Leeds Utd Breakfast Debate - Mon 8th July

Elland's still putting his makeup on so you got me this morning.

Very eventful weekend with Pontus on his way to Brentford for a measly £5.5m. Apparently this was all started at least 3 weeks ago according to Pontus's brother Peter. Pontus was informed by the club that he wasn't in Bielsa's plans and to find another club. They tried to get a Prem club but not enough time so looked at Championship clubs too as he wanted to stay in England. Brentford manager had the horn for Pontus and obviously a huge pay rise and long contract, so hence Brentford. Would love to find out why Bielsa wanted rid and I can only guess that Pontus was trying to engineer a move to Villa or the Blunts and the club found out. Amazing that both those clubs found a new CB in the last day or so.

This is still a surreal situation because it now means we were going to release O'Connor and Diaz and sell Halme knowing we were down to a couple of CBs in the whole of the club? I can only assume we have a plan?

Liam Kitching will today sign for Forest Green Rovers for a 6 figure fee, which could mean £100k + so CB number five sold or released in the last week?

A club insider said last night we can expect a busy day today.

Lots of stories about rangers and roofe and even Popey says the story has legs, however others saying its all about his agent trying to get a big pay rise and why would Roofe publish a photo on Instagram yesterday of him signing on 3 years ago to the day.

 

Good Morning to Matt Doc and co from a sunny Bardsey
I am really gutted with the news of Pontus going and they better have a plan because the fans will mot like this at all.It seems with our club there is always something stupid about to happen just when we seem to be in calm waters all hell lets lose
To sell your best player for 5.5 m is really unbelievable and now Roofe at 5M what does it say to the rest we are a skint club living off scraps Who will replace these 2 and Phillips because he will be on his way'Do I feel confident over next season NO I DON;T
Finally we have made to major transfer errors selling Cantona for £1m I valued him at £8m at the time and now Pontus do we never learn!

 

Morning Doc, morning everyone...

Can't stand the Brentford Manager Thomas Frank.

Is this another example of Leeds cutting off their nose to spite their face?

Let's not forget Eric!!!

He went for a measly 1m.

Why, because he fell out with the Management (and was shagging Lesley Ash)

Fast forward 25 years, we stand to lose another player for a fraction of their value when you consider Tyrone Mings has just been sold to Villa for 20m.

Keep Pontus, and choose when to sell him!!!

 

Im up boro way this morning and just been reading lots of stories on newsnow. Always thought the site was cack but after the last few day im starting to believe everything. Over on ja606 Adritk has leaked that four first teamers have asked to leave not including pontus. This guy has contacts within the club and has predicted before and been correct.
I just think what ive said before is correct in that this owner is skint and will not pay the going rate for transfers and wages.
It seems that players at this once great club care little about Leeds and can smell the money.

 

17 players out of the door so far including the likes of Cibicki, Sacko, Ekuban , Ideguchi & Anita who all have deals in place to be signed. 2 players out on loan included but so far a minimum of £20m has come in and we still have dead wood to offload like LDB. Lots who were out on loan waiting for the bullet

 

Morning all. I have to say I am disappointed and somewhat mystified by what is going on regarding our centre backs. Losing pontus is bad enough but to another championship team on the cheap is a kick in the nuts. Let's hope it all comes out in the wash before the start of the season.

 

Morning all. Its all blindingly obvious whats going on. An owner in financial difficulty as was reported months ago but his fans claimed it would have no impact on Leeds. Yeah right. Anyway, Ive already lost interest in the transfer window as the policy of replacing seasoned professionals and genuine up and coming players with unproven kids from lower leagues continues. Weve lost a player in Pontus that I genuinely looked forward to watching any time I travelled over. Just hope, when this season is over, and Bielsa has likely headed off to the next project, we are a lot stronger than we he arrived. Wonder how the season ticket holders are feeling?

 

It's at times like this that the REAL supporter will emerge and all those Glory Hunters will feck off until we are top of the League again.

 

It's probably best just to sit back an watch things unfold. There is still time to get some decent players in if that's what the plan is.
There has to be a plan right? Because if not, why didn't Radz sell up to the Qatar group and make 100% sure he got his investment back or
maybe the deal is already in the pipeline for next season and so they are just cleaning up house and we tread water this season. One thing I don't particularly like about the guys running our club is that there is a lack of communication to what's actually going on. It wouldn't hurt for them to shed some light instead of letting everyone guess what's going on.

 

So we're getting shot of a CB who's not as good in that position as Phillips, Cooper and Berardi and getting £5.5m for him (a sale instigated by Bielsa)

Plus we've got White and Struijk in reserve who Bielsa seems to have a lot of faith in (and let's face it he has far more knowledge of their capabilities than any of us lot on here)

What's the problem?

 

Morning all

Firstly thanks Doc for filling in for Elland

I'm currently in a state of mass confusion over what is going on at Elland Road, nothing quite makes sense at the moment. If we were struggling for cash then why sell Pontus at a cut price and would we really have agreed such a huge future fee for Costa?

I don't get the impression we are strapped for cash, don't get me wrong I don't think it is flowing or that we have money to burn but the sale of Clarke along with quite a few fringe players including a decent fee for Wilkes leaves me feeling we are not in any financial problem.

The only thing I am not confused about is the reason behind sale of Pontus, it has to be the falling out with Bielsa plain and simple. It does confuse me though that we knew he wasn't going to be returning yet we still alllowed a few promising defenders to leave from the U23s.

I'm also concerned about the Roofe and Philips rumours that just won't go away, in an ideal world I would love to have better than both Roofe and Bamford but the money involved in finding better would have to be on par with the Costa fee and I can't see anyone selling a top striker that we or anyone else in this division could afford. Roofe also fits perfectly into Bielsa's style of play

I want us to have a settled squad as we prepare for the preseason games, I have a feeling we are in for a tense few days.I'd be quite happy if the transfer window closed right now, yes we would be a defender short in Pontus and White is going to be a massive gamble but the fear of losing Roofe and Philips fills me with dread

 

Were committed to a fee for Costa in 12 months Ristac. Only paying a 2m loan fee this year

 

I know mate but surely we wouldn't have done that if we were struggling for cash?

Another thing about the sale of Pontus, although I do feel it is a stupidly low price I don't see any other clubs coming in for him. I can only assume PL clubs cannot believe he is good enough and at 28 he would need to fit straight in and Championship clubs obviously haven't got £5.5m to spend.

He was told three weeks ago to find a new club, his agent would have put his name out everywhere and only Brentford are interested, it is very unusual

 

Why is everyone getting their knickers in a twist over the alleged £5.5m sale of Pontus. Don't you realise that he's only worth what people will pay? You can value him at £30m if you like, but you won't sell him for anything near that price.

It's telling that not one PL club has signed him, even as backup.

It's even more telling that only one Championship club is interested, even with such a 'low' purchase price.

No peeps, £5.5m is the correct selling price, because no-one wants him. Except Brentford. No-one.

Perhaps they know something we don't?

 

Thought I'd have a wee look at Pontus' Twitter account. My thinking was that if he was a 'disruptive force', then he'd be following next to none of our players.

He follows 4 (out of 94 follows): Cooper, Casilla, Klich, & Cibicki.

If you look at most player profiles, they usually follow most in their squad, plus the up & comers. Very unusual. He has 15 following him, as far as I can see :

Senior players: Cooper, Douglas, Casilla, Ayling, Bamford, Alioski
u23 & out of favours: Denton, O'Kane, Nessi, Edmondson, Shackleton, Clarke, Pearce, Gotts, McCalmont

(When I say 'as far as I can see', it's because the search method I used only shows players we both follow. I may have missed one).

 

Pontus wasn’t trying to engineer a move anywhere, absolute tripe. Truth is Bielsa wants him out as he thinks he undermines his authority ie the Villa game for one. The club tried to sort it out but Bielsa wasn’t having it so Pontus is out the door.

 

Pontus not as good a CB as Cooper, Berardí and Phillips Jesus ****ing wept.

 

What's the source of this "truth"?

 

I like to be controversial

 

Nah what you meant, is maybe they are the best ‘centre halves’ in terms of what Bielsa looks for in the role in this particular team, at this particular time


... who aren’t called pontus