The #LUFC Breakfast Debate (Friday 16th July)

Good Morning. It's Friday 16th July, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road

Costa off to Spain?

In his first article back since successfully undergoing brain surgery, Phil Hay has disclosed that Leeds winger Helder Costa has been linked to several La Liga clubs including Valencia this Summer.

The 27yo cost the Whites 16m during their promotion winning season, though the one time capped Portuguese International has failed to live up to his price tag. Whilst we see glimpses of brilliance, he has been unable to replicate the kind of form he showed for Wolves!

How much of a loss can Leeds afford to take on Costa? Could he still do a job at Leeds, or are his days at Elland Road numbered? Over his 69 appearances, he has netted eight times and supplied 11 assists.

According to the former chief football writer for the YEP, Hay said:-

Links to Club Brugge’s Noa Lang — a creative and prolific presence in Belgium’s top flight — are genuine, although Leeds have not tabled any offers for the Holland Under-21 international as yet. The arrival of another winger, on the back of Jack Harrison’s permanent £11 million move from Manchester City, would raise questions about the future of Helder Costa, someone who was in and out of Bielsa’s line-up last season.

Sources in Spain have told The Athletic that La Liga clubs are monitoring Costa, Valencia included. Again, no formal bids have been received.

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Do Leeds need to sign another midfielder

It would be fair to say there were stages last season where Leeds struggled in the middle of the park. Klich was burnt down, and running on fumes, Rodrigo's form was inconsistent and Roberts had more bad days than good. Toward the end of the season both Rodrigo and Roberts found good form, and Dallas, deputising for Klich was having the season of his life.

Assuming Klich's batteries are fully recharged, Rodrigo / Roberts continue to find their feet, and Dallas can continue where he left off, do Leeds need another midfielder?

Forshaw is on the comeback trail, and reports from Thorp Arch suggests an improvement in Shackleton's play.

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Transfer fees for Leeds current squad

Our friends at Lufcdata.com have provided an entire list of the Leeds roster, and how much each individual player has cost. Bearing this in mind, how do you think Leeds have done in the transfer market?

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Morning all,

The big question about central midfield will be on how Bielsa judges Forshaw to be fit and how much of an improvement Shack has made.

Has a season on the bench in the prem helped Shack improve? Is he another player Bielsa is working his magic on? I like him and hope he can step up.

If Forshaw can stay fit and it's a big if then he will be a bet good squad player.

 

Morning all

I dont see Forshaw ever playing for Leeds again. I watched his comeback in the 23s and although he was lively and did a job he was obviously off the pace. I expected to see him on the first team bench for the match a few days later but he was missing. We then found out he had another strain, so unless he had gotten himself fully fit by the end if the season and had a fantastic pre season I see him gone.

Klich had played 92 games on the bounce and was injured last season. He came back at the end of the season looking like his old self, so I see him and Dallas fighting for the 8 position if we dont bring in another midfielder, which I think we will. If we do Dallas will be cover for LB and No8 or RB

 

Jorge’ Mendez the super agent is dealing with Costa so that can only mean we are lining up another winger and trying to offload Costa into Spain. Things will need to fall into place for this to happen as Bielsa will want a new winger agreed before allowing Costa to move

 

Good morning from a campsite near Hornsea. Going home in the morning before the hordes arrive.

 

Plenty of my Summer holidays spent there as my Gran had a van on the caravan site. First taste of ale in the Board Inne

 

Fans away at Fleetwood will get a bonus friendly to watch as we are taking 2 teams, and each team will play 2 hour long games of half hour halves. So you will get to see the likes of Gelhardt, Millar, Summerville, Drameh, Greenwood mixed in with Rodrigo, Junior, Llorente, Koch, etc

 

I don't see us moving on Costa unless we get a good wod back of the £16M we paid. which doesn't look likely even in a normal world never mind in this current climate with covid and tight purse strings. If he does somehow go I can't see it being a straight sell in these current times.
My seeing is there is no bids on Lang and no bids on Costa. so really nothing to talk about other than the normal speculation on incoming Players. Being Linked and actual making formal bid and being interested are totally in a different ball park.
What are links? Agents pushing players? if so I remember Orta saying he gets pushed numerous players a day by agents saying their player is interested in Leeds are they classed as Links?
We have been chasing Lang for quite a while I think if we were really serious a bid would of been made by now.
Orta said he wanted players in ASAP "ie the sooner the better" from his list he's obviously not on that list otherwise we would of made a bid by now right?
nothing is holding us up in making a bid on lang other than him not being top of our winger want list which I think is the reason.
If he was top of the list a bid would of been tabled by now as pre season has started. My thinking is we are holding out for someone else and Lang is a backup option
I might be talking shyte but that's how I see it. If you want someone and he's top of your list you make a bid. nothing is stopping us from making a bid he hasn't been to the Euro's, he's had his pre season break. We wanted players in before July.
Yes his club may be waiting to bring someone in first but a Bid still would of been made by now to say "Hello we want your man how much?"

 

Siddas Said

“Orta said he wanted players in ASAP "ie the sooner the better" from his list he's obviously not on that list otherwise we would of made a bid by now right?
nothing is holding us up in making a bid on lang other than him not being top of our winger want list which I think is the reason.
If he was top of the list a bid would of been tabled by now aspre season has started. My thinking is we are holding out for someone else and Lang is a backup option”

There is deffo a list of winger options: Madueke Lang, Cunha, KK to name 4 but the logjam and fly in the ointment is Daniel James. Even Phil Hay said this morning that Bielsa tried to get him on loan last Summer and that made the Raphinha deal last minute. Hay said that Sancho to Man Utd gives a different dynamic and depending on price and availability. There are also other reasons why a target hasnt been signed yet and that could be that they need to replace an outgoing player before allowing a player to leave.

Orta did say he already knew most of the targets and would by the end of June known the rest, but it would be complex in some cases as there are so many moving pieces that have to align before things happen

 

Maybe we have bid for players who are at the top of the list and we're playing a waiting game.

There's no news of any bids, but that doesn't mean there haven't been any. We won't want to alert other potentially interested parties and start an auction.

Leeds conduct transfer business these days on a need to know basis, which is the best way to go about it.

You don't need to know until the deal is done and dusted - and then you'll know

 

Phil Hay claims that the Yorkshire club are genuinely interested in Club Brugge’s Noa Lang, but they haven’t tabled a bid yet. The 22-year-old is a creative winger who has been prolific in Belgium. He bagged 17 goals and 11 assists last term, and Leeds are keeping tabs on the Holland U21 international.

 

Phil Hay is one of those who doesn’t need to know, so take what he says with a pinch of salt. We may in fact have tabled a bid for Lang but Hay wouldn’t know because what would be the point of telling him? It wouldn’t help to get the deal over the line that’s for sure.

No one knows apart from those involved.

 

Leeds United transfers: Evolution not revolution as hunt for a centre midfielder and Casilla’s replacement increases

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By Phil Hay 7h ago


Within days of last season finishing, Leeds United’s pitch and one of the training fields at Thorp Arch turned into work sites. Expensive refits were set in motion, promising Marcelo Bielsa the quality of playing surface he needed for matches and through the week.

Behind the scenes, and in the recruitment department, there was no call for any bulldozers. The summer transfer window promised to be like most of Bielsa’s at Leeds: productive but measured, without going to extreme lengths. A new left-back was imperative. A central midfielder would be helpful. And if the latter stages of the window presented the right player, Bielsa planned to take another winger. But not an overhaul. Never an overhaul.

Even when the plan at Elland Road changed slightly, the scale of their intentions stayed the same. Leeds thought for a while about recruiting a new No 10, pre-empting Pablo Hernandez’s departure for Spain, but cooled on the idea after Rodrigo’s surge in form towards the end of last season set him up for a stronger second year. Tyler Roberts forced the issue too by improving to the point where Leeds were happy to extend his contract. Even with Hernandez gone, Bielsa had his two options for that position and the club diverted their budget elsewhere.

Some £13 million was spent on Firpo, the signing which could give Bielsa surety at left-back for the first time in three years as Leeds’ head coach. The absence of an out-and-out specialist there has not compromised the progress of his squad or the success of his tenure but the club saw it as an obvious area to address and Victor Orta, their director of football, was engaging possible targets as far back as January, even as he was trying to offer Gjanni Alioski an extension to his contract.

Firpo, the most important arrival of the summer, was also Leeds’ first, concluded in the week when most of Bielsa’s players began pre-season training. Bielsa is big on rapid business, a way of ensuring that new signings are with him throughout pre-season, though he has come to accept that patience has virtues. Last August’s £17 million purchase of Raphinha from Rennes — as astute a buy as any in the Premier League — went through an hour before the deadline and Leeds believe that any move for a winger in this window will come towards the end of it again. Raphinha was an example of how the market works: an option Orta assumed was off-limits until the 24-year-old’s agent, Deco, called to say that Rennes were suddenly willing to sell.

In the lead-up to the capture of Raphinha, Leeds also explored the possibility of Manchester United allowing Dan James to leave on loan. Bielsa had James in his clutches in 2019, only to see a deal implode, and has retained an interest in him ever since. Links to Club Bruges’ Noa Lang — a creative and prolific presence in Belgium’s top flight — are genuine, although Leeds have not tabled any offers for the Holland Under-21 international as yet. The arrival of another winger, on the back of Jack Harrison’s permanent £11 million move from Manchester City, would raise questions about the future of Helder Costa, someone who was in and out of Bielsa’s line-up last season. Sources in Spain have told The Athletic that La Liga clubs are monitoring Costa, Valencia included. Again, no formal bids have been received.

Leeds are closer to finding a central midfielder, increasing the depth in an area where Bielsa’s first-choice players carry the heaviest burden. Kalvin Phillips, who is taking a short holiday after the end of the European Championship, has been Leeds’ pivot since Bielsa’s appointment in 2018 and is ever the cog on whom so much depends. Mateusz Klich’s relentless appearances caught up with him last season, prompting him to admit that the physical load from so many games was starting to affect his body and his form. The opening created by Klich’s dip was the making of Stuart Dallas in midfield to the extent that Dallas can expect to start there again when the new Premier League term begins, but Leeds think an extra addition would be prudent. Sources continue to insist that Cagliari’s Nahitan Nandez is beyond their price bracket.

Alongside the major transfers, some more minor management of the dressing room is necessary. Work is afoot to find another second-choice goalkeeper after Kiko Casilla’s exit to Elche and Orta has been in conversations with different parties this week. Orta holds a long-standing interest in Valerenga’s Kristoffer Klaesson and would favour a deal for the 20-year-old if Leeds can negotiate an acceptable fee but he has also shortlisted Dani Cardenas, a 24-year-old at Levante in Spain’s La Liga. Both are seen as suitable deputies for first choice Illan Meslier.

Leeds are admirers of Newcastle United’s Freddie Woodman but his availability is in doubt due to an injury suffered by Newcastle No 1 Martin Dubravka. Bournemouth, in any case, were on the verge of concluding a loan deal for Woodman before concerns about Dubravka’s condition forced a rethink at St James’ Park.

Alioski’s decision to reject a new contract, meanwhile, has deprived Bielsa of a spare left-back, though Leeds are not actively pursuing a replacement at this stage. Dallas has filled in successfully in that role and academy defender Leif Davis is still on the fringes of the senior side. One thing Bielsa has never lacked is left-footed footballers or the means to adapt.

Twelve months ago, and in spite of more than £100 million committed to the transfer market after promotion to the Premier League, Bielsa wanted his team to look much as it had in the Championship. This summer was no different and the inclusion of Firpo away at Old Trafford on August 14 would be an isolated change to a remarkably familiar line-up. Bielsa, in himself, provoked a revolution at Elland Road but where the squad is concerned, he counts on his players to mature and evolve without invasive surgery or excessive upheaval. Both he and Leeds were once regarded as rolling stones in club football. But no longer.

 

And the inter galactic solar league presided over by emperor zorg will be in existence before tottingham Hotspur get anywhere near a title

 

Sorry to pour oil on the waters, but no-one out there can afford Costa (assuming they wanted him in the first place). He'd be an expensive signing with high wages. Not a deal-killer for a cracking prospect, but definitely a deal-killer for a part-time winger who can rarely be depended on.

At best, it will be a loan out, preferably to a club that will pay a big chunk of his wages, which severely limits his options.

The best we can hope for is a Championship club with ambitions of promotion coming in for him, probably on a try-before-you-buy deal. I don't even think we could force a try-then-obliged-to-buy.

Sadly.

 

Whoever signs him are guaranteed promotion……. Well it happened at Wolves and then they sold him to us and it happened again and so we need to sell him now FAST with his USP

 

Afternoon all

 

Sell sell sell. Lazy player.