Good Morning. It's Friday 6th September, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road Cooper off to Bulgaria Liam Cooper is in talks with Bulgarian outfit CSKA Bulgaria, after failing to find a club closer to home. The 33yo left Leeds in the Summer, dissatisfied with the twelve month contract on offer to him. His quest for longer term security saw him linked with Blackburn, Sheffield Wednesday, and more recently Hull City. A move back to the MKM Stadium, (where it all began 22 years ago) looked to be on the cards, but in the end, it never materialised. He is a free agent; this allows him the freedom to choose a move at his leisure. No doubt he would have preferred to stay in Yorkshire, but his desire to play first team football as long as he can. could take him 1700km out of his comfort zone. please log in to view this image Was Hamer bid just a smokescreen? Listening to Joe Wainman's live broadcast last, a number of issues regarding our Summer transfer window were bought up, which deserve further scrutiny. Leeds ended up losing 20 first team players this Summer, raking in just short of £130m, plus a substantial investment from Red Bull. This including that of Summerville, Rutter and Gray; the very foundation, and first names on Daniel Farke's team sheet. Replacing such stars was never an option; outside the confounds of the Premier League, clubs must cut their cloth accordingly, but in Leeds case, that's only half the battle! Mismanagement, terrible decision making and blatant disregard from our previous regime (for which the 49ers must take their fair share of responsibility having had a 44% share in the club since 2021) continue to haunt us. We've seen Roca and Llorente depart for next to nothing, Harrison continue to wind down his contract whilst spending another season on loan (payment free) at Everton and ridiculously low buy out clauses on our two best players. As Joe pointed out, the club had two weeks to come up with a replacement for Rutter. Hamer's signature would have gone some way to repairing the damage, but if Leeds had been serious about the Dutchman, why would they have tabled a bid for £13m, £2m less than what they had bought him for last year? He's by far their best player, and as such were never going to accept it. It has been suggested that Leeds had no intentions to splash the cash this Summer, and it was just a smoke screen so they could be looked upon as being busy. Many fans suggested Leeds would leave it late to splash the cash, and although we're thankful for Smidt and Tanaka, they are not the marquee signings any of us were wanting to see! please log in to view this image
Morning everyone hanging on to players the standard of cooper and Ayling is the reason for our demise. The club failed to improve the squad and down we went. Perhaps the club is now being ran by real business people who know how to handle money. I can only applaud the 49ers for bringingvall that money in. How much though is to be paid out on deals made before they took over. Leeds fans will still attend and pay extortionate prices for tickets/food/drink and merchandise. The carrot of an improved stadium has been dangled once more in front of the gullible. Has anyone actually seen these plans and have they even been submitted for planning application. So now i will have to wait and see our position next January and what the owners reaction will be.
On Hamer I dont think Leeds were serious offering £13m for a player who cost £17m a year before. If we were serious we would have gone in with £18m and he would have been ours. There were no marquee signings except Solomon who isnt out and may have fitness problems. We we did do though was bring in some seriously good players with the potential to get us marquee prices when we sell. On Cooper I really don’t care, he’s gone. He will always be a legend but hasn’t done much for the club on the field in the last couple of seasons. Players have a right to look after their families and earning a living, but to think that at 32yo you deserve to carry on playing for another 2 seasons is a bit of a joke. All players will have planned to retire by the age of 39 and some exceptional players can play longer, but Liam isnt nor ever has been in that category. This is just plain and simple greed. On the subject of greed it would seem that Gelhardt has been turning down moves because it would mean a wage cut. So he would sacrifice his career for a few quid. A joke and he needs to leave in January as he isnt a Farke player
Of course Hamer was a smokescreen. This lot are going to try promotion on a shoestring and if succesful will repeat it in pl without success. They are a bank
20 first team players, really? Cooper's problem is he's slow and it seems pretty obvious why teams are only offering him 12 months, should have taken it, then had a couple of seasons in league 1. Almost certain they weren't serious about Hamer
Spanish media are raving about Mateo Joseph again after another brilliant performance winning goal plus 2 assists. Not long before he is drafted into the full national squad. The end of last season the national team manager said Joseph was the future of Spanish football. We need to hope he can actually do it and also have him tied into long contract, as he still goes back to Spain in the close season to train and La Liga clubs chasing his signature.
Just seen on Twitter, Ben Jacobs (regularly on talkSPORT and part of their transfer updates team during the window) reporting that Leeds are to offer Patrick Bamford a contract extension and he’s keen to sign it
Perhaps Lord Bamford is simply pushing hard to get one of these fashionable release clauses, like everyone else? Hopefully our management team will look up the word 'urgent' before sorting this for him asap. Other than that, do we know if it's a football-related contract? Perhaps he's just getting the contract to play the piano at the POTY dinner at the end of the season?
