With the various rumors doing the rounds about Norwich interest in Snodgrass & Johnson there have been one or two Leeds fans on the threads on the Norwich board boldly stating that players would not leave the mighty Leeds to join a club like Norwich. Do they not realise how short a footballers career is and that every footballer knows potentially their career could end at any moment through injury. All players want to attain the highest possible level. Because of the above they want to get there as soon as possible to ensure maximum time up there. Any lower league player who is offered a shot at the prem would grab it immediately with few exceptions. There are one or two players in the entire league who love the club they play for enough to overide the desire to progress. There are then some players who may fear the step up and are content at the level they are at. Some Leeds fans need to understand that despite Leeds being a massive club, the vast majority (if not all) their players would leave like a shot if a prem opportunity arose. This includes offers from teams fancied for relegation. Even just one season in the shop window is virtually priceless! The players Leeds will have next season will be there because either Leeds was the highest (in league sense) offer they got (i.e nobody in the prem came in for them) or because they are contracted to the club and Leeds did not receive any offers they considered were good enough. And this is the key point. Just how ambitious Leeds are will be clear for all to see this transfer window. You undoubtedly have player that will attract prem interest. How determined are your board to keep them? We will know by August. I am not getting at Leeds, it would have been the same for us had we stayed down. The fact remains, as things stand, if Norwich wanted any of Leeds current players enough to make an offer deemed acceptable by Leeds, then I doubt any of your players would pass up on the chance to join us next season and those that would are short on ambition and not the kind of player Paul Lambert would want anyway. Leeds will return to the prem, but until you do some of your fans need to accept this.
I see what you're saying about players wanting Premiership football but the ultimate power is in the club's hands. If we don't want to sell Snodgrass or Gradel, we don't have to. If we want to sell Kasper Schmeichel because we deem him substandard, we can do. It's not really up to the players whether Leeds United's a selling club, it's down to Ken Bates and Simon Grayson and the only sale we've made where we sold a first-teamer with a future at the club was Fabian Delph and that was apparently for huge money. So I'd say so far, we've proven not to be a selling club (in answer to your original question), though all that could admittedly change this summer if we do sell one or more of our valued players. The fact Johnson and Kilkenny have left on frees is irrelevant, we didn't think they deserved the money they thought themselves to be worth and they were accordingly let loose. Has no bearing on 'selling club' status, it just implies that we're a 'letting players leave on a free' club, which sometimes has to be done, though there have been cock-ups like with Beckford where I feel dismayed that the club didn't act sooner and with more money. Not that I'm complaining about his departure, it did us a lot of good in my opinion. I don't completely buy the 'every player will die for the chance to play in the Premiership' thing; as Kevin Nolan proved, if you like the personnel, ambition and infrastructure of a lower club, you can still be persuaded to go there. And I honestly can't answer the bit about whether our players would jump at the chance to play for Norwich in the Premiership. A lot of them appear very dedicated to Leeds, though I realize this is an age of little loyalty. I guess it depends on the individual player whether they'd be happy to leave, you'd have to ask them yourself to find out for sure! I would say the majority of them would though, yeah. Leeds are a huge club but with the way money and greed has taken over the game, there's little that can be done if a player's contract has run out and they want a move to a higher team. Until their contract expires though, it's up to the club whether they're deemed a 'selling' one or not.
Any Norwich player would go to any club in the Prem that would offer them more money. There isn't a club in the world that isn't a selling club.
I absolutely agree. Where I said what I did about the players Leeds will have next season the same applies to Norwich too. The players at Norwich next season will be there because playing for Norwich was the best offer they received or because they were contracted to the club and no offer acceptable to Norwich came in. The only other thing I did not touch on is the management team. Players will also be attracted to a club if they believe the management will get them playing their best football. Leeds may have one or two who love playing for Grayson the same as Norwich have some that love playing for Lambert. but still, if the offer was good enough (higher league team/better wages) they'd go.
Donald, I said every player would die to play in the prem barring one or two exceptions that I detailed. There are one or two who play for the club they love. There are also a few who know they are at their level and so would not want to go beyond that. The vast majority though would 99%+ of them. Players at Leeds know that if they hang around long enough chances are they will end up in the prem. My point is though, if your career could end at any moment and is only 15 or so years long anyway why spend 2-3 years trying to get promoted when you have the opportunity to get there immediately.
i disagree actually, often that is the case but there are certain players that will not want to leave a club they are playing for. an example that comes to mind is funnily enough jermaine beckford when derby were in the premier league and wanted to buy him, leeds weren't interested in selling and beckford didnt want to go although he was going up two leagues and would've probably got more money. but in saying that every player has there price whether it be raised because the club does not want to sell them or what, they still have a price
The key to what you are saying there is that Leeds were not interested in selling him. If that was the case then of course the player is going to say he wanted to stay anyway. He would be stupid not to. Ultimately, when an offer Leeds wanted to accept came in from Everton, Beckford was off. Where was the loyalty then? It can't be said for certain, but I bet that had Derby's offer been acceptable to Leeds Beckford would have gone to Derby.
I agree with most of that. You miss one very important point though. A player looking at a move may also look at the club he's moving to eg Norwich and try to guess where they will be in twelve months time compared to his current club. My guess is Norwich are a sure bet to come straight back down, Leeds a chance of promotion. Moving to a small time temporary premiership club may not appeal to many
An acceptable offer didn't come in, beckford left on a free at the end of the season. For me his decision is completely understandable. He was 26, didn't start playing proffesional Football until a very late age and spent the vast majority of that career in League 1 and was going to an established Premiership side. The fact is we're not a "selling club" because if we don't want to sell a player we don't have to.
If we want to sell Kasper Schmeichel because we deem him substandard, we can do ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Only if there is a buyer and only if the player wants to leave, he can just sit out his contract And i disagree about the club having the ultimate power. If a player wants to leave, more times than not they do
OK, I hadn't realised that but it makes no difference. He left for the reasons in my original post. More Money and a higher level of football.He left when he could, at the end of his contract. Believe me though, if an offer that Leeds found acceptable had come in while he was still in contract he would have gone earlier. If it was purely loyalty to Leeds that stopped him signing for Derby then he would have re-signed for Leeds when his contract expired. I am sure they would have offered him one. And as for not having to sell a player if you don't want to, you are absolutely right. That was the original question on this thread. Do the Leeds board have the ambition to match what Leeds United 'should' be, a top end Prem club. My original post was trying to point out a few facts to a few Leeds fans who seem to think that because it is Leeds your players will forego their own ambitions and would rather play for Leeds than for a lower end Prem club. This is simply not true for the majority of players. It would always ultimately come down to whether the Leeds Board were willing to terminate a players contract for the money they are being offered. Take Snodgrass for instance. Norwich have had an offer turned down by Leeds. If Norwich were to decide they wanted Snodgrass enough to meet Leeds valuation then I am sure Snodgrass would sign for us. He would not turn up and say "sorry guys, but I'd rather play for Leeds". That simply wouldn't happen. That was all I was saying.
Obviously, though that doesn't affect whether we're a selling club since that's true of every football club in the world. The clubs don't always utilize their ultimate power. They can if they want to, and we have.
More than you think. A season in the shop window of the premiership can do a player no harm at all. Many players join newly promoted Prem sides in the hope they can impress more established sides and when/if relegation happens they can get a move and stay up. If you want to use Leeds and Norwich as and example then please do. Leeds have consistantly finnished in a lower league position than Norwich for 5 or 6 years now. Norwich may well be relegated next season (although I am quietly confident) but I would say it is seasier to stay up than it is to get up. There is more chance that Norwich will finish 4th bottom or above than there is of Leeds being one of the 3 promoted sides.
How can you be confident they'll stay up? Correct me if I'm wrong but the players you've got so far are not PL standard but Championship players and even league 1. Have you signed anyone with PL experience?
James Vaughan. In my view we have been a bit sneaky with the Snodgrass bid. This is my opinion of what happened. We put an offer in for Snodgrass knowing it wouldn't be accepted, but hoped the player would do what Elliott Bennett and Steve Morison did - put in a transfer request when the bid was rejected. I also wouldn't be surprised if this Pilkington bid we put in was a rumour started by someone from our club to try and unsettle Snodgrass even more. Can't see Snodgrass coming now, unless we make another bid which gets rejected and he then does put in a transfer request. Although I can't see that happening and that has to be admired in this day and age of no loyalty.
I think players have loyalty to an extent. Snodgrass might have had his eyes on a move to Norwich, but didn't want to resort to put a transfer request in because of his loyalty to Leeds. He wouldn't turn down a move to Norwich, but he wouldn't want to force it and leave on bad terms. It doesn't make us a selling club even if Snoddy or Gradel is sold. There's a difference between letting all your best players go, and letting them go for their value. If you bid £10million + for Snodgrass, the club would accept, because the money is worth more - you could bring in more players just as good as him for that amount. It's like Spurs and Modric - if a bid for £40million came in, they'd accept because they can bring in just as good players for that money and improve their squad. All players would leave to join a Premier League club, but our value would have to met first.
of course leeds will sell to aid papa smurfs hotel empire, that is the only reason he has bought and has full control of leeds to make him easy money. he has leeds fans by the balls, he has his own puppet as manager whose only job is to keep leeds in the championship and not go up and not go down, its easy money with out paying big bucks.......
How is building executive boxes that won't make back the amount of money we spend on them for seven years and building a hotel next to the stadium - an approach which Chelsea CEO Bruce Buck has called a failed business strategy going to make Bates "easy money"? It's just his property developer instinct kicking in, he loves playing with his lego toy Leeds United, he's hardly going to make any money out of it though.
Also Kenny half of your points are completely wrong. If all our players wanted to leave to join prem clubs at the first opportunity then those with premier league interest would hand in transfer requests. The fact is, noone has. Snodgrass and Gradel haven't, Becchio hasn't. There's a factor of trying too quickly to get to the top and ending up stumbling and spending the rest of your career not getting noticed. Fabian Delph springs to mind.
