Hi Mrs O, and thanks for the invite!
I take it that this thread, and this post, would satisfy the "separate post" (rather than starting a new thread etc.)
So, as mentioned, a long season ahead, and relatively little to base a (revised) opinion on as yet, but what the h3ll, in for a penny eh?
I said at the end of last season that I would have preferred to have seen Heckingbottom given more time. I was wrong. I questioned the wisdom of appointing a replacement who couldn't speak the Queens English. I was wrong.
I hoped we would do exactly as we did during the transfer window, next to bugger all incoming and whole lot of horse poop being gotten rid of, as long as the new manager was content to do so, which he obviously was (and I believe the club were aware of the need to ensure Bielsa was content from the outset, so the scene was set from the first time he set foot at Thorp Arch/ER.
Did I expect to see the kind of performances we saw against Stoke etc? No, not in a million years. Has Bielsa, in what he "says" and what he does, shown by his performances and those of the players that we have the capability to win this division, you betcha. Can we maintain the standard, the pace, the aggression and tenacity? I believe so, and I hope that he has faith in the products of the Academy and ensures they STAY as Leeds players and he makes that a clear condition to Radrizzani.
Orta can claim some small credit, for having brought Saiz, Klich and Alioski to the club. They are without doubt the best of his attempts at recruitment. He is however a failure as DoF based on any objective assessment of his performance, and the profligate waste of club funds expended on players such as de Bock, Anita etc. He should be dismissed forthwith, and his Football Manager 18 strategy of looking at spreadsheets and databases consigned to history forthwith.
On the pitch, even when we don't put in stellar performances across all areas, we play as a team, we fight as a team, we win and we lose as a team, that is absolutely clear from ALL the players attitude, before, during and after a game. We fight for the whole 90 minutes, we fight after we go behind, we fight when we are ahead, all of which is frankly f00king marvellous! All the players want to win, maybe a strange thing to say, but there were times last season where it was questionable as to whether that was the case. They want to please their manager FFS, when has THAT been evident? They want to please the fans, which is less remarkable, but so much more evident than it has been for some time, as it's ALL the players who feel like that, and its ALL the players who show their disappointment when they feel they have failed in some way or another.
I've steered clear of referring to individual players (apart from the Orta bit), for good reason. All have improved over last season, some massively, some less so, but ALL have, and that is down to one man, Bielsa. He isn't the messiah (at least not yet), but in the space of 4 months, he has taken a dispirited, lack-lustre bunch of football players and moulded them into a band of brothers, who will not give in, will not surrender, will not be subdued and will, come what may, be Leeds players the supporters can be proud of.
End of sermon