You don't have to be a wizard to see we're being run irresponsibly, and the grass will almost definitely be greener if there's a takeover and Bates is gone. Why have you turned from a solid Bates hater into some kind of Contrary Mary over recent weeks?
Ive absolutely no time for Bates whatsoever, except for his "rescue" of the club some years back. However, the constant drivel by a few, stuck in every post, has become so boring and tiresome. The funny thing is even if there was a takeover at the club, there i no guarantee our situation would improve. Heres a selection of clubs that got new owners in past couple of seasons, Liverpool, Blackburn, Rangers, Aston Villa and very one of them are worse off now. So, it's fair to say, no the grass is not always greener. Mind you, in our case, in the event of a takeover, it better be greener
The reason people were blind under Ridsdale is because we were winning on the pitch, playing scintillating football and signing every ****ing player available. We were delirious with success and competing at the sharp end, and we couldn't believe who we were signing almost on a weekly basis. We also had some of our own young 'uns doing the business, we were knocking teams like Milan and Barcelona out of the European Cup and beating Scum at ER. It was easy not to ask questions. Now of course we suddenly wake up because Grayson assembled a ****ing dreadful squad that simply put are mid-table material at best. Seriously, did you not ask questions when he signed players like Rachubka, Paynter, Bruce, Forsell, O'Dea to name just a few. I was horrified when these numbskulls joined, and I just couldn't understand what Grayson was thinking at the time. We all knew these players were **** and couldn't improve Leeds, so why sign them? Yes, so now it is a bit easier to point fingers and complain, but we know spending silly money doesn't guarantee a thing in the Championship. I still say just one thing, trust Warnock, at least we have a superb manager who knows how to get the best from his players.
You may be happy with the club stagnating until we are relegated back to League 1 because let's face it, History Repeats. And look at Sheffield United, they seemed to be progressing (Play off final runner's up, promising star players like Kyle Walker and Kyle McNaughton ect) then what? Sold there best players, relied on loans and eventually relegated to league one. That's our future if we keep selling our best players and buying free's, loans ect. To be honest what is our future? What is it if our own manager says "I'd be lucky to have a million pounds to spend and even then I'd have to get 5 players in for it"? What is it if we refuse to pay 9k for our star CM? What is it if our captain and star player wants out because of broken promises and the fact even he doesn't believe our future is bright? What is it if we care more about reducing the capacity of the ground by 2,500 seats than building a promotion winning squad? MLSE are good owners who care about sports and have run the Maple Leafs and Raptors well. I'd welcome them in open arms because unlike Ken they would invest and quite possibly would care about what we the fans think. If they took over we might have owners who would celebrate with us if we got promoted, who would value our opinions instead of calling us morons, who would try to keep good players at the club and if they have to be sold reinvest that money in the team rather than stashing it in offshore bank accounts. Just because they are Canadian does not mean there anything like the Glaziers.
None of those were in situations as desperate as ours before their takeovers. There's no way this can get worse - all the club needs is someone to reinvest our profits sensibly rather than spending them on stupidity and vanity. Bates is the only English football chairman that's so ****witted as to do that. No, we woke up after Ridsdale's mess was made clear to us, and have scrutinized our club ever since. That scrutiny has extended to the seven years of Bates' reign and every humiliating failure that has taken place as a result of his chairmanship, which naturally includes the failure to back managers such as Grayson who'd most likely have us in the Premiership by now if he'd had even an average Championship wage pot to work with. Because having a smaller squad had set us back the season before, so naturally it made sense to get plenty of subs and reserves for a protracted promotion challenge which would tire out a lot of the first-teamers as happened in 2010-11. Sadly Grayson couldn't afford targets like Jack Cork and Kaspars Gorkss who would have been the sort of class required, thanks to Bates' pathetic backing. Of course I asked questions at the time. The main one I asked was "why the **** is Bates still living in 1985 and giving his manager **** all to work with?" Conversely, we know that spending nothing guarantees failure. You have to spend to succeed. Do or die. And we refuse to do, a status quo that is facilitated by excuses like the ones you're (perhaps inadvertantly) producing. Sadly "the best" will probably mean another disappointing average-midtable finish with a lower-midtable quality squad. If "trust Warnock" implies that I can't doubt his backing, his happiness at the club and, ultimately, the administration team at the top of the club, I will not do that. Football managers have to lie by virtue of their employment. Warnock will never come out and say 'I'm not being backed' unless he decides to leave. Until that moment, it's hard to trust a word coming out of his mouth just as it was with Grayson and others before him. That's no slight against the man, just the puppeteer running the show. So it's more a case of distrusting Bates than trusting Warnock for me.
None of us are asking to spend silly money, or demanding to be taken over by an oil rich Sheikh or Russian oligarch, but a change at the top is desperately needed. They needn't have mega bucks, but they need to prioritise team building first, ground building second. If this had been the case over the past 3 years I've no doubt we'd be in the PL by now. Our turnover is large enough to have kept our best players and added to them, without anywhere near going into debt. That's what I can't understand about the Bates administration. Surely get to the PL first then improve the ground. None of it makes sense. With the money we make we should be going forwards not backwards. The fans want to have the best team in the Championship, not the best ground. There wasn't so much wrong with the ground that it couldn't wait 2 or 3 years to improve. Surely it's better sitting in a run down stadium alongside 40,000 others watching a successful team, rather than watch a load of old journeymen in a state of the art stadium with a nice shiny East Stand. We not only need a change of ownership, but a complete change of direction.
Thing is I could be chairman with just my small savings (granted i wouldnt have the knowledge). The owner wouldnt need to invest. Just run the club properly and respect the fans and they will pump enough money in for the club to pay for itself
The thing is OP (and I just realised how helpful you have been by chosing that name, as I can type OP to mean original poster and/or Old Peacock - talk about super efficient ) I don't really disagree with some of what you say............... can you hear the "but" coming?,..................... but............ when you run a business, which is what Bates is doing, you do have to consider the customers. Football fans ARE customers, albeit a lot more loyal to the brand than customers of Tesco and Sainsbury's. It may not be ideal to react the way Bates has done publicly to some fans who question his management, nor to link paying Premiership prices to Premiership football and then fail to get close to delivering it, nor to allow - however it is defended - the better players in the squad to leave.... the list could go on My issue with all this is actually that I DO identify with Bates running the thing as a business, but I don't understand why he has made the choices he has, and the style he uses in his public pronouncements. There is also the problem that he makes many many statements, where people do tend to wonder - not, "is he lying?" (perish the thought) but "is that the full story, is there a bit more to it, what about all the other facts and rumours and suspicions that the statement he just made does not seem to fully address?" I am not saying for a moment he is deliberately misleading anyone, its just his communications do seem a little flawed at times. I think this uncertainty and a feeling that the paying customers deserve a bit more spent on the team, is what is behind the negativity among some fans. They don't want a free spending club that risks administration, just a bit more balance in where the club puts its expenditure. This would have been in the clubs owners interests too, the lack of confidence among some fans must be reducing the gates and what fans are spending on supporting Leeds.
Cork - played under Adkins at Scunny and wanted to stay in the south Gorkss - family settled in London and not wanting a move north **** all to do with money, and do you honestly believe that after meeting Adkins/McDermott they would want to play for the unintelligent, cliche riddled Grayson?
It's quite clear that Grayson wasn't backed and it's clear Warnock isn't being backed either. Are you deliberately refusing to see this? Unless something changes dramatically Huddersfield, with Grayson in charge, will finish above us next season while we stutter to a lower mid-table finish. That is simply a well reasoned prediction based on facts and what we've seen go before. Grayson took us to 7th without any backing and if he'd been allowed to keep that team together and spend, say, £2-3m on some quality additions I believe he could have taken us up, he's going to be backed next season while we let all of our best players leave and can't even sign a £400k player. If we're not careful we are going to go the same way as Sheffield United.
I really do fail to see why the animosity against Grayson. Claealry his time at LUFC had finished, that I haver no problem with, and i DON'T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH (oops) sacking him. But I would never claim that the squad he had was "his" squad. Many of these players were never his first choices, and they were all that was left to build a squadafter a shambles of a summer which had bene described by our chairman as an "explosion of activity" What an utter ****up that was! Everyone Grayson really wanted had o intenion of coming to Leeds once they had talked to Bates / Harvey. I fail to see your reasoning Billys, and I think you just have an anti-Grayson problem that is warping your judgment with respect to what is going on at LUFC. There is only one proble mat LUFC and that is Bates. I am sure that SG wouldstil be in chargeif Bates hadsold up a year or two ago
Grayson did a good job with the funds he had, his downfall was lack of experience dealing with an awkward chairman, rather than turn around and say we are penny less and the only players available are no good he took a gamble that he might uncover a gem which had the knock on affect of higher and higher wage bills. Grayson also got the bunch we have together and playing better than Warnock managed to do - I don't have a problem with Grayson being replaced by Warnock but it has finally laid to rest my last remaining question? Did Bates not trust Grayson with a budget - Did the poor quality players Grayson seemed to be signing have a negative impact with Bates making funds available?? The answer is a big fat NO - If there is one man you can trust in this division with a few quid to spend it is Warnock
Grayson's failures were mostly related to his man management (or lack of it) and his apparent attitude that what he did was fine, but what the players did was not fine. He was very much alone for most of his time at ER, except for his own coaching team. He made some poor judgements of players and he lacked the required knowledge of how to change games with getting the best out of the players you have. He should have gone much earlier in the season, and I regret that this didn't take place, however as Huddersfield will no doubt learn, he starts well and then falls away.
Well he was doing far better than warnock did. If warnock had come in earlier and continued picking up points at the same rate he did at the end of the season, we might have gone down! One Simon Grayson!
Warnock did what he could with the players Grayson brought in. Yes he managed to get a couple of loans in, but the majority of the squad was Grayson's. Grayson was **** in his last season with us, that is FACT.
Ok, you misunderstand. The two players mentioned - Gorkss and Cork - were not moving north, end of!! They are bad examples to use because you want to slate Bates (becoming boring now), rather come up with names of players who turned Leeds down because of money. Grayson is a twat, we were in automatic at the turn of the year and then we went on a blindingly awful run because Grayson played safe with his tactics, rather play not to lose than try to win. So we finished seventh and believed the bull**** that we were punching above our weight. Truth is, Grayson was not good enough to take Leeds forward. As for Warnock's "record", he came in and laid down the law, making it clear that the dross were playing for their contracts. This obviously had an effect, and those who we all knew wouldn't cope didn't, so of course results were affected. Players like Bruce, Connolly, O'Dea...they knew Warnock wouldn't keep them so they ****ing quit on the pitch!! I detest Grayson because I could see him ****ing up tactically yet he'd just stand there and wave his arms. As for his backroom staff they were no help at all, no ****ing idea or maybe they weren't allowed to have a say on matchday. Sorry, Grayson ****ed up, he signed dross just for the sake of it and paid the penalty. Grayson's judgement was flawed, as proved with the signing of Billy Bunter simply because he scored four goals in two games against us. Well, I was at both games and it wasn't Billy who did us in those two 3-0 losses, it was the speed of Ward. First game Grayson plays Hughes at left back, Ward is on the right wing and all three goals are created by crosses from that side. So, genius that Grayson is he then plays Hughes at right back in the Elland Road return, so all Danny Wilson does after three minutes is switch Ward to the left wing and bingo, once again all the goals are created from the side Ward is attacking. ****ing brilliant!! No, unbelievably thick!! And don't let me start on that ****ing 6-4 loss to relegation bound Preston, or the mind boggling 1-1 draw at home to yes, once again relegation bound, Coventry this season when we should have stuffed them out of sight by half time.
In another couple of seasons I reckon some will rate Grayson higher than the Don. As we get poorer his last season with us seems to be improving in the eyes of some. Very curious to see how long he lasts at Huddersfield
Eire, you are right, it would seem that way. Grayson is not great as a manager, and I think League One is his level. Can't see him ever leading a team to Championship success, he simply lacks the intelligence. Thanks for getting us out of League One (and he almost blew that as well) but I never felt comfortable in his ability to take Leeds farther. I also believe Bates started to see Grayson as incompetent, especially on the transfer front.
