Good Morning. It's Wednesday 3rd September, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road Frailties in the final third were plain to see Against Newcastle United, Leeds United showcased the grit and discipline that will be essential for their Premier League survival. The resulting performance was combative and defensively resolute, yet largely toothless in attack. If any game highlighted their frailties in the final third it was this one; which is why the 49ers have received the backlash they have. The promising start does little to mask the underlying anxiety surrounding the squad's offensive capabilities. The fact that manager Daniel Farke was asked post-match if his team had enough "to survive relegation" speaks volumes. The question, while jarring, is rooted in a stark reality: Leeds’ starting eleven featured six players who also started their first game last season in the Championship. Despite a summer expenditure of around £100 million, the team have managed just one goal in three games—a penalty. This lingering "Championship characteristic" is a gnawing concern for fans and, evidently, for the manager himself. Farke had been clear about the situation, delivering what has been described as an "understated transfer ultimatum" with the window closing. He publicly prioritised the signing of attacking "quality," while pushing back against the notion that he is simply recruiting for size. “I don’t like to make too much of this story that we are just signing giants,” he insisted, explaining that positions like centre-back and striker naturally demand a certain physical presence in the Premier League. Whilst our pursuit of Paixao was commendable, it heightened the expectations of the fans who anticipated at least one marquee signing in either the 9, 10 or 11 position. Most Leeds fans won't have a problem with the players the 49ers have bought in, it's more about the clubs at wrong end of the table having better transfer windows than us! please log in to view this image Can we hold Farke responsible for results The 49ers have failed to deliver at their end, so, can we hold Daniel Farke responsible this season? On the surface, the club's investment of £100 million and the acquisition of ten new players would suggest a robust backing for the manager. Beneath this considerable outlay, a significant concern persists: the squad is incomplete, there are glaring holes in the final third, normally reserved for creative influence! Farke is being asked to perform miracles with an incomplete toolkit. His past Championship successes, while impressive, were often built upon squads boasting an "abundance of talent". How will he fare when the ball is on the other foot and he's having to use cunning, guile and tactical prowess to outfox opponents with a weaker all round squad. please log in to view this image
Morning all. Ive nothing more to add to what's already been said. Just have to get on with it now and hopefully 50% of this seasons games are as enjoyable as Everton and Newcastle ones
Everyone knows I am not Danny Farke’s biggest fan but he cannot be held responsible this time around. Norwich dealt him a shytty hand but Leeds backed him with £100m for a keeper, defence and midfield, so hopefully we can keep the concessions down. However you need goals in this league and so far we are toothless thanks to poor ownership and over promotion of Adam Underwood. We have to hope DCL, Okofon, Nmecha and Piroe come good. Harrison chipped in with goals when we were last in the prem so here’s hoping
Suspect we all know how this ends, if we’re cut adrift early to mid season. I didn’t fancy DF before he came here, however thought he dealt with the problem of the rats, the bonding of the group on the back of that really well. I don’t really blame him for our play off defeat, a few of our marquee players let us down as they didn’t turn up. Sadly he’ll pay the price for failure, should it happen. I suppose young Harry Gray may have a chance to get a few minutes now we didn’t get anyone in on Monday.
Morning all If Farke picks his best team and makes timely tactical substitutions and changes and has them playing to their best ability then that's his job done, Everton and Newcastle spring to mind If he squeezes players in out of position and insists on playing Piroe as a 10 or fails to read games then yes, he can be held to blame Trying to be a bit positive, DCL has a market value of £16m - If he was under contract and we had signed him on the last day for £16m would we be happy We did get three players cheaper than we should have, possibly 4 as I think two were into their final years contract Transfer Market has us with a squad value of £296m, Sunderland as £290m Burnley £226m West Ham £370m Fulham £337m Wolves £331m
Beren Cross has insiders with ER. Before the season, Daniel Farke's remit was 17 points by Boxing Day, which would put him on target for 38 points by the end of the season.
When defending his time @ Norwich, Farke said words to this effect... His Norwich team won comfortably at Swansea in one of their promotion years, but he left the game impressed with how Swansea had played and how well coached they seemed under Graham Potter - he felt it was his superior players that won the day. Once promoted his Norwich team went to Brighton, now under potter and were beaten comfortably themselves. Same coaches, same ideas, different players. It's a complete over-simplification to say the coach and tactics, adaptibility etc don't matter. Of course they do. But if the coaches are all pretty good. And they are at this level, they understand what's happening in a game, they know each teams style and identity, they recognise what substitutions and tactical changes are likely to be made, and they recognise them when it happens. They do this for a living. They may have different philosophies, but they're not blind to the strengths and weaknesses of them. Sure they will win and lose some tactical battles. You will have situations where sides are in transition and they have good players who don't fit the system etc. But it's the players that make the difference. When we line up for every game this season, if you look at the teams/squads and ask yourself how many of ours would get in the oppositions. I think it's likely only Burnley where we win that count, maybe fairly close with Wolves, Brentford, maybe Sunderland when we see how good their window really was. We're moving from possession dominant attacking team to hounddog battlers feeding off scraps. If he keeps his job and keeps us up, Farke has done really well.
Morning all from a beautifully sunny Cyprus. The old saying goes “forwards win you matches, defences wi you titles”. We’ll see how true that is with 17th being our title
Didn't see this before i posted but guess the transfer market figures illustrate better the point i've just made re individual squad capability. The thing re substitutions and tactics... Farke has since said that Nmecha was in line to play at Arsenal but had missed training sessions with a niggle so they went with Piroe. What I will say is, there are things as fans we think we can all see, and get frustrated if we think the manager doesn't. For sure, Farke's rigidly timed subs used to frustrate many of us... but they obviously ask a lot of certain positions and see performance levels dip at around that time, it's only a small drop needed off before it gets exploited. Also as fans, we only see the game... We don't know what's gone on in training, we don't know whether a player has been asked to do something in a game but failed. The boxing analogy that everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face works in football too. We lost 5-0 to Arsenal. But after half an hour they were chanceless against us. Two errors later and the game's done. If we go in at half time 0-0 and it could have ended up 0-0. I said we should have gone nmecha for piroe and longstaff for tanaka before the arsenal game. He picked them for newcastle, it worked in that game. Does that make me a better manager than Farke? Down the pub after 5 pints, maybe.
Morning all. Done with all this now. We just need our goalscorers to come into form and score goals. DCL could be that guy who scores a lot, not to mention that last season we had loads of different goals from elsewhere on the pitch as well. I'd like this to happen as well. Appreciate there is a gulf in class between with Premier League (Top 6) and the Championship. We wont be competing for anything like the top six, so that other mini league in this division is the one we need to win - the ones who survive or even midtable finishes. There are still some free agents our there if push comes to shove... Otherwise its waiting until January again, and we all know what happens usually on this window - absolutely nothing at all.. Its great to be a Leeds fan. We never do anything easy and drama free - EVER!
Good morning from Zakynthos (zante) Hard decisions must now be made. Which sunbeds will she choose and where to go for dinner.
Leeds United managing director Robbie Evans says the club "spent everything they could" during the summer transfer window as they strive to stay in line with Profit and Sustainability regulations (PSR). After winning the Championship last season, chairman Paraag Marathe promised they would spend every available pound to strengthen the squad. Given the Whites acquired 10 players for a total cost of more than £100m, Evans was emphatic in his assessment of Marathe's pledge. "This summer, we spent everything we could," he told gathered reporters after requesting not to do a broadcast interview. "Unequivocally we are maxing PSR out this season. "If we had gone onto other targets [on deadline day], or onto higher-priced players back in July, the consequences would have been seen in the current roster - the players in August would not have come in, or more key players from last season would have had to go. "There were only a handful of players that were worth even considering making those kinds of sales. And when those top players didn't materialize, we held on to our key players instead." Evans was pleased Leeds did not have to cash in on stars from the promotion campaign such as Ao Tanaka, Pascal Struijk and Joel Piroe, explaining they looked to work the market differently. "Unsurprisingly, the players that have the highest PSR profit are the ones that are most critical to our success last year and most important for our success next year," he said. "So, rather than sell them pre-emptively on the expectation of having somebody for whom that capital could be better deployed, we ticked off all of our highest priority boxes first and foremost "We didn't think it was wise to lose those players - the quality they bring, the continuity from last season, the familiarity with Daniel's strategy and his process adds a ton to our squad. "So unless [selling them] was enabling something truly unique and differential we'd rather have them here."
What a crock of shyt and written by a PR guy. First thing that stinks is all the players we bought were here before we find out Piaxcoa decided on OM, which means what happened to the £35m we bid for him. What about the £40m we were offering Fulham for Muniz. Secondly we have some players that are not good enough for the Prem and Struijk could be one,,Gruev another and Piroe another. We have cover for all three and could have brought in £50m. What happened in the crap way we were offloading players, why wasn’t Meslier sold, why was Gyabi released……. Just waiting now for the tame club journalists to try put a positive spin on the window. Adam Pope, Graham Smyth, Beren Cross
So they obviously didn’t tell Farke they were maxed out before he made a fool of himself saying he needed two more attacking players. At least we won’t get any penalty points starting next season in championship
It was well flagged in the summer that 80 to 100m was our budget due to psr. Myself and others pointed it out but some fans chose to ignore it. At least we know there wont be any January signings so no point in having a thread on it
I guess he’s trying to say paxao in would have meant someone else out. Have to think they were thinking of offloading struijk and that’s why we got Bijol. so now we have extra centre backs and no flair.
The lies that came out of Evan’s mouth were surreal and just gaslighting us. When he says we got all of our targets except Wilson and Piaxcoa it was a huge lie. There were players like Diarra and the other guy who went to Sunderland he forgot to mention and what about Okafor we all know he wasn’t one of our targets. He forgot to mention Muniz a player we bid £28m for a hung around for weeks and then offered £35m knowing it might be £40m. A Kinnear clone
