Tag Archives: Leeds United

Istanbul “Front Runner” for Euro 2020 Semis and Final – are UEFA Stark, Staring Mad? – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 24/09/2013 | 7 comments
Turkish Fans "Demonstrating Their Cultural Uniqueness"

Turkish Fans “Demonstrating Their Cultural Uniqueness”

As if eager to demonstrate once and for all that they are out-of-touch, irresponsible, lacking in judgement and foolhardy to the point of actual insanity – it would appear that UEFA are genuinely considering Istanbul as a host city for the semi-finals and final of the Euro 2020 Championships.  Our beloved FA, itself a body which has frequently demonstrated its own lack of fitness to run a piss-up in a brewery, stated today that it believes Istanbul is the “front runner” and main rival to Wembley’s own bid.  Istanbul lost out to Tokyo in its bid to host the 2020 Olympic Games, after all.  FA General Secretary Alex Horne said: “We’ve taken some soundings, there’s a sympathy for Turkey and it does feel like they are the front-runners.  We get the politics around Istanbul, having not got the Olympics.”

Demir

Demir

Well, forgive me, but I don’t “get” this at all.  Turkey has just about the most horrific history of football violence it’s possible to imagine.  Istanbul in particular is home to Galatasaray, whose fans’ party piece is to raise banners when “welcoming” visiting teams to the airport or to their bear-pit of a stadium, the banners bearing the warm and comforting message of “Welcome to Hell”.  Other touching signs of friendship and bonhomie include mimed throat-slitting actions performed en masse.  Sadly, these ugly manifestations of Turkish culture have been shown to be no mere gestures.  In the spring of 2000, two Leeds United fans – Chris Loftus and Kevin Speight – were brutally attacked and murdered in Istanbul’s Taksim Square. Ali Umit Demir and three other men were arrested for the killings, and Demir was jailed but released for retrial after a successful appeal.  When the four men first appeared in court, they were cheered by members of the public, Demir being described as a “patriot” by residents of Istanbul.

More than 13 years on, it is still unclear whether Demir will ever face an appropriate penalty for his admitted crime of stabbing Mr Loftus and Mr Speight.  Over the time since these tragic killings, fans of Turkish clubs have continued to disgrace themselves on numerous occasions with acts of violence and displays of hostility which UEFA have consistently failed to address, despite the alacrity with which they deal with lesser offences elsewhere.  It has been reported that certain UEFA officials regard knife-carrying and its concomitant perils as “part of the culture” in Turkey, and this may partly explain their casual attitude towards what goes on there – but it certainly does not excuse it.

No Leeds United fan and, for that matter, no Manchester United fan needs any instruction about the atmosphere and the dangers of following football in Istanbul. Personal experiences of fans from both clubs leave little room for doubt that it’s a place to visit and roam around in only with extreme reticence and caution.  The idea of masses of fans from different nations adding their high-spirits and nationalistic fervour to the cocktail of hatred and overt hostility which is so much a part of the fabric of Istanbul – it’s just too horrible to contemplate.  You’d have thought that even a pea-brained UEFA pen-pusher could have accumulated enough evidence, both anecdotal and empirical, to realise this.  But no.  Self-satisfaction and pompous idiocy rules in the corridors of UEFA, and they will seemingly be willing to compound their laxity of recent years in failing to deal with what has happened there, by a whole new level of crass stupidity in contemplating taking a major Championships to a murderous pit.

It is to be hoped that wiser counsel – if any should exist in the game’s higher authorities – will prevail, and some safer place will be found.  The idea of awarding the final stages of a prestigious tournament to Istanbul is a bit like inviting an arsonists’ self-help group to organise a bonfire in a petrol dump – only more so.  If the madmen of UEFA have their way in this, the consequences could be dire; you only have to ask the Man United fans ill-treated by the local police, or the Leeds fans who, heart-sick at their bereavement of the night before, turned their backs at the start of the match against Galatasaray, because that club had failed, along with UEFA, to postpone the game, or even to order that black armbands should be worn.

It may be that one day Istanbul will be a fit place for civilised football fans to visit, and maybe even for a tournament to be held. But that day is not yet, it won’t be here by 2020 and it won’t be for many more years after that.  Most sensible football fans would confirm that.  Now we just have to find a way to persuade the fools in UEFA, and in our own FA, what their own eyes and ears should have told them long ago.

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Leeds Chasing Top Gun – But Who Will Supply the Ammo? – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 23/09/2013 | 15 comments
20130923-230019.jpg

Striker Who??

It’s now an open secret that Leeds United have listened to manager Brian McDermott’s warnings about the lack of a prolific striker at Elland Road, and that they have heeded his words of wisdom. Now, they are prepared – so we understand – to go out and secure a goal-scorer. Such exotic beasts do not come cheap.

Speculation is rife as to who the target might be. Old-boy Becchio gets a mention, as does Leeds fan Shane Long, out in the cold at West Brom. Reading appear to covet another reputed Leeds target in Billy Sharp – could this pave the way for Adam le Fondre, known to his fans as “Alf”, to breeze into LS11?

Whoever gets the nod might be expected to make significant inroads into Leeds’ manifestly limited wages budget – unless the loaning club are willing to do the decent thing and subsidise whatever fat contract their surplus striker is on. Paying a hefty amount of wages would pose a problem for Leeds – namely, how are we going to afford a winger, if we put all our eggs in the goal-poacher basket?

Because, make no mistake, a winger – or preferably two – should be as much a priority as any striker. Our existing strikers have starved for supply for most of the season so far. Ironically, the defeat to Burnley was notable for the amount of chances created and squandered, but this has not been the story of our campaign to date. With better supply, Hunt, Varney, McCormack and even Smith might well have weighed in with more goals. Getting another striker and neglecting to address the problem of supply from wide areas would be like purchasing a lethally-efficient gun – yet economising on bullets.

If GFH have been listening to Brian’s gloomy warnings, as we keep hearing in the Twittersphere – then let’s hope we’ve heard only half the story. Let’s hope that digging deep means really deep, and that the shopping list has “two decent wingers” scrawled at the bottom of it. Otherwise, in trying to solve our goal-shortage problems, we might just be adding to them.

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New Striker at Leeds “By the Weekend” – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 22/09/2013 | 27 comments

A normally reliable source has stated that Leeds United will bring a striker into the club before the weekend, with several names under consideration. This comes after strong speculation earlier in the day that free agent David Bentley (28), normally a winger, might be offered the chance to resurrect his career at Elland Road.

Strikers who have been linked with United include Southampton’s Billy Sharp, Shane Long of WBA, Ricardo Vaz Te of West Ham, Adam le Fondre of Reading, among others. Brian McDermott was the manager who signed le Fondre for Reading during his spell as manager there.

With a Capital One cup tie at Newcastle on Wednesday ahead of a trip to Millwall’s New Den at the weekend, it promises to be an interesting few days at Elland Road.

Who would you like to see brought in during the emergency loans window??

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Aside

“We’re not famous any more” sing the fans of Leeds United FC, quite regularly and demonstrating a neat grasp of irony in a medium too often dominated by the literal and the just plain crass.  The point is, of course, … Continue reading →

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Posted on 22/09/2013

Time to Push the Panic Button for Leeds United? – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 22/09/2013 | 12 comments

Image

In a word, no.

True, the home defeat to Burnley – United’s second reverse at one-time fortress Elland Road already this season – was depressing, dispiriting, deeply disappointing.  Brian McDermott had no complaints about the merits of the visitors’ win, simply stating “They were the better side.”  What evidently stuck in the manager’s craw was sending out a side designed to get at their opponents from the off and seeing them getting, in his words, “beaten up” by a Burnley side that could have been ahead already by the time Scott Arfield rifled home an acute finish to give Leeds that sinking feeling again.

As at Reading in midweek though, the blow of going behind came hard on the heels of an excellent chance for Leeds to take the lead, Luke Varney fluffing his lines in front of goal. And Leeds continued to press and to make and spurn chances for the remainder of the first half, before shoddy defending left one-time Whites loanee Sam Vokes in ample space eventually to force the ball past Paddy Kenny.  0-2 and the damage was done. Things improved in the second period, but sub Matt Smith’s header with ten minutes to go allowed only a brief flicker of hope, extinguished by the lack of any real chance to secure a second that might have denied a deserving Burnley outfit.

The Elland Road faithful had not been pleased by the performance of referee Probert who had denied the home side a penalty after Sam Byram appeared to have been brought down in the box before the interval, but McDermott chose to focus on the lack of cutting edge that is costing Leeds a realistic return on chances created.  “We have to score more goals here”, said the United boss.  Indeed.

This campaign is starting to define itself now, and it’s a veritable model of the truism that speculation is usually the father of accumulation.  The rich are starting to pull clear at the top of the table while Leeds are roughly where they might be expected to be, with a patchy squad, an excellent manager, plenty of progress off the field and woefully inadequate investment on it.  Much was made of the signing of Luke Murphy in the window, for that magical million-pound figure, a bar that hadn’t been cleared by Leeds United since 2005. But the Championship is a big time division nowadays, and the clubs at the top end are investing big money to try to ensure their parachute payments don’t fade away before they’ve hoisted themselves back up into the League of Milk and Honey. Leeds, for the time being, are just not on the same financial plane as those eager sprinters QPR and the others who have shelled out on the potential to take the Championship by the scruff of its neck.

Some of the comparisons are yet more sobering. Yesterday, even penniless, potless Birmingham benefited from an enlightened recruitment policy, their loan signing Lingard from Man U blitzing the startled Sheffield Wednesday with four goals on his Blues debut. The story behind that performance is of a virtually unplayable Chris Burke – the winger deemed “too expensive” for Leeds at £600,000 – torturing Wednesday as he supplied the new forward with his chances.  So why weren’t Leeds in for either or both of these players who so ruthlessly put the Owls to the sword? The apparent short-sightedness of this policy, whereby Leeds will not shell out a chunk of money to give themselves a chance of reaping many times that with promotion, is a glaring flaw in the overall strategy.  That said, it’s a sign of the times that we must necessarily be talking about promotion in terms of financial reward anyway, in a game that – remember? – used to be about glory.

What is certain is that, the way things currently are at Leeds, there is no real expectation of promotion this year – the powers that be have said as much in so many words.  It follows that there is no need for actual panic in terms of results and that steady progress towards a more realistic challenge next time around would be acceptable – though whether such a pragmatic view will be forthcoming for the fans, who regularly empty their bank accounts into the Elland Road coffers, is another question.

For the time being, we have to glumly chew on the bitter pill of mediocrity that results from the paucity of playing resources in crucial areas of United’s squad.  We know we have a manager of the necessary pedigree and one moreover who has endeared himself to the notoriously hard-to-please home crowd.  McDermott is a diamond worthy of polishing and treasuring, but he’s being asked to rebuild a fortress with tools that are more suited to fashioning a sandcastle.  We have to understand that – keep the faith – and leave that panic button alone.

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Happy Birthday to Leeds Utd Legend Paul Madeley – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 20/09/2013 | 15 comments
Mr. Rolls Royce - 69 Years Young Today

Mr. Rolls Royce – 69 Years Young Today

A short but timely piece to wish one of our greatest ever players, Paul Madeley, a very happy birthday today.  To think of one of the heroes of my youth reaching the age of 69 is enough to make anyone feel old, but the memory of Paul in a Leeds shirt is vivid.

He was one of the unsung heroes of that great Revie generation, the men who bonded to become a team feared and respected the length and breadth of Europe.  He was famous for having appeared in every outfield position for Leeds and so was dubbed a “utility player” – but that hardly did justice to his towering talent, his positional sense and calmness in tight situations and his immaculate reading of the game and distribution.  I remember him scoring against Southampton in 1978, a very rare occurence – this was the same match where Tony Currie scored that legendary “banana shot”.

Paul was often also referred to as the “Rolls Royce” of footballers, which some took as a reference to his versatility; but I always thought of the nickname as a tribute to his smooth style of play, utterly unflappable, totally reliable, quietly purring along as he covered so many miles for Leeds United between 1962 and 1980.

In more recent years Paul has not always enjoyed the best of health.  He had an operation to remove a benign brain tumour in 1992, had a mild heart attack in 2002 and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 2004.  So it’s welcome news to hear that he’s still getting on and that he’s celebrating his birthday today.  The best summary of his attitude to being a professional footballer at Leeds United was related by his former manager Jimmy Armfield, who recalls:

“He once actually signed a new contract on what was virtually a blank piece of paper. I called him in to discuss terms and opened discussions by saying, ‘OK, Paul, we’ll give you so much’. He replied that he had no intention of leaving Leeds so he might as well sign the contract and let me fill in the details. I said, ‘What do you want, then, two years or three years?’ He answered, ‘Either way, I’ll leave it to you. I just want to play for Leeds,’ and that was that”.

That’s some example to put before today’s money-grabbing prima donnas.

Happy Birthday, Paul.  You’re a Leeds United legend, and your thousands of fans will always think of you as such.

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All Change at Full Back for Leeds – Will We Finally Get Some Genuine Width? – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 20/09/2013 | 12 comments
Aidy White - Winging It in Left Back Berth

Aidy White – Winging It in Left Back Berth

Leeds United v Burnley (Elland Road) Saturday 21 September at 15:00

It seems certain that, in the absence of Steven Warnock through suspension and with Adam Drury still unavailable due to injury, Aidy White will finally get his long-awaited chance against Burnley to make an impression on this season – in the left-back slot where he has performed well enough to impress Brian McDermott in the U-21 side.  This comes a bare week or so after White seemed likely to depart on loan to Barnsley – but he made a laudable decision to stay and fight for his place.  On the other flank, it remains to be seen whether Lee Peltier, Tom Lees or maybe even Sam Byram will turn out at right-back.

A full back combination of White and Byram would offer pace and width to balance against an arguable lack of experience for an area of the team that normally requires an element of rugged know-how of the battle-hardened variety.  It’s probably unlikely that McDermott will opt to field both youngsters, but if he did then the team would at last have more potential for width going forward than it has offered all season, with the possibility of a wing-back approach as United seek to be more creative against the high-flying Lancastrians.

There is no doubt that Leeds need to carve out more in the way of chances if they are to make a real impact on this campaign.  Solid defence is all very well – only two conceded in the last three games.  But because we’ve scored only one in that time, a return of three points has seen the team drop away from the play-offs zone.  The options up front are likely to remain the same with Diouf, Poleon and Smith on the bench ready to enter the fray later on when the Burnley defence will have been – hopefully – softened up by the hard work of Noel Hunt and Luke Varney together with the elusiveness and skill of Ross McCormack.

It could be argued that United’s relative failure to create and convert chances owes as much to bad luck as it does to inadequate resources.  Sooner or later, Noel Hunt’s graft will pay off, Rudy Austin will bang one in from long range, Matt Smith  will adjust to a higher grade and be able to exploit his aerial power and ability.  A little width would help all this to come about, and attempts are surely going on behind the scenes to recruit people of enough quality in the loan market; the lack of any end product here up to now is – looking at it optimistically – a sign that some quality control is in operation and we’re not just going to sign anyone.  The exit on loan of Ryan Hall to Sheffield United would seem to set the bar a little above Hall’s own level where ability is concerned.

Burnley will present a stiff test, but Leeds will be looking to bounce back swiftly from a heart-breaking defeat on Wednesday night.  With home advantage, and an enforced change or two to freshen things up, expect United to emerge as narrow winners.

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Leeds United Needs Another Vinnie Jones – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 20/09/2013 | 13 comments
Sir Vincent Peter Jones

Sir Vincent Peter Jones

The men who took Leeds United back into the top-flight the last time it happened in 1990 are, of course, legends now.  They rank alongside some of the Revie boys because they rescued the club from eight years in the wilderness and restored us to the big time.  We had our own diminutive red-haired midfielder as a sort of latter-day homage to Billy Bremner – mighty atom Gordon Strachan, who played a crucial role in the renaissance of Leeds with his leadership and goals.  It was a team effort though, and it was as a team that they succeeded – Strachan apart there was no major star, but the guts and drive of the collective effort eclipsed all rivals by the end of that fantastic season, when we were crowned Second Division Champions in sun-drenched and strife-torn Bournemouth.  And nobody in the whole club at that time epitomised guts and drive, as well as sheer fist-clenched, vein-throbbing commitment and fight, better than Mr Vincent Peter “Vinnie” Jones.

I’d been aware of Vinnie, of course – who hadn’t?  His Crazy Gang antics were legendary and he’d lifted the FA Cup, but he was regarded as a bit of a maverick – still more hod-carrier than footballer, famous for a ten-second dismissal and for his promise to Kenny Dalglish before the 1988 Cup Final against Liverpool to “tear off his ear and spit in the hole”.  Still, despite these immaculate credentials, marking him out as a potential Gelderd hero, never in my wildest dreams did I imagine him as a signing for Leeds United, where stirrings had been going on ever since Sergeant Wilko marched in and started shaking the place up.  The “marquee signing” – you didn’t actually hear that phrase in those days – was Strachan, plucked from under the nose of his old Man U mentor Ron Atkinson at Sheffield Wednesday to provide the quality at the heart of the Leeds engine room. Now that was the sort of signing I’d hoped and prayed for, and with the likes of Chris Fairclough joining Gordon at Elland Road it seemed to bode well for a real challenge as the close season wore on and 1989-90 loomed closer.

I was in a caravan on the east coast when I heard on the radio that Vinnie was signing for Leeds for around £650,000.  I frankly didn’t believe it, but when the reality sank in, my initial reaction was to think – bloody hell, Wilko, what are you playing at?  The signings of John Hendrie and Mel Sterland reassured me somewhat, but I was still having trouble seeing what the Jones Boy would bring to the United table, although our lunatic-fringe fans seemed well suited.  The early signs were not encouraging.  Strachan tells of an incident in a pre-season game against Anderlecht, where he saw an opposing player go down with his nose spread halfway across his face and blood greatly in evidence.  Vinnie had casually “done” him en passant before sidling off looking innocent, and Strach recalls thinking: my God – what have we signed here?

Vinnie himself remembers his early days at the club, and being moved to violence by the negative attitudes of some of the players being edged out as Wilko’s new broom started to sweep clean.  Among this disaffected few was John Sheridan, something of a Leeds legend – but Jones stood for no nonsense, and there were punches thrown and people seized by the scruff of the neck as he explained his views on solidarity and team spirit.  Vinnie was obviously going to be a kill or cure measure – there were signs he might have much to contribute to the collective effort, but equally that he might turn out a loose cannon which could blow up in all our faces.  Yet Wilko had a magic touch in those early years, and generally it was proved that he knew what he was doing.

In the event, and despite an uncertain beginning, Vinnie played a massive part in our promotion that year.  The fans took to him from the start – the sight of him coming on as a sub in the first home game against Middlesbrough will live long in my memory.  I can see him now, in the middle of the park with the game poised at 1-1, shouting and screaming as he conveyed encouragement and instruction in equal measure, arms pumping in an ungainly, baboon-like way, team-mates and opponents alike staring at him aghast.  And then he frightened a Boro’ defender into scoring a late, fluky own-goal and we had won, setting us on our way after a disastrous opening-day defeat at Newcastle.

Vinnie just carried on making a difference.  He worked and worked, encouraged and exhorted, fought for the cause and put the fear of God up the enemy wherever he encountered them.  He scored spectacular goals, important goals.  He showed flashes of genuine ability and some of his passing was sublime.  He avoided disciplinary trouble to an amazing degree, given his lurid past.  He sold himself to no less a judge than Strachan as an honest performer who could “play a bit”.

Vinnie also created a rapport with the crowd I’ve rarely seen before or since, chilling and joking with the wheelchair-users at the front of the West Stand before games, and smoking imaginary cigars as he took the plaudits of the adoring masses after finding the net against Ipswich.  In the warm-up before the Wolves match at Elland Road, he provided one of the great moments of humour in a tense campaign, bringing down five year-old mascot Robert Kelly in the area with a signature sliding tackle, much to the delight of the Kop – and of young Robert himself.

Vinnie loved Leeds, the players and fans loved Vinnie and the partnership proved fruitful.  Up we went, and when Vincent Jones finally took his leave for the humbler surroundings of Bramall Lane and Stamford Bridge, it was with a tattoo: “LUFC Division Two Champions” proudly inked onto his expensive leg, a partner for the “Wimbledon FA Cup Winners” one on the other limb.  He was a Leeds United legend in only a little over a year at the club, a larger-than-life personality of massive ebullience and impact – and he is held in the highest of esteem in LS11 even to this day, when he mixes effortlessly in the rarefied, glitzy atmosphere of Hollywood.

So what do we need more right now than another Vinne type, as we hope to secure another long-overdue return to the top table?  Those Jonesy ingredients of passion and power, guts and gumption, are just as important in this league today as they were in those far-off times as the eighties became the nineties.  Who could possibly fulfil that role now?  Joey Barton maybe?  Even he could hardly be a greater culture shock than Vinnie was 25 years ago, but Barton is back in the QPR fold and far beyond our purse anyway – also, quite frankly, he lacks Vinnie’s essential honesty and sheer bad-boy charm.  It’s difficult to say who if anyone we might now secure to play the Vinnie part – but if it were possible, in time for the next transfer window, to distil essence of Jones, or to clone him right from his bloodstained boots and tattooed ankles up to his fearsomely-shaven head, then I’d do it, and I’d present the result gift-wrapped for Brian McDermott to deploy as he saw fit.

A man in the mould of Vinnie Jones would be just the shot in the arm our club needs right at this point in time, just the incentive for the crowd to roll up its sleeves and get behind the team for the remaining battles in this 46 game-long war of attrition.

Just imagine the fillip that our season, our whole club would receive – if only we could have our Vinnie back now.

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Wigan and Swansea Doing Well in Europe as West Ham Struggle at Home – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 19/09/2013 | 10 comments
Bobby Moore Lifts the World Cup for the 'Ammers

Bobby Moore Lifts the World Cup for the ‘Ammers

It’s the advent of a New Order we’re seeing in European competition this week – Swansea’s highly impressive performance against fallen giants Valencia being the headline, but Wigan’s solid draw in Belgium also drawing praise.  These are not names we’re used to seeing as our various clubs sally forth to uphold the good name of English football by giving Johnny Foreigner a good old punch on the boko (figuratively speaking, of course).  The fact that most domestic teams consist of Johnny Foreigners in a ratio of about 8:3 is neither here not there.  They’re British clubs and as they stomp all over some hapless bunch of continental also-rans, we feel a surge of pride – don’t we?  Even Spurs are doing OK against some unlikely collection of Norwegian lumberjacks.

So what about the old names that have been replaced by these Johnny foreigner come latelies?  Forest, Leeds, QPR and Derby all used to campaign successfully abroad, but their recent domestic record is of failure; all are currently embarked on varying programmes of recovery.   And then of course, there’s West Ham.  Whatever happened to them?

West Ham, you will recall (or possibly not) had a real European Reputation in the sixties, and even a partial one in the seventies.  In three consecutive years from 1964 to 1966, the late, great Bobby Moore hoisted silverware at the old Wembley as West Ham won the FA Cup, then the Cup-Winners Cup and then famously the World Cup.  That last one is a bit of a joke actually, although Hammers’ fans tell the tale seriously enough.  After all, their captain lifted the Jules Rimet trophy in ’66 and their players scored the goals.  But as former Irons winger of the time Harry Redknapp admits, even with Moore, Peters and Hurst, the Hammers finished an average of about 17th in that period.  “It just goes to show how crap the other eight of us were”, remarked ‘Appy ‘Arry.

Therein, perhaps, lies West Ham’s real problem.  They’ve just never quite made it as a Big Club, various shiny baubles notwithstanding.  They have this East End identity, they reek of the Krays and Leslie Grantham and other criminal types.  But as a serious football institution, they’re not quite there.  Even their most famous fan, Alf Garnett, supports Spurs in real life.  So the Hammers are left as a club with no real grasp on greatness, one whose main defining characteristics are the Bubbles Song and being generally recognised as bigger than Leyton Orient.  That mid-sixties heyday was their zenith – by the grace of Ron Greenwood, a Pope John Paul II lookalike and future England supremo – and assisted by three world-class players who were content for a spell to be big fish in a small pond, the Hammers punched above their weight like some cocky rat boy from Bethnal Green.  It couldn’t last, but while it did we became almost accustomed to the sight of a Hammers side fighting to conquer foreign fields – although in later years there would usually be an unhappy ending at the hands of Anderlecht or someone as West Ham met their Waterloo, and the Bubbles – well, burst.

So nowadays, if you want to look beyond the Big Lads at the top of the Premier League – and pending the return of fellow Euro-fighters like Leeds and Forest – it’s Wigan and Swansea we’ll be cheering on against those cross-channel types, whatever our domestic prejudices might be.  It IS good to see British clubs doing well abroad – or at least most of them.  Sadly it seems that the days of our youth when the famous claret and blue was well-known in stadia the length and breadth of UEFA – those days are probably gone forever and the best chance of the Hammers being in Europe again is if there’s a war.  Still, you never know – and they certainly have a better chance than my beloved Leeds.  For this season, at any rate.

Well done Wigan and Swansea, you did us proud.

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Leeds Must Bounce Back After “Gutted” McDermott’s Unhappy Reading Test – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 19/09/2013 | 2 comments
Adam le Fondre - Leeds Target, Leeds Nemesis

Adam le Fondre – Leeds Target, Leeds Nemesis

To paraphrase a more illustrious member of the Atkinson clan – Rowan of that ilk – if winning a game of football in the last minute of stoppage time is finger-lickin’ good, then losing in a like manner is just ass-wipin’ bad.  And it could so easily have ended in a Leeds win at Reading last night; nobody could have disputed the fairness of a narrow away victory as United had looked marginally the likelier of two willing teams on a night of ebb and flow.  As the final minute or so ticked away, it had appeared that the impressively raucous band of away fans would be heading home jubilant.

Heading home, in fact, is precisely what Jason Pearce should have done with what looked like the last clear-cut chance of the game.  It was a good chance, a very clear-cut chance of the “my Gran would have buried that” variety – and Pearce should have gobbled it up.  But sadly, he missed, Then, predictably, Lady Luck performed a clumsy and unattractive pirouette, and within two shakes of a donkey’s tail Steven Warnock had managed to get himself a second yellow card.  He trailed off miserably, the resultant free-kick was pumped into the Leeds area and there was Adam le Fondre, rumoured target for United all summer long, to glance the ball past Paddy Kenny.  1-0 and finis, the whole game turning on the slings and arrows of that outrageous last minute.  Ho hum.

It’s encouraging to report that the hysterical reaction we had come to expect in the wake of just about any Leeds United defeat has been much less apparent under McDermott’s Elland Road regime than it has been in the year or so before.  And quite rightly so; Brian is quietly evolving a Leeds United metamorphosis the effect of which runs deep and transcends the statistical impact of mere results.  It’s hard to think of any man more deserving of an extended honeymoon period – without actually getting married – than the unassuming and softly-spoken United chief.  Most of what he has touched so far has turned to gold and the feeling is that, as he becomes ever more firmly entrenched, he will increase his influence over transfer policy at the club so as to secure the recruits he is all too well aware he still needs.  Brian will go about his business with justified self-belief – and apparently with the enthusiasm and loyalty of his playing staff – whatever the mood of the support may happen to be in the light of results good or bad.  And yet it’s still important that he has the confidence, belief and full backing of the fans.  If that’s not the case then a slight pressure can start to build which is felt not necessarily in the manager’s office but perhaps more tellingly in the boardroom.  The longer we can all pull together, the better for the good of the club as a whole and for the manager’s chances of reviving his sleeping giant.

So it’s important that Leeds do bounce back from this latest setback and – if possible – put together a few results to edge back towards the play-off zone.  This would keep the pot of supporter positivity and optimism bubbling away nicely as well as regaining the momentum of a season that had been jogging along nicely.  Optimism and positivity are still very much on the agenda of the knowledgeable fan who knows his or her stuff.  The only two defeats have been narrow affairs, against teams that were in the top-flight last year – and both results could so easily have been different.  Rudy Austin’s piledriver would have earned a point against QPR and Pearce’s horrible miss should instead have secured a tasty victory for Brian at former club Reading.  Admittedly, “what-ifs” butter no parsnips, but they DO serve to show that the team is not getting played off the park, even by the pedigree end of the division.  At this stage of the season that’s no idle claim, and we can still be optimistic and feel that the future looks bright.

Saturday’s game at home to Burnley is a chance to re-launch the good ship Leeds on its voyage towards what we all hope and think could be a place in the end of season play-offs.  Three points are eminently achievable against the Lancastrians, despite their own decent form and comfortable win over Birmingham on Tuesday.  It will be interesting also to see if Noel Hunt can maintain his steady improvement; a goal from him could be just the kick-start he needs not only for his own sake, but also for the team as a whole. Elland Road on Saturday could just be his stage and, if that proves to be the case, the charge towards the top could be back on again.

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