Good Morning. It's Thursday 17th November, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road Kristensen starting to flourish After a poor start to life in the Premier League, Rasmus Kristensen is starting to flourish. The 10m Summer signing from RB Salzburg initially found it difficult to make the transition, which then effected his confidence. As the 25yo adjusted to life in West Yorkshire, his self-assurance has grown, as has his controlled aggression; which saw him keep the likes of Harvey Barnes, Gabriel Martinelli and Wilfried Zaha relatively quiet. His improved displays have seen him rocket up to 3rd place in the Leeds rankings with a respectable 6.88 average. According to Marsch: “Adapting to the league, I wouldn't say he had a slow start,” “Up against Wolves, he was pretty solid. In pre-season, he was very good. “Obviously, the level of the league and then the fact the full-backs in this league sometimes have the hardest task, because the winger position in almost every team is usually equipped with the best players from teams and opponents.” “The key for him has been he's been more aggressive against the ball and with that he's shown more competence and more self-belief and he's gone after it in a bigger way, physically, mentally, everything,” “With the way I like to coach, and manage aggressiveness, it's key and we can't have passive players on the pitch. He's gone through that with me already in Salzburg and he just had to readapt to another level of what the quality is and then start to exhibit more and more what I know he has.” please log in to view this image Leeds intent on landing Hall Leeds Utd are leading the race to sign Birmingham City's teen sensation George Hall in the New Year. The 18yo midfielder has broken through the first team ranks at St Andrews, and already has 17 appearances under his belt (mostly substitute). Victor Orta has been chasing him for some time, but it now seems inevitable that he'll leave in the New Year. A host of top flight clubs have been credited with an interest in the England U19 star, but Leeds seem intent to bring him to Elland Road. A fee of £3m-£4m is expected. Birmingham City manager John Eustace says he is not surprised that George Hall is attracting attention from other clubs. The 18-year-old has been linked with a move to Leeds United with the Daily Mail describing his departure in January as 'inevitable'. Hall has enjoyed an impressive breakthrough season at St Andrew's. The England U19 midfielder scored his first goal for the club in a 1-1 draw against Watford in August and has amassed 17 league appearances this term. please log in to view this image Poor passing letting the team down Looking through the latest Premier League Statistics Data (from 'Whoscored'), it's easy to tell where Leeds have been going wrong this season! The Whites enjoy top half ratings in goals scored, shots per game, possession, and have leapt from 18th to third, due to their aerial supremacy. Alarmingly, their passing accuracy has dropped from 78% (last season) to 76.6% this campaign. It may not sound like much, but it's the difference between 15th and 18th place in the rankings. It's the one discipline that defines the table. Five of the six best teams in the Country have the finest passing records, whereas at the other end of the table Forest, Leeds, Southampton and Bournemouth are the poorest. The one anomaly are Brentford, who's goals have kept them safe from the drop zone. please log in to view this image
Morning all. Would be great to get another 3m 18 year old in that all clubs are clamouring for. New material for the next six months for us to moan about when he's not in the match day starting lineup
3 million down the swanny, crap, Birmingham wowee, already have every young superstars going..........
Who have we developed for a good profit?. Joffy is still with us but is hardly going to bring in big money like Raphinha. Summerville may be the next to leave as we are a selling club.
Re passing stats. They can be misleading. Sides that sit on possession and knock the ball around - and those that like to play keepball among the back four get good passing stats. Marsch’s game is quick forward passes - inherently high risk, he doesn’t stress too much over giving the ball away as we counter press hard to win it back again in dangerous positions. So… pass stats will never be high and nothing to worry about
Good question Wakey and think the young talent brought in over the last 3 seasons should all make a tidy profit, or save us big money in the transfer market. I think there are profits still to come from a lot of the players we moved on like Casey, Kun, Jenkins, Huggins and a few more who all have 50% sell on clauses. Elia Caprile looks like moving from Bari to Napoli this January and we get 50% of the fee
To back up my earlier point about pass %. Here is the whoscored defensive stats which i've ranked by tackles made: So we top tackles made, because of the agressive press, we're second in interceptions made for the same reason... and top of fouls - again for the same reason. Which should make every dirty leeds fan proud. So our possession stats are ok, despite the pass stats because we win the ball back again more than any other side.
Milky the thing missed in here is the tackle not managed to be made and the misplaced passes that go directly to causing a goal against, hence the number of goals conceded so far. So the stats on the face of it are good but within them is the damage caused too.
It all helps but in most cases Doc I think most of those sell-ons are likely to be chickenfeed in the grander scheme of things. The real savings/earnings is on those who make a real impression in the PL and consequently we either save a bunch of money by playing them... or make it when they're sold. A lof of scouts were sniffing at Jimmy after his expolits in the 23/21s so he would have bagged a few quid if we'd sold him anytime in the last couple of years. But 4 in 4 in the prem puts his value up exponentially... as everyone knows now he can do it against PL defenders. Early days of course, but I'm watching Greenwood now starting to look like a classy two-footed midfielder in the PL... i can see his value on a very upward curve. So to me, whilst i'm more interested in signings for now because there's a few we need, to me someone like George Hall is a no-brainer at 3-4m. In 3 years time he's either made the grade and is £20m+ player or worst case he's a disappointment, but will still be a young talent that plenty of other teams would be interested in without us losing on the deal. I think after a disasterous first year, Orta's done pretty well picking these guys, joffy, greenwood, drameh, jimmy, darko... it is intrinsically hit and miss so not all will fly - eg miller probably hasn't come on as we'd hoped yet - but it's relatively low risk. In our position we need to be good at picking up young talent - where Vic has been less successful historically is in the buying first team ready - though the summer hit rate has been pretty good. Maybe the Jesse-Vic combo is a winner. Controversial thought I know
“So to me, whilst i'm more interested in signings for now because there's a few we need, to me someone like George Hall is a no-brainer at 3-4m. In 3 years time he's either made the grade and is £20m+ player or worst case he's a disappointment, but will still be a young talent that plenty of other teams would be interested in without us losing on the deal.” Agree on Miller but also McGurk and Bate are not stepping up yet but could? On the plus side you have to remember Vic spent 30 Bob on picking up Struijk wonder how much he has saved us and what his present value is…….
Yeh they are only stats after all Doc, so the timing/positioniong of those lost passes is definitiely a factor... but if you look further at the defensive stats, we're 'midtable' for shots against per game. In terms of time spent in relevant thirds of the pitch we spend less time in our own third than everyone except the top 5, we have less crosses coming in to defend than most sides. There is nothing there that tells you we should be struggling. Easy to conclude from that, that our defenders just aren't good enough defensively, but also that's too simplistic. No doubt that the types of crosses we're dealing with are coming in from dangerous positions. So likely a mix of system and skill set. We had a similar issue under bielsa where we could dominate stats and not give up many chances... but the ones we did give up were relatively easy.
I've been critical of Vic where i think it was deserved but i think the strategy with the kids is pretty sound. It's not an exact science. Doesn't look enough of an athlete to me for PL, but signs that Bate is finding his feet at Oxford now. Only just turned 20.
Agreed and I have consistently said we have a better team this season and should finish mid-table. However there is an underlying issue that needs resolving because the damage is huge in terms of concessions. Yes individual mistakes, poor passes etc and Im hopeful that the next month will allow Marsch to make changes to resolve it. It maybe only needs a slight tweak because it’s noticeable we were more solid a few weeks ago and we’re not taking many of the chances created. We now have taken those chances but also no stability at the back. Just hope he can do it
Just checked Orta spent £75k on Struijk and now valued at £20m on transfermarkt. So has earned his corn just on that one deal. Bogusz is about to deliver a huge profit and even Rafa Mujica is performing at a different level now and will also deliver a huge profit
Why would we get a huge profit on bogusz doc? Isn’t he struggling for minutes in the Spanish second division and out if contract soon?
People seem to forget it costs money to run the u21/23s.plus they get paid silly sums for just being part of the squad. We will lose money on a lot of players who never make it.