Good Morning and Happy new year everyone, Three points in the bag from yesterdays 1-0 win at home against Bolton, but the performance was far far short to what we expect. This could have so easily have been our third defeat in a row. Does there need to be big changes at Elland Road, and where should it start. Should we ship out the dead wood first (by buying out the contracts of Connelly, Ruchubka, Paynter etc or do we start over again, just keeping our core 3 or 4 players and working around them. The latest player that has been linked to us is 26 yo Dexter Blackstock. Since his move to Forest in 2009, he has scored 34 goals in 108 appearances, thoughts? Another striker that has been heavily linked to us to Ricky Lambert of Southampton. The 30 YO, although a regular in the Saints side this term has scored 8 times this season, but Saints are expecting a busy transfer window and big names are expected. d if he is the best we have, then we are in trouble. Do we need another striker, or is it the defence or midfield we need to work on. Tate, over the last few games has made many many mistakes, if he is the best we have, we could be in real danger. Similarly, our midfield get over run most weeks. Which players have been the biggest disappointments in the first half of the season? Who would you like Warnock to buy? Are the play offs a realistic target? Over to you....
Morning - I have never minded a defeat to a better team as long as we played as well as we could and positives could be taken from it. Our last three performances have been far from good and nothing positive apart from 3 points yesterday. I hope I am wrong but the only way to turn the season around for me would be a new manager with a kitty to spend, that realistically isn't going to happen so it will have to be wait and see who Warnocks targets are. If we end up with Tate, Tonge, Hill and Derry I will be majorly disappointed, surely we need 2-3 players who can make a major impact in both our promotion drive and as in being good enough for Premiership football which probably means under 30 years of age rather than players with 12 months left in them if you are lucky. We already have a problem with players not being able to play 3 games in 8 days, that surely has to do with age as well as fitness. I would like to see a central play maker and a wide winger with pace and who can cross the ball as well. Two players of decent quality in midfield would keep me happy, it would be a base to push on from in close season. Oh and FFS when will Hall get a chance, he is 24 years old, if he isn't going to make it why sign him? We had him on loan and hardly took a look at what he can do. Varney, Norris, Austin, Pearce, Peltier - All BIG disappointments for me, what has happened to Austin, he started like a house on fire. Pearce, if he is the best Portsmouth had then it is no surprise they went down and it is no surprise we are doing so poor performance wise when we also have Varney and Norris in the team. On a positive I do find it a miracle that we are only 3 points outside play offs when you consider our on field performance
Morning all and a happy new year to all. let's hope for a happy end of season because the last 3 performances were dire and reminds me of our Xmases under Grayson. Plenty of disappointing players, or players who should have done better, but where the fook is Drury? he was supposed to be a great buy and able to keep his place in defence and solidify it. We should shortly see how much cash GFH have because I'm sure their plan is for promotion as soon as possible, but will they go chase it this season now, or wait until Warnock leaves. When they took over we put in some great performances and played really well, as well as winning against top teams. So what the fook happened and why have performances dropped off so much. Why did an average Hull make it look like we were playing Barcelona. Sort it out Warnock or jack it in please because this just isn't good enough. A £1m player we couldn't afford smashes in 2-goals for the foxes on his debut, which begs the question; which striker out there is better than what we already have, because Ross and Becchio must be £1m players, and Somma needs fitness and confidence to get him going again. EHD is another player capable of frightening the opposition, so why a new striker unless he's going to be better than what we have. We need to get a few players off the books fast, including Gray who I still can't get my head around why we brought him in. Austin needs fitness and needs to dominate like he did when he came in, what happened to him (Besides the injury) Why is Peltier, and Pierce not as good as we were told. Please surprise us Warnock and sort the shambles out and bring in the 'icing on the cake' players you promised.
Morning Elland, morning those joining. Game sounded grim yesterday. But as both sides were affected, the line about the statre of the pitch may just be valid. That said, 3pts is 3pts. So we move on. Still don't understand why Peltier is playing LB & why Drury can't get a game. Personally I'd have Drury at LB, Peltier at RB, Byram at RM, & perm the rest from whoever happens to be available & playing well. I also think Hall needs to show us what he can do AND to add a bit of width to the team now that Thomas has gone back to his club. As to who's coming in & who's leaving, please tell me that Derry's imminent arrival is just poor journalism. He'll add nothing to what we've already got. On departures, major problem this. There's a whole raft of players who need to leave. Pity about Paynter, but time to go, along with Connerly, Rachubka, Nunez (again pity), & anyone else who isn't featuring in the squad at the moment. For Saturday, I would rest a lot of pplayers, have Ashdown in goal, Pletie & Drury as R & LB respectively. I'd rest Byram & have Hall at RW & then Green & Brown in CM with AN Other as LM. I'd then have Somma & Ross upfront, resting or benching Becchio to give him a break. Yes, I know we'd love to win the FA Cup. But auto or top 6 is our priority. Thoughts & happy new year.
Mornin All and a Happy new year to you all. So another stricker linked to us? We need a creative midfielder and a few defenders. Should be interesting to see what kind of pockets this lot have over the next 4 weeks.
Morning chaps. Hardly much point in buying out the contracts Elland mentioned as most must be coming towards their end thank God. I'd say we have at least a half dozen on the books that will never kick a ball for us again or I hope won't. Considering how poor were playing, two points of playoffs is a miracle. If we can manage another run of five out of six, we'd probably be well placed. Looks like we need a lot of new faces to be a factor though. It'll be interesting to see where Thomas now goes as WBA say several clubs interested and they want to sell rather than loan. Whatever he sells for will be a fair indication of the pennies or pounds Warnock will have as he has stated he wants him back
Morning all, and hopefully we'll all have a fantastic 2013 together. However, back to reality. LB position. It's clear to me what's going on. It's quite simple. Byram has unexpectedly come along and is offering more in the RB position than Peltier can. With the Green/Byram combination on the right, we have a good unit who cover for each other defensively, and offer each other options in attack. It's a great combination and is allowing Byram to learn loads as he has a clearer vision from the back (Eddie Gray once said that he learned far more from playing LB than he ever did as LW). So, you're the manager, you've got a great right side to your team, and your captain & record signing can't get his place in the team. What do you do? Simple - you play him to keep his and the team's morale high. Drury, sadly, is the casualty in this. Any other options? Drop Peltier? No, he & the manager would lose face, & confidence & morale would be affected. Play him at CB? Wasn't originally a consideration, but he could do no worse than the current incumbents, so it remains an option. Move Byram to RM? Probably no, as he would have Peltier behind him, and he just doesn't have the pace or dynamism that Byram could play with & feed off. I think Warnock has probably chosen the correct course of action, but for obvious reasons, he can't announce why, or it could affect Peltier. Other options? I can't think of any, but I leave the floor open .... Contract buyouts. What's the point? What do we gain? We end up paying them the same amount anyway, so why not keep them in case we get a loan deal for them (even 10% of their wages getting paid for us helps), or they manage to get themselves fixed up? NY day. The least said the better. As I said in another post, all that was missing was a big net across the halfway line. It was just a big game of volleyball, with both sides humping hopeful balls 60/70 yds up the park. Midfield. Oddly enough, I think we're missing Tongue, or a player of his ilk. If you look at our other central midfielders, they're all 'diggers'. They win balls, end of. They haven't a clue what to do with it when they've got it, other than get rid. Sometimes this works, most often it just goes back to the opposition. Our defence realises this (and perhaps the manager does too), so they just cut out the midfield & hump balls forward. When Tongue plays, people give him the ball as they know that he can make good use of it. I'm not saying that Tongue is the answer to our problems, but he help in the attack/creative department. I can't think of any other CM in our squad that does. The others really only seem capable of pressing & headless chickening. TBH, one nice to see development is Norris & Green ghosting into the box. We've not really seen this since Howson (and even he did it in fits & starts). Playoffs/new players. God knows what's going to happen here. Warnock says he's got his targets, and keeps seeing other players linked with us that he never even thought of going for! We'll just need to see who he brings in, but I dearly hope we get a playmaker, and not just Tongue (whose signing seems inevitable), but another, and better player. Before we even think about promotion, I believe we need a Premiership quality spine, but it ain't going to happen this January. Paddy would do fine as GK, but we need 2 CBs to cope with the PL (& promotion battle), a decent CM playmaker & probably someone better than Becchio when/if we get promotion (he'll deffo do for now). End of essay!
Morning guys. I feel as though we should be doing what Leicester are doing this transfer window, they haven't done well previously in transfer windows but this one looks good for em. They have already signed Wood, a 21 year old international who is a great goalscorer and already played in the prem. They have also had a bid accepted for Alex Baptiste, a 26 year old defender who is one of the best in his position in the league and also has prem experience with many years left. They have also been heavily heavily linked with Liam Trotter, a very exciting 24 year old central midfielder that changes games and truly has the potential for the prem. Those 3 players would pretty much make it into any team in the division easily and make it into some prem teams as well. Admittedly wood is costing them 1.5m, Baptiste's agreed bid is reported to be 1.5m as well and Trotter would cost at least 2.5m so a lot of money spent but they are prem players. If we are serious we should be signing players that can keep us in the prem to add to what we have rather than players that will try to get us promoted.
Completely agree about Tonge, I think a player like him is essential to our midfield, else we just don't get the ball up to the forwards at all. As for contract buyouts, we could offer some mutual termination for a smaller fee? People like Bromby are injured until the end of their contract, surely they'd see our reasoning there...
According to those reliable chaps at Wikipedia, the players out of contract at the end of this season are Somma, Kisnorbo, Brown, Gray, Poleon and Bromby. I presume that all will be released apart from Poleon and maybe Somma. Other deadwood are on longer contracts (Varney and Ashdown until 2014, Peltier until 2015, Pearce until 2016!!!). I can’t see many clubs coming in for them at the moment. From GFH’s perspective, why would you give Warnock additional resources when his recent record in the transfer market is unproven and he’s due to retire at the end of the season? It would be better to supplement the team with 3 or 4 decent loan signings and keep the rest of the money for (hopefully) when Gus Poyet or someone of his ilk takes over in the summer.
Shocking stuff yesterday but that said we deserved to win. Bolton are by far the worst side I have seen at Elland Road and you look at the players they have and wonder how they can be so bad
JW, I don't see the point of letting Brown go. He's still one of our most combative midfielders & can still more than put a shift in. Can't see Kisnorbo staying. Pity, s I still think he has something to offer. But if he isn't getting a game at all &e're lookigto buy/retain Tate, no point in keeping Kisnorbo. O Gray, struggling to see what he brings to the side. So best to part company at the end f the season. Somma & Poleo will certainly be retained. On Bromby, I suspect he'll be paid off. But again, he offers opportunities in a number of positions. But his injury will count against him. I can see in part what Peltier & Pearce give us when played in their correct positions. Not sure about Varney yet, but worth a squad place unless we can get a few replacements. We still have Connolly & Nunez foating around somewhere. Connolly can go anytime soon. But if we're going to give a few of the first team a rest, why not include Nunez in an attacking CM role & put him in the shop window. There's also an outside chance that he could surprise us all & be the missing attacking CM that we so desparately need. At the end of the season, much will depend on where we are. If we've gone up, I'd like Warnock to be given the chance that he didn't get whilst at QPR. If we haven't or he really does want to call it quits, then yes Gus Poyet or similar would be ideal. But let's not be looking too far ahead. Promotion, even after yesterday's dire performance, isn't beyond us. Keep the faith people. MOT.
Kiwi, if you were Bromby and knew you were going to earn £x amount, would you accept a reduced settlement, even though you're injured and can't earn anything? I don't think so - normally when a contract is bought out at a reduced rate, the player concerned is then able to go to a lesser club on reduced wages to make up the difference. You can't if you're injured. There's also the medical treatment the club offers too. You wouldn't want to have that withdrawn, would you?
Realism needed here. Who is there able to manage this club with enough respect, knowhow and tactical awareness. Look at some of the managers who always get mentioned and putting Gus to one side for now. Best managers in this league and in no particular order are: Warnock, Macarthy, Bruce, Poyet Mackay, Jones, Pearson and uglytwat at Boro. None of those managers is capable of managing in the premier league, except maybe Warnock and Poyet and Macarthy. I wanted Warnock to do a great job, but I'm now unsure, but still worried about replacing him because theres nobody out there. The only candidate for me would be Lambert if he gets the chop at Villa, but whoever it is it will be a long term strategy and no quick fix, because that takes millions and we've seen pearson fook up over the last couple of seasons. Then you wonder which manager would want to take on this club at the moment, because its been raped for 8-years and the new owners don't seem to have the cash and are only interested in getting fans back to increase revenues. We want a cash injection to allow us to compete, and its not going to happen. As for Zola, he's got an Italian millionaire owner and an Italian backroom team, plus the whole of Udinese's reserve team playing for him. he didn't do anything in the prem without cash and won't do anything in this league without cash. Please don't mention silly names like Dimatteo etc. The best thing to do is stick with what we have for the rest of the season. If we're still looking like shyte then offload Warnock near the end of the season and plan for next season.
Wiki says it's cruciate, which is more helpful than the OS !! This link says Warnock expects him to be out for the rest of the season ... http://www.leedsunited.com/news/20120913/duo-make-injury-progress_2247585_2917803
Boggers - I would keep Brown until his contract expires at the end of the season but definitely wouldn't renew it. He'll be 36 in a couple of weeks and is a walking red card. No thanks. I'd like to see us sign Trotter from our South London friends instead (and I think he is out of contract in the summer too). But otherwise I salute your optimism
