The #LUFC Breakfast Debate (Thursday 4th March)

Good Morning. It's Thursday 4th March, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road

Hay confirms interest in Brest left back

Romain Perraud, seen as many as being the best left back in French football continuous to be linked to a Summer move to Elland Road.

News broke earlier last month when Phil Hay revealed that the 23yo is high on Marcelo Bielsa's wanted list!

The French man who represented his Country at every stage from U17- U20 started his career at Nice before joining Brest in the Summer of 2019.

Marseille and Lyon are also keen on Perraud, though Leeds may have the advantage as the lure of the Premiership is more enticing than Ligue 1

In a recent interview, when asked about his future Perraud told French website Made In Foot :-

“It means that the work I’m doing is recognised. “But interests are interests, I know what it is in football and that means everything and nothing I don’t dwell on that too much, I have a contract with Brest, I’m fine here and then we’ll see what happens next.”

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Whelan heaps praise on Gelhardt

Ex Leeds striker Noel Whelan believes Joe Gelhardt could be in line for his first team debut after impressing for Mark Jackson's U23's this season.

The 18yo, signed from Wigan last Summer at the cut down price of 1m due to their financial predicament has also been described as a young Wayne Rooney by the former Leeds, Coventry and Boro forward.

He reminds me – I don’t want to say the same level as Rooney – but he is the same kind of build as Rooney was. A stocky lad, great finisher.” “That is some praise, absolutely. This is why we brought him into the football club.

“I think it will be very soon that he’ll get his first opportunity. I think he’ll be putting pressure on Tyler Roberts. “Rodrigo is still not back to 100% fitness so maybe he deserves an opportunity in that role.

“He’s a great one for the future. I hear only good things from fans about how exciting he is and how good he is on the ball and his eye for goal. That’s all the characteristics of Wayne Rooney. “But that is a big name to assess himself against right now. Now, he just needs to establish himself in this Leeds United side.”

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Should Leeds tie Meslier down to long term contract?

Illan Meslier has enjoyed a roller coaster of a time since joining Leeds (initially on loan) in the Summer of 2019. A year later, the 6 ft 6' French youth International signed a permanent three year contact with the Whites for a fee, already agreed at 5m.

Since then, the former L'Orient shot stopper has taken the No 1 jersey off Kiko Casilla, and in his first season in the Premiership, has made the second highest amount of saves in the top flight.

Obviously, for a keeper that has just turned 21 (this week), he has an incredible amount of potential. This would not have gone unnoticed by other top European clubs.

With just over two years remaining, should Leeds be looking to tie Meslier down to a long term deal.

Recently, his agent Xavier Fleury has been talking about his client to the Leeds Utd Fan Zone Podcast zone, and had this to say:-

“Illan is starting at Leeds. He loves the club. Perhaps in one, two seasons, if you have a club like Real Madrid that knock on the door – who knows? If Leeds keep the manager and Orta, the president could be right – they could be in the Champions League.

“If Leeds are in the Champions League, Illan can win a title with Leeds – winning a title with Leeds is more beautiful than with Juventus, Real Madrid or Bayern. Right now, it would be a bad idea to join a big club, and sit on the bench.”

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Morning all

 

Morning all. No posters banned over night. Just asking for a friend.

 

Morning all

Not much I can add today as I have already done a piece on Romain Perraud from Brest, already done the Bamford interview on Joffy and said my piece on Meslier yesterday

 

Don’t worry, just repeat the same old crap everyday fella... it’s always worked for me

 

What's interesting me Doc is this.

We're top of (our) League..the bottom half of the Prem.

3 wins against top half clubs.
8 wins against bottom half clubs.

So it's clear we have to improve the squad next season or we risk a potential relegation battle. Those wins against bottom half clubs could easily disappear and suddenly you're in and around bottom 3.

It's also clear that signing Championship players is risky, whereas the Leicester way of recruiting top young talent form overseas seems a better way to go. There's no doubt we've done brilliantly with the players who achieved promotion but their limitations are now becoming too obvious to ignore if we wish to compete for the Top 6 or higher.

2 full backs
2 midfielders
1 striker

All needed urgently really.

 

I’d agree - I think the reality is it’s such fine margins for mid table teams. There’s a few games where we’ve been unlucky and you think... if they’d gone our way we could be chasing europa league. But then, there’s others where we got points we maybe didn’t deserve and if they’d gone against us we’d be looking very nervously over our shoulders.

look at Brighton, look at Everton - one side have ridden their luck, one hasn’t.

even one game against other sides around you has a 6 point swing.

Burnley battered us second half at Elland road, Southampton missed a couple of sitters at Elland road before we scored. Newcastle laid siege to us in the second half at st James. Where would we be if those had gone against us?

You could look at points deserved v points achieved for every side and paint a similar picture. Reality is, we pretty much deserve to be where we are in the table but mid table sides, are a bad run of form/luck from being in a relegation fight. The only way to mitigate that risk is to improve the squad quality and increase the odds of success in any match.

 

Deffo need 2 full backs because we haven't had a left back and Ayling can be found out on the right. Do we dive into the market and buy Perraud or do we use Davies or Huggins down the left and Dremeh on the right. We really need to find out about these kids. Yes Bielsa may have already made up his mind and we go out and buy

We must have a Phillips option but will this be Koch or a new player? A new player will not want to sut on the bench waiting for a Phillips injury so the new player would need to be a top kid from elsewhere, as it seems we dont have one ready yet from the 23s.

We need a Klich cover so do we buy a top player and watch him sulk until he gets a game or do we use Greenwood or Gelhardt at 19 and 18yo respectively, because again we need to know, but if we buy a Rodrigo De Paul type player he plays and Klich is on the bench?

Striker is deffo needed but again you get the same problem. A top striker starts and Bamford waits, so is it Gelhardt or Greenwood?

Orta has a comprehensive database and network and he needs to fill those positions like he did with Raphinah which meant Costa was displaced and by a player nobody had heard of before.

 

The recruitment of Raphinha & Koch (hopefully) shows the way forward. Both young talented players with their initial developement behind them but years of improvement and service to the club still to come.

Llorente & Rodrigo on the other hand are the more seasoned pro's that every club needs but still with plenty in the locker.

Which brings me onto the youth already at the club and I'll use KP as an example of how much patience is required before the more rounded and mature footballer comes to the fore. Kalvin is now 25, so not a youngster anymore and has been playing regular first team football for roughly 5 seasons. When he came into the side the standard was lower and the let's be honest we weren't a great side. That allowed Kalvin the time to develop, make mistakes, have poor games etc etc and we now reap the benefit from that.

So the question is; Would that 19/20 year old Kalvin Phillips be able to break through in today's circumstances ? We are now PL and have a very demanding coach who puts responsibility firmly on each individual player. There doen't seem to be any hiding places under Marcelo's system, it's pure sink or swim.

All of which means that any young player is going to have to be very talented indeed to come through at Leeds. There's high hopes for quite few of them, so let's hope at least one makes it all the way like Phillips has

 

An amazing article from an Irish journalist Fiachra Gallagher documenting the time a 6yo lad became a Leeds Utd fanatic after watching his heroes at Tolka Park!

https://www.balls.ie/football/leeds-united-in-ireland-a-decades-long-love-affair-462433

 

Indeed Doc, it's always a challenge keeping players happy when there's competition for places but if you don't have a strong squad you are held ransom to injury and suspension. It's particularly challenging for us, because Bielsa likes a small squad, with players that can fill in in multiple roles. Which is why we don't have as many 'specialist' positions as other clubs.. ie the classic 2 players for every position.

In essence I think it's a case of them looking at the first team squad and continually replacing the weakest link(s). That first team squad is a midfielder light because of forshaw, and that position is the single big glaring omission from a squad perspective... dallas has done great and arguably a left back would allow him to take the midfield position but i think he's destined to be the 'madelely'. As fans we'd all want a second striker who can play the bamford role, as our current 10/striker options are not really like for like... and clearly it's the most important position in any team... and the most expensive.

We also need a keeper. To cater for form/injury with Meslier.

So, for me priorities are: left back, midfielder (possibly 2, depending on versatility), striker, keeper

I don't think right back is so critical, unless dallas is earmarked for midfield.

 

kp is an interesting case study. We weren't great and he was terrible when he first broke into the side. The coaching staff all believed in him, so kept picking him until he came good, which he started to before bielsa came in, though obviously has improved immeasurably since. How long can you give someone to break through in the PL? You can't.. because the stakes are too high. So no, phillips likely doesn't make it, had he come along now. He gets sent out on loan to make his mistakes on someone elses payroll... if he looks the business, then we rope him back in... and if he doesn't....

So Gelhardt, Greenwood etc? They have to pull up trees to get a chance, but in lower division u23's, how is that even possible? They have to outshine the first teamers in murderball I guess and demand inclusion. One thing about the smaller squad is it means the intention is to have 23's who can fill in, as they have on the bench this season. The dynamic of this is tricky because they need to be good enough to do that... but whilst they are in the 23's they are not getting man's football experience on loan.. so it's a trade off.

 

Brilliant article Elland, I remember being at all those games and especially the Vinnie one because the gates were shut because there were that many fans there. Some lads climbed the gates and opened them and we got in.

 

The thing about this bunch of kids is that we actually spent big money on them in the Summer and now coming up to a year under the Bielsa regime. Cody Drameh is by far the best RB in the league and can play CB or LB a proper Bielsa player and cannot be far behind Ayling.

Crysancio Summerville is as fast as Raphinah and has skills of Poveda and has already played first team football in Holland. Right winger, but behind Costa and Raphinah

Sam Greenwood and Joe Gelhardt score goals and best strikers in the league by far

Players who have come through from the 18s and on the fringes are Niall Huggins who is a LB or LWB or LW or LM. Fast, tricky and has end product

Charlie Cresswell is a fantastic CB prospect alongside Ollie Caey but we have plenty of CB cover right now

Jack Jenkins is the DM for the 23s

Leif Davies was brought in from Morecambe and has potential at LB LWB

Too soon for McKinstrey and McCarron

But Nohan Kenneh, there’s a player who I believe can do DM now if given the chance. Can play anywhere at the back or in the middle. A unit, a powerhouse a baller a future captain and only 18

Decisions will need to be taken this Summer for some of the kids as we have players out on loan coming back too

 

Also do we want to turn into a Chelsea...buying all these kids and loaning them all out and never seeing a blue shirt, we have always had a good academy and now we have scooped up even more youngsters with great potential let's see if we have some more "greats" on our hands if they aren't learning here they won't better it anywhere else.....I also wouldn't mind Tom Heaton as a back up,good keeper and he is 34 now so would he leave to be number 2 here? What's his number

 

According to Bielsa we will see some injured players returning and getting time with the 23s at Wolves tomoz. We know Berardi will get another 45 minutes and Poveda was on the bench so maybe he will get some time, but Phillips, Forshaw Koch, Rodrigo?

 

@ellandback , @bucks_is_leeds , @ristac :

Wtf is this alert all about? Who tf is deleting my stuff? Why was it deleted? What was it?

This is a shocker as far as moderating is concerned, as if you don't tell people why you're doing it, far less what it was, it'll for sure happen again. I'd also like to know if this was reported, & if so, why? And what does 'cleaning up' mean?

This is the super-vague Alert I got from 08:28 this morning:

"Your post in the thread Jokes was deleted. Reason: Nothing personal just cleaning up 8:28 AM"

I'm actually really, really angry about this, as there has been no consultation whatsoever. 'Clearing up', my arse.

No, I'm angrier than that. Apoplectic. Is this super-mods sticking their oars in where they're not welcome again, or is it one of you three that's guilty?

Anyone else affected, or have I been singled out for some reason?

 

Dunno mate. I'll only delete when there's been a complaint in an attempt to stop escalation and a possible ban from the powers that be.

So no, I didn't delete it

 

I haven't deleted anything on the jokes thread

 

Been cleaning up the debris left by a day of violent confrontation.