Leeds United owner Andrea Radrizzani has made a ‘binding offer to buy Sampdoria’ and are ready to invest at least €55m straight away, confirmed his associate Matteo Manfredi.
Agree with Ristac and Eire the whole season has been a shambles down to appointment of Bielsa replacement, purchase of the wrong players and not filling the gaps of DM, AM, LB and CF properly. Whatever happens in the next week we need: Strategy going forward. Director of football Head coach Player review and which players fit the new strategy and the new head coach. What players to sell What academy players do we keep and loan out Importantly how much can we afford to spend on the correct players which fit the new strategy and head coach systems
We had one of the best DOF in world football but he's been hounded out of the club by the minority on the terraces and keyboard warriors on places like this and unfortunately Radrizani reacts when he should be staying calm and trusting his man to do his job. Also I'd remind you that relegation, whilst unfavourable, would have been much easier to recover from with Victor Orta in charge than it will be without. Orta wanted to keep Marsche and style it out during a difficult spell and he also wanted to support Bielsa when we had injuries to key players but was overruled by Radz then as well. Far to much noise and pressure around our club which stems from the fanbase because of what, possible relegation that's all. Anyway, now we've self harmed again we can go back to the Championship and wallow in self pity whilst blaming some bloke from Spain who apparently didn't have a clue.
You've just described the exact set of circumstances and requirments on the day Radrizani took full contol of the club from Cellino. Everything we've built over the last 5 seasons has now been destoyed and thrown in the bin all because we lost a few too many football matches.
Jamster I was one of Orta’s biggest fans but you cannot hide the fact that Orta brought in Marsch and remember he was scouted for 2 years as being the ideal man to follow Bielsa and to coach Bielsa’s squad. Wrong on all counts. Orta brought in Big Kev and the financial hit from this error would usually mean a director sacked and investigated. Orta also spent £35m on a player we wont use this season, even though we were desperate for a striker. Now we can all debate the players Victor brought in but those mentioned above are expensive mistakes
Agreed and a full strategic review at the end of the season was the order of the day. As a football club you have to be able to take a relegation in your stride without ripping the whole thing apart by implosion.
If we’re about to go down, after surviving on the last day of last season helped by a result from Newcastle, because the players and coaches aren’t good enough that hardly suggests you have one of the best DoF in the world. Not even the best in the division. It will also be the second club he has been relegated from the premier league with.
Maybe Bielsa was just a genius at Championship level. Bielsa works well with hungry players wanting to improve, he’s not so good at managing the characters that you need if you want to be the right end of the PL Maybe when we were promoted, that first season we were just batting way above our station. Orta seemed good at getting in the u21s but he listened to who Bielsa and Marsch wanted and that along with Augustin and getting Marsch so wrong were unforgiving errors I always wanted to see who we’d get at ER if Orta signed players he felt suited the bill but he seemed to get stuck in a rut signing coaches choices and that was my biggest concern, why have a DOF if you’re just going out signing coaches choices, we might as well go back to the old fashioned manager has total say scenario I pray we don’t keep Big Sam but if we do he’ll want his own choices so a DOF really won’t be required.
And maybe that last paragraph is exactly what’s required at this point in time. A complete change in direction. If it is to be a dof it needs to be very top class and with years of experience. Probably not a long list of those looking to work in championship so maybe two wins wouldn’t be such a bad idea
Orta was appointed at Boro in Dec 2015 and left in May 2017 so he only had one full season as their DOF. Boro were promoted after Orta's first transfer window and he then had the one summer window to try and prepare for their first PL season in 7 years and ultimately they failed finishing 19th and were relegated with Orta departing as soon as the season finished and coming to Leeds the same month. Relegation should be merely a blip but Boro have been out of the top flight ever since, which now totals 6 seasons, whereas Victor Orta went on to achieve promotion with Leeds and keep them in the PL for 3 seasons after a 16 year absence.
I was Orta’s biggest critic his first year here. He tried to roll out the Seville model when we weren’t ready for it and we blew too much cash on ‘the future’ - but to be fair we didn’t have an academy when he came. Since then he’s had more misses than hits but has unearthed some gems. It’s fine margins. Football fans are emotive types and everything is either sh*t or great. Reality is these things are often a bit more nuanced. People base judgements on the small amount of the iceberg they can see. (The analogy is deliberate) without understanding the full picture. It’s a harsh fact that most fans don’t really have a clue what they’re watching never mind what’s going on behind the scenes. Win we’re great, lose we’re sh*t. Simple innit. No matter how sh*t people thought the football was (and it wasn’t that bad, just not as pretty as what preceded it)… no matter how terrible marsch may or may not have been as a manager… the reality is missed chances and defensive errors put us where we are. In another year, that exact team wouldn’t make the same mistakes, sides wouldn’t score their goals of the season against us and our goalkeeper wouldn’t have a confidence crisis. We’d likely be lower midtable and people might be talking about a decent rebuilding job by orta. ifs and ands pots and pans, the margins in the PL are tiny. Flip side is orta bought these error prone defenders, he was behind the jka deal - there were plenty of mistakes, but there always will be. But by many accounts he was the glue that held the club together behind the scenes. It’s not black and white.. it never is.
The DoF sets out the vision and the way he wants to see the team develop and grow which includes the style of football played. He then recruits a head coach with the same vision and then between them they recruit the players who can fit the system, also coach some of the existing players into the new system. We sort of did that with Bielsa however the recruitment wasn’t a roaring success was it. Bielsa was brilliant at developing existing players and saw Klich as a cornerstone of his plan as well as turning Phillips into a quarterback. But Llorente started ok, got to be very good and then went backwards, Harrison improved and got to be very good at times, Koch wasn’t brilliant in his first season, Costa was ok and helped to get us promoted, the other player from Wolves the LB was overrated and no good, Big Kev…. Firpo, Rodrigo was underwhelming at times and changed into a very good player from a poor start. We had loan players from Chelsea who all failed, but we did draft in Greenwood, Joffy, Summerville, Meslier, Drameh who will all be profitable or save us money. So the project, the vision the collaboration between coach and DoF wasn’t always top notch?
And they were relegated, they were also hamstrung from the amount of money he spent on players and the contracts he put them on (sounds familiar) that has impacted on them being able to get back up. We were fortunate on the last day of the season last year but that luck may run out this year. Perhaps he is the best championship DOF out there.
