Good Morning. It's Wednesday 18th August, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road Medical booked for Friday Sources close to Elland Road claim that Lewis O'Brien will undergo a medical at Thorp Arch on Friday morning after significant progress was made between Victor Orta and his counterpart at the John Smiths Stadium. The news came after the Terriers rejected an improved offer from Crystal Palace for the 22yo midfielder. Where will O'Brien fit into Bielsa's plans? Will he be a squad player, or be a regular starter. If he does start, who will he replace? A fee in the region of 7m is believed to be agreed between the two clubs! please log in to view this image Is Winks the missing link to the Leeds midfield Harry Winks has become the latest in a long line of midfielders linked to a move to West Yorkshire's finest in the last couple of day. Once tipped for England stardom, the 25yo midfielder has not fulfilled his potential at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, and has not featured for the three Lions in three years. He was an unused substitute in Nuno Santo's opening win over Manchester City; a line up the former Wolves gaffer is unlikely to change anytime soon! Former Whites ace Paul Robinson believes Winks could be the missing link in Leeds midfield:- please log in to view this image Pundit lays into Bielsa for benching Phillips Former Republic of Ireland and Chelsea star, now talkSPORT pundit Andy Townsend, took to social media to relay murmurs about Kalvin Phillips returning back to training at Thorp Arch overweight! The 25yo England star, had a two week vacation following his heroics for England during he Euro's. A bemused Townsend laid into the 66yo Argentine for benching the Leeds anchor man! please log in to view this image Leeds risk partial ground closure after 3rd party ticket sales reveal Leeds could face financial repercussions and risk partial closure of Elland Road following report of touts taking advantage of fans desperate to get their hands on tickets to see the Whites this season. Third party ticket sales have been listed online at hugely inflated prices knowing Leeds fans will pay through the nose to see their idols play. A furious Radrizzani recently expressed his displeasure at the situation:- Football finance guru Kieran Maguire is adamant that Leeds must maintain full control over who is admitted to the stadium or risk Covid-related financial repercussions. please log in to view this image
Morning all As usual we know nothing and the journos know nothing as Orta and the club keep usiness close to their chests. I hope and expect the O’Brian transfer to happen fairly quick. He started last night for the dogs and lasted 70 minutes so not quite fully fit yet after his enforced lay off. The best piece by far today though: Wolves are in talks with Olympiakos about signing Portugal defender Ruben Semedo, 27, who was earlier this year handed a five-year suspended prison term and banned from visiting Spain for eight years after confessing to robbery, assault, kidnapping and possession of a firearm.
Morning all… Phillips being left out of the U23s and also being kept on the bench against Man U is a strange one, I wish the journalists would try and dig a proper answer out for that one. I did read on Twitter someone saying Phillips is a stone heavier, I just don’t believe it myself. I can’t see us buying anyone other that O’Brien unless a name Bielsa has already given the thumbs up to becomes available. I’m surprised the touts managed to get their hands on any tickets.
Morning all, I hope we can get O Brien over the line soon. I don't think we will go for him but I do like Winks and would be more than happy if we signed him. As for Philips I agree it's slightly odd but I three days time he will start and run the show against Everton and all the meltdown and conspiracy theory will disappear.
Anyone have access to the Athletic because I would love for someone to go see what their best 11 is and how they chose it:
In yesterdays thread I mentioned about squad sizes in the Premier League as Bielsa is saving the club around 10 salaries per season and we are now in year 4 of his incumbency. I heard last night that Tuchel at Chelsea is struggling to keep his squad of 42 happy. The average squad size is 31 and we all know Bielsa only wants 18 plus kids
If O'Brien is close to signing as in as close as a "medical agreed" he wouldn't of been playing last night. Not saying we aren't interested but don't think it's as close as the media think. As on Phillips I don't see what the problem is. he came back late to pre season because he needed a little break after a full Euro's (understandable) Koch was playing every minute in the DM role all pre season which was telling you he's very much in the plans of starting the season till Kalvin's back in the groove. Christ the lad deserves some time off and people slating him for coming back a tad overweight need there head shaking. They aren't robots they need to chill and let there hair down too and he's had very little time to do it. Andy Townsend is a bellend anyway who gives a toss of what he thinks. throw him in the same room as Kevin Phillips and the other useless ex pro's who rabbit on about complete shyte and think they know everything about Leeds. I know who I trust and that man is Bielsa. Kalvin Phillips didn't lose us the game with Scum. even if he played we would of lost we were well beaten and one man wouldn't change that.. We need Kalvin fully fit he's a very important cog in our system if he had went out there Saturday and got injured people would of said oh why did we play him he' not 100% you can't win can you. then possibly lose him for a month or so with the injury. When he's back he's back we don't know every fine detail of why he never played but any person who's knows there football could see the strong signs that possibly he wasn't going to play against the scum. We lost a game yes. but, now that game is history it hurt because who it was but I'm over it now we can't dwell as negativity puts you in a hole AND WE AREN'T IN A FFFFFING HOLE. It's time to look forward with positivity and bounce back straight back to shut all these moaning know it all barstewarts up.
What is Leeds United’s best XI? please log in to view this image By Phil Hay and Amitai Winehouse One of Marcelo Bielsa’s most consistent traits at Leeds United has been his insistence on continuity in the club’s first-team squad. Season four of his tenure began on Saturday, albeit badly, and it was striking to see how little the core of his starting side has changed in that time. Eight of those who were chosen at Old Trafford played in Leeds’ promotion season in the Championship. Six were in the building when Bielsa was first appointed in 2018. For so long, injury permitting, his team has almost chosen itself but as the Premier League gets going again, what now constitutes his best line-up? And did anything in Saturday’s defeat to Manchester United offer conclusions about the right pecking order? The Athletic’s Leeds United correspondent, Phil Hay, and resident Leeds fan Amitai Winehouse sat down to chat over the strength of the squad at Elland Road and debate Bielsa’s strongest XI: Hay: I’ve sensed quite a pensive mood in Leeds over the past month — not so much inside the club but outside. There seemed to be that little bit of doubt about whether Leeds were perfectly set for the season and I guess that mood related to transfers as much as anything. But it doesn’t help when on day one you get smashed away at Old Trafford. Winehouse: There’s also the fear about what happens in a second season. It’s often the case that it goes well the first time around but not so well the second time around. There’s going to be that little worry about whether what happened to Sheffield United last season is a possibility here. Hay: With Bielsa, his team is fairly easy to predict. It doesn’t change much if he can help it and I said in the intro to this piece that six of the players who started at Old Trafford were already here when he took over. That’s pretty unusual. But I did think Saturday’s game asked a few questions about what the best balance is and what his best XI would be right now, particularly in the centre of midfield. Winehouse: Yeah, the midfield was the weak point. It gave him some questions to answer for the next game. Hay: Going back to front, there’s no doubt that Illan Meslier starts, is there? Whether Casilla was here or not and with Kristoffer Klaesson now in the squad, Meslier’s a big talent. He’s young and raw but the club have got to back him heavily. Winehouse: He’ll make mistakes but good keepers work through them. No keeper in the world is perfect and, at his age, he’s as close as you can hope for. He’s the undisputed first choice in my eyes. Hay: When I interviewed him a couple of weeks ago, he was saying that he’s aware of the fact that the way Leeds play means he will make errors and when he makes them, they’re likely to be costly. But he’s good at processing mistakes. They don’t hang over him for long. He definitely starts and so does Luke Ayling at right-back. You hear very good things about Cody Drameh in the academy but he’s still untested and Ayling as a full-back really understands Bielsa’s system. please log in to view this image Ayling scored a screamer at Old Trafford (Photo by Martin Rickett/PA Images via Getty Images) Winehouse: There was a stage, maybe in Bielsa’s first season and a half, where you wondered if Ayling was good enough going forward. Then he starts doing things like tonking the ball in from 30 yards at Old Trafford. He’s fine, the best right-back in this team. Hay: He told me once that he used to bore his wife to death with replays of the Huddersfield goal. He’s got a new one to annoy her with now! How much do you think Leeds missed Diego Llorente on Saturday? They missed Kalvin Phillips, I thought, but Llorente seemed like a big loss. There was a correlation last season between his form at centre-back and the improvement in Leeds’ defensive record. Winehouse: I go back and forth on this but there’s a conversation to be had that in terms of stability, Llorente is the most important player in the team. Him and Phillips. I couldn’t objectively point out the five things he does in a game that make Leeds better but looking at the record, the difference Llorente makes seems obvious. Subtract him from the team and Leeds are weaker. Hay: It’s interesting because the big target after the Ben White saga last summer was Robin Koch. Llorente was more of an afterthought later in the window but, actually, the second signing is looking like the better one of the two so far. As for the left-sided centre-back, I’m still inclined to lean towards Liam Cooper. Pascal Struijk is coming up on the rails and he’s going to put more and more pressure on Cooper but one thing I noticed without crowds — and I saw this again in the friendly against Villarreal — is that Cooper is the one player who talks and organises at the back. His performances more often than not are good enough to keep him in the team. Winehouse: For me, it’s Struijk. Cooper’s been an unbelievable servant and him winning the Championship was a fantastic redemption story. I don’t want to denigrate him. I just feel like Struijk has a higher ceiling and this situation makes me think of John Stones and Ruben Diaz at Manchester City. They ended up playing together last season and producing a great partnership, somewhat unexpectedly. I reckon Llorente and Struijk works. There’s an argument to say you should stick with Struijk because in five years you’ve potentially got a very, very good defender on your hands. Hay: I wouldn’t disagree. Further down the line, it’s pretty likely that Llorente and Struijk will be the best partnership. And on the left-hand side, I’d like to think that it will be Junior Firpo for the foreseeable. The club have spent £13 million on him and I wouldn’t say they’ve had a reliable, fixed left-back there since Charlie Taylor. It was difficult to make much of Firpo’s debut on Saturday but in the little bits where he played and was on the ball, you could tell he’s an attacking full-back who’ll overlap, underlap and intercept. Stuart Dallas needs to be further forward. Winehouse: 100 per cent Firpo. We’ve had very bad luck with left-back signings and that goes all the way back to Tony Dorigo. Hay: I’ll maybe say a combination of bad luck and bad judgement. When it came to Phillips not playing on Saturday, I understood why Bielsa left him out because it’s what he’s done plenty of times before. If he doesn’t think a player’s ready, he doesn’t play him. I just felt that on the day it was a bit of a liberty. Phillips was a player they were going to need at Old Trafford. More and more I see this not in the context of what other players can’t do in that position but in the context of what Phillips does there. His game is incredibly difficult to replicate. Even Pirlo is singling him out as quite unique in the English game. Winehouse: We’re at the point where we have to talk about Phillips as almost being world class. It feels ridiculous to say that but he’s visibly brilliant. That’s the conversation. You’re bang-on. It’s not what other players can’t do. It’s what he can do. Hay: I spoke to Andrew Hughes, the ex-Leeds midfielder, about him. Hughes is UEFA Pro qualified and has worked for a few clubs. He made the point that to have an exact like for like stand-in for Phillips, you need to spend £50 million-plus because that’s what it costs. So Phillips plays, every day of the week. Out wide I think we can skirt over Raphinha. He’s an automatic pick and always on the right for me. I also don’t think anyone is challenging Jack Harrison’s place on the left. Winehouse: Some of what Raphinha does seems ridiculous compared to some of what I’ve seen in my Leeds-supporting life. My prediction for the season is that Jack Harrison ends up being better again. I think he has it in him. Again, he looks like the ceiling can get higher and higher. There’s something he does each summer that keeps on improving him. please log in to view this image Raphina has been a revelation (Photo: Lewis Storey/Getty Images) Hay: He’s massively professional and quietly ambitious with it. And a snip at £11 million. That’s really good business. He’s definitely the only player I’ve ever seen play as a left-back and a left winger at the same time in the same game. OK — the centre of midfield. I’ve been thinking a lot about this and I’m starting to wonder if it’s a case of horses for courses. You’ve got different combinations but it seems to me that when Leeds are dominant, Rodrigo can be a big asset as a 10. When they’re on the back foot, I’m not sure he makes them strong enough defensively. Even though it went wrong in the second half at Old Trafford, it still seemed like the Mateusz Klich-Dallas mix made more sense in negating some of what Manchester United had in their team. The most dynamic player in there at the moment is Dallas, I feel. Winehouse: Dallas is an absolute shoo-in. He’s become the best No 8 at Leeds and it’s why you need Firpo. It weakens the team to have Dallas at left-back. He’s good there but the rest of the team are poorer for him not being at eight. I have my issues with Tyler Roberts but in the past, he’s been in the team when results have been going Leeds’ way. Rodrigo has the lot technically but stability wise, and to avoid a gaping expanse, you have to have Klich in there with Dallas. Leeds need to have a defensive capacity. It goes back to what Bielsa did in his second season. He almost had two eights in front of Phillips. It was slightly less spectacular but you felt as if the results would tick over more comfortably. Stability equalled success. Stability over wildness. Hay: It reminds you a bit of the way in which Samu Saiz dropped out of the team in Bielsa’s first season, despite his ability. Adam Forshaw intrigues me. People at Leeds genuinely say Bielsa believes Forshaw at full tilt could do a job for a Champions League team. If that sounds daft then you have to concede that Bielsa is a very good judge of a footballer. His attitude very early on at Leeds was that Forshaw was his best player. Forshaw was on the bench on Saturday, the first time in almost two years. But it’s so difficult to know what he’ll contribute after this injury. Winehouse: These friendlies and under-23 games have to be his longest run of football for ages, right? I could see him playing. Apparently, he was one of Middlesbrough’s best players in the Premier League. If he has that capacity and he can hold up physically then, yeah, I see him as an option. Hay: Bielsa’s centre-forward. It’s got to be Patrick Bamford, no? I mean, Leeds have to make as much as they can of Rodrigo. He’s a £27 million signing. But Bamford’s up front, surely. Winehouse: It’s Bamford for me and Bamford right now. The only thing I’d say is that looking at it cynically — and I don’t think this will happen — last season in the Premier League could have been a one-off. It wouldn’t actually shock me that much if, by May, Rodrigo is the first-choice No 9. The goals he scored at Burnley were a very good demonstration of what he does as a nine. If Bamford had a run where he wasn’t scoring, you could see the value of giving Rodrigo a try. Hay: That must be where he wants to play long term. That’s where he usually played for Valencia. But we know with Bielsa that his opinion of a centre-forward goes far, far beyond finishing and goalscoring. Finishing is only a fraction of what he looks for. Listen, we need to speak about the bench. The club need a centre-mid and there’s been talk all window about a new winger coming in. Both might be a good idea because in terms of the bench, it doesn’t feel like we’re getting a lot from Helder Costa. Winehouse: I think the same about Costa. When you look back, you’ll say, “You know what? He helped Leeds get over the line in the Championship.” He did contribute and taking money out of the equation, he did the job. He started well enough in the Premier League but Raphinha came in and blew everyone’s socks off. It just doesn’t seem like Costa off the bench is going to make a big difference at the minute. He seems a bit off the pace relative to the rest of the team. Hay: So much of Leeds’ play is out wide, which means it’s critical that Bielsa’s wingers and full-backs are right on it. I’ve always wondered whether Bielsa’s style really suits Costa. People who knew him at Wolves said he was best in a counter-attacking side. Leeds can be lethal on the counter but really, they like to dominate the ball. And in the Championship especially, they were playing teams who were backed up against them. Let me ask you then: if Leeds get a centre-mid — possibly Lewis O’Brien who, for what it’s worth, looks tenacious and skilful enough to fit into the Bielsa system — would you be happy with the squad? Winehouse: I don’t see many weaknesses beyond the lack of another centre-mid, and possibly a back-up winger. If Koch’s on the bench with a fit Forshaw and a centre-mid who could hypothetically fit in for Phillips — and Roberts too, despite the question marks — how much can you improve at this stage? The first XI is strong. I’d be happy. Hay’s Best XI: (4-1-4-1) – Meslier; Ayling, Llorente, Cooper, Firpo; Phillips; Raphinha, Dallas, Rodrigo, Harrison; Bamford Winehouse’s Best XI: (4-1-4-1) – Meslier, Ayling, Llorente, Strujik, Firpo; Phillips; Raphinha, Dallas, Klich, Harrison; Bamford
Just on the Phillips thing….. If he was fit for the bench why did he remain unused? The game was crying out for us to take control of the middle. If he is not fit enough yet why was he not included in the U23s when Forshaw was? I don’t care if he has a few extra pounds after a break but we know Bielsa will care.
No transfer thread? Any information for us on this Huggins we are signing from you guys? I heard he was a left back which surprised me as we've just signed Cirkin from Spurs, so I assumed it was back up for that position but apparently he can also play at RB and we are short in that position...
Niall Huggins played for the first team against Arsenal last season. He started in midfield, moved to LW and then to LB. not bad going for a 19yo at the time because he actually played well. I have watched him the last couple if seasons for the U23s and remember our U23s have won the regional league and then the national league and last season won Prem2 Div2 by a country mile. Huggins was one of the top stars and finished up on the first team bench. He mainly plays LWB or LW and is fast and skilful and beats people for fun. Defenders dont like him because he turns them inside out and has end product with plenty of assists and scores goals too. If the dwarf knows where he can do damage you will have a star on your hands
Nice one, mate. Appreciate that It's going to be interesting to see where he is played as like I've said we have just bought Cirkin for LB and that lad has quality in abundance. I have a feeling Huggins will be used as a RB so I'm very curious as to how we'll set-up, now.
Sound, mate. I'm starting to buzz about the kid now. Any idea of the fee? I've just heard it's six figures?
@Saff although I agree with all the positive stuff said about him I think it's mostly potential at the moment. I'm not sure he is ready for the first team just yet. He is a bit lightweight. However the potential is there for a great player to emerge. One for the future but I'm not sure he will star too much initially.
Higgins can play RB, RWB and in midfield too as well as his usual LB and LWB. In this clip you can see him in all those positions
