Interesting to see so many voices on twitter claiming it may actually be a good thing if Leeds United get relegated. Some of their reasoning includes getting rid of the board, flogging off half the squad and giving young players the chance to step up and win promotion. The consensus seems to be that Leeds will stroll the Championship next season, so no real harm done. Really? Do you really believe this?
Reading all these “relegation is good” tweets took me back to 2004 and a conversation I had with a Maltese friend who’s a Leeds nut. When relegation started to look like a real possibility, he said that it’s probably a good thing because the club could then have a clear out and come straight back with a better equipped team. That went well.
Let me put the gist of my response to him in this thread for you, because it’s very relevant today, and as it applied back then it applies now.
Firstly, the Championship is a beast of a division. Secondly, there’s the obvious loss of serious income. Thirdly, it becomes very hard to attract players or managers of the right quality to take the club forward.
CHAMPIONSHIP
If you think Leeds will stroll to promotion next season, think again. The Championship is a beast of a division, and for a massive club like Leeds it’s just plain evil. Promotion is not guaranteed, in fact it will be an achievement just to get to the play-offs. How can I say this? Simple.
In the Championship, Leeds United is the big scalp, the one team everyone else wants to beat. Leeds will be facing motivated opponents every week, desperate to turn us over. When teams come to Elland Road they’ll grow ten feet tall and turn into prime Brazil.
Most of the players in the Championship will relish a trip to Leeds, the chance to shine on a big stage. For many it will be a first ever visit, and they know they may never get to play there again. They will play to 110% of their ability, they’ll fight and scrap, they’ll run faster and further in their big game of the season.
Imagine Leeds having to travel down to Plymouth on a cold, wet Tuesday night. Rain teeming down at Home Park on the hill, wind sweeping across the field. Plymouth are a decent team, well organised and coming off a title winning season. They’ll be well up for the visit of Leeds, no team talk necessary. First five minutes and three crunching tackles later and the game’s decided. Plymouth will fight until they can’t breathe anymore to say they beat the mighty Leeds. EVERY TEAM WILL!!!
The Championship is a hard enough league for clubs like Huddersfield or Hull. It’s an impossible league for Leeds. It will be 46 Cup Finals that will have to be navigated. No game will be easy, every game will carry the burden of being expected to win, and if Leeds start slowly, the pressure will mount.
It's hard to have to play 46 games in a season, to be mentally ready and focused, to retain the desire to go and win every game. It’s even harder against teams that are organised, and whose mission that season is to beat YOU, regardless of where they may be in the table.
The Championship is a beast for most clubs, for Leeds it's a monster. It's not a level playing field because teams won't show the same passion and desire when Stoke, QPR on any other club rolls into town. It's Leeds they want to beat the most, and these battles will have to be fought 46 times. That's savage.
FINANCES
Getting relegated will do serious harm to Leeds financially. Players will need to be sold to get in line with FFP, the club won’t be able to easily rebuild the squad with the quality needed to improve, and any growth plans will be put on hold. A quick example is TV money. In the Prem Leeds get £1.2m for every televised game. In the Championship it was £30k, although that is set to increase but nowhere near Prem cash.
This will set the club back at least three years, and if promotion doesn’t happen right away, even longer. Relegation is fraught with financial danger, and Leeds can easily slip into another mid-table Championship spiral if things don’t go right on the pitch. I don’t think it’s necessary to go into detail on finances, everyone knows it will be a huge blow to take.
PLAYERS/MANAGER
Leeds will find it hard to attract the quality players needed to take the club on to the next level. It will be hard to compete on wages alone, never mind transfer fees. Good players will rather go to Wolves or Brentford than come to Leeds in the Championship. That’s just a fact of footballing life today. Prem or bust. Tough to build a team not just capable of promotion, but also able to stay in the Prem and kick on.
Now the biggest problem, getting the right manager. Top managers won’t risk dropping into the Championship, not even for Leeds. So how do you get the right manager? More importantly, who do you get? It was mentioned to me last week that Leeds should go after Hecky, after all, he got the Blunts promoted. Oh dear.
Hecky, along with the likes of managers like Wilder, are very capable coaches who thrive at clubs where the expectation to achieve isn’t as great as it is at Leeds. Sheff Utd were among the list of ten clubs expected to challenge for a play-off spot, but there was never any expectation for them to go up automatically.
This lack of expectation eases the pressure on the manager and players, it allows them to play with more freedom. If they do well, they've over achieved. If they fail, no matter, they can try again next season. You don't get that luxury at Leeds.
Every team also won’t be going up to Sheffield frothing at the mouth in anticipation of turning them over. It’s a massive difference to managing at Leeds. Hecky wouldn’t cope with the pressure of having to win promotion, and as champions to boot. The new manager will also be expected to win promotion in season one. This will apply every season Leeds get a new manager, and that's a bridge too far for at least 90% of managers out there.
I wrote this piece the week news broke that Leeds were going after Bielsa, which I didn’t know at the time of writing it. It is so relevant right now, even if Leeds do manage to stay in the Prem. Have a quick read:
https://www.not606.com/threads/leeds-must-get-the-right-manager.362749/
If you think it will be good for Leeds to go down, think again. Relegation is fraught with danger, and promotion will take a monumental effort to achieve. Bielsa made it look relatively straight forward, but that’s what the great ones do. We need another manager who is at Bielsa’s level. A manager who can cope with the massive pressure the Leeds job brings, who can get the respect of the players and their belief in the style of play. Nothing else will do for Leeds United. The impostors will crumble at Leeds, and the Championship will once again become home.
Reading all these “relegation is good” tweets took me back to 2004 and a conversation I had with a Maltese friend who’s a Leeds nut. When relegation started to look like a real possibility, he said that it’s probably a good thing because the club could then have a clear out and come straight back with a better equipped team. That went well.
Let me put the gist of my response to him in this thread for you, because it’s very relevant today, and as it applied back then it applies now.
Firstly, the Championship is a beast of a division. Secondly, there’s the obvious loss of serious income. Thirdly, it becomes very hard to attract players or managers of the right quality to take the club forward.
CHAMPIONSHIP
If you think Leeds will stroll to promotion next season, think again. The Championship is a beast of a division, and for a massive club like Leeds it’s just plain evil. Promotion is not guaranteed, in fact it will be an achievement just to get to the play-offs. How can I say this? Simple.
In the Championship, Leeds United is the big scalp, the one team everyone else wants to beat. Leeds will be facing motivated opponents every week, desperate to turn us over. When teams come to Elland Road they’ll grow ten feet tall and turn into prime Brazil.
Most of the players in the Championship will relish a trip to Leeds, the chance to shine on a big stage. For many it will be a first ever visit, and they know they may never get to play there again. They will play to 110% of their ability, they’ll fight and scrap, they’ll run faster and further in their big game of the season.
Imagine Leeds having to travel down to Plymouth on a cold, wet Tuesday night. Rain teeming down at Home Park on the hill, wind sweeping across the field. Plymouth are a decent team, well organised and coming off a title winning season. They’ll be well up for the visit of Leeds, no team talk necessary. First five minutes and three crunching tackles later and the game’s decided. Plymouth will fight until they can’t breathe anymore to say they beat the mighty Leeds. EVERY TEAM WILL!!!
The Championship is a hard enough league for clubs like Huddersfield or Hull. It’s an impossible league for Leeds. It will be 46 Cup Finals that will have to be navigated. No game will be easy, every game will carry the burden of being expected to win, and if Leeds start slowly, the pressure will mount.
It's hard to have to play 46 games in a season, to be mentally ready and focused, to retain the desire to go and win every game. It’s even harder against teams that are organised, and whose mission that season is to beat YOU, regardless of where they may be in the table.
The Championship is a beast for most clubs, for Leeds it's a monster. It's not a level playing field because teams won't show the same passion and desire when Stoke, QPR on any other club rolls into town. It's Leeds they want to beat the most, and these battles will have to be fought 46 times. That's savage.
FINANCES
Getting relegated will do serious harm to Leeds financially. Players will need to be sold to get in line with FFP, the club won’t be able to easily rebuild the squad with the quality needed to improve, and any growth plans will be put on hold. A quick example is TV money. In the Prem Leeds get £1.2m for every televised game. In the Championship it was £30k, although that is set to increase but nowhere near Prem cash.
This will set the club back at least three years, and if promotion doesn’t happen right away, even longer. Relegation is fraught with financial danger, and Leeds can easily slip into another mid-table Championship spiral if things don’t go right on the pitch. I don’t think it’s necessary to go into detail on finances, everyone knows it will be a huge blow to take.
PLAYERS/MANAGER
Leeds will find it hard to attract the quality players needed to take the club on to the next level. It will be hard to compete on wages alone, never mind transfer fees. Good players will rather go to Wolves or Brentford than come to Leeds in the Championship. That’s just a fact of footballing life today. Prem or bust. Tough to build a team not just capable of promotion, but also able to stay in the Prem and kick on.
Now the biggest problem, getting the right manager. Top managers won’t risk dropping into the Championship, not even for Leeds. So how do you get the right manager? More importantly, who do you get? It was mentioned to me last week that Leeds should go after Hecky, after all, he got the Blunts promoted. Oh dear.
Hecky, along with the likes of managers like Wilder, are very capable coaches who thrive at clubs where the expectation to achieve isn’t as great as it is at Leeds. Sheff Utd were among the list of ten clubs expected to challenge for a play-off spot, but there was never any expectation for them to go up automatically.
This lack of expectation eases the pressure on the manager and players, it allows them to play with more freedom. If they do well, they've over achieved. If they fail, no matter, they can try again next season. You don't get that luxury at Leeds.
Every team also won’t be going up to Sheffield frothing at the mouth in anticipation of turning them over. It’s a massive difference to managing at Leeds. Hecky wouldn’t cope with the pressure of having to win promotion, and as champions to boot. The new manager will also be expected to win promotion in season one. This will apply every season Leeds get a new manager, and that's a bridge too far for at least 90% of managers out there.
I wrote this piece the week news broke that Leeds were going after Bielsa, which I didn’t know at the time of writing it. It is so relevant right now, even if Leeds do manage to stay in the Prem. Have a quick read:
https://www.not606.com/threads/leeds-must-get-the-right-manager.362749/
If you think it will be good for Leeds to go down, think again. Relegation is fraught with danger, and promotion will take a monumental effort to achieve. Bielsa made it look relatively straight forward, but that’s what the great ones do. We need another manager who is at Bielsa’s level. A manager who can cope with the massive pressure the Leeds job brings, who can get the respect of the players and their belief in the style of play. Nothing else will do for Leeds United. The impostors will crumble at Leeds, and the Championship will once again become home.
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.....#pleasestayup....
