Leeds United - v - Wolves ***Matchday Thread***

[Marley past ghosts]

As to what we do now, we as a club are now in a perfect storm and been squeezed on all sides. The longer we remain in the Championship the harder it will become because these parachute payments made to relegated clubs are killing the likes of Leeds. In effect the payments can keep the likes of Fulham, Middlesborough, Aston Villa etc going for long periods of time, allowing them to keep Premier League footballers on their books and not have to rely on cheap replacements when they also add to their squad. The owners have previously given the impression that they have a long term plan, but its really all a false economy because anyone who is half decent will immediately be poached from teams in the bottom half of the premiership, and we continue to go round in a vicious circle. There will always be exceptions such as Cardiff, Huddersfield and others but in the real world money generally gets you out of this division. The owners need to spend and spend big, if they can't do that, then like previous owners they are simply collecting a dividend from an asset they own and treading water. The answer IMO would be for them to perhaps sell the club to parties who have unlimited funds, if they exist and are interested, and we can perhaps move on from there. The constant purchasing of cheap footballers and loan players though is just a route on a hiding to nothing.

bang on the button fella

[MrsORichSenior]

As to what we do now, we as a club are now in a perfect storm and been squeezed on all sides. The longer we remain in the Championship the harder it will become because these parachute payments made to relegated clubs are killing the likes of Leeds. In effect the payments can keep the likes of Fulham, Middlesborough, Aston Villa etc going for long periods of time, allowing them to keep Premier League footballers on their books and not have to rely on cheap replacements when they also add to their squad. The owners have previously given the impression that they have a long term plan, but its really all a false economy because anyone who is half decent will immediately be poached from teams in the bottom half of the premiership, and we continue to go round in a vicious circle. There will always be exceptions such as Cardiff, Huddersfield and others but in the real world money generally gets you out of this division. The owners need to spend and spend big, if they can't do that, then like previous owners they are simply collecting a dividend from an asset they own and treading water. The answer IMO would be for them to perhaps sell the club to parties who have unlimited funds, if they exist and are interested, and we can perhaps move on from there. The constant purchasing of cheap footballers and loan players though is just a route on a hiding to nothing.

Thinks it's pretty safe to say that the club has already interested parties in Qatar & China and 'interested' parties 'outside' the club with ideas to implement consortia wise from Qatar & China - options as ever depend on timing and ultimately what the Rad wishes now to do.
MOT

[WTF11]

FFS, so fkn easy to type the same simplistic message over and over again - we're sh1te, we're sh1te, players are sh1te, AR is sh1te, Orta is sh1te, TC was sh1te, it was better *at some point in the past* (last season, last decade, last millennium - take your pick......).

So WTF do you suggest ??? We can't sack AR and Orta, jeez, we can't sack anyone. So what is your plan to get us from where we are now to where we should be (I hope we're at least agreed on that - an established Prem club competing for trophies ?).

Is it that we should be able to directly tell 95% of the current team that they're sh1te to their face - that would help wouldn't it...

Are you proposing a massive fan boycott until the current ownership team are forced out - again, that would be a hugely productive approach (and would not doubt make us a really attractive prospect for any potential 'serious investors' which might be looking at LUFC.......)

Are you forming a huge well funded fan consortium to take over (that's worked well in the past.....)

Do you have credible information that a hugely wealthy backer is waiting in the wings to take over but is somehow being thwarted by AR and his team ?

Buy a time machine and go back and somehow tell whoever was in charge at the time you 'pop up' all the mistakes which are going to be made, and convince them to do it 'the right way'..............

Apart from endless shouting that we're sh1t and our ownership team are fkn clueless and that we're basically doomed what are you saying needs to happen to take us where we want to be ? (and as I've said before, just saying 'we need lots of money' is no more helpful than constantly telling everyone we're a disaster club that's going down the tubes, or for that matter no more helpful than highlighting what you believe are the errors which have already been made - see 'time machine' option above).

As a passionate follower of LUFC since 1972, (when I was 6 and first started to be aware of football in deepest darkest mid-Wales), I feel the pain of what's happening now, and what's happened for the last 16 years, as much as anyone, but I just do not see that shouting at everyone that we're sh1t and we've been sh1t for ages and we've been run crapply and continue to be run crapply is actually going to help in any way, and I really struggle to see how it's going to help move us towards where (I assume) we all want LUFC to be.

Wrong, we can sack people, and send a message by doing so that similar failure will not be tolerated

Orta should be shown the door. Many of the players he brought in, or who were the beneficiaries of contract extensions he will have recommended should be put up for sale/sidelined as they are simply a drain on the few competent coaching resources we have left.

We can sack those incompetent coaching staff brought in as hangers-on from Orta/Christiansen and replace with those who actually know something about football.

We can tear up the hugely distracting and totally unproductive relationship with Cultural whoever-they-are, and if we have to do again, we do it with a club that isn't in the ar5e end of a nowhere Spanish league, but something with some credibility regarding growing young players (I know, what about the Leeds ACADEMY!!!!).

We should tear up the agreement with Aspire, and if that means Bravo going, then bravo!

We won't get new backers unless we do something. We can't NOT do something and just carry on as we are. We can't change with the current senior management structure. We need focus, focus on the 1st team at the expense of ALL other matters, as without a credible 1st team (not steaming into the PL necessarily, although that might be good) all else is stuff and nonesense and will result in nothing of any benefit to anyone, the owner included.

More money is NOT the answer, spending what funds we have to the maximum IMMEDIATE effect on 1st team quality IS. All funds realised by reducing the 1steam squad size, removing incompetent individuals, and whatever funding we are committed to with the spanish/Dubai connections should be invested in quality players and if Radrizzani has to dip into his own pockets to complement those funds, so be it, that's the price of woning a Championship football team.

Doing nothing is NOT an option

[WTF11]

As to what we do now, we as a club are now in a perfect storm and been squeezed on all sides. The longer we remain in the Championship the harder it will become because these parachute payments made to relegated clubs are killing the likes of Leeds. In effect the payments can keep the likes of Fulham, Middlesborough, Aston Villa etc going for long periods of time, allowing them to keep Premier League footballers on their books and not have to rely on cheap replacements when they also add to their squad. The owners have previously given the impression that they have a long term plan, but its really all a false economy because anyone who is half decent will immediately be poached from teams in the bottom half of the premiership, and we continue to go round in a vicious circle. There will always be exceptions such as Cardiff, Huddersfield and others but in the real world money generally gets you out of this division. The owners need to spend and spend big, if they can't do that, then like previous owners they are simply collecting a dividend from an asset they own and treading water. The answer IMO would be for them to perhaps sell the club to parties who have unlimited funds, if they exist and are interested, and we can perhaps move on from there. The constant purchasing of cheap footballers and loan players though is just a route on a hiding to nothing.

You can't sell what people don't want to buy, and NO-ONE would touch Leeds United with a fif****-mile long barge pole at present.

[WTF11]

Thinks it's pretty safe to say that the club has already interested parties in Qatar & China and 'interested' parties 'outside' the club with ideas to implement consortia wise from Qatar & China - options as ever depend on timing and ultimately what the Rad wishes now to do.
MOT

Never going to happen

[MrsORichSenior]

........... never say never.

Well, Rads backers in Qatar & China could stump up more for his pot - or turn to alternative route and jump onboard another PL bound ship headed/brokered by local party(s) sniffing on behalf of investors portfolios.............
MOT

[WTF11]

........... never say never.

Well, Rads backers in Qatar & China could stump up more for his pot - or turn to alternative route and jump onboard another PL bound ship headed/brokered by local party(s) sniffing on behalf of investors portfolios.............
MOT

They won't invest in a club that is as badly out-of-control as Leeds, unless of course they are going to do exactly what I've suggested, and get rid of the out-of-control influences that have got us where we are (no bad thing IMHO).

We are NOT PL-bound, at least not in present circumstances, with present structures and present senior figures who have not the faintest idea as to how such an objective might be achieved.

Only asset strippers would "invest" in us at present, and I suspect even such a monumentally bad outcome for us as fans is unlikely, given that the only asset of any worth right now is the ground (then again, stranger things have happened, it's not impossible to imagine a housing estate at LS11)

[OldWhiteTaff]

I'm not suggesting doing nothing, I'm certainly no happy clapper, I can see there are serious problems right now, and that the optimism of last August seems like a different world, (and as I've posted elsewhere without some major improvements both in playing squad and managerial impetus over the summer then I really fear for us next season). BUT, the constant moaning and sniping just makes a bad situation even worse, and pie in the sky wishing for investment isn't going to make things better. Fosun bought Wolves in the summer of 2016, last season they finished lower mid-table, and I bet there were plenty on their forums moaning about how 'this sh1t bunch of foreign owners don't know what they're doing'.

AR has made mistakes, clearly, and Orta and the scouting/buying/youth systems look poorly directed at the moment, but I'd say, given what AR actually has done, surely a bit of support is still in order. So yes, absolutely, constructive suggestions, (like I've seen from WTF, some of which I agree with, some I don't), but endless 'we are sh1t' posts don't help anything.

[WTF11]

I'm not suggesting doing nothing, I'm certainly no happy clapper, I can see there are serious problems right now, and that the optimism of last August seems like a different world, (and as I've posted elsewhere without some major improvements both in playing squad and managerial impetus over the summer then I really fear for us next season). BUT, the constant moaning and sniping just makes a bad situation even worse, and pie in the sky wishing for investment isn't going to make things better. Fosun bought Wolves in the summer of 2016, last season they finished lower mid-table, and I bet there were plenty on their forums moaning about how 'this sh1t bunch of foreign owners don't know what they're doing'.

AR has made mistakes, clearly, and Orta and the scouting/buying/youth systems look poorly directed at the moment, but I'd say, given what AR actually has done, surely a bit of support is still in order. So yes, absolutely, constructive suggestions, (like I've seen from WTF, some of which I agree with, some I don't), but endless 'we are sh1t' posts don't help anything.

Thing is Taff, the Wolves fans will have known that Fosun had the pockets deep enough to correct anything that was wrong in 2016/17. We know (or at least suspect) that the opposite is true of Radrizzani, that he has "invested" in a cheap as chips process because the man he appointed said it would work, and he hasn't got the pockets deep enough to contend that it should be otherwise.

Said elsewhere that I don't want more money spent, just the same, spent wisely. That isn't going to happen with the structure we have in place, or with the senior personnel in place either, and whilst I agree with the "we're sh1t" post comments, the one about foreign owners not knowing what they are doing......grain (or two)of truth there, no matter how much of a media mogul the guy is.

[WTF11]

Another "you couldn't make it up" moment.

https://footballleagueworld.co.uk/an...2017-addition/

The guy used to "dream up set pieces in his lunch hour" while working as a banker in Venice, FFS!

And another;

https://footballleagueworld.co.uk/ut...e-development/

You really, really couldn't make it up, two specialist coaches with next to f00k all experience in anything remotely connected with football!