The #LUFC Breakfast Debate (Thursday 19th May)

Must have missed the memo stating players can just **** off whenever they want to.

Everyone will be staying until the club deems otherwise...the exception being Raphinha who is the one with a release clause.

Times have changed and the era where people said contracts aren't worth the paper they're written on has long gone. There's too much money involved these days to let assets worth multi millions of pounds just walk out the door whenever they feel like it.

 

Not a prayer that will be the squad.

 

Nope elland deliberately failed to include the staying up bonuses in his calculations.

Wonder why

Financially if we go down we'll be fine for one season. Second season would need income from player sales to balance the books and then after that it gets into we're fooked category.

 

Say it ain't so Jammy.. Fred on facebook said it was true and his cousin told him. Say it ain't so..

 

No need to wakey.

We ain't down yet and we'll get something at Brentford...who knows maybe even a win.

 

And you better be praying Villa and Newcastle beat Burnley

 

Why? We only need Burnley to lose one game and us beat Brentford.

 

Well that would be just perfect

 

Brentford are eminently beatable.

Definitely not easy but we'll go there to win and I think we've a good chance of doing so

 

That is true but do you really want us to be reliant on us winning

 

Quite interesting. Here's a piece by Phil Hay last November


Peak ages: The Leeds squad is built for the future, no matter who the manager is
By Phil Hay and Mark Carey
Nov 15, 2021

This piece is part of a series looking at the age profiles of squads for teams that we cover in the Premier League, Championship and Scottish Premiership, following The Athletic’s article by Tom Worville considering “peak age” across different positions. Goalkeepers tend to peak later in their careers, and flying full-backs generally peak earlier — it’s all in there.

The analysis was calculated based on the share of minutes per age across each position, over the past 10 Premier League seasons. Off the back of that work, each club writer is looking more closely at the current state of their playing squad to see how each player’s age profile shapes up relative to their respective peak.

To appreciate the attention paid by Leeds United to the age of a footballer, it is worth knowing that in three and half years with Marcelo Bielsa as head coach, they have never signed an outfield player older than 29.

Kiko Casilla, their estranged goalkeeper, came in from Real Madrid as a 32-year-old and Rodrigo, at 29, broke the mould slightly by arriving in his prime years but Leeds are big on potential and resale value, pursuing a transfer model which tries to identify targets with both attributes.

The upshot is a squad at Elland Road with time on its side. 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.

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The data provides some context for the state of the squad at Leeds and guidance for managing it in forthcoming transfer windows. The graphic above is a breakdown of the ages of each of Bielsa’s players (including those under-23s who are closest to first-team contention and have played in the Premier League this season), showing where they fall in relation to the stage when their impact should peak. One notable omission from the list, Casilla, is absent on the basis that he has not featured for Bielsa this term — he is on loan at Elche and will not play again at Elland Road.

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.

There is no exact science here and neither they nor the academy prospects Leeds have invested in are certain to cut it long term but Leeds have avoided filling their camp with players who are on the way down.

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Phillips is one of only five Leeds players to be in the peak age bracket for their position (Photo: Matteo Ciambelli/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
What is apparent, though, is that the spine of Bielsa’s dressing room — and to an extent, the spine of his team — is starting to get on. Liam Cooper, Stuart Dallas, Mateusz Klich and Luke Ayling were part of the skeleton of Bielsa’s side in the Championship and have been prominent since promotion last year. All four continue to feature frequently (Cooper and Dallas have started every league game this season) but the graphic reveals how far they are beyond their peak years, Klich in particular.

That is not to say that change is needed instantly or before time but it is on the horizon and when Leeds think about how this squad should evolve, a departure from that group of dependable assets is clearly coming down the tracks. It is also abundantly clear that in the centre of midfield, Leeds are compromised not only by the time of life their centre midfielders are in but by the lack of depth behind them.

The club have tried to pre-empt positional shuffles with their recruitment at development squad level. The purpose of buying 19=year-old Cody Drameh from Fulham was to find someone who might be able to fill Ayling’s shoes. The club have Joe Gelhardt, their precocious forward, oozing ability. Others in the academy, such as Lewis Bate and Charlie Cresswell, will attempt to graduate fully as quickly as possible. Leeds could find, however, that the next few transfer windows call for signings in the middle ground to ensure that the exit of any veterans does not leave them lacking in experience and nous. The wider reaches of Bielsa’s resources, while showing ample promise, are undeniably raw.

Assuming Leeds’ strategy goes to plan, the structure of Bielsa’s squad should avoid the need for a mass overhaul in future, under him or a different manager. Even in a busy transfer window, there will be promising players left to work with and scope for them to grow. The best way of explaining the squad Bielsa has built is to say that Klich is the grandfather of the team. And Klich is only 31.

 

Why not my nerves will stand it.

 

That is too long for me to read. Plus how are we goung to make money in transfers as the money wasted on fat kev/rodrigo and james will give us negative equity in the whole club. We could sell all even the 18s and still not make that back. Llorente and koch would be a loss too.

 

Was the Barca fan an estate agent going under the name 'El Elland'

 

I didn’t say there were positives, why would we have to accept £25m for Phillips? If he’s worth £50m today he’s still going to be worth £50m on Monday I believe all this relegation release fee clauses is nonsense. We might have one in place for Raphinha but it will stop there I’m sure.

Sunday will be the last games Phillips and Raphinha play for us, we’ll either get around £100m for the pair or £75m

If we’re in the premier league that might buy us two players, in the Championship we wipe out the £50m deficit and we’ve got £25m to play with. That’s a huge amount for a championship team and we’ll probably do the loan with buy options again

 

Exactly this, we’ll probably sell three players max unless we can unload some extras who are surplus to requirements like Roberts, Shackleton and Klich

 

I’ve got to be honest mate, I started reading it and I got to the next line where it said “Phil Hay” and I stopped

 

Brentford have taken offence by this!

 

Koch - 10 mill.
Bamford - 25 mill. (Not sure anyone will come in for him given his injuries this season)
Meslier - 20 mill.
Llorente -13 mill.
Rodrigo - 10 mill (if we are lucky)
Rapha - 25 mill.
Firpo - 6 mill.
Phillips - 45 mill.

That's a touch over 150 million. I'd expect us to spend a bit of that strengthening the squad for a tilt at the Championship for the next two seasons.

If (when!) we go down, we would be in an incredibly strong position. Far stronger than Norwich and Watford. The fact that Fulham and Bournemouth have gone up leaves the Championship alot easier to win. It is very much diluted at the moment.

The only worry would be us not getting recruitment right or manager and wasting the two seasons trying to get it right. We'd have the spending power to bully that division for two seasons before we had to revert back to being a bog standard Championship club.