2020VisionofLeeds
Well-Known Member
They are pretty much guaranteed a champions league place. That’s the problem at this stage of the season
Rival watch
- Thread starter Spurlock
- Start date
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No, twiddling thumbs.
Which is utterly ridiculous at this stage of the season.
Leagues have less for a winter break when there’s snow and ice and snow and sub zero temperatures.
The PL has a massive pause in March/April when there’s 7 games left
Leeds are showing Spurs how to play in a relegation battle. Puts us to shame.
Saw it coming months ago, even had a cheeky bet on us back in mid February to be relegated at a price of 40/1. I won`t be cashing out.
Martinez shouldn’t have been sent off; Calvert-Lewin should have been booked for that hair.
Utd put up a fight in the second half, but too little, too late.
Leeds safe with Wolves and Burnley at home to come
Utd put up a fight in the second half, but too little, too late.
Leeds safe with Wolves and Burnley at home to come
2020VisionofLeeds
Well-Known Member
In theory. Reality may be different, we struggle v Burnley in particular, don’t know why
I haven't watched a huge number of your games but what I've seen is a team that hasn't always got the results its performance deserved. I've never seen you as being in real danger of the drop, simply because at least 5 teams (us included) have played worse than you for long stretches ( in our case: since the third fixture of the season).
Maybe the FA Cup will be a distraction that will drag you back into it but I can't see that happening. An ideal scenario for us is for neither you or West Ham to be safe by the time you play eachother on the last day of the season.
Forest probably have the easiest run in on paper, but again the EL could be a distraction for them if they get to the SF.
I think it'll be a straight race between us and West Ham tbh, and based on the fact that they've picked up 8pts from their last 18 whereas we've picked up 1, the outcome feels inevitable.
2020VisionofLeeds
Well-Known Member
Hard to be objective about your own team but I think if we stay up we’ve deserved to because we’ve competed in most games. Our GD of -10 is almost all due to Arsenal hammering us 5 and 4 nil, we just couldn’t cope with them. Against the rest of the league been at least competitive.
Spurs decline this season reminds me of when Leeds fell out of the prem. a lot of fans (and players) then thought we were just too big/too good to go down.
Problem for you is we could be safe when we meet W Ham
I remember that year very well. Didn't you finish 3rd a few years prior?
Iirc much of your decline was due to severe financial mismanagement which meant you were on the brink of fiscal collapse either way.
We haven't had that problem but it's one that I think will hit us when we go down.
And my gut feeling is that we'll be down there for at least as long as you were. We'll have one shot to get it right which is this summer and January when player sales will allow us the luxury of reinvesting and rebuilding a team good enough to come straight back up.
Another member and I have crunched the numbers and the dangerous mix of revenue loss combined with stadium debt and loan covenants means that we'll have two seasons to get back again before it becomes almost impossible to invest any further in the team, and we'll then potentially be gone for decades.
This was my worry of hiring a permanent manager now as Will De Zerbi really have the know how of getting a team out of the championship? A bad start in that division leading to a sacking means that we’re on the hook for a 5 year contract to pay up while in the championship.
It’s why if we were going permanent, maybe someone like Dyche would have made more sense as you’d know he’d have a good crack at getting us back up. Problem with that was do we really want him if we do stay up?
It’s why I think a proper interim was the best option so we can then assess what manager we need in the summer once we know what league we’ll be in (personally, I would have said poch for prem or Scott Parker for championship).
You raise lots of logical questions.
Unfortunately for us, the people who make decisions at the club were dropped on their heads as babies from the middle tier of the Eiffel Tower, so logic doesn't come easily to them.