As we move closer to the transfer window we must look at what Radz said a couple of months ago. He said if we retain our place in the premier league we will bring in more quality players in the Summer to ensure we compete better and can finish even higher in the league. He also said new players were being looked at now and done in conjunction with Bielsa. This must mean that as far as the club are concerned they are planning on Bielsa being here next season too. So for the sake of this exercise we must assume that the squad size will remain small, 18 players plus U23s where needed. It must also follow that any players coming in will replace players sold, its just a simple fact. Even if only 3 players come in it must follow that 3 squad players will be sold on. So which 3 players would you let go. I think we can also assume some U23s will be let go because they are not cutting it. I believe Leif Davies will be sold or released because even though last season he was a Bielsa favourite he has gone backwards. I don’t see Bogutsz coming back and maybe even Gotts, McCalmont, Stevens, Edmondson, Kun, Mujica and even Hosannah. I do however believe Dramah will step up as a RB/CB and I also belive Huggins will step up as a LB/LW alongside Greenwood and Gelhardt who can both play CF and AM and both can cover for Bamford and Rodrigo and both are actually prolific. So my 3 to go are Roberts, Pablo and Costa/Alioski Yes I know it’ll be hard to say goodbye to Pablo after all he has done for the club, but we need to accept he is now limited in what he can add, especially next season when he will be 36. We haven’t even said hello to Roberts as even into his 4th year he has hardly featured due to long injuries, but he’s no kid anymore and not adding anything. He came on again against Newcastle and should have scored an easy chance but fell over his feet again. He lost the ball on the right wing almost causing us to concede a goal and as far as I’m concerned he isn’t in the same league as Greenwood and Gelhardt. Alioski or Costa? Well Costa is way better at football and skills but Alioski is better at commitment In January we should see Grot, Nessy and Bouy released and we may even see Kiko decide to move back to Spain, only Kiko of these 4 is actually training with the club
One point to make is what happens if we are relegated? I see the likes of Phillips, Klich, Ayling, Koch, Rodrigo, Llorente & Bamford being sold for big cash and the u23 players we may have sold or released would be the new first team. So Gotts, McCalmont, Hosannah, Davies, Stevens etc backed up by Greenwood and Gelhardt and Huggins, Casey and Creswell. It will be carnage....... but I dont expect relegation
A lot of good points once again Doc. I agree about Roberts and Costa(he did show some glimpses of what he could do). I'd keep Alioski and Pablo.
The 3 to go for me would be: Davis (he gets in a lot of match day squads so think he can be classed as first team) - Although we’ve not seen much of him if he can’t get in the team over Dallas and Alioski and we want to buy a new LB then he’ll have to go. Costa - He can be great but goes missing a lot, Harrison is better and even when he’s not on it he can be pretty good defensively and Costa isn’t. He’s never getting in the team over Raphinha and Poveda has a lot of potential. If we offload we can then get a better winger to challenge for Harrison’s place to keep improving our squad. Roberts - I think most people are in agreement that he’s found his level and has looked pretty poor and disinterested when he’s come on this season. We have two good strikers in Bamford and Rodrigo. And Gelhardt and Greenwood coming through who can replace him and look like they have a lot of potential. And I’d rather Klich, Shacks, Hernandez, Rodrigo, Dallas and even Forshaw when he’s eventually back take up the two midfield roles. I even think Alioski could do a job there over Roberts. I think this then paves the way for another CM ala De Paul to be bought in the summer.
Great points but where would you strengthen? We were obviously wanting a top AM so we were buying Puisance but not replaced him yet. I think we got strikers covered but apparently Bielsa and Orta were looking at 2 top players for the Summer and this is just the begining
You've forgotten Berra, Doc. I can't see him being retained, unless he has particularly good coaching skills. If it was about my wishes, Kiko would be first out of the door. And if 'Hippy' doesn't regain full fitness, we should either cash in the insurance & bin him, or get rid (if we can find someone gullible enough). As for our u23s that are out on loan, I don't think that many will have a realistic chance of staying on with Leeds. Perhaps that's a thread in itself.
Agree on that mate. Would love to see Bryce Hosannah come back and go straight into the squad. Fastest thing in the club, loads of skills and a fans fav over at Bradford. But he lost a lot of time due to injury over the last couple of seasons.but what happened to Bogutsz has he just hit a wall? Loving the work of Daramah, Greenwood and Gelhardt all first team capable but what about Summerville who vanished, hope hes ok. Remember this kid was a first teamer in Holland and looked really good, but...... Dont forget the future captain of England, Nohan Kenneh
Dont forget the U23s are at home on Monday 12:00 TA against Fulham. We are top of the league so think if anyone has the chance to watch it on YouTube live or through the clubs twitter feed, grab it because there are some awesome kids on display
Steve Bruce has just said that his team energy performance stats were much higher than anything else this season. He said to compete with Leeds your energy levels have to go up. He said Leeds are top of the charts this season by a mile. We knew that Chelsea upped their energy stats by 20% to compete with Leeds but as they have better players it paid off. Leicester upped theirs too and again some better players made the difference. WHU upped theirs but caught Leeds on a flat night so beat us. So to compete against Leeds all teams will have to expend a lot more energy and teams who do not have much better players will be beaten or scrape a draw. Thats where our points will come from. Teams with better players who expend a lot of energy may beat us, but we’ve already almost beaten Liverpool, drew with Cityand tomoz we go up against another top team Palace was a freak show as they were battered off the park but we couldn't score. When we did score it was disallowed for an armpit and that goal would have changed the game. Instead it swung the other way and I bet we beat them at home.
I was really disappointed with the loss at Palace more so than I was against Chelsea, in spite of them being managed by Fat Frank. Palace we should have at least drawn against as they are currently no better than us. But it's a good point you make about the energy levels. I've read that other supporters feel that our energy levels will drop as the season progresses but they seem to forget we played 46 games last season, generally 2 every week and this season it's one a week most of the time and only 38 games.
Phil Hay made a great point last week that Leeds had broken Chelsea. Simply because the energy they expended playing Leeds was 20% above their norm, which meant they took longer to recover and then got beat. We chased Arsenal off the park and they havent recovered yet. We beat a very good Everton who also had a dip in form.
Oh I would like Leeds to take credit for Chelsea losing subsequent games. I'm not 100% convinced but I'll take solace in that thought.
Another comforting thought is the impact of our late winner vs Sheff Utd. They probably deserved something out of that game with Meslier making a couple of great saves before we scrambled in a late winner. I reckon if they got something out of that game it might have kick started their season. Instead they just keep losing.
It is odd, most clubs loan players out to get them experience and first team ready for their return. We seem to do the opposite with it being the prelude for their exit.
I was struggling try to get the same thought into words earlier today. totally agree we seem to loan to sell
Yes thats hiw it looks although I would caveat that by saying, if the player has an exceptional loan he will be guaranteed a chance back at ER. The academy is being used as a business too because it costs a lot to coach these kids and give them a good salary of circa £1kpwk so not bad money. We also have a lot of kids and right now we have 16yo kids trying to get into the 18s team and them trying to get into the 23s. Its dog eat dog. we recently brought in over £30m in offloading players like Felix, and a bunch of Orta rejects when we we went for quantity iver quality. A lot of that £30m came from kids like Aapo Halme, Kitching, and countless others that went Hull, Doncaster, Barnsley, Burton, Bradford like Paudy O’Connor. More kids than you realise, we even had one who was homesick so we sold him to Watford for big cash. We then went out and spent big money on top kids like Dramah, Gelhardt, Summerville and Greenwood. Its hoped that all 4 will make the first team and my view is that all of them will except Summerville as hes not been seen for weeks. But you have to take the rose tinted glasses off at some stage and ask yourself, is Bogutsz good enough for the Premier League. I believe the batch we brought in with Bogutsz were bought with a view to playing in the Championship if we didnt go up. I love Hosannah but is he as good as Ayling, no. Is he as good as Dramah, no. So for me he either demonstrates to the club that he is good enough or he is up for sale. The same with Gotts Alfie, Ryan, Jordan Stevens
Doc, you see far more of the U23s than me but is it really a good gauge on judging whether a player is first team ready? It’s almost a non-contact develop your skills type environment so it looks like men against boys if and when they step up. Who, other than KP has really made themselves a key first team player?
Morning all. When I first saw Bogusz I thought he would be pressing for a first team place within months. My wife says I'm never wrong so whats happened?
