Good Morning. It's Tuesday 10th September, and here are the Leeds Utd headlines Monk in the mire! Former Leeds boss Garry Monk has been defending his corner relating to extensive and improper use of his own agent in many of the club's transfer dealings. These are concerns echoed by Leeds, Birmingham and Middlesbrough regarding agent James Featherstone. The new Wendies Manager was quoted as saying:- "I will speak about that but not today,” he said. “Today's about Sheffield Wednesday. I don't want to deal with nonsense. "You know the truth and when it's inside you, you know what you want to do. "I've always understood that and not been deterred by stuff I can't control and nonsense that might be put out there." Monk and Featherstone have denied any wrongdoing, yet Cellino says he banned the latter from Elland Road. Massimo Cellino revealed that he was so disturbed by Featherstone's interference that he banned him from Elland Road “I never let Monk get involved with transfers because every player he wanted to sign he wanted to do through Featherstone. “Monk came to me with a player from Brentford he wanted to sign. “I asked him who the agent was. He said, “It doesn’t matter, I will make the transfer”. “Then I found out the agent was Featherstone and they did the deal directly with him. “Featherstone said he was his player, but I found out he wasn’t. “Featherstone asked me for commission fees for doing Monk’s contract, and I didn’t give him anything. We had a big fight because I refused to pay his fees. I said to him, “You work for Garry Monk? Ask him to pay the fees”. “He was always trying to get Featherstone involved in deals. Remember Mo Barrow from Swansea? I didn’t want to sign him because the number 17 brings me bad luck, but Garry wanted to bring him in. We had a fight about Barrow, but Featherstone did the transfer. “After three months he brought another assistant coach, James Beattie. “Then I found out that he was a client of Featherstone’s agency. After that I cut him out. “I didn’t allow him to come to the games, I didn’t allow him to come to training. “I didn’t want him at the club any more.” please log in to view this image Kalvin Phillips get out clause No sooner has the ink dried on Kalvin Phillips new contract at Elland Road, than its revealed that he has a get out clause! Phillips’ camp insisted upon the release clause during negotiations for the five-year deal in case Leeds do not get promoted this season. The figure is believed to be between 20m-25m. Leeds have confirmed that they have rejected similar offers over the Summer, surely when you see Brighton splashing out 40m on Maupay and Webster, you have to ask yourself, how much is Kalvin Phillips worth? please log in to view this image In other News Jack Clarke scored the winner for England U20's v Switzerland. I wonder whether Bielsa saw it? Dallas put in a solid performance for Northern Ireland. Unfortunately Germany were too strong. Dallas's stats 2 Clearances 2/2 Tackles Won 1 Interception 5 Ground duels won 68 Touches Liam Cooper's second cap for Scotland didn't go so well. Belgium ran our 4-0 winners at Hampden Park. Alioski, Nketiah and Klich also had run outs for their respective Countries. Finally Leeds academy Keeper Illan Meslier was in fine form for the U23's yesterday as he kept a clean sheet against Crystal Palace. Final score 0-0
Morning all Ilian Meslier is yet another coup for Bielsa because it looks like he could be the best keeper at the club. Richard Shaw (Palace U23 coach) said of him he was by far the best player on the pitch and the saves he made saved Leeds a few goals. Leeds however are a really good team and they also could have won this end to end match. The only keeper not saving penalties is Kiko at the minute as Harrison male (U18s) saved one back end of last season for the U23sto win the play off. Miazek has saved one this season and now Meslier yesterday. Maybe Kiko needs to change his surname to something starting with M - Meslier, Miazek, Male. - still no idea where Huffer is? anyone?
Opposing coaches often praise opposition keepers! Penalty save was just a ‘guess the right way to a poor penalty’ but the other two looked excellent saves. Certainly looks promising. In other news, BPF looked world class against Germany last night... be interesting to see where his career goes.
I can understand why Kalvin requested a release clause in the negotiations of his contract. KP has shown more loyalty to Leeds than any other modern day footballer, that will do for me.# The lad is special, if we fail to achieve promotion Kalvin can further his promising career elsewhere with my blessing
The improvement in Stuart Dallas's game is quite staggering tbh, Marcelo has worked the oracle once again Dallas is one of the first names on the team sheet right now
As for Cooper we all know he has limited ability He was playing in one of the poorest ever Scottish teams with a shambles of a defence. Lets hope those experiences at international level doesn't affect his form & confidence at Leeds. If we do go up sadly Coops career at Leeds will come to a end That game last night was like watching a World Class nation v League One opposition
From what I hear KP is a lovely lad. And I know he’s your son ‘64, but before everyone gets too dewy eyed over loyalty. He was ready to leave in the summer, and admitted his head was turned. The club decided not to take villa’s money not kp. He’s negotiated a deal to make him very highly paid (quite rightly) with a release clause (quite rightly). This is a one year deal unless we go up, which was the only sensible compromise for all parties. It means we get value for him if he leaves and he gets top bucks this year in the meantime. He is a Leeds lad and he wants to play premier league with Leeds, but his career comes first.
You think cooper has limited ability? At international level perhaps. I think he has brain farts but is otherwise a good ball playing centre half in the championship who has generally been very good for us in the last couple of years.
He seems to have become a fairly good championship CH, but don't think there is many who think he will make a good CH in the prem.
Kalvin is a lovely lad Loves his girlfriend & family Respected by all around him Loves LUFC Deserves a chance to play in the premiership hopefully with Leeds Will play for England
I’m certainly not saying he’s premiership quality. Good luck finding many in our squad who are. I picked up on the limited ability comment, i don’t think he lacks ability, for a championship centre half. I think he has concentration and maybe pressure issues at times.
Sorry if already posted Jordan Stevens: Leeds United midfielder given six-week FA ban for betting rule breaches
It's an odd phrase that "he has limited ability". All players do. We all do, for that matter. Most will never reach the limits of their ability. Many have said over the years that Cooper had. And yet he continues to improve. So every person to date that has claimed this has been wrong. Fact. Now you may be right about him today, but unless you're clairvoyant, I don't know how you can claim this, and most certainly can't prove it. Was this your opinion of him pre-Bielsa? Many thought so. Many now deny it. But I do agree with you that it was a shiite defence. That's an understatement. I can tell you a few first hand things about Cooper's 2 matches - his international debut on Friday against a not-too-shabby Russia, and last night against the world's top ranked team. Cooper did very well in both, given the circumstances. Mulgrew, his fellow CB was awful as usual, but was clearly designated as 'the boss' in the partnership. On their flanks, we had O'Donnell, possibly one of the worst RBs I've ever seen pull on a jersey (well, apart from me), and Robertson, who looks world class in a Liverpool side, and yet is exposed as absolutely ordinary in a Scotland shirt, when not afforded the luxury of being surrounded by world class players. And yet Cooper did well. Only a Leeds supporter could see that he was shackled. Not once did he launch one of his sweet 60yd diagonals, although he shaped for it many times, then passed sideways to Mulgrew, who in turn passed it around the back. A lot. I noticed this on the Friday, so my mate (non-Leeds) & I observed last night. As I said, Cooper passed to Mulgrew. On 5 occasions, Mulgrew then launched a straight long ball. 1 was contested & lost, 4 went directly to the opposition with no Scotland player even close to where it landed. Cooper must have been horrified at the ineptitude around him. A couple of times he'd win the ball & look to pass to Mulgrew, only to find he was standing in front of him on his side of the field(!!) or behind him. Mulgrew had shocking discipline, wandering about where he shouldn't have been, and often lagging behind, playing Belgium onside. Another thing Cooper didn't do was move to his wing for a return, Leeds-style, when he offloaded the ball to the 'keeper. No need. The ball was being hoofed straight upfield. To the opposition, usually. Clarke has an obsession about shape in his tactics, & Coopers job was obviously to be an anchor in the middle. Just as well. Wonder what the score would have been without him? It was easy to see the shape as the team hardly moved (perhaps a slight exaggeration ) when the ball was hoofed up. Now normally that's bad enough, but a shiite team playing the world's top ranked team??? Imagine Cooper's frustration and confusion. And yet he did very well. The lads around me (who didn't know I was Leeds) were very generous to Cooper in their (rightful) applause, but almost every other player, save the 'keeper, got a shirraking. Often. Very often, in fact. Honestly, they made some of our doom mongers seem like happy clappys. I have to say that I was very surprised, for not one other Scottish player received any applause from them. Not even Snoddy. Not even (allegedly) world class Robertson, or scum's great white hope, McTominay. There's more to come with Cooper. I think you would be wrong to assume he's reached his maximum ability. He's adapted well to Bielsa, who has exacting standards. And our previous managers got whatever they asked for. An ever-present most of the time when not suspended or injured. And now he's sailed through an excruciating debut international weekend, when no-one else did. It's not all physical improvement. Mental ability can make all the difference, and he's clearly mentally agile enough to suit so many managers with different styles of play. My only fear is that he'll get dropped for Scotland because he's showing them up by being level above the rest around him. Minimum.
