Good Morning. It's Monday 15th November, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road Leeds lining up swift bid Multiple media sources are reporting that Leeds are lining up a bid for Reading midfielder John Swift. The 26yo has had an electric start to the season with the Royals, finding the back of the net on eight accessions, as well as seven assists! He has also featured in all 17 league games this term, a far cry from his 14 last season due to injury. Wolves and Burnley are also interested in the former Chelsea youngster. please log in to view this image Orta makes contact with Nketiah Media reports have suggested that Victor Orta has made recent contact with Eddie Nketiah regarding a move to West Yorkshire in January. The 22yo has become surplus to requirements at the Emirates after refusing to sign a new deal at the North London club. Instead of waiting until next Summer when multiple clubs will be scrambling for his signature, the Leeds Director of Football wants to strike first whilst the iron is hot. Crystal Palace has a bid accepted in the region of 12m, but Nketiah could not agree personal terms with Patrick Viera. Currently, Leeds have one (goal scoring) striker in the first XI, but with the emergence of Joe Gelhardt, they could soon have further options up front! Would 8-10m be a bargain for Nketiah? please log in to view this image Do we miss Alioski more than we thought we would Social media lit up over the weekend when Ezgjan Alioski posted a picture of himself with Illan Meslier. The French U21 shot-stopper is preparing to take on North Macedonia's U21's on Tuesday evening, whilst 'the Duracell bunny helped his senior side (and also opened the scoring) to a 3-1 win over Iceland. Alioski left Elland Road in the Summer, to sign a lucrative deal with Saudi outfit Al-Ahli. Whilst he was not blessed with the same kind of skill-set as Raphinha; his heart, determination, and ability to cover every blade of grass meant that the mischievous 29yo got plenty of game time during his four years at Elland Road please log in to view this image The squad at Elland Road has time on its side There's an interesting piece in 'The Athletic' this morning written by Specialist Data Analyst Mark Carew and Phil Hay regarding at what age and position football players reach their peak, and then comparing it to Leeds, and their exploits this season! "Leeds have a small crop of first-team regulars who are in their 30s and slightly beyond what football would class as their peak, but the majority are below that point and some, such as Kalvin Phillips and Patrick Bamford, are right in the zone where Leeds should be getting most out of them. If the younger crop is as good as Leeds think it is, Bielsa has a good hand to work with and his successor stands to inherit plenty of players on the rise". "In The Athletic’s framework of when footballers peak in their careers, the analysis found that goalkeepers peak at 28, centre-backs at 27, full-backs and central midfielders at 25, wingers and attacking midfielders at 26 and strikers at 27. That correlation can be seen in Phillips and Bamford, both of whom have made the England squad right at the point of peak age". "The data provides some context for the state of the squad at Leeds and guidance for managing it in forthcoming transfer windows. The graphic is a breakdown of the ages of each of Bielsa’s players showing where they fall in relation to the stage when their impact should peak". "Looking at the results, the club have a good number of names either in the red “peak” zone or to the left of it, a sign of how reluctant they are to pay for players who have already come through the development phase". " Raphinha could yet to be at his peak, which is one reason, beyond his obvious talent, that he would appeal to elite European teams. Illan Meslier, too, is 21 and a long way off his maximum value, putting him in the list of players who Leeds can expect to see improvement in. Several others are already Premier League regulars or have been blooded in the division: Jack Harrison, Daniel James, Pascal Struijk and Robin Koch". please log in to view this image
Morning all, Would love to see us sign Swift. With him, Phillips and Forshaw playing for two spots suddenly we have strength in that area, especially with Dallas available as well.
Klich, Dallas, Cooper Rodrigo Ayling and Forshaw are all past their sell by date if the graph is correct. We knew that though so not a big deal, but we also know they are all capable of doing a great job. I bet Forshaw falls into a category where hes had a break for 2 years so in theory he could benefit by another couple of years and he would fall into the peak area of the graph? John Swift is a player out of contract in the summer and is walking away for free so a deal can be done on the cheap in January so at least Reading get a return or a deal can be done in January and he walks to Leeds for free in June. Hes a top midfielder who will probably excel in the Premier League and is also a player we have trued to get twice before, but it depends on other clubs chasing him. Gallagher preferred to stay in London so went to Palace?
Morning all I’m unsure about Swift, I always feel you’d already be playing for a top team before the age of 26 if you were any good, certainly premier league football. Chelsea kept loaning him out and after 5 years at Reading he’s being considered because he’ll walk for free in the summer? I don’t believe we’re really interested in Nketiah, I’d much prefer to see Joffy given more appearances. If we make a major signing in January it will weaken my opinion on it being Bielsas final season. If we sign nobody then the indication could be we’re preparing for life after Bielsa.
Would love to get Swift. Is a great midfielder and I’m surprised he’s not already at a PL club. He’d do what we wanted Gallagher for and for a fairly cheap price he’s worth the gamble IMO. Don’t believe the Nkeitah story. He’d still be behind Bamford and now we have Gelhardt coming through. If we were to buy a striker it’d have to be a top top signing to actually challenge Bamford rather than a squad player I think.
He's been one of the most consistent midfielders in the Championship for 3 or 4 years. He works hard for the team, gets alot of assists and scores alot of goals. Teams have been wanting to take a chance on him for a while but he had a decent contract at Reading and they wanted big money for him. He was injured last season. Yes he is untried at this level but is better than Roberts and Klich and more productive in the final third than Forshaw. Its kind of what we need right now as we sit in the bottom third of the table and for a relatively small sum I think it's a good proactive move for all concerned if it went ahead. He is basically a 7-10 million pound player going for around 2-3 million because his contract is running down. If we got him and he played 20 games for us over this season and next we could easily still demand 7 million for him. Its good business all round imo.
I always find the headline hard to take or believe: Orta contacts Eddie to get him back at Leeds. Er no because that would be illegal and the made up clickbait state of UK sports journalism is dire. They all love virtue signalling about women footballers, black footballers and all detest Boris and his stance on stopping migrants (one day he will) so believe nothing until you see proof, because these and I include Phil Hay are all as bad and they are bad
Ristac's post in the Banter thread before a cruel Mod shut down the comments before I could reply! "Best race of the season by a mile, it’s tracks like this that would increase viewers not Monaco. All weekend Horner has been bleating about cheating but the moment his driver forces Lewis off he is on the team radio whining “let them race” it was easily a penalty that would have given Bottas second. Third race too that Redbull have been allowed to change the rear wing between end of qualifying and the actual race, something very strange there. Some guy on FB posted “how can you support Hamilton when he is waving a Brazilian flag”. As a person I don’t particularly like Hamilton but he is a great driver and he’s a Brit so I’m happy to cheer him on. I don’t like Billy big bollocks Max either" Agree with this, but do have an update on the rear wing issue. Horner was actually asked about this pre-race & his reply was along the lines of 'Yes, we changed it, but we asked for approval from the FIA & got it before we made the mod. It's not my fault if Mercedes did it without asking for approval'. Gives it a little bit of a different perspective, doesn't it? Have to say that the race took me back about 30 years when regular overtaking was a given. Safety, whilst necessary, has sucked a big part of the excitement out of a 'proper' race. It was nice to see that excitement & safety can exist together. Perhaps they need to have a closer look at the track layouts for the future - particularly the longer & less feature-packed layouts.
Crysencio Summerville has scored on his Holland U21 debut and according to to stats Leeds Utd run more than any team in world football. Leeds apparently sprint an average of 2.3kms every game with the closest to them being Young Boys of Switzerland, no team in the Premier League even gets into the top 20
Jim White from TalkShyte is the biggest bell end since bell ends were invented. He says Gareth Southgate already lives in Leeds and would be brilliant to take over from Bielsa. Cnut
Posted tonights team for the EFL Cup game against Mansfield, worth going if their CEO turns up as well doable Also posted my views on tonights game in the U23 sticky above
****ing Phillips starting AGAIN! He's only just got back some form after injury and they start him twice in three days the ****s. It's San Marino FFS. Play Gallagher and give him his cap.
Horner has asked permission three times to change the wing and three times it has been granted. Mercedes didn't have a chance to ask to fix it. Max handles the rear wing after qualifying and receives a 50k fine. Adrian Newey visits the FIA then the FIA asks for the wing to be inspected (could be coincidence) One side and the middle are fine, the other side fails by 1mm. Mercedes say it is the same wing they always run with, can we examine it, it must be broken. The FIA compound the wing to see if Mercedes are cheating or if it really is damaged. Thirty minutes after it is compounded new footage appears of Max handling the rear wing, nobody noticed earlier. After taking it apart and examining it over several hours the FIA say it is damaged, but rules are rules. Mercedes say one side being different to the other actually hampers performance not assists it, how do you know Max never damaged it and can't we fix it like you allowed Redbull? The FIA say no, it failed the test rules are rules and Max never applied enough force to cause the damage that we have seen. The race finishes and afterwards Toto was asked have you had the rear wing back yet so you can inspect what was wrong, NO was the reply, the FIA still hadn't released it. To make matters worse, Redbull were permitted again to change their wing between qualifying and racing, yes they asked permission, they gave the reason as it had been damaged and it was a safety issue. Toto rightfully questioned why are the best engineers in the world unable to fix a rear wing reliability issue that is fine for 70 laps of fast pace racing but it can't stand up to a dozen laps of qualifying for the third consecutive race. Phew...
Not an F1 forum so briefly 1. Yes good race 2. Horner is as irritating as a mosquito bite in the middle of your back and economic with the truth 3. Aero rule changes will make racing close and overtaking easier in 2022 season -https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.watch-f1s-head-of-aero-gives-us-an-exclusive-insight-into-how-the-2022-car.1PiAlBXkJp9xg0JPUdaPVl.html
34,000 people live in San Marino Deduct 50% for females = 17,000 Deduct 70% for men over 30 and boys under 18 = 5,100 Good chance that even Shaks could play for the National team Must be ard for a bloke not to get picked to play ffs
Yup, but they can turn up to work tomorrow saying they played against England. Chuck in a few away fixtures, time off their day jobs, no pressure to win, I bet they have a right laugh.
