The #LUFC Breakfast Debate (Tuesday 10th December)

Good Morning. It's Tuesday 10th December, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road

Brighton delighted with White's progress

Brighton have told Leeds that they are delighted with Ben White's progress at Eland Road and have no plans to recall him.

To my knowledge, White's only recall clause would have been dependant on games played, and as the 22yo has played almost every game this season Brighton wouldn't be able to end White's loan spell even if they wanted to.

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10m for Harrison a no brainer?

According to Phil Hay, he believes Manchester City would accept 10m for Jack Harrison! The 23yo has come on leaps and bounds this season following his inconsistent form last term.

It is well known that Leeds have an option to buy Harrison at the end of the season, and the former Chief football writer for the YEP believes with 18 months left on his contract at the Etihad, a fee of 10m would be about right.

Thoughts?

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Team selection for tonight's crunch gave against Hull

With Kalvin Phillips returning to the starting XI after his one match suspension, and Ben White reoccupying his central defensive duties, who will Bielsa decide to drop from the team to partner the Brighton loanee at centre back?

Noel Whelan gives his thoughts:-

“It’s a tough one for Bielsa and I don’t know who he will leave out, I’m a bit baffled on that one,”

“Bielsa doesn’t normally drop anyone from the side, unless it’s due to an injury or suspension.

“The only time we really see it happen is when Liam Cooper has recovered from one of his injuries and Berardi drops out.

“You can’t leave out Alioski, as he gives you that attacking threat, Dallas has been outstanding this season…[Mateusz] Klich starts every game.

“You can’t leave out Helder Costa, Pablo [Hernandez] is the one who makes things happen. It’s not obvious who to leave out.”

What changes would you make this evening?

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Morning all...

Ben White will be back in defence and Berardi missing out. It depends if Cooper is fit or not. Going on who Bielsa has favoured this season I’d guess Alioski despite his goal.

 

Barardi will move to the bench and Ayling to play alongside White at CB with Dallas going RWB would seem to be the best plan, but Bielsa may see something else so not going to be surprised.

Hoping for 7 on the bounce and consolidating auto place in the league. Revie did 7 on the spin twice, Wise and DoL did it but I believe only 1 manager has done 8 and that was back in the 1930s.

Harrison for £10m is a no brainer and lets be frank he is so far ahead of Costa its amazing and Costa will cost £15m

 

Morning All,

I would prefer not to talk about players for next season, very premature, early days chickens and hatching etc, but as you raised the subject. If we are in the championship with Bielsa or similar approved then yes to Harrison, Costa, White etc, I know we have committed to buy Costa, probably the £10 mill Qatar money. If we do get promoted then I would have to ask if these guys aren't good enough to get into their parent clubs premiership team then how would they fare in our team against those same teams in the premiership?

I would like to see Casey paired with White in the centre of defence for part of the game he looked cool and composed against Huddersfield but will we change the starting 11 much, probably not. Costa will start with Pablo on the bench to make room for KP. Bowen is going to be their threat but only if he gets the ball.

 

Dallas RB, Cooper alongside White if fit, Ayling to the bench for me.
I like how we are not pressing as hard and high up the pitch, teams are coming out and try to play, we then seem to expose them, get round the back of teams..... all good stuff.
One thing I did notice on Saturday was Huddersfield had 4 people in the technical area on numberous occasions and nothing said, didn’t we get a warning a few week ago for this, the EFL and the sub standard refs they employ are so deluded pricks.
Tonight we need to be wary of the Cod heads, I think they maybe under performing and a full house may step there game up.

 

Agree with all this. PL players are a long way ahead of Championship despite what anyone wearing rose tinted glasses might think. If were still in Championship next year, the nucleus of this team will do and probably will have to. If the alternative happens, Ive no idea how many of the current lot would manage to make the transition. Ive no intention of discussing it either, don't want to jinx anything

 

If we have an option to buy Harrison then surely a fee has already been agreed.

how do you have an option to buy without knowing the price?

otherwise June comes and:
“... we’d like to exercise that option to buy jack”
“Great, he had a good season the price is £30m”
“Hmmn... swap deal for eunan o’kane?”

 

How teams fare in the Prem isn’t just Down to the quality of the players. At the moment the blunts are doing ok with remnants from their league 1 days.

I was pretty confident Norwich would fare worst of the promoted sides really because they relied heavily on pukki’s ridiculous conversion rate and were loose at the back. Goals are harder to come by in the Prem but mistakes are more readily punished.

This Leeds side in the Prem would be interesting, we’d still knock sides out of their rhythm... however better players would counter our press more efficiently and open us up.. and we’d pay for not having the quality in front of goal. We’d need at least one quality striker, but I still think we’d do better than some think with what we have.

 

White & Nketiah

Were going nowhere in January contrary to some fans thoughts

Who drops out tonight

Who knows what Marcelo is thinking? a team selection conundrum for a change

Harrison

If we are promoted I suspect we'll be in the market for a better option. I suppose paying £10m for a player to sit on the bench is chicken feed in the premiership

 

We'd need more than one quality striker !

 

Surely if Citeh regarded Harrison as a premiership player they wouldn't sell him to Leeds for £10m

 

would you like a definition of ‘at least’

 

Whilst I understand the sentiment, and don't necessarily disagree with the comment, if you look at the present Premiership teams, how many of them have more than one quality striker ?

I can think of Liverpool, Man City, Scum, Spurs, Arsenal, after that I am struggling, although I am sure there are probably one or two others.

Some clubs have what I would say no quality strikers, just half decent ones, ie Burnley who get by with Wood and Barnes (19 goals between them the year Burnley qualified for the Europa League, with Sam Vokes being 3rd highest scorer with 4 goals), Watford ( who I know are struggling this year) having over the past few years relied on Deeney, Gray and Deulefeu.

In fact I'd struggle to name the strikers at some of the clubs, I know Newcastle have Dwight Gayle only because of the amount of times people on here say we should sign him, but I have no idea who is keeping him out of the starting line up.

 

We'd probably require at least two prolific goalscorers plus there are other positions we can improve on.

Remember the likes of White, Nketiah & Harrison may not be at Leeds next season.

I won't be going into a premiership season wearing rose-tinted spectacles thinking we can pull up trees with the current squad just as Delia's lot did. Norwich skated the championship, look where they are now. We have a very good squad however it will require some tinkering with at least three or four quality acquisitions.

 

When you look at Burnley and even Newcastle you will see they have 4 strikers in front of strikers who we have been linked with Vydra is 4th or 5th choice at Burnley behind Wood, Barnes, Rodrigues and ..... and at the barcodes have Gayle who is also 4th or 5th choice. Both strikers are top Championship strikers but cannot cut it in the Prem. Even West Ham have 4 or 5 who would probably be very good in this league. We need to send Edmondson out on loan and see if he can smash it in the football league. We may need him next season and we deffo need a new Eddie or an unknown striker who will score goals for fun

 

Don't deny that Doc, if you notice I wasn't even disagreeing with 1964's sentiments of wanting 2 quality strikers, I was trying to ascertain what he meant by quality, given that I mentioned only 5 clubs in the premier league have 2 or more quality strikers (by my definition).

Neither Burnley, Newcastle nor West Ham have what I call a quality striker, nor was I advocating Gayle being a quality striker and that we should sign him. I highlighted him for the reason that he has been mentioned on here numerous times by other posters as someone we should look to get (presumably as short term signing for this season) and that he can't get into the Newcastle team, and thus is behind strikers that I don't even know the name of and thus don't consider him to be of the quality required should we be promoted to the premier league.

Other than your final sentence, I'm not sure how the rest of your post relates to what I said in response to 1964's point of requiring more than one quality striker in the Premier League, unless of course we have a different definition of what a quality striker is, in which case that just comes down to opinions. Although I do accept that we would require additional options, ideally players who are likely to hit double figures. Whether people class that as being quality or not is obviously open for debate

To clarify my position though regarding quality strikers, other than the 5 clubs previously mentioned, I'd say that only Leicester, Chelsea and perhaps Wolves have what I define as a quality striker, all the other clubs have either half decent strikers or have to be classed as an unknown quantity due to not having enough time to establish themselves in the Premier League. Nor am I disagreeing that we will need to have other options to play up front, I am just trying to understand what both Milky and 1964 mean when they say " at least one quality striker" and " we need 2 quality strikers"

 

Not meant to be having a pop at you mate it was more of a ramble about the definition of what some call a top striker. Horses for courses is the obvious answer and any club getting promoted needs to bring in a quality striker unless you are Fulham who have Mitrovic who will win the golden boot this season unless he is transferred to a prem club next month.

grabban scores plenty Gayle scores in this league and Wood did the biz in this league but is one dimensional and will never get a big move or score loads. I still think our best move would be an unknown (here) but well known overseas. I wanted Priajvic but now too late but there was someone scoring 30 odd every season after season. I mentioned Ponce but too late again as he has now gone to Russia, there is still the Morrocan superstar scoring over 30 every season but now on massive money elsewhere. These players are about, its just a case of having a top scouting network. Over to you Victor Orta.

 

On a personal note some will know that my nephew is the head groundsman for the FA at St Georges Park. He recently received a phone call from Patrick Viera so will let you know the story once everything finalised.

 

Intriguing

 

So either Vierra fancies becoming a groundsman and is after some advice or else the FA have appointed him as chief head groundsman, and he was just ringing to introduce himself to his assistant

Will look forward to hearing the true facts from you in due course Doc