The #LUFC Breakfast Debate (Monday 27th May)

Good Morning. It's Monday 27th May, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road

Doomed Leeds miss out again

They'll be no fairy-tale return to the big time for Leeds Utd, after suffering excruciating Play-Off final agony for an unprecedented fourth time, at the hands of Southampton!

We were promised fireworks but had to make do with sparklers, as Leeds proved once again they were not up for the big occasion! Adam Armstrong's 24th minute strike (his fourth against Farke's men this season) was all that separated the two teams in the end; yet apart from a moment of magic from Dan James, there was very little to get excited about from the men in white.

There was little to choose between the two sides, but after going behind, the confidence got sucked out of Leeds, and there seemed to be an inevitability that things were not going to end well.

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Where did it go wrong

Promotion was always going to be a tall order after losing so many players last Summer. Farke did incredibly well to assemble the team he did, in such a short amount of time, but we were always going to have to strengthen in January, to stand a hope of Promotion

As a club, Leeds don't learn by their mistakes. Last season, they failed to prepare for the Championship, and this campaign, after getting themselves into a fantastic position, didn't finish the job, deciding instead to gamble with the same 15 players, hoping they would have enough in the tank to crawl over the finishing line!

Winning three of our last eleven games is where it all went wrong, and Leeds have paid the ultimate price. You look at both line-ups yesterday, and can't help thinking that Southampton got it spot-on with their loanees.

Flynn Downes, Taylor Harwood Bellis, Ryan Fraser, David Brooks, and Mason Holgate (traded in for Joe Rothwell in January) made a massive difference to the Saints squad this season. According to Daniel Farke, Southampton were 1% better yesterday. Perhaps if we had used the loan system properly, it would have been a different story yesterday!

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The cost of failure could run up to £150m

Daniel Farke will face the most difficult challenge of his Managerial career next season, should he decide to stay at Elland Road. Depending on which source you believe, Leeds will need to find £100m - £150m in player sales to keep themselves above water. Undoubtedly, this will mean losing the likes of Archie Gray, Georginio Rutter, Wilfred Gnonto, Crysencio Summerville and Ethan Ampadu.

Their task is made all the harder by the news that the deserters who fled Elland Road last Summer, can spend another season out on loan, running down their contracts, without so much as a loan fee in many of the cases. Of course, Leeds have the option to sell the likes of Roca, Wober and Harrison but they'll not be in a position of strength at the negotiating table.

All in all, If this were a computer game, even the most sadistic among us would be reaching for the reset button!

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Morning all

Official source is, and should be, the accounts that are readily available for anyone to see, and they are all over social media, they clearly state we need to find £70m

The club are hoping to fund a chunk of that with the sale of Harrison, Roca, Wober and Aaronson, it is felt we might need to sell two more players, favourite to exit is Summerville and Gnonto although Southampton are said to be interested in James.

We do not have to lose five players who started this season unless the coach wants rid of them.

Kieran Maguire published the figures on X if you wish to have a look.

Where did it go wrong, we will all have a different opinion, I think Farke underperformed with the talent available to him.

Considering we will lose some of that talent why hand the job to him next season.

My prediction, Farke will welcome back loan rat Aaronson

 

Off on some more jollies tomorrow.....so my feelings at present are that I will put more effort in than the perennial letdowns ......stuff citeh welcome Oxford

 

Morning all. Not going to repeat myself re being in championship again. As for having to get rid of players the only one I genuinely hope we keep is Archie. The others are all over rated, every one of them and easily replaceable. The key is to get the business done quickly this time. The agents will be rubbing their hands with another 10m coming their way. Re the finances, Players salaries in pl are 70 to 80% of turnover so a club may get an extra 150m but 120 of that goes into players pockets minimum. What did promotion under Bielsa do for us. Players have all moved on and the stadium barely got a lick of paint

 

Where did it go wrong? In my opinion the tactics rely more on individual talent than working as a team and teamwork is what wins you competitions in the long run. We can blame the start of the season but we got back into it and messed it up from there, a month or so ago we could’ve won the league. Reluctance to drop or change underperforming players because they are “better” e.g Summerville and Gnoto underperforming in quite a lot of the last games of the season especially when there were capable bench players like James and Anthony available.

As for next season I see lots of people suggesting we need to make up the 70m loss but there are more factors in play than this because it’s not just the loss we need to make up for last season but it’s likely that we start the season with a similar loss which is if we did nothing we’re looking at 140m loss over 2 seasons which is where the potential 150 figure is coming from. Also, profit is different from cash but we’re going to be hit with the next round of transfer instalments for whoever is in contract still. Also, with all the rats realistically we’re going to have the same issues as the start of last season and we won’t get any transfer fees for these players because none are good enough and why will a team buy them when they can loan them for nothing? Doesn’t make sense. So I think we need to sell Summerville, Gnoto and Gray. I’ll only be bothered about losing Gray tbh and then we need to make enough to pay for all the above and then potentially buy replacements.

I’ve also seen a few acting like we should defo be up there next year easily with a settled squad etc. and not as many good teams in the league however as mentioned above we're gonna have the same issues as last year with the loan rats (Llorente/Roca/Wober/Harrison/Aaronson), we’re gonna have to replace the players sold (Almost certainly Summerville/Gnoto, very likely Gray & possibly Ampadu/Rutter), returning loanees replacements needed (Rodon/Roberts/Anthony). I think it’s gonna be a tough start and season again and that’s without being every teams cup final again. I think we’re going to be weaker yet if we’re trying to employ the same tactics which I don’t believe are great and rely too much of individual talent it’s going to be tough as we won’t have a Summerville next season.

 

Morning all

I'm assuming that the retain list will be out today. We'll have a good idea of we'll be working with over the summer.

The squad will look very different come the start of September. I'm guessing there will be at least 8 players out of the current bunch that will be gone off the bat and that's not including Summerville, Gnonto and Rutter who will probably leave can they know they can do better than mid table in the championship and that's where we're heading.

I blame the **** up at the end of this season on Farke. He's got no tactical idea, the squad was too small and failed to pick talent such as Jospeh but used Bamford.

 

And this isn’t even thinking about what we do with players like Firpo, Ayling, Cooper, Bamford, Meslier, Cresswell, Greenwood etc. All bar maybe Meslier would’ve gone if we went up and now we could do with keeping them all for squad depth next season but all cause there own issues but I don’t think we’re in a position where we can be letting these players go now with everyone we’ll be losing.

 

Would anybody be disappointed if we let Bamford leave on a free transfer to release wages?

Perhaps offer Ayling another 12 months. I think he could fit into midfield quite well, the same Ian Harte did during his latter career.

 

Ayling sounds happy at boro and expecting to make an announcement today. Bamford can go on a free. He’s never fit for the big games anyway apart from being useless

 

Archie is a phenomenal talent FOR HIS AGE, but if we were offered 40m we must take it.

I don't see him influencing games in the same way that Ampadu can, even when he plays midfield. We need players that can influence games now!

 

If we were offered 12m for Piroe, who'd take it?

 

But will we get anyone better for 10m

 

where did it go wrong? firstly we failed to mark the most important player in their side who had a partnering of the red sea to score. Armstrong must of thought he was Jesus Christ at how much it opened for him. secondly our build up is to slow our wingers get doubled marked out the game. Our midfield don't want to know or even know how to shoot its like they playing with a ball of lava and just want rid asap.. we were too predictable again. every team knows how we going to attack find Summerville who finds Firpo and back to Summerville. it's 75% of our attacking ploy. Willy just wants to sit on his arse all game. Georgie doesn't even know what he's doing himself one day looks a world beater the next a pub player. also he is a absolute disaster at shooting on goal. Piroe I still don't know to this day what position he plays. if he was the striker out there yesterday why the fook was he outside the box most of the time in the game. We pass pass pass and work the ball too slow then when we get over the halfway line have no idea how to get the ball in the box because the opposition have time to get back and it's flooded with every player who returns to their positions with positions backed up then we try to pass the ball through clapham junction. some credit we kicked on 2nd half but we were never scoring were we? nobody was wanting to be a hero we just passed the ball till we lost it in blind alleys. sometimes route one can cause havoc and there was not enough balls pinged in the box yes its not the way we play but that was a massive game and we needed to take chances but we never did. nobody wanted to lose the ball through a shot but if you don't shoot you don't score sadly nobody wanted too. It's over now but I was so frustrated yesterday in all the chances we had to ping a ball in the box but decided to go wide and lose it in a blind alley. it could of been headed wrong, passed out wrong, deflected hit a hand and you know what it could of actually found one of our players because we weren't going anywhere the way we were trying. not doubting the effort it was basically to easy for Southampton because like many games they knew how we were attacking took Cry out the game but we kept doing the same thing it made them look defensively sound because they knew where the ball was going 99% of that game.

 

Joseph & Bamford should’ve been the question but his answer was Piroe. Should’ve never signed Piroe and should’ve had someone who can do those both do especially considering Joseph wasn’t in the picture at the start of the season and Bamford was injured. Best form came with Bamford up front so need to remember that next season (not saying we start with Bamford but that’s the sort of 9 we need if we’re playing this style of football).

 

Would say yes but here’s the next quote is the issue. Think we need to see who we need to sell, sort the loan rats, get a 12 month extension to Ayling, what’s going on with Firpo with 2 years left and sort out a new RCB and then replace the players sold. Not sure we should be letting anyone go until we know where we are. Imagine selling Bamford and Piroe and then Joseph is just another overrated youngster like Gelhardt/Greenwood and then we can’t find a replacement. Need to be careful this summer.

 

All spot on. A perfect example of taking a shot and keeper spilling it was in final minute of Saturdays Scottish final. A hopeful shot from 25 yards is spilled by butland in rangers goal and Adam Idah taps in the winner

 

Too early for the post mortem but I the only ones that will definitely go will be Summerville & Gnonto. Rodon’s loan ends and I think he indicated he wouldn’t be back if we didn’t go up. Not sure anyone else has made murmurings about leaving, possibly Cresswell has. We still get some parachute payment money so need to scout wisely and make better use of the loan system and by that I mean they should be good enough to be starting regularly not squad fillers. Forest, Southampton etc. that went up used loan players that were first team ready. Cooper, Drameh, Ayling and Greenwood will be let go. None of the rats will be back. Roberts and Anthony will go back to their clubs. Lot of work to do so I hope our board had a plan in place for this eventuality.

 

I think 'The Answer' was Ben Diaz or Victor Gyokeres but we let them go to the continent mainly due to the take over..

I really think we should get rid of Bamford, He's constantly injured and he's not prolific Infront of goal but who do you get as a replacement? No decent striker is going to drop down from the Prem unless we get Neal Maupay (so to speak) we go to the foreign markets and it's a giant gamble. Find someone in Mexico and we could find a star so to speak.

The board ****ed up in the summer by bringing in Farke due to his record of 2 promotions however that does mean he got relegated once, Granted saying that I think we are on track on what the 49ers want as I still believe it's a 2 year plan and they believe that we will be in the automatics in 12 months time,

 

Arne Slot loves Summerville so Summerville might go to Liverpool for £30 million with Nat Phillips heading the other way as Farke rates the big centre back.

Gnonto will likely end up somewhere like Palace if Olise is taken by a top 6 club for £25-30 million.

I'd like Meslier to go. He's just not reliable and he'd bring in some more cash. Maybe £10-15 million.

Everyone knows I'm not a fan of Firpo and there are plenty of left backs in league 1 who defend much better than he does BUT if we lose Summerville then Firpo might be retained to give us that attacking threat down the left.

We need a right back, even if Archie stays. Archie needs to break up the Gruev/Kamara partnership as its too defensive. We will need more goals from midfield next season to make up for Summerville moving.

Rutter just doesn't score. If we get a bid from Dortmund which gets us some money back, I'd be tempted to let him go. £25 million?

Get rid of the likes of Cooper, Ayling, Gelhardt, Shackleton and Bamford.

Big overhaul needed but a kitty to work with as above.

Players like Mason-Clark who excelled at Peterborough last season (on loan from Coventry) would be a decent signing to replace Summerville. Promote Joseph to the 9 spot. **** Bamford off. Piroe can support from the bench at 9 or 10.

Players like Ilias Chair from QPR would be good at 10 and cheap.

Kieffer Moore would be available this summer. Not even joking. That would give us Joseph, Piroe and Moore as options, all with differing strengths. Mason-Clark on the left with power and pace, Dan James on the right and the creativity and workrate of Chair in the middle.

We could end up with a more balanced side next season if we play it right. And a healthy financial situation.

 

Most I agree with but you surely don’t believe for one minute the cl finalists would pay 25m for rutter. Why would they even want him. He’s nowhere near that standard