The #LUFC Breakfast Debate (Wednesday 31st August)

If we’re considering this we must be in for someone. Would be madness to loan/sell especially now with Rodrigo out. Hope it’s Gakpo but have a feeling it’ll be Hwang, don’t rate him as he was rolling round on the floor most of the time first game of the season. Saying that knowing Leeds we’ll let James go and say we don’t need anyone as we have Summerville.

 

The knowledge that man possess is staggering

 

same was said about Raphinia

 

Morning all

Made me laugh this ^ ^ ^ ^

 

Afternoon all,

So much for refs cracking down on time wasting and the slowing down of play. They knew exactly what they were doing and no matter how much Marsch, the players, commentators and fans there was only one person who could have put a stop to it and he bottled it.


It was the cockiness of the Everton players as well when they knew they were getting away it.

The look on Davies face when he tried to kick the ball out of Mesliers hands. How the players show restraint is impressive as he would have worn one had I been in distance.


Their whole game plan seemed to be slow the game down, don't let leeds get any rhythm and try to let our £60 million rated player do something

 

Stop quoting Hay. You’ll upset people

 

Good afternoon taken a short drive to the west coast. Trying my drinking arm out in Blackpool. Saw povedas new home on the way in.

 

Zoo

 

I think it's just your inherent optimism and positivity kicking in Rich

I always thought we'd get someone in but i'm less sure now. Looks like Hwang for james could happen... swapping one blunt weapon for another.

 

next week it will be 'if leeds don't play well it makes it hard for aaronson to play well'

 

jokes aside, I think we discussed this about aaronson before he signed. He's quick and a duracell bunny. Ideally suited for transitional football. Which is how Marsch wants to play. He's not suited to breaking down packed defences and possession football. Not his strength - think he'll usually look average in games where the opponents look to park the bus

 

Also if we do get a striker in and let James go it’s still quite bad. Like we’re meant to be strengthen the team and squad. We needed a LB and ST before the season started. We’ve replaced Phillips with Adams, Raphinha with Sini, Roca is the extra CM we’ve needed for years, Robles is the back up keeper we needed a year ago so then you’ve got RB and CAM that have been strengthened. Very frustrating.

 

Dan James has never had the opportunity to shine as a winger since he arrived and I feel that he has somewhat missed the boat so let him goprovided we get a str5iker in his place

 

See Gvardiol that we very nearly signed two years ago... rumoured to be on his way to chelsea for 90m Eur

 

Rodrigo’s injury blows hole in Kinnear programme notes as Leeds nudge towards market

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By Phil Hay
Aug 31, 2022

Back in the day, the unmissable section in Leeds United’s matchday programme was Ken Bates’ column. Maddening, cantankerous and sometimes legally questionable, no one told it like the club’s former chairman and no one cared less about the fall-out than him.

Angus Kinnear fills that space these days and while there is none of the fire and brimstone in them, the thoughts of Leeds’ chief executive are akin to episodes of ‘what’s been said now?’. Like Bates’ many years ago, they defy the convention that programme content should be as banal and safe as possible; the last place where headlines breed or anything kicks off.

And so to last night and the latest instalment, about the transfer market, obviously, and strikers predominantly. Leeds have not signed one and to read between the lines of what Kinnear was saying, the hunt had gone cold.

“The rationale is straightforward,” Kinnear wrote. “We believe we have three striking options that are better than the majority of our peers (two proven international number nines and a player widely regarded as the best emerging young striking talent in the league) and will only supplement this with an exceptional addition rather than a warm body.” A warm body was as close as it got to Bates musing about “foreplay and slow arousal”.

Options one and two at Leeds are Patrick Bamford and Rodrigo and it would be going some to label one-cap Bamford a proven international forward. Proven at club level, evidently, but beset by his body letting him down over the past 12 months and not in a position to be used for an hour against Everton last night. The reason Leeds needed him for an hour was that on 32 minutes, Rodrigo emerged from a challenge by Jordan Pickford with a dislocated shoulder, rendering any debate about what he has proven in England secondary.

His injury blew a hole in the programme notes and the only consolation in seeing Rodrigo walk off with his left arm in a sling, pained and sucking in oxygen, was that bad luck befell him before the transfer deadline. Two days later and Leeds might have been repenting over their confidence in their attacking line at leisure but this, truly, is what people on the outside have been saying. The reliance on Bamford and Rodrigo was wing-and-a-prayer territory, a veritable risk. It was fine if they surged through the season but worrying if fate intervened as it doe
Rodrigo is due to undergo a scan today after having his shoulder popped back in. “He seems to be okay,” Jesse Marsch said, and Leeds’ head coach was non-committal when asked if a new forward was now imperative, or if plans would change. “Not so much but that’s been a goal of ours since the start of the summer,” Marsch said. Would he be disappointed to pass the deadline without a new forward? “I like our team.”

Kinnear’s written thoughts finished with a promise that Leeds would “be working right up until the final hours of the window ensuring that… if there is an opportunity then Leeds United are best placed to judiciously capitalise on it.”

Judicious minds think now that they have little choice but to act. Rodrigo’s length of absence is unknown. Marsch is hoping that Bamford has a “serious chance” of starting at Brentford on Saturday. Joe Gelhardt picked up the baton last night and, as one of the best emerging striking talents in England, it would be unfair not to point out that he is also 20, a prospect who has started all of seven league games in his life. There is a difference between blocking a pathway and sending a new driver to whip around the M25.

Rodrigo’s ailment was a bad blow on what threatened to be a bad night, an evening when Everton’s game-management deserved no other description than ****-housing. They made the night theirs before half-time and Leeds played into their hands by affording Anthony Gordon the first goal and toiling in pursuit of an equaliser. Gordon’s strike in the 17th minute was Everton’s first shot on target and first foray towards Leeds’ box, presented to him by Diego Llorente missing an interception. A few minutes later, Pickford received a first warning for time-wasting, typically indifferent to complaints around him and in his own world.

Leeds pressed and probed, finding blind alleys, dead ends but good chances in between. Rodrigo, before his injury, failed to put a toe on Jack Harrison’s perfect cross. Pickford picked Aaronson’s shot out of the top corner. Marsch’s team, to their credit, has the nerve to stick at it, forcing the pace and holding it together until Luis Sinisterra whipped in an equaliser from the edge of the box, beating an unsighted Pickford. Soon after, Gordon and Rasmus Kristensen contested an angry head-to-head. The two dug-outs went at each other as that butting broke out. There was rage all over Elland Road, bad blood and needle and no backward steps taken.

There was a dearth of brilliance, too, and in a riot of a contest, that dearth ground the game down to a 1-1 draw. Harrison could have won it, Gelhardt could have won it and Bamford, on for the last 14 minutes, could have won it. Demarai Gray thought he had when he slotted past Illan Meslier at the other end, only to turn and see an offside flag on the touchline. The point was a point, better than none, and it left Leeds on eight after the five games, the magic start that typically puts clubs on the road to staying up.

The road to heaven would be good for everyone at Elland Road but the road to hell in the Premier League is paved with indecision, and Leeds have a call to make. They have talked about Hwang Hee-chan at Wolverhampton Wanderers — “I like him, he knows our football and he’s on our list, I can tell you that,” Marsch confirmed — and they must have other options in mind.

It is often said by Victor Orta that scouting for one position involves compiling a list of multiple names. Warm bodies might not appeal but it was almost cold corpses for Leeds in May and the bottom line is the club do not need this stress. In time, they might be grateful for a nudge towards the market.

 

Ortas certainly had plenty of time to compile a list of strikers. Can’t remember last one we bought. Was it Joffy

 

One thing that may come into play with Radz is that his company 11 Sports is about to be sold off and it seems the minimum price he gets will be £500m and could be as much as £800m. That deal is about to happen, maybe within hours but deffo within days. Could it be that Radz wants to increase the value of the club by funding a huge signing? He gets the cash back when he sells the club at the higher valuation

 

Nope