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Weekend Debate

Discussion in 'Leeds United' started by Doc, Sep 23, 2022.

  1. Doc

    Doc Well-Known Member

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    Another weekend of a screwed up season and boredom takes the place of anticipation and the highs and lows of a league match. So not much football news about except the continual clickbait, however major talking points this past week:

    1. VAR
    2. New rules on fans entering the pitch, throwing flares or abusing a player.
    3. The number of Leeds players called up, including kids.
    4. The debate about the striker preferences at Marsch’s disposal
    5. Mark Noble is the new WHU Sporting Director, basically West Hams Orta, wtf
    6. Summerville could go out on loan in January as he will struggle for minutes this season
    7. Sonny Perkins - Goal Machine headlines- because Perkins scored for England U19s on his debut but media very quiet on comparing Joe Gelhardt to Perkins who in fairness doesn't hold a candle to Joffy just yet.
    8. Orta to Chelsea and why loads of clubs covet him.
    9. Gakpo scored again for Holland… out of our reach already
    10. Academy Dreams released today on Prime, watch Joffy, Cresswell and Co developing

    Perkins:

    England U16 played 3 scored 3

    England U18 played 10 scored 4

    England U19 played 1 scored 1

    West Ham U23 played 14 scored 6

    Leeds U23s Played 5 scored 6

    60% scoring record


    Joffy:

    England U16 played 6 scored 3

    England U17 played 15 scored 12

    England U18 played 6 scored 4

    England U20 played 1 scored 2

    Leeds U23s (20/21) P16 scored 11

    Leeds U23s (21/22) P10 scored 7

    76% scoring record


    Yes Perkins may well turn out to be a worldy but please clickbait media do some research
     
    #1
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  2. milkyboy

    milkyboy Well-Known Member

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    … Perkins only converted to striker from AM about a year ago, so not really like for like
     
    #2
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  3. Doc

    Doc Well-Known Member

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    Academy dreams is great so far
     
    #3
  4. ellandback

    ellandback Well-Known Member
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    Academy Dreams: Leeds United – Q&A with Joe Gelhardt and Sam Greenwood
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    By Phil Hay
    Sep 23, 2022

    “The harsh reality,” Vinnie Jones says, “is that only a tiny bunch will make it.”

    And there it is; the truth of academy football which has to be uttered once in a while.

    Jones is the narrator of Leeds United’s new documentary, Academy Dreams, and episode one does not wait long to tackle the elephant in the room. “It might not work out,” agrees centre-back Charlie Cresswell. But then again, it just might.


    Academy Dreams, a six-part series going behind the scenes of last season’s under-21 crop at Leeds, is released on Friday. It follows the lives and emotions of the players about whom so much is always written; the players who cannot say for certain if a career in the game is waiting for them but go after the carrot in front of them with the honest belief that they can. James Milner pops up in the early scenes and the Thorp Arch academy, through 100 years, will have no better poster boy.



    Leeds hold the reputation and track record of a club where youth development is not a dead end. Their productivity over many seasons makes them a good subject for an academy documentary, capturing the yin and yang between the camaraderie of the under-21s squad and the ruthlessness of the industry. Kalvin Phillips is in the thick of the footage, another example of what happens when everything goes right.

    To mark the release of Academy Dreams on Amazon Prime, The Athletic sat down for a quickfire Q&A with two of the main faces in the series, Joe Gelhardt and Sam Greenwood — a pair of gifted forwards affectionately described by Cresswell last weekend as “the two doughnuts”. Gelhardt and Greenwood were close friends before both signed for Leeds in the same summer of 2020. And pursuing their ambition together has only made them closer.

    Phil Hay: You two are interesting because you go back a long way, quite a long way before Leeds. What was the story?

    Joe Gelhardt: When we were young we both played for England together. We went to our first camp in the under-15s and we were friends ever since. We’d always speak, even away from the camps, so it was a bit mad when we both joined this club at the same time.


    Sam Greenwood: We always shared a room. We just clicked straight away and we’ve been close since then. Coming here, at exactly the same time, like Joe says, it was mad. It all goes back to England, basically.

    Hay: Were you competing for the same shirt with England then? Because you don’t necessarily play in the same position but you’re not far off either…

    Gelhardt: We were both strikers with England.

    Greenwood: Yeah, we both were so he’d have times when he was playing in front of me and I’d have times when I’d be playing over him. But we never really had that jealousy you sometimes get.

    Gelhardt: It was healthy competition. I was happy when he scored and he was happy when I scored. And anyway, it wasn’t like one was playing 90 minutes. We come off after 60 or go on for 30, so we were both getting game time. For different games, it was all about whoever suited it better.

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    Gelhardt playing for England Under-17s against Russia in October 2018 (Photo: James Baylis – AMA/Getty Images)
    Hay: That will change throughout your career, won’t it? You’ll have some players where them being ahead of you frustrates you or where it’s harder to be happy for them. But with some people, you can cope with that better?

    Greenwood: We pushed each other. We were in it together, which is how it should be. We made each other better, I felt, whenever we were away.

    Hay: Who helped who settle in at Leeds, given that you landed a few weeks apart?

    Gelhardt: I was here first, wasn’t I?

    Greenwood: He was, so it was him who introduced me to the other lads. They’re a great group so we were both able to settle in really quickly.

    Gelhardt: It was dead welcoming here, even with the first-team lads. We joined in with ’23s first so we got to know them but then we’d train with the first team on other days and they didn’t treat us like young ‘uns. They treated us like we were first-team players — not so much by what they did in training but in the way they spoke to us. It was just normal.


    Hay: What about friendships like yours in an academy? How important is that? People think it’s an amazing lifestyle, an amazing opportunity to have, but it’s wildly competitive in academies and, I guess, a bit cutthroat from time to time.

    Greenwood: It can be tough. You go through tough times, the frustrations of not playing and stuff like that. It’s important to have people who you’re close to, who you can talk to and who help you get through it. It’s a massive thing for me.

    Gelhardt: Sometimes people just see the lifestyle of footballers but not what they go through. You’re not getting picked or you’re getting abused on social media if you’re not playing so well. People forget that we’re humans sometimes and we have feelings. It’s part of the job, though. You get on with it.

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    Gelhardt celebrates scoring against Norwich City in March (Photo: Michael Regan/Getty Images)
    Hay: Some bits of the documentary are funny, like Max Dean getting sunburned on a sunbed, but then it gets serious very quickly. With the click of the fingers, you’ve got Mark Jackson shouting at you in the changing room. It must swing quite a lot from fun to not so much?

    Gelhardt: Of course. In the changing room, that hour before training we can be ourselves. As soon as you step on the pitch, you’re there to work, with Jacko shouting sometimes. It happens when we don’t play well and that’s when it becomes about working a bit harder and less joking about.

    Hay: Did you enjoy last season though, genuinely? The under-23s went down and it was very tough for the first team. At the same time, both of you were breaking through.

    Gelhardt: I liked the thrill of it, yeah. We weren’t safe and everyone was nervous, which is normal. But we didn’t show it. Every day we came in with high spirits and the worst thing you could do is mope about or be sad about it. It was still a good place to be around and we fought through it.

    Greenwood: I liked the challenge, too. We didn’t play every minute for the ’23s but when we did, it meant you had to be on your best performance. I liked the challenge of trying to stay up and when we stepped down, because the ’23s were struggling too, there was the challenge of being a role model to the other lads, trying my best to get us out of it. It can be frustrating when you know you’re only going to play 45 minutes for the ’23s. You can only try your best in the time you’ve got to make an impact.

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    Greenwood celebrates Leeds staying in the Premier League (Photo: Craig Mercer/MB Media/Getty Images)
    Gelhardt: That was the hardest part. We weren’t playing many minutes at all. Like Sam said, you’d have maybe 45 minutes for the ’23s and then 10 for the first team. It’s hard to keep your fitness up, your match fitness. You can run all you want but when you don’t have match sharpness, you’re not going to be at your best. For me, that was the most difficult part of the season. Every time I went down to the ’23s, it was doing my head in that we were in a relegation battle as well — the first team and the ’23s, it was both important.

    Greenwood: It was like we were in both!

    Hay: Vinnie Jones says in the first episode that only a small percentage of academy players will make it in the end. Do you ever think about that?

    Gelhardt: Anything can happen with injuries and stuff. I feel lucky but I know that I’ve worked for it as well. It’s a bit of both. You need luck and you need hard work. I just appreciate what I’ve got.

    Greenwood: It’s not (in my head) so much. I focus on what I’m doing day to day. I don’t look at those stats. I just look at my ability to keep going, pushing forward.

    Hay: Joe, you’ve come from Wigan, and Sam, you came from Arsenal. What’s the transition been like and what’s the difference here? Sam, I remember someone saying that you hardly went out in London — that you went home to watch Sunderland’s youth team a lot when you had free time.

    Greenwood: I just got on with my football down there. It was a massive difference moving from Sunderland to London, a totally different world. Coming from Arsenal to here, there isn’t too much difference but I get a lot more opportunities here. I wasn’t as close to the first team at Arsenal as I am here. It’s been a good decision for me.

    Gelhardt: The biggest change for me was the quality. Wigan were in the Championship when I left, we’d just got relegated, so my first few sessions here I was like “wow!” Even just the little things, like passes being crisp and proper. Then there was the physicality of Premier League fitness, too, the speed of it. That was hard to adapt to. I had to change everything to try to get used to it.

    Hay: Finally, tell me how the last day was at Brentford last season? Particularly you, Sam. When did you know you were playing in midfield and what did you think?

    Greenwood: I got told a couple of days before and I got butterflies. But on the day, during the warm-up, I felt calm. I had the feeling that I wanted to show it was my time. I didn’t get too nervous. Sometimes I do before playing for the first team but in that game, I felt quite relaxed even though the situation was massive. I didn’t overthink it.

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    Greenwood up against Brentford’s Christian Eriksen in May (Photo: Craig Mercer/MB Media/Getty Images)
    Gelhardt: That would be the worst thing you could do. Treat it as a normal game and then you’ll do the things that got you in the (team) in the first place. You can’t be that bad if you’re playing in the Premier League. I was confident because I knew what we had in the dressing room. Sometimes I thought to myself, “How are we even in this situation with the team we’ve got?” We’d train with them every day and see the quality. Some games we were so unlucky. But when that game came, I knew we’d leave it all on the pitch.

    Greenwood: And I think it’s one of the best days of our footballing careers so far, even though it was a bad situation. The feeling of doing it and playing with my mate as well, who I’ve been with since I was young…

    Hay: …who scored the best volley he never scored (Gelhardt had a spectacular first-half finish ruled out for offside)!

    Gelhardt: Ha, yeah!
     
    #4
  5. wakeybreakyheart

    wakeybreakyheart Well-Known Member

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    And milky chooses the big spanner to throw..
     
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  6. Doc

    Doc Well-Known Member

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    Doesnt matter does it the so called pundits saying hes the best hotshyt striker around when facts and data prove otherwise. Thats why I said do homework before printing shyt. I hope the kid turns out to be hotshyt but to be that he needs to carry on scoring all season to get anywhere near Gelhardts stats
     
    #6
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  7. Eireleeds1

    Eireleeds1 Well-Known Member

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    “The harsh reality,” Vinnie Jones says, “is that only a tiny bunch will make it.”
    There you go. The fans crying out to pack the senior team with u21's should take note of that. Same applies to all sports. Tens of thousands of super young talented golfers, tennis player etc around who will at best scrape a living from their chosen sports. In some cases, parents will have ploughed all their spare cash into making the dream work out and understandably.
     
    #7
  8. milkyboy

    milkyboy Well-Known Member

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    I’m not getting into a joffy v Perkins debate. Hope they both make it obviously. But the point is if others are judging Perkins striking ability only since he actually started playing as one - then it’s those comparing goal scoring stats when he wasn’t a striker who need to do their homework Doc :emoticon-0105-wink:

    seriously though, Perkins scored a lot as a midfielder and has carried that on as a striker. He’s clearly a sweet ball striker and good finisher… and has hit the ground running for the 23s. You can see why people latch on to that, but ur right that joffy has done it for longer. Perkins has a way to go yet to prove its not a flash in the pan. And as per emu’s report last week… work to do on his all round game. But hey, the kids 18. Let’s see how he develops.
     
    #8
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  9. Leedsoflondon

    Leedsoflondon Well-Known Member

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    And yet West Ham were (allegedly) about to play him in their first team.
     
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  10. Eireleeds1

    Eireleeds1 Well-Known Member

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    Maybe considering West Ham are currently in relegation zone, he had a lucky escape
     
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  11. milkyboy

    milkyboy Well-Known Member

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    they did play him. He claimed he wasn’t happy with their pathway for youth… and then signed for our u21s <confused><confused>

    the other version of events is he wanted first team wages… from which you might conclude that we rated him more than they did
     
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  12. ellandback

    ellandback Well-Known Member
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    He made one appearance, which was a European game
     
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  13. milkyboy

    milkyboy Well-Known Member

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    exactly. They did play him. Like I said.
     
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  14. Doc

    Doc Well-Known Member

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    Italy star striker cant get a start for WHU, so maybe the pathway for him is also blocked by Moyes
     
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  15. Eireleeds1

    Eireleeds1 Well-Known Member

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    What a difference a year makes. A year ago Moyes and Rogers were top rated managers, toss of a coin at the moment who’s going to get the chop first
     
    #15
    Last edited: Sep 23, 2022
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  16. NostradEmus

    NostradEmus Firpo is Shit

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    This is boring.

    Time to get Willy warmed up I think.
     
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  17. milkyboy

    milkyboy Well-Known Member

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    You imagine being Italian they probably have fluffers in the dressing room for just that purpose
     
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  18. Doc

    Doc Well-Known Member

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    Still not seen any decent football for a while and yet Southgate had a great opportunity, but has sent me to sleep again. Southgate and England are shyt and anyone who thinks right winger Sako should play left wing back is a fkg numpty.
     
    #18
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  19. Eireleeds1

    Eireleeds1 Well-Known Member

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    What’s that pink dye in James’s hair. Imagine what Billy or Norman would have done with that in their day. Not a man’s game anymore
     
    #19
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  20. Leedsoflondon

    Leedsoflondon Well-Known Member

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    Did he not play against us (or at least get on)?
     
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