Will be burying my head in my duvet next weekend, so won’t be posting a weekend debate. Theres a lot to unpack after the crap of this season and yesterdays performance, so thought I would post a week long debate where everyone can vent their spleen and get it off their chests. Nightmare time at a nightmare club and now it’s time to pick over the bones of another useless season. However as Orta is the main target for fans anger, let’s have a look at what he did in summary. Firstly forget about the supermarket sweep Radz sent him on when he brought in the dirty dozen, or should that read not very good at all dozen. It started with his plan to play expansive football which is a great thing if you can get the right coach. He brought in Tomas Christensen and it looked like we had got it sorted at long last and we saw sunlight. Then it became apparent Tomas wasn’t really cut out for Championship tough players getting stuck into his lads, or indeed L1 rough and tumble in the FA Cup. Along comes Heckingbottom who didn’t have much time for the players he saw as prima donnas and he was not getting the results we were told by Orta he would get. Orta said Heckingbottom is one of the most sought after coaches in Europe? And then a masterstroke in sacking Heckingbottom whilst he was on the beach with his wife and kids, but he went to Argentina and came back with the best thing since Revie. Genius who built our club in his exacting image from the ground floor up. The board and fans were as one for the first time in decades. That first game at Stoke had jaws on the floor, we then started playing some of the most sublime football the club had seen since the 70s. Bielsa turned bog standard journeymen into worldies. Phillips became a sought after quarterback and DM, Klich became a legend playing 198 matches on the bounce, Bielsa said Forshaw could play in any Champions League team but has problems with his body, Cooper became Mr Reliable, Dallas was the teams Swiss Army Knife, young Meslier was wowing clubs around the world, Alioski was Alioski, Berardi was your minder, Pablo was megging everyone, Bamford was banging them in, Raphinha nobody had heard of became a worldie and then Orta brought in some kids who were destined to be top club footballers. Bielsa had exacting standards but couldn’t work miracles. After taking Leeds to 9th place in the Premier League after having £100m spent on new players, the wallet was left closed as the club gambled that the existing squad could replicate what they did in the first season. The bulk of the squad was still the same as the ones that won promotion, even though there were 5 players hitting the 30 mark and we still only had 17 first team players and a bunch of U23s who had just walked the league in style. The massive mistake was not investing in quality and that quickly began to show as player after player went down injured, mainly all the players hitting the 30yo mark. Even the new players like Llorente, Koch and Rodrigo were injured a lot. At one point 62% of the first team squad was on the treatment table. This forced Bielsa into using inexperienced kids and square pegging. It also followed that the U23s were relegated as we could only find U17 and U18s to take the place of our 23s. The season was turning into a nightmare and because Bielsa didn’t have enough players and was someone who never slagged off his employers he just tried to get on with it, but he was taking flak from pundits who were saying he overtrained his players, what players! He had no players but the overtraining label hurt him and ultimatley Radz sacked him. Bielsa was a broken man and in tears yet he was applauded by a a huge crowd outside his flat in Wetherby when he drove away. From that moment when Radz pulled the trigger the club have been on a downward spiral. Employing the Yank was even worse and Orta insisting that he had watched the Yank for 2 years because he would be ideal to take over from Bielsa was the biggest most stupid lie ever to come out of Victor’s mouth. Its now obvious to everyone except a couple of Bielsa detractors on here that having Bielsa was better than what followed and after seeing 30 odd games of crap all from the Yank, followed by embarrassing ourselves trying to find a coach, then getting our 5th choice Gracia but allowing Scoobs to coach in the meantime, then sacking Gracia and bringing in Big Sam. The result of the actions taken by the board in 2022 ignited the decline of the club in 2023. Relegation is now most likely so be careful what you wish for. Victor Orta will be a legend in the infamy role of of dishonour along with GFH, Bates and Ridsdale. There will be books written about the decline of Leeds United and how not to run a football club. It may be called: wealthy owner relies on Director of Football. Book 2 called DoF sacked by wealthy owner and book 3 called wealthy owner loses millions selling to 49ers. Bet nobody will want to follow the Leeds model. if only Bielsa had been able to spend another £100min the summer of 21 things would have been way different as midtable would have been achieved and even if Bielsa then left there would have been a real base for the new man. The 5-year Radz plan would still be on, but by not investing that money Radz now find he is about to lose not only the Premier League lotter win but also a couple of hundred million on the sale of the club. Leeds really did fall from grace
Lots of chat last night and this morning about VAR on the PL board and how at least in the Championship it's not used yet. Long may that continue as following the confirmation of our relegation it's the one thing I'll look forward to next season.
Lots of us disagree about many things on here. Hey it’s a forum and we can be an emotive bunch. I think the one thing there’s common ground on, is the failure to invest at the end of the first season back in the Prem. Towards the end of that first season we went on a run where we stopped looking over our shoulders and started looking up. We weren’t actually playing that great, but we kept winning. I think it lured the board into a false sense of security. We needed to build. We didn’t. Then things went tits up and we started firefighting.
I heard there's more going on behind the scenes at Elland Road, than in Phillip Schofield's private life!!!!
Radz and Sampdoria is going to happen but he will be only a prt owner, maybe majority owner which means he will be selling at least enough shares in Leeds to the 49ers to make them majority owners. Yes he may sell up completely but he doesn’t need the Leeds cash as he made a bomb from selling his sports network business
Italian FA get on and do it in a fair timely fashion. Dock 15 points from Juventus for cheating, they appeal and it gets knocked down to 10 points all done and dusted. Everton and the Prem/FA have fooked about for 2 seasons now and it’s very very obvious Everton cheated. Everton about to be sold in a rush to try and get away with it. Everton should have been docked points last season and relegated but differed to this season and it’s not going to happen…..
Not just me kicking off about the behaviour of Big Sam and the way he threw the players under the bus. The way he spoke about Rutter wasn’t the actions of a good manager…. “Allardyce has spoken a lot of truth about the state of the team… he was, without naming him, a little bit scathing of Rutter by saying the reason he left Rodrigo on the pitch injured was because he didn’t feel he had another centre-forward on the bench. We’re all sitting there saying that was supposed to be Rutter, he was supposed to have the calibre to play as a nine, but apparently not. “I didn’t feel the second half reflected particularly well on Allardyce to be quite honest, and I also didn’t feel like it was the epitome at all of a team fighting to the death. “What Allardyce had said about testing West Ham’s legs early on was proven to be true… but he has spoken about things you can’t get away with in the Premier League… If I’m being honest, I don’t think you can get away with having a half-fit centre-forward lumbering about for half an hour. Rodrigo’s mobility was clearly a problem…
We looked like a United, proper family in Bielsas days. Strangely that feelings long gone. Just smells of a bunch of individuals doing their own thing and not really giving a fck about the club or fans
I never wanted the dinosaur in the first place. Realistically nobody could have saved us with 4 games to go, it stunk of desperation and there were rumblings about him staying on if he kept us up, at least we won’t have him next season
After Ted left we’d have been better off keeping Skubala in charge till the end of the season. The players at least looked like they were putting the effort in for him and he no doubt knew the training regime that made them the fittest in the division. Now they’re knackered by halftime and any fight they had has gone completely.
It’s no secret I wanted Jesse out from the start, but I’d resigned myself to him staying after he’d spent the January transfer budget. When the board finally grew the balls to sack him, you’d have thought they’d have had a willing replacement lined up. It felt like Bates was in charge all over again with Barrel scraping. Never did I imagine we’d go from Bielsa to Allardyce in a little over a year. Going down, we’ll attract the best Championship coaches there are, staying up, the worst Premier League coaches. It’s a huge reset time, we need to get the coach right, under no circumstances whatsoever can we employ someone like Sam
Whether it’s true or not, it’s from a usually reliable source: Radz wanted Jesse gone earlier. Orta talked him out of it. Radz and orta fell out over the Harrison ‘sale’. A few days later radz sacked Jesse without notice. Hence no replacement. Of our Jan signings… wober obviously a Jesse pick, rutter obviously an orta pick. Mckennie likely a bit of both. Like the summer transfers, I guess the issue is less who picked them and more that they’re bought to play a type of football. If you’re going to try and change style mid-season then you’d want players that suit the new manager’s style/requirements. Thing is the DOF sets the ‘brand’ of football at as club. The idea is it helps continuity if manager’s are moved on. Orta wasn’t going to go 442 with target men mid-season, so the signings would likely have been ‘similar’ whoever was put in charge as long as orta was here.
Milky is right on this: Thing is the DOF sets the ‘brand’ of football at as club. The idea is it helps continuity if manager’s are moved on. Orta wasn’t going to go 442 with target men mid-season, so the signings would likely have been ‘similar’ whoever was put in charge as long as orta washere. A good example of this is the kids Orta brought in with Greenwood and Gelhardt both being strikers. Both competed against other for years at International level with England youth all the way up to U21s. Yet Greenwood was used as a DM even though all the coaching under Bielsa and the academy was at 9 and 10. One played 10 and the other 9 and then swapped for the next game. Corberan and Jacko followed the direction of Bielsa but then moved into the first team set up under various coaches and different needs dictate different approach. Greenwood looks nothing like a DM and in reality has lost a season and half. He should be loaned out as a 9 or a 10 unless we keep him for those positions
