Good Morning Everyone Pep Guardi...., um, I mean Pep Clotet is due to be installed as Garry Monk's assistant as the Welshman starts his first day as being Leeds Utd Manager. Clotet was Monk's assistant manager at Swansea during his two year stay. The 37 year old put pen to paper yesterday signing a rolling one year contract. During his presser, Monk was making all the right noises, and also revealed that he had turned down jobs, whilst looking for the right kind of challenge. Well Monk, if you want a challenge, you have come to the right place!!! Monk will know all about Cellino and what he is about, and goes into this with his eyes wide open! In case you weren't sure, the third LUFC person at the presser was Niccolo Pio Barattieri di San Petro, a new director of the club. (He's the one going out with Princes Diana's niece.) Obviously, there is an awful lot of work to be done to turn things around both on and off the pitch. Our academy is suffering, we don't have a scouting system, it would probably be wise to have a PR department (bloody hate PR) and that is before we look at the problems we have on the pitch. If these problems can be addressed, and I know Rome was not built in a day, perhaps we would be willing to give Cellino the benefit of the doubt? Thoughts?
Good morning Matt, taker good care of my investment. No....... Cellino has behaved the same way for 20 years, he is convinced he is running this club the right way exactly as he thought he was running Caligari the right way. How many more times do some of you need to see the cycle repeated before accepting the obvious?
Morning Matt and co. Dawn of an exciting new era and it looks like gfh may also be gone judging by Simon o rourkes tweets so a great days work all in all. Most of us expected Cellino to come up trumps with the new manager and he didn't disappoint. Evans was the right man to stabilise the ship for the eight months of his contract and he did as was required. Now we've moved up to a new level. I'll bet those 12k season ticket renewals are a happy bunch today. MOT
Morning all. Progress. We now have a Manager with proven PL experience. All we need now is for him to be given a few quid and for Cellino to allow him to keep the likes of Cook and others. Fingers crossed
To my surprise Gary Monk has joined Leeds we will have to wait and see what kind of a man he is. It seems to me he can either be a good strong manager with a mind of his own or a yes man. With Cellinos record of interfering either way it seems unlikely he will be getting a long service medal. In the meantime I wish him well and look forward hopefully to next season. Good luck Gary.
Expecting an improvement on the pitch with some good signings and a clear coaching set up designed to bring on our kids. The new director has a wealth of knowledge about football and did a lot of work with Sunderland. He's also a top property bloke so expect announcements about ER and buying/building a new academy facility and practice ground. Expect more top people in the board room and a big shift as GFH look like they're finally being fooked off. I expect more to come out this weekend. I'm therefore hoping for a big sea change and hope it works. Monk will need to be a genius to get promotion this coming season because he will not have the money of many in the league. There is only 1 place up for grabs and we need a lot of luck to get that via play offs. Newcastle with Benites and cash will go straight back up, Villa under new owner and Di Matteo and Clarke have Champions League winning team so fully expect them to bounce straight back. The other top teams in the league are all ex prem or on parachute payments. Those parachute payments means crap village teams earn much more revenue than a huge club like ours. We cannot compete anymore without a rich benefactor
I admire your ability to ignore Cellino's record since he bought Leeds, and his previous record at Cagliari
Good post as usual Doc but Im not convinced about Newcastle or Benitez. Hes never managed in the Championship and its a whole different ball game. Added to that, the ridiculous geordie expectations and the fact they will be everyones cup final, I dont see them as certainties. The parachute payments for them will go to paying off ridiculous contracts and subsiding salaries of existing prima donnas that they may keep
Eire the last time the barcodes were here they flew back as they had a team of battlers, and I expect Benitez to have a different squad by the start. We have 2 Champions League winning managers who have proved themselves at the highest levels. They will both be backed and you can tell intentions of these clubs by the level of investment. You what you get with these and remember Steve Clark has also managed in the prem but is number 2 to DiMatteo again.
Newcastle won 3 drew 4 lost 3 in Bentez's 10 games in charge. In Monk's last 11 games in charge of Swansea, they only won 1 game
Good Morning Glory.... Surely people learn by their mistakes??? He must be a good business man to be minted?
Prior to Newcastle And I remember watching Monks interviews in that period wondering when they would put him out of his Misery!
Benitez's name will attract quality that we could only dream of though. Newcastle are too good for this league as well. As bad as they think their owner is, he won't be shy spending money on players if required
Afternoon Ell. Cellino has sacked 43 managers in 24 years in football, he ran Cagliari exactly as he is doing at Leeds as a one man band with no proper back room / management structure. We can only hope that at nearly 60 years old you can teach an old dog new tricks and a leopard can change it's spots. His business is a family firm started by their father as I understand things and money has been made via some very shady deals to say the least.
Was reading Simon O'Rourkes text. Not sure how to check if what he is saying is accurate with my limited IT skills but I'm sure one of you bright sparks can help. Essentially IIB/ Envest (Noodles I think) have been removed from the board. Noodles has wanted out for some time according to O'Rourke but GFH had some controlling power. GFH shares now being shown as owned / controlled by ADFG, Abu Dhabi Financial Group, our new director has links to firms in the region. Don't know what it all means as yet, could ADFG have sufficient fund to takeover Cellino' s shares rather than the other way around? (My question by the way not O'Rourkes).
It's more than likely still GFH just under a different business name for what could be a thousand reasons.