The #LUFC Breakfast Debate (Thur 13th Dec)

Good Morning Everyone

According to the YEP, Samuel Saiz’s body-fat tests are lagging behind his teammates.

The newspaper claim Bielsa’s recent criticism of the Spanish playmaker was “a crack of the whip aimed at the Spaniard.

Saiz was bottom of the pile at Leeds in their earliest running sessions in the summer and in body fat tests where the benchmark set by Bielsa is for players to stay under 10 per cent, the same as the leading Premier League clubs.





According to the Telegraph, the UK arm of Eleven Sport’s is likely to close down shortly. Radrizzani’s sports streaming service has failed to take off.

With respect, I could have told Radz that people in the UK are not bothered about La Liga and Serie A.

Fortunately, the company is still big enough overseas for Radrizzani to make decent money.

Let's put this in context. Gordon Ramsey makes a huge amount of money from his restaurants, but if some of them are not making money, he closes them down - that's business!!!

I'm very sure that Radz has other business interests.

 

Morning all

Fatty Saiz pull your finger out

11 Sports is massive in the near East and far east and then I saw a lot on twitter last night from Poles and other eastern European countries saying 11 Sports is massive in their countries and has 3 tv stations, so looks like only the UK arm has been struggling but then so has BT Sport and Sky because of all the money they put into premier league footy. The new TV deal means Sky are dropping the sponsorship of the Sky cycling team

 

So, who's buying their tickets for the clash with Man U down under next Summer.

It's in Perth apparently.

https://www.skysports.com/football/...y-leeds-in-australian-pre-season-tour-in-2019

 

The press all over Europe are crap as obviously most of the gossip and rumor is just guessed at or made up. 2 weeks ago I read a piece about Caleb Ekuban being shipped back to Leeds because he isn't cutting it in Turkey. These next comments are actual facts: He hasn't started a game yet. he came on as sub in his first game and scored. Since then he has either not even got on the bench or has and not played. His last 2 games he came on as a sub and scored in both. So here's where the story goes next and you tell me what you think:

Trabzonspor have paid Leeds a loan fee of £180,000 and are paying his wages. Trabz love him and want to sign him so will trigger his buy-out clause of £900,000. Caleb loves it in Turkey and wants to stay.

 

Morning all,

Good luck to Ekuban. I honestly believe that he could have fitted into Bielsaball, but hey ho - can't play everyone, can you? How many strikers have we signed that don't explode into action in their first season? Answer: most of them! Even the likes of McContract & Wood got pelters in their first season. So I wish the lad all the best. He tried his best for us, but it didn't work out.

 

Erm, wasn't this announced almost a month ago?

Guess word is only just filtering through on the tin foil hat youtube channel. Can't go believing that mainstream news, can you?

 

Good Morning to Matt and co from a slightly sunny Bardsey
Good luck to Ekuban he tried and failed at Leeds so 900k will not go amiss
I have been looking at Boltons home record and they have had their last home win on 29 September 1-0 to Derby.They had a dream start to the season beating WBA away in their first game and continued playing well then after 29 the wheels fell off.Parkinson is wanted by Readingand the players have not been paid for over a month.Ameobi was red cared in his last game so misses out

 

To back up Mike's Bolton woes it seems the new Chairman ken Anderson has promised to pay staff and player wages out of his own pocket tomoz. If that doesn't happen we may see the odd player not turn up. They still have a winding up order against them which could start to kick off shortly too, so need a refinancing deal fast. Phil Parkinson is a respected manager and it does seem he may be wanted by reading especially as he had 11 years there as a player and he is still waiting for the bonus he was contracted to get for getting Bolton promoted last season.

Back on the winger front there's a story in the Leicester media that the foxes are in a race to sign Ibai Gomez from Alavez. He as you may remember has supposed to have been on Bielsa's shopping list and is one of Bielsa's ex players. Foxes reckon he had a release clause in his contract for £10m but his contract is running down and he is available for only £4m in January, but they know they are in a race with Leeds Utd. If true it would mean he gets to choose playing for Bielsa or going to the Prem

 

Was just realising how much I miss the Millwall boys. Possibly their worst start to the season for a good while, and we don't get a chance to abuse them. Perhaps they'll turn up in their droves if they play us & manage to trounce us 1-1.

 

You guys know anything about this load of bollocks up there?

"Sheffield Wednesday have received a £3million offer for goalkeeper Keiren Westwood from Cardiff City, who was touted with a free transfer to Leeds earlier in the week. (Sheffield Star)"

 

Proof that taffs are stupid ? or maybe your managers got a cut included

 

Bloody casual racist and libelist!!

 

There was no truth in the Westwood thing, nobody at Leeds had spiken to anyone about it

 

You'd know more than me about that, but why would we want to spend money on another keeper when we've got £4M Alex Smithies sitting on the bench?

Our needs are at the other end of the pitch.

 

Only £4m.

We’ll have two of him. Radz can use some of the profit from his media businesses

Seriously, we don’t Have a pot to piss in. Damn good job we have a manager who likes to work with what he has.

 

Must be getting old. For me, the music got in the way of a great goal.

 

Doc I saw that story about Gomez why would he go to Leicester when they have Gray a really exciting winger I doubt now that AR is skint we will buy anyone unless he gets money from America

 

Afternoon all

 

Interesting Saiz article from Phil Hay today ...

https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co...RSVtIb1Ab92RpIEGvm0JRTfM_e_jzrcWEoMC2PfDVemyY

THe second half of last season left Samuel Saiz cold, to the extent that he felt himself giving up on it eventually. Some who know him well in Spain thought one year in England was as much as he would take, barring a change of head coach at Leeds United and a press of the reset button in May.

Saiz got Marcelo Bielsa, the first elite manager he has actively played under, and it is hard to think of an appointment which would have floated his boat in quite the same way: a Spanish speaker with continental knowledge and a coach whose collective methods leave room for the off-the-cuff thinking which sets Saiz apart.

Saiz cuts an unorthodox footballer; small and stocky with deceptive pace from a standing start and a low centre of gravity (which no playmaker is truly complete without). Izzy Brown’s first experience of marshalling him in training was to find that Saiz was often impossible to dispossess. For Bielsa’s part, no player in his squad exudes more natural skill, though it is never clear if natural talent is the trait the 63-year-old values most.

There is, in addition, reassurance for someone like Saiz in Bielsa’s reticence when it comes to discussing the faults of his players. His explanation for substituting Gjanni Alioski at half-time twice in the space of a few days two weeks ago came across as a gentle ruffling of the winger’s blonde hair and that culture should have Saiz in his element, with the freedom to blow hot and cold without being beaten like a carpet in public. Consistency is what the Spaniard lacks but the best of him without coughs and splutters would be beyond the spending power of most Championship clubs, and far beyond the spending power of Leeds.

Bielsa’s comments about Saiz last weekend, then, broke from convention, eliciting the admission that Saiz was down on confidence and playing within himself (the second issue presumably caused by the first). It is not Bielsa’s style to speak like that or to say anything without calculated thought and there was something about his statement which felt like a reminder for Saiz, a crack of the whip aimed at a player who has been cut adrift of a squad with impetus. “I expect from him the capacity to beat an opponent,” Bielsa said. “He needs to find his capacity to make the difference.”

Beating opponents was Saiz’s forte in August, a month as good as any other in his brief career at Elland Road, and the timeline which shows that he has failed to score in a league match since last November obscures the nature of what Saiz does. He has dabbled in goals over the years but August showcased his running; the penchant for breaking from deep and going past players, opening up the field in an instant.

Leeds were able to rely on him doing so three times a game in the first six of the season. In his last nine starts, Bielsa have been lucky to see Saiz do it once. There were no beat-a-man dribbles at all from him against QPR on Saturday and Bielsa did not need the benefit of post-match analysis to spot that. Some of Saiz’s passing was insightful, leaving QPR’s defenders staring at each other, but Derby County know how it goes when Saiz leaves recovering players trailing in the dust behind him.

It is a hard, physically-challenging way to play, as Bielsa’s football tends to be, and Saiz would not tout himself the outstanding athlete at Thorp Arch. He was lagging behind the rest of the squad when they went through their earliest running sessions in the summer and in body fat tests where Leeds’ set 10 per cent as the target – a benchmark which Premier League sides endeavour to stay under – Saiz is among the players who fall short of it, behind those at the top end of the list: Lewis Baker, Kemar Roofe, Mateusz Klich and Adam Forshaw. Bielsa has long been stalked by the perception that his teams are prone to burnout as a consequence of his tactics but it is arguable that Saiz was least likely to cope with his uncompromising regime, or as likely as anyone to fade in and out.

There are other factors on top of that, like the raft of fouls committed on a midfielder who was an obvious target when the season started and a magnet by the end of its first month. Saiz has been fouled more than anyone else at Leeds and in a direct comparison with the unyielding influence of Pablo Hernandez, it is telling that infringements involving Hernandez are almost six times lower: 34 fouls on Saiz versus six on his compatriot. The trend continued against QPR – Saiz brought down six times, Hernandez not once – and he is in a vicious circle of trying to rediscover form and self-assurance while hacking boots fly around him.

The situation will be eating at Saiz because one thing he made clear when he spoke a couple of months ago is that he takes the troughs to heart. He characterised his attitude from January onwards as “having less motivation” but demoralised might have been a better translation; the slumped shoulders of a players whose body language suggests the dips in influence matter. The second half of last season was a washout for Saiz. The second half of this is set up for him to inspire a pace which stretches and breaks the Championship’s chasing pack. It will pay for Leeds to make him believe that he can.