The #LUFC Breakfast Debate (Tuesday 20th April)

Good Morning. It's Tuesday 20th April, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road

Llorente earns Whites a share of the spoils

Diego Llorente late equaliser three minutes from time sent millions of neutral football fans into jubilation last night. Why was this? Could it be true. We ALL love Leeds? Unfortunately not!

Leeds opponents Liverpool were one of 12 elite clubs to have signed up for the controversial Super League, which if it happens, could change football forever!

Llorente's first goal in English football came from a corner. Harrison's in swinging corner towards a cluster of Leeds players fell nicely for the Spaniard. His downward header gave Alisson no chance.

Liverpool deservedly took the lead on the half hour mark. Wave after wave of attacks, were eventually rewarded when Sadio Mane fired the ball into an empty net. Trent Alexander-Arnold latched on to a long ball before squaring it to the Senegalese International.

Bamford could have taken the lead minutes before in a rare Leeds attack but was thwarted by Alisson when one on one.

If the reds had the lions share of the first half, the Whites certainly made amends after the break. Harrison had a great effort kept out by Alisson's legs after great work by Roberts. Minutes later Ayling's 50 yard pinpoint pass found Bamford on the edge of the penalty area. His exquisite first touch allowed Leeds no 9 to thump a rasping half volley, only to be denied by the woodwork. Roberts too was denied, this time by the Brazilian shot stopper.

All in all, a draw seems to be a fair result. This was only Leeds fourth draw of the season, less (or joint) than any other team in the football league!

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Leeds make their position clear regarding Super League

Leeds and Liverpool fans flocked to Elland Road last night in their hundreds, united in their cause to protest against the Super League. 12 clubs have signed up to the new ESL competition - six of them from the Premier League. Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham. They join AC Milan, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Juventus and Real Madrid.

The so called elite clubs want a new mid-week European competition, but also want to continue in their domestic leagues.

The 14 top flight clubs not signed are meeting today to discuss the matter. To give Liverpool their dues, Manager Jurgen Klopp, and James Milner defied company lines by speaking out against the Super League.

The Whites earned themselves brownie points ahead of this mornings meeting. Leeds players came out for their warm-up wearing shirts emblazoned with the slogan “Earn It” under the Champions League logo and a plane flew overhead trailing a banner saying “say no to superleague”. Jurgen Klopp later described the Leeds shirts as 'a joke'!

Leeds had made identical shirts for the Liverpool players, which were left in the dressing room for them, but they refused to wear them!

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Morning all,

So our majority championship team put in one of their poorer performances and hold the champions to a draw. That speaks volumes about why a lot of these teams are desperate for a super league with no relegation. Look at where a lot of them are in their leagues.


Something that really riled me up last night was the commentators. Why are we getting the awful awful Andy Hinchcliffe commentating on Premier League games? He was crap talking about Championship games. He offered no clever insight, said nothing your average football fan could not have said in the pub and there seemed to be an obvious Liverpool bias from him.


More inconsistencies from VAR. That TAA handball was more of an handball than a lot of what we have seen given this season. The Salah stamp was intentional. He may have landed on Llorente by accident but once he realised where he was landing he made no attempt to not hurt his opponent and to me even made a point of coming down hard.

 

Nice comment from LA

 

I totally agree. Salah looked down before he landed his boots. If that had been one of ours he would have been sent off. It was premeditated dangerous play in order to hurt Llorente.
I was amazed that more wasn't made of the handball. He deflected the ball. They said that he was pulling his arm away, ok, then how come the ball hit it?
Other clubs have had them given all season.

 

Chuffed with last nights result as not many non super league teams could have had 63% possession against Liverpool. Yes the result was fair because Liverpool missed some chances but we also missed a few guilt edged chances. I can think of 2 nailed on Bamford goals 2 Roberts fluffed again and at least 1 from Harrison which was easier to score than miss. So the stats tell the real story, Leeds were better and in control and missed the easier chances.

With better players next season I expect us to be more solid at the back. Yes Llorente has been great since getting over his injury, but both he and Struijk were left exposed far too much last night and all because of bad passes. Too much messing around between Maeslier and the back 4 ho get into trouble against a High Press which means a hasty clearance or a bad pass, which in turn sees the ball coming straight back at us. Better players needed at Left back as Alioski is just useless against a front 3 like Liverpool and with flying wing backs. We also needed better in the middle and expect to see upgrades on Roberts/Klich. So more control of the ball means more play in the opposition half and thats where we usually do our best.

Rodrigo and Raphinha could have made a big difference last night

But Costa is too costly most of the time. He started well and got in some great tackles early on but couldnt keep hold of the ball enough and spring attacks like Raphinha. He had a couple if chances to let fly and hit the target but took a touch too many again. I think he may need to go. Poveda did ok and made a difference and had a hand in the goal. Maybe if Raphinha is still out on Sunday give Poveda a go as he is also playing for his job next season, what harm can it do

 

inshallah!

 

My take is **** the 'big 6' off now.
It's a wound, it's never going to heal, if by some miracle a compromise is reached this time it won't matter because in two or three years they'll be back for what's left.
Relegate them now, ban all players that take part from FIFA and UEFA competitions. (Is it not the case that strictly speaking unless they play for national teams they can be excluded work permits within the UK ?)
The PL will take a massive hit but let's face it we're more used to budget considerations than many recently. We go again and perhaps, just perhaps this could restore some sanity to football.
'Legacy fans' of these clubs don't figure in the Yanks business model and I reckon eventually they or their kids will come to us and Villa and Everton etc whilst the so called 'big six' are plying their trade in the franchise of Shanghai or Riyadh.

 

Morning all

Firstly the shirts, I was not happy that we did that, it is the owners of the six clubs who are to blame not the players or coaches. Klopp and Milner both said they were against it (SL), I think it made us look a bit self righteous and I'd hazard a guess Bielsa wasn't up for it either.

The VAR it wasn't a penalty, it would have been very harsh, I believe Salah intended to hurt Llorente once he realised where he was landing but initially it looked accidental so again it would be hard to punish someone because of an opinion.

We were poor for 60 minutes then came alive for the final 30 when Costa went off but I don't believe it was due to Poveda being any better. In all I am very disappointed with our attackers, Harrison. Costa, Roberts and Bamford all miss too many chances or make too many wrong decisions for us to take that next step up.

I hope Bielsa and his loyalty to Bamford, Harrison and Roberts doesn't obstruct any decisions on improving the starting 11 next season. Harrison was not just poor from an attacking sense yesterday, his marking and tracking back were questionable. It's a weird one as sometimes you see flashes of brilliance from Costa, Harrison and Roberts but all too often they are lacking. I am also itching to see what Geldhardt can do if given 20 minutes

In all we are 4 points better off than I imagined we'd be.

 

Weird how we all have different opinions on players performances. I had Llorente as a 7 simply because he made a couple of bad passes and the odd error. YEP gave him a MoM 9. Phillips I had as a 7 but YEP gave him a solid 8. Guess you can also see how much we’ve progresses as we draw against Liverpool and most of the players get 6s from us when in reality our expectations at the start of the season would have been to give all the lads a 9 for a draw against Liverpool

 

They don't care about the game..................
This is the moment many football team owners have been waiting for - particularly the American owners of Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal - who know for themselves how much more stable and therefore valuable are the earnings of American sports teams.

The backers of the Super League say that the existing Champions League was a poor product - too many meaningless one-sided games between minnows and giants of European football before it got interesting.

 

Agree with you completely, we should plan for next season with no incoming signings until we know what an amended tv deal will look like. The championship is an entertaining division and a new look premier, even devoid of the soulless six, will be a cracking spectacle. **** them off now.

 

Whelan talks a lot of bollox at times but on this I agree and Ristac disagrees but thats fine because we all have differing opinions on everything to do with Leeds. Thats why football is great
Noel Whelan is of the view that Ian Poveda is a better winger at Leeds United than Helder Costa, as the 21-year-old is more direct, skilful and possesses more desire to make things happen on the pitch.

 

The players can terminate their contracts with any of the 'Big 6' clubs citing breach of contract, when they signed their contracts they signed up to play in the premier league and european competitions, the super league is not a competition it is a cash fest.
The only players that will sign up to play for the Super league are those at the end of their careers looking for one last big payday, like the ones who play in China and greedy ****ers who prefer cash and lots of it over winning trophies the tried and tested way for over 100 years.

 

https://www.101greatgoals.com/news/european-super-league-and-major-league-soccer/

an extract:

This model would particularly appeal to one of these three, Stan Kroenke, who owns Arsenal, Colorado Rapids and others.

The Rapids’ recent MLS record is terrible, failing to qualify for the play-offs in five of the last seven seasons, winning only 69 of 222 regular season games in this time.

But it doesn’t matter, they don’t get relegated, so they just roll on towards the bottom of the Western Conference, continuing to make money for the owner every season.

This is what would happen to clubs in the Franchise League as they’ll be playing meaningless games year after year, showing no ambition and with no consequences.

Given the fact that Arsenal finished eighth last season and are currently ninth, no consequences football would be ideal from Kroenke’s point of view.

 

Spurs have pulled out of the proposed ESL and have instead decided to start up the SSL, a league with only them in it.
Bookies have them as second favourites to win it.

 

To me the true European cup competition was played by the winners of these individual countries Leagues. Ever since UEFA messed around with it, it has been diluted IMO.

 

I’m not sure that’s correct. They sign a contract to play for their clubs not to play in the premier league, which is why clubs get lumbered with players on big money when relegated to the championship.

 

The super league can be argued as immoral and not what they signed up for, a clever lawyer would deem the contract not worth the paper it is written on.

 

The figurehead of the ESL, Perez from Real Madrid, says they're saving football. Maybe they are in Spain because La Liga is just a super Scottish League. There's really only 3 teams that can win it so all the other teams are playing for nothing. They'll never boot the big 3 out of La Liga because, like Celtic and Rangers, they are the only attraction. Perez has either totally misjudged the PL or he's fkn stupid. The PL is competitive already, it is the Super League. Liverpool won last year for the first time since Shep was a pup, Leicester won recently, Arsenal and Spurs aren't even competing this year so it is completely different to the closed shop that is La Liga.
English Football can survive losing these clubs.

 

Afternoon all The owners of the six clubs are blinded by greed. There would be no interest in a league with no promotion and no relegation watching the same teams compete for who could finish top with the prize being winning most money with the rest sharing whats left.