Tag Archives: transfers

Will Marcus Antonsson, Leeds’ New Scandinavian, Be a Bakke? Or a Brolin?   –   by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 30/06/2016 | 2 comments


Scandinavia is quite a productive marketplace for players of reasonable quality at competitive prices and, as such, it is a market that Leeds United has dipped into from time to time, usually with a fair degree of success. The Yorkshire Evening Post has marked the occasion of United’s acquisition of their latest “Skandy” import, Marcus Antonsson, by running a poll to see which of seven predecessors should be regarded as best value. Eirik Bakke is looking a strong favourite at the moment, with the prematurely tubby Tomas Brolin predictably trailing in a poor seventh and last place.

In between those two extremes are several others of whom Leeds fans will have more or less fond memories. Alf Inge Haaland, by common consent, served United well in the three years leading up to the Millennium. He was an effective midfielder with a knack for popping up with useful goals here and there – and he seemed to “get” Leeds United in a way that certain players do, establishing thereby a distinct rapport with the Elland Road crowd. His role in the self-inflicted injury of Roy Keane, who comically did a cruciate in a vain attempt to foul Alf, is still talked of today in tones of distinct approval. The only real blot on Alfi’s copybook was a belter of a goal he scored at the Gelderd End – sadly, for Man City on his first return after leaving United.

Among others, Kasper Schmeichel did OK in goal for Leeds, managing to some extent to live down the unfortunate fact of his parentage. Leeds fans still ask why, oh why was he transferred – but Kasper’s determination to run his United contract down made selling him for a million a real no-brainer. Gunnar Halle is fondly remembered for his attitude and commitment, and Casper Sloth is still awaiting the verdict of a jury that has been out for virtually his whole time at Leeds so far.

The Tomas Brolin era at Elland Road started with high expectations – but it was all downhill from there. With his one real bright spot being a fine performance in a Christmas Eve 3-1 tonking of manchester united, when he set up the killer goal for Brian Deane, some remember him even better for a comedy moment at Selhirst Park. Playing for Crystal Palace against United, he sustained a head injury and had to go off to be bandaged. During his absence, Leeds scored and Brolin copped some good-humoured but intense stick when he reappeared, his head swathed in about half a mile of white medical dressing, like some sort of fabric motorcycle helmet. Sadly for the unfortunate Tomas, this head-dress almost literally exploded when the ball struck him fair and square in the skull, leading to a peak of hilarity among the away support. He may not have been revered at Elland Road, but for that comedy moment as well as his part in the humbling of the Pride of Devon, he is unlikely to be soon forgotten.

EIRIK BAKKE LEEDS UNITED 1999/2000

So, we welcome our latest Scandinavian recruit – and we must simply hope that he turns out to be more Bakke than Brolin. The advance publicity is promising, with the additional plus point that this appears to be a Garry Monk signing, not another of Cellino’s cock-ups. Antonsson was in demand elsewhere and has an impressive recent CV, after a prolific spell of late. All Leeds fans will wish him well, with the earnest hope that he will be followed into the LS11 area by other signings of equal or even greater quality.

Welcome Marcus – you’ve joined what is still a great club. All the best in helping restore us to our rightful elite position in the game.

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Leeds Utd Needs More Than Just Major Investment for Success – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 12/04/2016 | 11 comments

doing a leeds

As Leeds United head for Birmingham tonight, for what we all hope and trust is another meaningless game in our “beautiful” Championship season, the thoughts of many will be directed towards what is needed in order to avoid a repeat next season of what has been, in reality, another pallid and frustrating bore-fest for Whites fans. Most will rightly focus on player recruitment, and that will certainly be a challenge that Leeds must meet head-on. But it’s also fair to say that there’s much more to put right before we can realistically hope for on-field success.

With relegation to League One now increasingly unlikely and the play-offs a distant dream, it’s probably time for the seasonal post-mortem to begin. Any assessment of what went wrong must surely encompass yet another early-season sacking for the “head coach”, throwing away any strategic plan which may have emerged from the vital pre-season training period. So, yet again, there was a new man in charge before the campaign had even begun to take shape; a new coach, unfamiliar with his charges – who were not, in any event, his own choices. On top of the unwisely optimistic close season predictions about how much we were all going to enjoy 2015-16, such early disruption cannot have been helpful to the playing and coaching staff as they set about competing with better-prepared clubs.

The problem now is that there is most likely going to be further such disruption in the near future. Rumours of Steve Evans‘ imminent dismissal refuse to go away – and, sad to say, many Leeds fans are champing at the bit for this to happen. The United fans can be a funny lot. They can frequently be heard moaning about a manager who is deemed to have failed in the short term, and too many of these fans – especially the vociferous Twitter lot – seem to have bought into an increasingly crazy hire-and-fire policy. Yet the perceived wisdom relating to football management emphasises the acute need for continuity and stability at a club hoping to be successful. And, the more you think about this, the more it makes sense.

Any club that establishes itself as favouring a managerial revolving-door policy is, historically, a lot less likely to succeed than one which is prepared to be patient. The patient club will have players who know what they’re working with and who will, therefore, be more likely to knuckle down and accept the training and tactical regimen they’re presented with. But a club like Leeds, where managers frequently last for a shorter period than a sunny spell in Manchester, really has to expect a different frame of mind among its playing staff. The players will be thinking, or perhaps subconsciously feeling, “This guy won’t last any longer than the others. Why bust our balls for him? Let’s just tick over and pick up the salary cheques“. It doesn’t take too much of this kind of attitude, in a game where the margins between success and failure are tighter than ever, to effectively hamstring the whole operation. Lo and behold, you have an under-achieving club. This is the Leeds United we have been following for the past several years.

At some point, under some or other ownership, Leeds are going to have to identify their man, and then stick with him unless truly dire circumstances dictate otherwise. And the players are going to have to be left in no doubt that this is the case, in order to encourage a more professional approach in a more stable and secure atmosphere. Fans’ criticism of the manager should not be heeded if at all possible. As fans, we are simply not well enough informed, not knowledgeable enough about the goings-on behind the scenes, to call it correctly in the matter of whether or not a manager’s course is run. We’ve had so many managers in the past few seasons. Are they really all failures? Look at the job Neil Warnock is doing now at Rotherham. And, apparently, Evans himself is in demand among rival Championship clubs, in the event of him being kicked out of Leeds. Are his suitors wrong? How much longer can we at Leeds continue with such a very volatile policy? The definition of insanity is “To keep doing the same thing and expect different results“.

Our club will certainly not be able to mount a promotion challenge on a shoestring budget. One of the things that United are going to have to embrace is the need to speculate, in order to accumulate. This will be particularly applicable next season when, besides the challenge presented by the usual suspects in this league, we’re going to have to compete with (in all likelihood) Newcastle and Sunderland as well as the already doomed Aston Villa. These are all massive, well-resourced and well-supported clubs, with an enormous advantage afforded to them by Premier League parachute payments. Add in the likes of Sheffield Wednesday, Derby County and even Nottingham Forest – and next season’s dog-eat dog-fight will be even more rabidly competitive than usual. The prize, though, is truly massive. Whoever goes up this season or next will be transported into a whole different class of financial support. The Sky, quite literally, will be the limit – and clubs like Leeds are equipped to derive the maximum benefit.

Leeds United, after so long in the doldrums, must at the very least be competitive next season. We have to be involved, and at the right end of the league. Fan apathy and in-fighting are already dominant features of a once fiercely United support; these are symptoms of terminal decay. No matter how big the football giant, no matter how glorious the golden history, no club can survive as a force in the game with the sort of inertia Leeds have settled for over the past few seasons. So it’s imperative that United make the kind of policy decision they took under Leslie Silver‘s stewardship 27 years ago in the summer of 1989. Manager Howard Wilkinson laid it on the line as to what was needed – and the board under Silver, to their eternal credit, drew a deep collective breath and went for it, in a big way. But they were also prepared to put their trust in their manager, and stick with him, deferring to the professional football man in matters relating to football and footballers. The rewards Leeds reaped from this enlightened and far-sighted policy are now a matter of history and of treasured memories for so many of us who go back that far.

Life, Leeds United, the Universe & Everything calls upon Leeds United to make the necessary investment (net investment, not merely the partial reinvestment of proceeds accruing from the sale of youth policy diamonds). That will provide the tools to at least tackle the job. But, before a penny is spent, the club has to commit itself to a division of responsibility between football and company matters; they have to appoint and stick with a skillful CEO to lessen the damaging public impact of more maverick forces within the club; above all they have to commit to a manager, or head coach, or whatever label you might wish to stick on the guy – and they have to trust and put their faith in him. He must not be sniped at, he must not be publicly undermined, he must not have his hands tied in matters of player recruitment, team selection or any other area that is properly the province of a football manager in this country.

It will also be vital for the infrastructure of the club to be overhauled and restored to a “fit for purpose” status. Horror stories are emerging from the Industrial Tribunal currently proceeding, which is looking into the circumstances surrounding the departure from the club of Lucy Ward. Wherever your sympathies might reside in that matter, some of the details emerging must be seen as deeply, deeply worrying. Sickness among junior players and staff following the sacking of club cleaners. The training complex consequently shut down for deep cleaning, sundry other staff including security staff dismissed, their functions shared out among other employees whose own responsibilities already fully occupied them. If even half of this is true, it all points to the need for a broken club to be mended, and pronto.

There’s so little time and opportunity in the world of professional football to do anything other than try like crazy to keep going, keep fighting, keep your head above the water. Leeds United has been failing in these respects for far too long, and it’s been tragic to behold for anyone who has the club at heart – anyone who truly loves everything about Elland Road and those white shirts. It’s heartbreaking, really – and the pain is compounded by the amount of wrangling among people of different views regarding some aspects of the club – though they all love Leeds United. That in-fighting in itself is a bad sign, a symptom of the sickness at the heart of the club. And it’s for the club now to sort itself out, to put itself in a position where it can once more be proud and competitive. And this has to be done now, while there is still time.

Because, however much and deeply thousands upon thousands of people undoubtedly care about United – another season or two like this one, and there may not be much left to care about.

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Why Spend on Players, If You Can Buy Fans So Cheaply? – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 23/02/2016 | 12 comments
Cellino Out2

Cellino – determined to be popular – and ready to pay?

A fair-to-middling Championship player these days is going to set you back somewhere around £15,000 a week in wages. That estimate may even be on the conservative side (by that, I don’t mean a blatant lie, I mean somewhat under the actual level in reality). So, using extremely round and over-cautious figures, you’re probably looking at around 60 grand a month – just in wages.

And the thing is – a player can so easily let you down, by “not fitting in”, or “failing to adjust”. They’re delicate wee souls, these footballers. Expensive as they undeniably are, both upfront and in oncosts, they are by no means reliable. You can easily end up looking a mug, in committing to an upfront million or two, plus three-quarters of a million annually in wages – only for the player concerned to make zero impact on the first team, yet still go laughing all the way to the bank. Or limping, in the case of Chris Wood. There are a number of names for this syndrome, depending on the identity of the club it affects – here at Leeds United, we might choose from Botaka, Sloth or Wootton, perhaps. Any way you look at it, buying players is a deuced risky business, with a lot of money staked against potentially negligible return. If only there was a way of reversing that equation – paying peanuts and yet ending up looking quite good out of the deal. If only.

Leeds United‘s loco owner Massimo Cellino may, according to some reports today, have at least hoped he’d found such a reverse alternative. The gist of the report – which must be taken with extreme caution and a large bar of salt, due to its Daily Mail origins – is that Signor Cellino has hit on the novel wheeze of countering the well-deserved criticism he’s copped on social media by paying some clued-up I.T. type to unleash waves of optimism and positivity on the likes of Facebook. It’s even been suggested that a dedicated Facebook group, named Massimo Is God, or Cellino for Sainthood, or some such, has been set up with the express purpose of singing online hymns of praise to il Duce.

The person concerned, one Scott Gutteridge, has alleged that he was paid somewhere around £500 per month to spin this worldwide web of deceit – something he initially did in good faith to “exert a positive influence”, before belatedly realising that it was all “nothing more than propaganda with the wrongdoings being covered up by the club using the Facebook group to counter arguments”. Leeds United, Mr Gutteridge now concludes, is “a club rotten to the core”. One assumes that, if he ever was on the club payroll, he is now decidedly off it. Massimo might even feel that he’s a right to his money back.

The thing is, people really can be swayed by the incessant outpourings of certain vocal users of social media. That being the case, a nominal £500 a month might be seen as value for a man such as Cellino – who must occasionally think that the world is against him – in terms of the good press it can buy in relatively unregulated areas such as Facebook groups and so forth. Leeds fans are one of football’s larger and more active constituencies on the Internet. An attempt at transforming that healthy constituency into some latterday rotten borough could just reap more bounteous rewards than risky plunges into the transfer market. If you can get away with it, that is.

Let’s face it – at these rates, that sixty grand a month wage bill for Championship player Joe Average could get you somewhere around 120 bought and paid for propagandist/fan type people, all willing to spin away like little dervishes each month, in the interests of making Cellino seem palatable. What price these people put on their souls, if all this has any truth to it, is a matter for them. As a fairly vocal presence on the Interweb myself, my message to Cellino would be: you simply couldn’t afford me, my friend. Not that he’s ever asked, you understand.

Leeds United, as you might expect, has denied that there’s any truth in this story. The Daily Mail, for their part, insists it’s true – you might expect that, too, and with at least an equal measure of cynicism. Mr Gutteridge himself appears to be in the process of being taken to task on the matter in at least one highly respectable Leeds United Facebook group, but his responses are invisible to me for some reason. This means I’ve not been able to access any of his presumably pro-Cellino outpourings. Perhaps some of you, gentle readers, may have more luck.

Whatever the truth of the matter, the tragedy of it all is that you really can’t dismiss it out of hand. Despite the sensational unlikelihood of the allegations themselves, despite the fact that the story originates in the notoriously mendacious Daily Mail – despite all of that, you look at the claims and you think (a) Well, really – you just couldn’t make it up; and (b) Hang on, this is Cellino’s Leeds United. It could easily be true.

Let’s face it, you wouldn’t ever believe it of an Arsenal, or a Liverpool, or even, God help us, a Man U. But it’s Leeds United we’re talking about here, the Damned United, under that crazy, unscrupulous and fraudulent King of Corn. So, sadly, you can’t just laugh it off. The biggest tragedy of all here is that – whether the alleged payment concerned is £500 a month or even a lump sum of sixty pieces of silver – it really could all so easily be true.

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Leeds Fans’ Cellino Out Campaign Gathering Momentum – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 11/02/2016 | 21 comments
Cellino Out2

Cellino – what is he up to?

Mounting unrest among the unblinkered majority of the Leeds United support is seeing the pressure grow on maverick owner Massimo Cellino to pack up and ship out. After talk of an aeroplane fly-past during the Nottingham Forest home game, the object being to trail a suitably discouraging message to the Cellino regime across the sky, the more mundane method of posters on lamp-post billboards outside Elland Road has garnered media attention in the last 24 hours. For this, all possible credit is due to the people at WACCOE.com, a site I’ve had issues with over the past couple of years – but they’ve undeniably played a blinder here. Given Liverpool fans’ recent success in bringing their owners to heel, someone had to take up the baton for Leeds – nice one, WACCOE. It’s an unerring shot that has hit its mark, alright – when local reporter Adam Pope contacted the beleaguered Italian, who is still under the threat of Football League sanctions, to put him on the spot over the poster’s “Time to go” message, Cellino’s texted reply was “I agree !!!!”

cellino-poster

Message from WACCOE for Mr. Cellino

It would be easy and yet probably incautious to read into all of this that the Cellino Out movement is heading towards a successful endgame. It should, after all, be remembered – especially in the context of the owner’s surprisingly frank text to Mr. Pope – that the old maxim of “believe nothing until it has been officially denied” has particular relevance where the King of Corn is concerned. What he says and what he does tend to be wildly differing matters, and predicting his behaviour from one day to the next could lead the most canny gambler to ruin in short order. But the increasing visibility of the fans’ discontent, the fact that Steve Parkin has recently realised over £10m worth of assets into cash – and the whole mood around the club after yet another dreadful anti-climax of a transfer window, with the additional important factor of dreadful performances on the pitch – all of these factors combine towards a growing feeling that the wind of change is blowing in sharp gusts in the LS11 locality.

The next few weeks could see matters clarify themselves somewhat, both on and off the park. There is still talk that the quality of the squad might be improved via the loan market – a possibility which may not be totally unrelated to Mr. Parkin’s newly-enhanced liquidity – and, unusually for Leeds, the club is still in the FA Cup at the 5th round stage, giving some temporary meaning to an otherwise moribund season. With a high profile home match against promotion contenders Middlesbrough to come, live on Sky TV after a last-minute rearrangement which represents many fans’ only area of agreement with an angry Cellino, it could be that events on the field will either add to or detract from the intensity of the pressure being experienced by il Duce at the moment, and possibly in a decisive manner. The cruel reality is that success for United in Cup or League over the next month or so could come at the price of a bounceback factor for a man most of us would rather see bounce away. On the other hand, the bitter pills of a cup exit and continued poor form in the league could come with a sweetener in the shape of self-imposed exile for football’s nuttiest owner. 

It’s a sad indictment of the nature of Cellino’s reign that circumstantial evidence is usually a better guide to his intentions than the word of the man himself. For all practical purposes, we can dismiss his probably tongue-in-cheek text to Adam Pope as yet another example of his casual attitude towards communication with the fans – and the truth in general. But other signs would seem to indicate that dark clouds are gathering for a storm which may yet blow Massimo, his family and his notorious yacht Nélie back over the sea to Florida and away from football to a quieter, less notorious life.

That, ultimately, would be the best result for all concerned.

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Cellino Deserves to be Judged on This Transfer Window – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 18/01/2016 | 17 comments

MASSIMO-CELLINO

Sheriff Cellino – drinking in the Last Chance Saloon

Life, Leeds United, the Universe & Everything initially supported the tenure of Massimo Cellino, despite understandable reservations arising out of his track record at Cagliari. But he’d straighten up and drive right now he was in charge of a Porsche instead of a Fiat 500, we assured ourselves. Surely his very purchase of a sleeping giant like Leeds United was evidence of a burning ambition that would be realised through his evident wealth. And, after all, he was going to buy the ground and other assets back, pronto. It was all good. Or so we thought.

Bitter experience has been a harsh teacher in the months that have passed since those early, optimistic days. Far from straightening up, the Italian has become ever more twisted and bent with each passing court case and every glib lie. He’s presided over a revolving-door policy on coaches, recruiting a succession of nobodies and then blaming them for inevitable failure. He’s declined to invest in the squad as a club the size and reputation of Leeds demands. For every half-decent buy, there’s been two or three real lemons – and the drip, drip sale of talent has been maintained. The re-purchase of Elland Road has not happened, and there is little if any sign that it will. Cellino has been, to put it kindly, a big fat disappointment of almost Tomas Brolin proportions. He’s single-handedly made of Leeds United a laughing-stock to rival the David Moyes tenure at man u.

Now, more by the law of averages than good judgement, we seem to have a manager who shows signs of being able to produce winning football in the (admittedly unlikely) event of being left to get on with the job. Steve Evans has made it abundantly clear that the squad needs an influx of quality, and that fact is self-evident to any even half-knowledgeable fan. Evans’ impact on the club has been considerable, given the circumstances he’s had to put up with. There is a noticeable improvement in match-day performances, despite the odd dreadful blip. Even in unfortunate defeat at Hillsborough on Saturday, Leeds were far from outclassed or outplayed. There is good cause for some hope that our current manager can succeed where so many have failed.

So far this window, Liam Bridcutt‘s loan has been extended, and there has been a loan move too for Mustapha Carayol from Middlesbrough. Both have acquitted themselves well, and this is evidence that Evans’ judgement of a player has not been found wanting. We’ve lost Sam Byram to Everton, a tragic event that can be traced back to Cellino’s pig-headed contract renegotiation tactics. Leeds are now at the crossroads of the season, maybe even last-chance saloon in terms of the prospects of this campaign being anything other than yet another dull anti-climax. Cellino has to act positively now, back his manager, invest in quality and trust to a proper football man to do a job when given the tools.

There is still time – not much, but some – for Cellino to reinvent himself as an owner with the interests of what is still a major club at heart. But the clock is ticking. If this month expires to the accompaniment of that old refrain (we’re happy to see what the loan market has to offer…), then many, not least this blog, will take that as a final confirmation that il Presidente is a chancer, a fly-by-night con-man who is leading Leeds United up the garden path to nowhere. If it turns out that, yet again, the supporters’ expectations are being crudely managed with honeyed words and cynically empty promises, Cellino will be exposed once and for all as a fraud in the football world just as in the courts of his native Italy. If he blows this chance, he should not – surely – be granted another.

Put your hands in your pockets, Massimo, and dig deep. Silence those of us who are convinced you’re a waster, if you can. Act now, or pack up and ship out. Leeds United expects. You’ve let us down time after time. Now, you have to stand up and be counted – or it will be the end of the road for you. Tick tock, Signor Cellino.

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Happy Birthday to the Last English Champion – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 13/11/2015 | 14 comments
Howard Wilkochamperscap-300x193

Sgt Wilko – Champion

Another Leeds United birthday to mark with an appropriate tribute for all the man did for our great club. This time it’s someone who is a contemporary of those 70-somethings who have celebrated recently – the likes of Paul Madeley, Norman Hunter, Paul Reaney and Johnny Giles – but who was never, by his own acknowledgement, anything more than mediocre as a player himself. In the managerial arena though, Howard Wilkinson – 72 years old today – has outstripped virtually all of the Revie greats, winning the last ever Football League Championship, going down in history as the last Englishman to win the league in the 20th Century and masterminding the second incarnation of a winning Leeds team from a starting point remarkably similar to that which Don Revie inherited in the early sixties.

Wilko’s career after his playing days ended was an upward graph of coaching success from humble beginnings, but he went on to have two stints as caretaker-manager of England, as well as spells with Sunderland, Sheffield Wednesday and Notts County. It is for his time at Leeds United, though, that he will be remembered as a football manager who walked into what had become a poisoned chalice of a job, a club with a revolving door on the manager’s office and one which had signally failed to recapture the magic of its one great period at the top of the game. Wilkinson came in with the air of a man who was going to put a stop to all the nonsense and set matters straight. Let the record show that he succeeded, beyond the wildest dreams of any Leeds fan at the time he was appointed.

In TV interviews at that time, he could be seen by the side of chairman Leslie Silver, regarding his coffee cup with little enthusiasm and mildly joking that he hoped we’d be able to afford better crockery when he got us winning. Leeds were treading deep water at the bottom end of the old Second Division, and had been looking more likely to proceed downwards from that point than up; a situation uncannily similar to the one Don Revie found in 1961. Both men would be able to count on the bounteous fruits of a productive academy, though Revie felt able to blood his precocious youths somewhat earlier than Wilko could in his reign. But where Don found his Bobby Collins, so Howard was able to persuade Gordon Strachan to step down a league and be the catalyst for a revival that may not have been as enduring as Revie’s, but was arguably even more meteoric and spectacular.

Wilko joined for the still fairly new 1988-89 season, and spent the rest of that campaign overhauling discipline at the club and bringing about his own type of working environment. The graph spiked upwards from there. In his first full season, with a batch of good, solid recruits added – and after an uncertain start – Leeds went top of the league and hardly faltered until promotion and the Championship were clinched on a sunny day in Bournemouth. A season of high achievement followed as Leeds swiftly found their feet back in the top flight after an eight year absence. United did far more than consolidate, battling away at the top end to finish an eminently respectable fourth, as well as reaching two domestic semi-finals. The following season was the last of the old-style Football League, and Wilko’s Leeds achieved immortality by winning the Title by four clear points to become the Last Champions. Less than four years after joining a club going nowhere but downhill, Howard Wilkinson had restored Leeds United to the very pinnacle of the game. It had taken Don Revie twice as long to win his first League Title.

While all this had been going on, Howard and his staff had been overseeing the development of an Academy setup which would go on to produce many stars towards the end of the century; many players who are still flourishing at the top level had their start in what was rightly famed as a world-class breeding ground for football talent.

One of the main regrets of the Wilkinson era at Leeds is that he did not survive long enough in the job to introduce these home-grown prodigies into the first team himself. But Wilko’s later years at Leeds coincided with boardroom uncertainty and financial mismanagement, both of which had their effect on sales and recruitment policy. So, we lost a Speed here and a Batty there and the likes of Carlton Palmer and Nigel Worthington came in; the club was reduced to offering pre-retirement homes to such as Ian Rush and David O’Leary. O’Leary it was, after a George Graham interregnum, who gained the most from Wilkinson’s enlightened youth development programme. Looking back, it’s clear that things could have worked out differently – quite probably the seeds of our 21st Century disaster were sown in Wilko’s 1996 sacking.

Howard Wilkinson stands alone behind Don Revie as Leeds United’s second-greatest manager, and probably as one of the more wronged men to have lost his job when so much of it had already been done to ensure the club’s own crop of major stars. As before, Leeds lacked the courage and patience to see it through; but these things are always clearer with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight.

Happy Birthday, Sergeant Wilko – you’ll always be remembered fondly at Elland Road, and your place in the history of English football is secure.

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Leeds United “Reach Agreement” With Sunderland for Winger Buckley   –   by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 30/07/2015 | 16 comments

  
Sources close to both clubs are indicating that Leeds United and Sunderland have agreed a deal for the transfer of former Brighton winger Will Buckley to Elland Road. If true, the signing would represent success for United Head Coach Uwe Rosler, who has made no secret of the fact that he has considered his squad short of vital width. 

The talk is that this transfer is at an advanced stage, with the deal being agreed between the clubs, leaving it down to United to sort out personal terms with Buckley. 

There may well be an update on this story in the next couple of days and possibly as early as tomorrow. 

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Byram Is a Realisable Asset, NOT a Leeds United Necessity – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 27/07/2015 | 75 comments
Boy Wonder Byram

Boy Wonder Byram

Everywhere you look within the Leeds United blogosphere at the moment, people are gnashing their teeth, tearing their hair, rending their clothes and exhibiting other biblical signs of anguish and angst – and all over one slip of a lad. Sam Byram was an unknown to 99% of the support three short years ago. Then he had a dream pre-season, started off the Championship campaign in the first team – and stayed there, producing displays of a maturity and confidence far in excess of his tender years.

Naturally, being Leeds, this seeming success story is a double-edged sword. The presence of a boy wonder in the first team (otherwise known in LS11 as “the shop window”) more usually produces feelings of rampant insecurity among the Leeds faithful, rather than the warm glow that should accompany the sight of a youthful prodigy in the famous white shirt. We know our place in today’s scheme of things, and it is very much that of “feeder club”. Each successive hero has played his way into our hearts, prospered briefly in front of our adoring eyes and then departed for pastures greener, or more likely Canary yellow, with no sign of any adequate replacement.

It’s happened with Beckford, Howson, Snoddy, Becchio and Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all.  Local hero status is no protection from the Lure of Elsewhere. Howson supposedly had Leeds tattooed on his heart, but it seems to have been erased easily enough, and our last sight of him was as he wheeled away after scoring a winner against us. Byram could so easliy have followed the well-trodden path out of Elland Road a year ago; Southampton, awash with Liverpudlian money from their fire sale of last summer, were rebuffed after an offer of £4.5 million or so for Byram – but there are now rumours that more serious suitors might be willing almost to double that sum.

Sam is quite possibly the jewel in the crown of the Leeds Academy production line. Despite an injury-affected and form-blighted last year or so, he really is that good. It’s natural then that worries over his short-term future should be particularly unwelcome at a time when a maverick owner and the latest in a long and dismal line of “head coaches” are supposed to be building for the club’s eventual re-admission to the Promised Land of the Premier League. But really – should we be worrying at all?

We need to take a long, hard look at what is necessary to get us out of this division in the desired, upwards, direction. That list will include strikers who know where the goal is (Chris Wood?) and are proficient at sticking the ball therein; midfielders and wingers – all very much according to the prescription of our former gaffer Dr. McDermott, who had seen this treatment work wonders at Reading. We also need tough, all-action ball winners who are preferably not in the superannuated class (Tom Adeyemi??), and a solid defence who will be mean enough at the back to make sure that increased productivity up front results in a net force taking us a lot higher up the league.  What we probably don’t actually need, and won’t until it’s time to start plotting our approach to the top flight, is a potentially world-class performer on the right flank. It’s superfluous to our current requirements; we’re casting pearls before swine.

It would be OK, of course, if Sam did stick around.  It might even be better for the lad himself – too many fledgling superstars have gone up a level and struggled to stay afloat, look how Fabian Delph initially struggled at Villa.  He’s only now beginning to look the player that seemed likely to be evolving under the guidance of Gary McAllister – and he may be about to disappear into the black hole that is the fringes of City’s 1st team squad.  Byram might well benefit from another season at least of learning his trade at Leeds, or so the conventional wisdom goes. 

Looking at things realistically though – if there WAS an offer of £8 million for the youthful and richly promising Sam, and if that £8 million were to be made (don’t laugh, now) available for the construction of a team that would challenge strongly this season – might not that be a good option for Leeds? It’s the kind of money that, as was said about the fortune we mugged Fulham out of for McCormack, could easily fund the four or five quality additions that we realistically need to propel us into the very top echelons of the Championship. Whether such investment would actually be made is, of course, another matter entirely – but that still doesn’t make the case for hanging onto a valuable, possibly wantaway player. Once promoted, it’s a different ball game, but in the here and now the priority is actually getting there, and a lavishly-gifted Byram in a team consisting otherwise largely of uninspiring plodders doesn’t look like being enough to realise the dream.

A lot will depend on the attitude of the lad himself, and historically no sentimental feelings of attachment to the club that has nurtured their talent have persuaded previous uncut diamonds to hang around and be polished at Elland Road. So if Sam wanted to go to a Premier League club, would we, could we, should we, stand in his way?  My view is that you don’t sacrifice a lad’s ambition and desire to mix it with the best, on the altar of narrow club interests – such a policy is liable to blow up in your face, leaving you with a disaffected and depreciating asset on your hands. No, if Byram does want out – especially as his current deal is fast running down – we’re better off gritting our teeth, securing the very best deal for Leeds United – don’t forget that sell-on clause, Massimo! – and getting on with reinvesting the loot in a team that will do the job at this level. We can leave worries about how we cope in the Premier League for such time as it becomes a live issue, rather than the distant prospect it is right now.

We need to cast off that “Feeder club” image as the mortally humiliating insult it is. We Are Leeds, after all. But in order for that to happen, we may need to embrace the unwelcome label in the shorter term, and speculate to accumulate. And at least these days we seem of a mind to drive a very hard bargain, unlike previous years when the attitude has been disgustingly meek and humble as we accepted pittances for valued assets. If the departure of Sam were to provide the funds to finish the job, then that sad loss will turn out to have been a worthy sacrifice.

The ugly truth of the matter is that a stubborn desire to keep a luxury we can’t afford, and frankly don’t really need in our current situation, could turn out to be the ultimate example of short-termism, to the detriment of our longer-term prospects of life at the top.

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No Leeds United Welcome for UK Returnee Harry “Judas” Kewell – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 25/07/2015 | 68 comments
Leeds fans United in grief and dignity

Leeds fans United in grief and dignity

Alan Smith. Eric Cantona. Rio Ferdinand. Three Leeds United players who opted to transfer their allegiance to the Evil Empire over the wrong side of the Pennines. In so doing, they attracted hatred and brickbats aplenty from Leeds followers. After all, they’d gone to the club we despise above almost any other, certainly as far as anything these islands can provide. So too, much earlier, had Joe Jordan and Gordon McQueen, along with the less-well remembered examples of Arthur Graham and Peter Barnes in the relatively small collective of former Leeds players who have identified themselves with the Pride of Devon and their repellent supporters. These individuals, heroes to Leeds fans at one time or another, were held individually and as a category to be traitors to the real United, of Elland Road. Figuratively speaking, as well as almost literally, they had sold their souls to the Devil.

But really, all that “treachery” stuff, as applied to a small group of misguided men is just so much nonsense. In some cases, it’s even an injustice – Alan Smith, for example, made his move against a background of a Leeds United desperate for money (does this sound familiar?) He even waived his own cut of the deal so that his former club could derive the maximum financial benefit. If that’s treachery, then Steve McClaren is a Dutchman.

For real treachery – allied to on-going bad taste and a degree of insensitivity that makes expenses cheat Maria Miller look like Mother Teresa – let me commend you to Harry Kewell Esq, formerly of this parish. Kewell, wearing the number 10 shirt, was one of the Leeds United side that emerged into a cauldron of seething hatred as the stricken Whites were forced to play the first leg of a UEFA Cup semi-final against Galatasaray mere hours after the savage murder of two of their supporters. The home side refused to wear black armbands, demonstrating utter and callous disrespect. They would later demand that the second leg should be played at a neutral venue, should their disgusting fans be banned from an Elland Road return.

The players of Leeds United looked up to the crowd that night and saw snarling faces, disfigured by feverish hatred, fingers drawn across necks in the time-disgraced but locally admired “throat-slitting” gesture, the whole nightmare scene played out against a backdrop of “Welcome to Hell” banners as the bestial home fans taunted the United support, who simply turned their back on proceedings at kick-off in what must count as the most dignified display of protest in recent history.

Kewell cannot possibly have failed to absorb that evil miasma of hate and malice. He cannot have failed to appreciate the intentional hurt inflicted by the Galatasaray club – and especially their cowardly fans – to the feelings of everybody concerned with the Leeds United cause, especially of course the bereaved families of Chris Loftus and Kevin Speight. Kewell must, surely, have felt as threatened and disgusted by the atmosphere prior to and during the game as any other United player that night. It was a match that, in the circumstances, should not have been played. Not that night, not so soon after those lads’ life-blood had been spilled. Perhaps never. Only the buffoons of UEFA could have made such a ridiculous decision as to rule the game should go ahead. It was an infamous night in the history of football.

If, on that night, you had predicted that any United player would, at some point in the future, willingly embrace that atmosphere, happily align himself with such a notoriously uncivilised set of “supporters” – you could have offered odds of ten thousand to one, and no takers. You’d have been laughed out of court, possibly with a few bumps and bruises for your own bad taste and lack of judgement. And yet, a few short years afterwards, Harry Kewell – “Mr. Anywhere-For-A-Fat-Contract” himself – elected to join that awful club and play for those despicable fans. It was an act of calculated disrespect to the victims, their families, their friends, the wider Leeds United community and decent football fans everywhere. It was base treachery in the raw; the act of a man who cannot see beyond his own narrow interests and who, frankly, could not give a damn.

At the time, he spouted a few mealy-mouthed platitudes about wishing to reconcile two sets of fans divided by tragedy. Yeah, OK Harry. Nothing to do with money after all, then? He could not have more effectively alienated Leeds fans everywhere if he had sat down and thought about how to do so for a year. It was an act of a vain and stupid young man whose God-given talent had set him up financially for life, but whose poverty of taste, sensitivity and loyalty would make the poorest beggar in the street look rich. Any player who had ever been connected with Leeds United should have realised that such a move was the ultimate in terrible ideas. It’s not something that should have needed explaining, not even to the meanest intellect or the most self-involved and vacant young man.

Now, fifteen years after the murders in Taksim Square, and with his football career at an end, Kewell is once more involved in English football, for the first time since a dilatory and uncommitted stint at Liverpool, as a member of the Watford FC coaching staff. Leeds fans will not welcome his return; for us, his copybook is blotted beyond any hope of redemption. Kewell put himself beyond the pale by the manner of his leaving Elland Road, when he and his agent held the club to ransom (in stark contrast to the example of Alan Smith, cited above) ensuring his pockets were well-lined, to the detriment of the club that gave him his start. His subsequent betrayal of the soul and spirit of Leeds United, by signing for that tawdry outfit from Istanbul, added gross insult to what was nearly a mortal injury.

Words like “Judas”, “traitor” and “treachery” are bandied about a bit too freely, sometimes. That tends to become obvious only when you see a glaringly obscene example of the real thing – only then does it stand out that some dubious acts thus labelled are actually as water unto wine when it really comes down to it. So forget about those who have crossed the great divide between Elland Road and the Theatre of Hollow Myths – their defections mean nothing at all in the grand scheme of things. We have been amply repaid over the years anyway – luminaries such as Johnny Giles and Gordon Strachan have made the opposite journey and have found glory in all-white. At the end of the day, all of that is just about football – and beside the matter of life, death and justice, football remains very small beer indeed.

Life and death were the issues on that April night so long ago, and events panned out such that two lads, who simply wanted to follow their heroes at a football match, never came home – and have never received real justice. One of them had a son, George, who has had to grow up without his Dad, and who, once upon a time, angrily wanted to point out to a thick-headed footballer the betrayal he believed that footballer was guilty of perpetrating, by his thoughtless act of offering a Galatasaray shirt as a prize in an online competition. George Speight received no apology, no understanding, no acknowledgement from Kewell – just a casual insult and a hollow accusation of racism. There is no greater treachery than that, no baser example of ignorance and poor taste. And now the traitor is back among us once again. It’s very difficult to wish Watford anything but ill-luck and failure, just on this one account. 

Harry Kewell: one-time Leeds star, has-been footballer – and the worst example of self-seeking treachery it’s been my misfortune to witness.

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Count On Leeds United to Knock the Canaries From Their Perch – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 13/04/2015 | 29 comments
The only good Canaries are dead Canaries

The only good Canaries are dead Canaries

If Leeds United‘s topsy-turvy season runs true to form, then tomorrow’s visitors Norwich City might just have a nasty surprise waiting for them at Elland Road. The Whites have already sent a few Championship high-flyers home, pointless and wondering what happened, in a season that has seen them generally under-perform. The challenge of promotion-chasing opponents, though, has frequently brought out the best in United on home soil – as Middlesbrough Ironopolis, Bournemouth and Derby County could readily testify.

Norwich would be a welcome scalp as far as United’s long-suffering fans are concerned. As a club, they’ve behaved towards Leeds in a decidedly uppity fashion over the past few years, taking advantage of a rare spell of league superiority to asset-strip our squad on an unpleasantly regular basis. While it’s true to say that Fulham have acted in much the same way, and more recently too, it’s also true that Leeds had Fulham for mugs over Ross McCormack‘s transfer, which has tended to mollify folks at this end. No such consolation where our backwoods, carrot-crunching friends are concerned; they’ve been really quite rude about openly enjoying raiding us and nicking off with some of our best players – as well as Bradley Johnson.

There was also that nasty little business earlier in the season, when serial victim Cameron Jerome made one of his occasional, ill-grounded racial abuse allegations against United player Giuseppe Bellusci. Jerome’s accusations on this occasion were so lacking in any supporting evidence that a Leeds player actually got off on a charge against him; something that hasn’t happened since before the Grand Canyon was formed. Norwich City, oddly, publicly supported their player despite the total lack of any corroborating evidence – and continued this stance even after the League verdict. Still, justice was done in the end – and Jerome sulked. It will be interesting to see if any lingering grudges are settled one way or the other tomorrow evening.

For Leeds, with Head Coach Neil Redfearn having thrown down the gauntlet to his team following a pallid display against Cardiff, the team’s make up is anyone’s guess. Redders could challenge as near as possible the same XI to redeem themselves, or he could ring the changes. Either way, a Norwich side strengthened by the absence of suspended ex-White Johnson might be expected to have too much for a Leeds side shaken by recent events and lacking both motivation and morale – so it might appear.

Just bear in mind that habit of being party-poopers, though. Against all logic, it would be no great surprise to see Leeds emerge from their gloom and turn the Canaries into so many bones and feathers tomorrow. We’ll keep our fingers crossed at Life, Leeds United, the Universe & Everything Towers – and make an only slightly tongue-in-cheek prediction of 3-1 to Leeds.

Oh – and Steve Morison to score…. FINALLY.

 

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