ground back.
Aye Jonny. I'm referring to the time he came in and hyped everyone up, with his 30000 against Southampton that suddently changed to 30000 against West Ham. This squad and team were never good enough to be consistently winning to get us in the top 6, not even with Jesus in charge. And as far as I can tell based on a) past history with Bates and Harvey slating anyone and everyone and causing bad atmosphere throughout the club (including players, ex-players, ex-managers, football league, football association, FIFA, UEFA, HMRC, Parliament, Leeds City Council, the fans - is there anyone who is actually important for the benefit of LUFC that these morons have not alienated?) b) known budget constraints (£10m) c) the deadwood that needs to be shipped out who may just sit around doing nothing using up the funds d) no-one [quality] wants to come here e) we don't pay the going rate f) the fans are so unhappy that any and every mistakle leads to huge pressure on every mediocre player leading to more mistakes g) we have a short term view on advancing the club, including the fact we have a short-term manager who will swan off irrespective how well or badly we do, and may leave earlier I can't see that next year will be an improvement on this one at all. This season was meant to be an improvement but proved to be the opposite. Next year we could easily be relegation fodder. With a 19,000 average crowd.
The crowd average may be lower than that. If you consider that we have just under 13000 season ticket holders, and an average crowd of just over 23000, a little over half of our average crowd is season ticket holders. I'm estimating that by the time the season starts, we'll have lost 3000 season ticket holders, bringing our attendance down to 20000. Season tickets account for just over half the crowd, so we can safely assume there'll be a drop of a similar number from non-season ticket holders, so that's about 2500, bringing it down to 17500. Then consider that compared to last season, average attendance went down by about 4000. We only lost about 300-400 season ticket holders compared to last season, so we can further assume that dips in attendance are affected more by non-season ticket holders than by season ticket holders, on a season by season basis. On this assumption we can then deduce that despite ST and non-ST fans being distributed just about evenly in our average crowd, attendance of non-STs is likely to drop by quite a bit more than attendance of STs. It wouldn't be unfounded to expect an average crowd of 16000 or lower next season.
If that comes true Marko, that's a 33% drop in ticket income - some £4m. Just on ticket sales alone. And we know that Bates and Harvey will bluster even more about yorkshire folk being fickle, thus alienating even more people. Instead of fixing the problem, they are fixated on deflecting who is to blame. Themselves. Open comment to Bates and Harvey:
