Morning Peeps, Everyone back to work today? Me too... Leeds United were beaten in the race for the licence for the cityâs biggest ever casino after refusing to match their rival bidderâs offer of a £1m up-front payment to the council. Did we not have the upfront money to do this, or did the new owners not think much of the casino idea? Reece Wabara, an extremely promising Man City starlet is the lastest player to be linked to Elland Road. The 21 yo central defender has been out on loan for the last three seasons, most recently loaned to Blackpool in the January transfer window, but with only one appearance under his belt for the tangerines, is he good enough for the Championship? There is talk that when Byram is sold to City, we may get some of their youngsters, thoughts? If Byram is to go, he should go NOW. That way, at least we can plan his replacement (Lichaj), and hapefully still have 7m to play around with. Well done to Palace, who shaded the play off final. I wonder how long they will stay there? After the final whistle, we caught up with a Watford fan who had this to say 'Siamo molto dispiaciuti. Do la colpa al clima inglese schifoso ' Does Leeds have the same pulling power as the other bigger clubs in the division? If you look at some of the signings or loanees made over the last few seasons, and the dross we have signed over the last 2 or 3 seasons, are footballers put off from setting up home in West Yorkshire? Do you think it had more to do with Ken Bates, maybe agents did not want to do business with him, or is it our financial situation? Over to you!!!
Morning Elland. POint one about the 1 million for the casino. No we dont have the money. Agree Byram should go now. If a few bob was reinvested it would obviously change the shape of the list of potential signings BMcD has. I suspect he probably has two lists, the likely ones (freebies and loanees) and the more adventurous one which will depend on finances somehow appearing. Glad to see Palace up. Really like Holloway and I'm sure the wall boys must be trilled for their London friends. However, on their last three visits to the PL, they've come straight back so thats not encouraging. Aren't the parachute payments ridiculous next season though. 60m for Palace if relegated. More than twice what GFH paid for Leeds. Put's things in perspective. Glad to see you lazy sods are all back to work too
Good Morning! Back to work for me too (mind you, as my wife often behaves like Adolf Hitler in drag -when it comes to domestic jobs she adopts a similar negotiating technique to the one he used on Czechoslovakia and Poland - so I'll probably have an easier time today than yesterday). I'd be worried if we were putting up £1m for a casino, business is about priorities and given the declining gates its a business priority (not just a fans priority) to invest in the team and get some interest back. Selling Byram will be short sighted, but who knows. I think we have all become trained by the last feww years to expect it, it is not the behaviour of a club with any sort of ambition. I suspect Leeds now have a reputation for being miserable gits when it comes to negotiating - although we know where that came form, I do wonder if having Harvey as front man (with or without his socks on) is a problem, as he is associated in the minds of agents and others with the ancien regime
Morning Elland, I don't really care about the casino. It'd be a good idea and they always make money but first and foremost lets get the club sorted. I would like us to sign Wabara, not have him on loan. If that was the case then fantastic bit of business as long as he doesn't cost too much, he would then become one for the future (a bit like the clayton business although we ended up selling him ). I really do believe we will keep Byram though and I have a good feeling that if we do sell him it'll be at our price rather than a reduced one because unlike all other cases he is actually still got a fair length left on his current contract so we don't really need to be worrying about that aspect. As far as the draw of the club, the permanent transfers dont seem to be drawing particularly well but they are normally more based on price these days rather than the draw of a club. We still seem to draw good loanees though, we never get the best out of em mind
Morning all, Wabara would be an ok signing, but losing byram is a no no!!!, we need good experienced players with a blend of youth, we seem to be linked with a lot of players every season so this time round im just going to go with the flow emotions wise and reserve judgement until the first one comes through the door, which I hope won't be long although the window doesn't open until next month. Killgallon been released by the mackems, anyone think he is worth a punt second time round ???.
Morning Everyone, The more I think about it, if 8m was offered in cash today for Byram, and we knew we could reinvest the money tomorrow, I'd give the Byram deal my blessing
Morning all. I wouldn't get to down beat over the loss of the casino, and the fact that we didn't pay the £1m upfront doesn't necessarily mean we don't have any money. This is the type of thing Bates would have paid though, thus squeezing yet more investment away from the most important thing - our team. I think the new owners would be thinking that the team comes first and thats where the money will go if we have any, and rightly so. Regarding Byram, theres all this talk of £8m etc going about but in all honestly we won't see anything like that number to begin with, I reckon 2/3 million max. It would still be worth taking though and if we did get Lichaj to replace that would suit me.
£2/3m for Byram would be one of the worst pieces of business we've ever done, and that's saying something. We've just seen Palace get dragged up by their star player, to let ours go for anything other than silly money (and considering how much they got for Zaha, I don't think £8m is the minimum acceptable offer) would be a terrible decision. And I have nothing but free time until September.
How could you say no to that? 8m could get pretty much any team in this league promoted. And do you really think Lichaj for example would be a step-down. He is older and doesn't show the same potential but he is still a fantastic player and young In fairness, I don't think Zaha and Byram are comparable. Zaha can and did almost single handedly win a game for his team. Byram doesn't have that talent and also doesn't play in a position where he can have that affect. I think in a fair market Byram would be worth around 3-4m. We have no reason to sell therefore our selling price if we were to sell would be considerably higher
When you are as rich as I am, £8m does not sound much Two serious reasons 1. Because I am not interested in "getting promoted" like Palace just did. I'd as soon troll around in the Championship as be relegation fodder in the Prem, if we go up with a workmanlike team, we will be desperate for better players, and it will not be easy to find them, so any real sense of ambition says you hold onto him 2. its a test for me of GFH. Anyone serious about Leeds would buy us with enough to spend modestly on players to get us up. They know we are sick of every decent player being sold, if they sell Byram it tells me all that I (don't) want to know about them 3. (I can't count) if you think we'd spend £8m from mByram on players additional to what we would otheriowse have spend on, you must believe there are fairies at the bottom of the garden too
Morning TC. You must be chuffed with Palace going up. Another way of looking at GFH getting 8m for Byram is they would recoup a third of what they paid for Leeds in one fell swoop. A few more shrewd deals over next couple of seasons and they will have the whole lot back
Unfortunately I don't think we are in a position to choose how we get promoted.... The squad needs investment and i don't think anyone disagrees. If this is the only way to do it then so be it. Lets be honest though, Byram isn't worth 8m but if we were able to get that and then got Lichaj for free then we could really build a squad of 'hardworkers' if needed but really we need some flair imo. I didn't say it guarantees you promotion. Both blackburn and leicester have had ******s for managers
Qpr spent £15M on their promotion winning team - and £70M since - and they were a long way short Again ******s for managers though - like Reading!!
How much did Hull spend on their promotion? How about Southampton, Reading, Norwich or Swansea If you spend wisely, any team in the championship could get promotion with spending 8m, or even less than that in a lot of cases. I think McDermott is more than capable of doing this
Not sure about teams already in the Prem, but Hull City's team - Brady £2M Myler £1.5M Zayatte £2.5M Simpson £1.2M Hobbs £850K Proswich £2.5M Evans £500K Fryatt £1.2M Olofinjana £3M - That's over £15M already
