WALMOT

Last nights results from the Evo-stik play offs:- NL1E FT Pontefract C 1-1 Ossett U Full-time NL1E FT Brighouse Town 3-1 Sheffield Full-time NLP FT Warrington 4-1 Nantwich Full-time NLP FT South Shields 4-2 Buxton Full-time NL1W FT Radcliffe 3-0 Ramsbottom Utd Full-time Pontefract won 3-1 after extra time.

Due to Mansfield playing MK Dons on saturday thie means Bury are up.

Luton and Barnsley promoted after both Portsmouth and Sunderland lost tonight. Bury promoted to League 1 after drawing at Tranmere.

Leeds United striker Patrick Bamford has been charged with "successful deception of a match official" by the Football Association during Sunday's Championship draw with Aston Villa. Bamford went down holding his face after an altercation with Anwar El Ghazi following the home side's controversial opening goal. El Ghazi was sent off but has now had the red card rescinded. Bamford has until 18:00 BST on Wednesday to respond to the charge. An FA statement said: "It is alleged the Leeds United player's behaviour in the 72nd minute of the fixture, which involved committing a clear act of simulation that led to Anwar El Ghazi being dismissed, amounts to improper conduct." If found guilty, the former England Under-21 striker will face a two-match suspension, which would see him miss the final game of the regular season at Ipswich on Sunday and the first leg of Leeds' play-off semi-final tie. In addition, both clubs have been charged with failing to ensure their players conducted themselves in an orderly fashion in the aftermath of Leeds' goal. They have until 18:00 on Friday to respond to their respective charges. No surprise the red card was rescinded and Bamford charged.

From the Guardian's Jonathan Wilson:- How Marcelo Bielsa gave Leeds fans something to be proud of again The Leeds manager, who let Aston Villa score after his team had taken the lead against the spirit of the game, understands what it means to be a representative for your club What is football for? Why do people go, week in and week out, to watch teams that very rarely come close to achieving anything close to their ambitions, and at times can barely be bothered even to trot through the motions? Why do they expend so much emotional energy in entities that at any moment can be taken over by the corrupt or incompetent? What’s the point? Fans anger quickly these days but disillusionment takes much longer to set in. There is far more booing in stadiums than there used to be, and social media gives public vent to the grumbling that was once confined to pubs, which probably inflates it and at times gives it a performative aspect. But attendances are far more stable than they used to be. People keep going. Yet disillusionment had set in at Leeds United. Crowds have fallen from an average of nearly 40,000 in 2001-02, the season after they reached a Champions League semi-final, to under 22,000 in 2015-16. There had been a recent upturn but, still, what has happened this season has been astonishing. Marcelo Bielsa has given Leeds something to believe in again. What happened against Aston Villa on Sunday, when he instructed his side to concede a goal to cancel out one that had been scored against the spirit of the game, will cement his legend. A win would have kept Leeds’s hopes of automatic promotion alive. This was a match that mattered. The gesture had consequences. What if Bielsa had not ordered an equaliser? There would have been condemnation from some quarters, as well as the delicious prospect of John Terry, Villa’s assistant manager, fulminating about fair play, but others might have concluded that the protocols over putting the ball out for an injured opponent are not fit for purpose and that it was only a matter of time before this sort of chaos ensued. Others might have noted how controversy seems to dog poor Stuart Attwell, a referee once fast-tracked to the Premier League but now essentially a character from a 1970s sitcom, beset by implausible misfortune despite his best intentions. But Bielsa preferred not to win in such a way. Perhaps it was not quite such an act of, to use his term, nobility as that of Stan Cullis, in his last game for Wolves before retiring, refusing to bring down Liverpool’s Albert Stubbins when he was clean through on the final day of the 1946-47 season, allowing him to score the goal that ensured Liverpool, and not Wolves, won the title, but it was similarly born of the belief that winning should not be at all costs. Bielsa is stubborn, at times infuriatingly so. What might he have won if he had compromised his relentless style as so many of those who have learned from him have? This season has followed the classic Bielsa arc, the soaring start yielding to a stuttering finish. The stats seem to show Leeds running just as hard now as they did in August but that is not the only measure of fatigue. “It’s a method that provokes a certain level of tiredness,” said Juan Manuel Llop, who played under Bielsa at Newell’s Old Boys in Argentina. “Not just physical tiredness, but also mental and emotional tiredness because the competitive level is so high that it’s difficult to keep up with it after a period of time.” But that stubbornness is precisely why Bielsa is so inspirational. In August, I went to Yorkshire v Worcestershire in the County Championship at Scarborough. On the train there, the talk was not of cricket but of Bielsa. In the stand, a group of 70-odd year olds spoke with rare enthusiasm of Leeds’s start to the season and painstakingly went through their instructions for watching a stream of that evening’s game at Swansea. An experienced cricket writer, a man who oozes Yorkshire cynicism, babbled about being more invested in Leeds than he had ever been. And that was after a month of Bielsa, when all he’d really done of any note had been to have his players pick up litter to demonstrate to them how privileged they were. But even his public utterances, his deadpan double act with his long-suffering translator Salim Lamrani, had been imbued with a sense of integrity. Bielsa isn’t just an eccentric and visionary football manager, he also has a profound moral core, which is why the spying allegations in January provoked him to such a self-excoriatory response. In an environment that so often these days is about nothing more than making as much money in as short a period as possible, Bielsa grasps the notion of a club as representative of a region and its people, of something more than a collection of celebrities generating content to drive social media traffic. He understands support, what it is when a football club is part of your heritage, part of your being. And he understands that in such circumstances, success is only part of what is important. Whatever happens in the play-offs, Leeds fans will never forget this season. They will always have the memories of the time the love came back. Bielsa may not win as often as he should but then what is winning if it is without nobility?

It wasnt a dead rubber as we needed to win to make sure of being 3rd and we need a point at Ipswich to make sure. Attwell is either very good or very bad and today he was very bad as he bought into the villa antics. Not happy with MB if that happens in the play off final at wembley all hell would be let loose.

Really interesting press conference from MB saying the players wont replicate this season again and also how the team have created 300 chances against 200 for Norwich ans Sheffield Utd:- Disappointment on Monday - how have you managed that this week? Hard to pick everyone up? You can feel only one way and we feel this way. Tough to get players back up? They were flat after the game What happened was unavoidable. The way the player feels is normal, if they didn’t feel that way, we would worry about it. Still thinking about top 2 or is the play-offs the focus now? Whatever the reality says. What expecting from Villa? Win give important mental edge? Of course we need to play a game to rebuild our optimism and winning Sunday would be positive in that aspect. Any new injuries? Apart from Roofe and Alioski, all the other players are available. What's wrong with Roofe? He has a problem with his hip and can’t use his maximum speed. How long out for? It think he will be available sooner [than the end of the season]. Bad luck with injuries? As an average we miss four players for each game this season How are you feeling yourself, Marcelo? I already said how I feel in the last press conference. And I don’t think it’s necessary to repeat. How do you lift yourself? Take yourself away from it or anything? I think when you receive a blow, to ignore the consequences is not the right path. Pain has a natural process for disappearing and if you want to force or hide this process, it is meaningless. Supporters want your work to continue here regardless of how the season ends - what would you say to that? It’s not up to me and I don’t have any more response to that. It’s not a decision that we have to take now and it’s not the right time to give my opinion. How confident you can recover your best football? We don’t need to recover this football because we haven’t lost our football. When you lose, you lose. It’s obvious. But we can’t ignore the way these losses happen. When you lose you don’t always have the same message. When you lose at a specific moment it’s not always the same message that comes out. I am going to give you some figures that are not taken into account, but for me have a lot of value. Our team this season has had 300 chances to score. And we had 100 chances more to score than the first and second teams in the table. And we have 14 players who played this whole season. To give you an example, Douglas, Alioski and Davis, our three left-backs of the team, all of them have three knee injuries. So when you take into account this reality, you must have to take into account what the players have done at the right level. If only 14 players have played the whole Championship. If we need six changes to score to score one goal and our rivals need only three., the only feeling I have towards our players is respect and consideration. The game that decided our fate was the game that we lost at home to Wigan. In that game we have 15 chances to score and we have more than 70% of possession. The final result was a decision of God. I know that what I am saying, people will deduce it with irony, sarcastically. No one wants to miss a chance to score and you don’t evaluate teams by the goals they score, but by the chances they create. But of course teams that are efficient make a difference. We were not efficient. But then when you play a competition with a small number of players and also the injuries we have had that are muscular are to do with luck, so we were not helped by destiny in that sense. I am very happy with all that I received from the club and the sporting director but there are things we obviously couldn’t get and I always describe myself as responsible of the situation. I know what I’ve done to find solutions and I didn’t find solutions. So this is the story. But what we can’t say about our team is that they couldn’t assimilate the pressure. Because you don’t asmiluate the pressure only when you don’t use the skills you have. Remember what I say now, as you will be able to verify it. You won’t have one single player in our team that would be able to reproduce the same level of performance in another season, because we have been very demanding with them and they give everything and they have the figures that I am checking all the time that show what I am telling is true. The players won’t be abel to reproduce the levels they have shown in another season. We can say that you can’t support the pressure and undergo the pressure only if you know you say that and you know what the pressure is. If you say in the last X games you lost 5/10 games because you couldn’t handle the pressure it’s not only about the team who wins can stand the pressure. It’s about how you win and lose the game. You mentioned things you couldn't get - transfers? I don;t have any criticism to anyone. Everything that cold be done was done. You know that James was going to come and didn’t come in January. I’m not underlying the importance of the absence of James, I’m underlying that the club struggled to get James. The club did everything, more even, that they could do to find solutions to the needs of the team. But with James or without him we should have finished first or second without any doubt. The game against Wigan illustrated the trend that the team has had all season. We had many games we deserved to win and didn’t win. But the game of Wigan was an example of this. Obviously it was not our destiny to finish 1st or 2nd and we couldn’t explain it. Or maybe we could have an explanation. We need to have twice as many chances to score as our opponents. But you can’t say a team that has 15 chances to score and 75% possession that they didn’t deserve to win. If I was a fan listening to this, I would say that this is not enough of an explanation. It’s not enough to heal the dissolution. Our state of mind is not linked to a personal matter, the personal pride of reaching something. But it’s just because we were not able to give a response to the hope of the fans. Those who are in the world of football give us possibility that the vast majority of people don’t have no matter what they do. It’s the possibility of producing happiness and hope. Football is a proportionate element. And someone who listens to this press conference will say this man is talking about a big loss like he is talking about a big loss that you couldn’t heal. The fact we’ve not finished first or second is not something you can’t change and we feel that. And the fans more than us. SO you can’t hide the fact that people suffer because of this. When I say what I’m saying I always think how people will evaluate what I’m saying. And people feel indignation because I feel like that. They have more important issues than this. Football is like that. I make comments on football and I also look at what life is, that’s why what I say is strange. What are your options at left-back? Dallas. How well are Aston Villa playing at the moment? It’s a team with an offensive skills that are different to other teams. Many offensive players, many wingers, offensive spirit and many are playing at a high level. Have you known a season as drastic as this in terms of ill fortune? I would say that my results link me more to defeat than to success. In my personal career.

Jack Charlton: the survivor who came, saw and left on his own terms Leeds United's record appearance holder made his debut on April 25, 1953 By Jon Howe Jack Charlton of Leeds United circa 1970 (Image: Don Morley/Allsport UK/Getty Images) The beautiful contradiction of a football club is it is always changing, but also, it never changes. Leeds United in 2019 is a universe away from the club which Jack Charlton left in 1973 when he retired at the age of 38, and yet you can still sense him in the wooden seats of the West Stand, lining up for a corner in front of the Kop, or leaning against the crumbling brick wall out on Lowfields Road. Jack Charlton is in the fabric of Leeds United and Elland Road still, a part of the club’s DNA who will forever bring loyalty, commitment and fighting spirit, but also a sense of mischief which provides that enduring quality of being the outlaws who like to win matches more than they like to win friends. As an uncompromising centre-half, Charlton was unrepentant in how he went about his business, and in many ways was the walking personification of the methods of fear and intimidation Leeds used to overcome anything in their way. In terms of building a football club, Charlton represents the glue which held everything together, making 773 appearances and spanning generations from when John Charles was about to create his own legend, to when Don Revie was about to crown his. Charlton came, saw and left on his own terms, typically self-assured and unapologetic, but in between times, he left a legacy which is sewn into the very essence of Leeds United. It goes without saying one-club loyalty is a concept for a forgotten age of football, but even in the pre-Premier League era, Charlton’s consistent service to Leeds United was astonishing, representing 21 seasons at the club and a full 18, yes that’s EIGHTEEN, as a regular fixture in the side. For most of those, of course, he was a first choice centre-half, but Charlton’s career was not without its false starts. Leeds United team pose for a group photograph at Elland Road. They are left to right Back Row: Paul Madeley, Mike O' Grady, David Harvey, Gary Sprake, Jack Charlton and Norman Hunter. Middle row: Albert Johanneson, Rod Belfitt, Mick Jones, Terry Hibbitt, Eddie Gray, Peter Lorimer, manager Don Revie. Front row: Paul Reaney, Terry Cooper, Johnny Giles, Billy Bremner, Jimmy Greenhoff and Mick Bates. July 1968. As many players did at the time, Charlton came into the game with considerable life experience, despite his tender years. Hailing from the North East pit village of Ashington, and a family which presented no less than six players to professional football, he had already spent some time working the coal seams which held the community together, and also did two years of national service before becoming a first-team player at Leeds. He had even dodged an interview to become a police cadet to attend his first trial at Elland Road, and it was Charlton’s brusque manner and survivalist breeding which led to many confrontations with peers and authority alike. Charlton was famously pinned by the throat against a wall by the great John Charles, after the cocksure youngster had reacted with trademark arrogance when asked to take up a specific position at a corner. It was the kind of audacious confidence which could be channelled one of two ways, but thankfully, the belligerent Charlton learnt how to rein it in and use his wayward antagonism as a positive. As a player Don Revie had a number of run-ins with the ill-disciplined Charlton, who would often race around the pitch with the ball attempting to do everyone’s job because he had no faith in his own team-mates. Somehow Revie saw a leader in Charlton, however, and as a manager, brought a focus to his game which led to him becoming the enduring stalwart of his great side. Charlton made his Leeds debut in April 1953 in a Second Division fixture against Doncaster Rovers, and it was his emergence as a reliable centre-half which allowed John Charles to be moved into attack permanently to fully exploit the goal-scoring skills which were beginning to make his name. Charlton was an immovable object from thereon in, using the hard knocks of his upbringing as precious groundwork for navigating the brutal outlands of post-war professional football. 8th April 1972: Leeds United manager Don Revie presents Jack Charlton with a bottle of champagne and the Footballer of the Month trophy in the changing room after a match. In the bath behind them are fellow Leeds players Clark, Billy Bremner (1942 -1997), Bates, and Gary Sprake (standing). (Photo by E. Milsom/Evening Standard/Getty Images) If Charlton was a fierce competitor surviving only on his gut instincts and what God gave him, it rubbed off on others, and as Revie assembled a team around him, Charlton became the experienced head, a veteran of over 500 first-team games before the club had even won a major trophy. It also brought belated international recognition, with Charlton winning his first England cap shortly before his 30th birthday, and winning the World Cup against West Germany just a year later. That may well give a player a unique standing in the football world, at least until you consider Roque Junior can claim the same thing, and it certainly gave Leeds United a new status in the game, but Charlton was famously unconcerned about the trappings of fame and carried on as a model of consistency as Leeds began to accumulate medals and trophies of their own. Without doubt Charlton was an ungainly footballer, an over-harvesting of arms and legs. However, he was a committed and fearless player who excelled in the air, but also had an uncanny liking for running forward with the ball. He would baulk at the prospect of being compared to a modern day centre-half, in the ilk of Liam Cooper and Pontus Jansson playing themselves out of trouble via intricate passing triangles, but Charlton was far more than just a ruthless stopper. Indeed, he contributed 96 goals in his Leeds career, albeit many of them were the result of Charlton’s inherent nuisance value at corners and the slightly agricultural practice of planting the ball on his head two yards from goal. In essence, Charlton did as much as anyone to build the Leeds United we know today, and as a player who respected no-one, was instrumental in carrying out Revie’s mantra on the pitch and instilling a ‘keep fighting’ ethic which took the club into unchartered waters. Leeds players Bobby Collins Billy Bremner Jack Charlton April 1965 come home to Leeds Central station after their victory over Manchester United The Sun James Milne Jack Charlton is rightly celebrated as one of the greatest players the club has ever produced, and that isn’t just earned through loyalty or even ability, it is earned from being the kind of character which doesn’t come around too often and is impossible to accurately define. They don’t make them like Big Jack anymore, and you can’t buy players like Big Jack anymore. Players like him just arrive, find their place, do their thing and go. And that Jack Charlton did his thing at Leeds United is something we should be eternally grateful for.

Every craze or obsession needs a theme song - music so synonymous with that obsession and always ringing somewhere in the minds of those who live for it. Marching On Together is that for Leeds United, writes LeedsLive publisher Matt Millington. It's chorus is tattooed to the inside of the brain of every Leeds United fan, in the part which never forgets. It is stitched into the strip of every player who takes to the field at Elland Road, and sung by thousands in the anxious moments before every single Leeds United game. Les Reed, co-creator of Leeds! Leeds! Leeds!, later retitled Marching On Together, is therefore so influential in the Leeds United that followed the song's release in 1972. His words are ingrained in this club, and in every high and every low experienced over the past five decades. My first game was in the 2000s, and like every other fan I remember seeing Elland Road for the first time. And when you hear that song for the first time too, sung by over 30,000 fans, you get it. Instantly. We're in this together, no matter the score, no matter the result. 'We've been through it all together' is one line which means so much more in 2019 than it did in 1972, as if Les Reed somehow knew how much we'd need those words in the years that were to come - the belief that we will make it through everything, together. The acclaimed song writer penned hits such as Tom Jones' 'Delilah' and 'It's Not Unusual'. Over 50 years later and these pop classics might get a few people up on the kareoke once in a blue moon. Yet Marching On Together gets an entire stadium of fans on their feet. For that, this piece of work in Reed's extensive catalogue of chart successes means so so much more. At least for us it does anyway. While Leeds United and supporters gear up for the most important weekend of football in arguably 20 years at Leeds, both the club and it's fan base took a moment away from football talk to pay tribute to Les Reed. Some described the legacy he'd left for our club, others called for fans to sing it even louder in a packed Elland Road on Friday. No matter the outcome of these crucial weeks ahead, there is one thing that will always remain the same. Like it has from 1972 until now, and from now onwards. Thank you Les for encapsulating the Leeds United that we were and the Leeds United we were to become. Marching on together, side before self every time.

Songwriter Les Reed has died at the age of 83, his family has confirmed. He was well known for co-writing Tom Jones hits Delilah and It's Not Unusual, as well as Engelbert Humperdinck's The Last Waltz. Reed also served as a pianist in The John Barry Seven and conducted his own orchestra for more than 10 years. "We are all so immensely proud of everything Les achieved in his incredible lifetime," his family said in a statement issued to BBC News. "We know that his name will be remembered for what he did for music and that he will always live through his songs and compositions for the rest of time." "So sorry to hear the news of the passing of my friend and colleague Les Reed." said Sir Tom Jones. "Les was a gifted songwriter and arranger who was instrumental in penning many a hit, including two important songs for me... Les was a lovely man, a legend in the world of songwriting whose legacy will live through his music." Reed was also well-known to Leeds United fans as the co-writer of Leeds! Leeds! Leeds! - originally the B-Side to the club's 1972 FA Cup final single. The song became better known as Marching on Together and has been sung by fans on the terraces ever since. Reed is survived by his daughter Donna and grandsons, Alex and Dom. "A master of British songwriting has left us. Here's to the great Les Reed, a beautiful, gentle man who gave us giants like There's a Kind of Hush, Delilah and the Last Waltz," Spandau Ballet's Gary Kemp wrote on Twitter. He was "one of the most naturally gifted composer/arrangers I've ever known," said songwriter Mike Batt. "There will never be another one like him." Lyricist Sir Tim Rice added: "He was composer of countless hits that will live on for years, decades, to come. "All his music biz chums will miss him enormously and will never forget his songs, talent and generosity of spirit." RIP Les. Am sure MOT will be sung even louder on Friday.

Why Premier League needs Leeds United Henry Winter, chief football writer The Premier League needs Leeds United. It needs the mystique of Marcelo Bielsa, a manager so beloved by Leeds fans that two of them are in a recording studio working on Bucket Man as a musical tribute to his match-day seat of choice. It needs Bielsa’s intense, imaginative football. It particularly needs the passion of the Leeds faithful. There are some great travelling supports in the Premier League, such as Manchester United and Newcastle United, among others, and Leeds would be a welcome addition on the road as well as with the atmosphere that they generate at Elland Road. After Leeds played away to Preston North End on April 9, the police officer in charge of the away section at Deepdale praised the 5,516 visiting fans for being “as loud as ever and no issues, no arrests”. Leeds fans would represent an antidote to some of the ills besetting the Premier League. They are the opposite of the glory-hunters swooning because of a club’s prominence. Leeds fans might consider a half-and-half scarf if stitching together Leeds United and the Kaizer Chiefs, Lucas Radebe’s old team. They are the antithesis of what Roy Keane famously termed the “prawn-sandwich brigade”. If somebody mentioned opening a tunnel club at Elland Road, the ready wits on their terraces would suggest that it was probably an escape route after 15 years’ incarceration in the EFL. Supporting Leeds is a passion passed on from generation to generation. When they played Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday, there were children too young to remember the Premiership years leaning excitedly over the yellow and blue railings almost two hours before kick-off at Elland Road, high-fiving Bielsa and his players as they marched from the bus. Three hours later, a fan called Matt Richardson celebrated Jack Harrison’s winner so enthusiastically that he broke his ankle. A friend of his took a picture of Richardson in his seat afterwards, smiling, his left foot at a painful angle, continuing to watching Leeds before the medics arrived. As he was helped into a wheelchair, Richardson kept an eye on the game while doing a thumbs up to his mates, who took great delight when he was strapped in by shouting: “Seatbelt on”. Richardson later tweeted from hospital that “this is what supporting Leeds United does to me” . . . “but idc [I don’t care] because Leeds won”. Victory took Leeds to 82 points, four behind the leaders Norwich City and three ahead of Sheffield United with four games to play in the compelling race for the two automatic promotion positions. Leeds know they still have major work to complete. They also know how much they want it. If Leeds do go up, the city will acquire even more of a buzz, there will be more students switching there, and there will be smiles among broadcasters, knowing that noise is guaranteed at Elland Road. After Leeds were relegated from the Premiership after a 4-1 thumping by Bolton Wanderers on May 2, 2004, their then caretaker-manager Eddie Gray remarked defiantly: “It will not be the end of the club.” No chance. Not with thousands of Leeds fans singing louder and louder in trying to lift vanquished players, including one of their own, Alan Smith, who was in tears. And this is why Leeds United survived. The fans. And that is why 13 days later, as they bade farewell to the Premiership with defeat at Stamford Bridge, the Leeds fans sang We’ll Meet Again. Pablo Hernández, the 34-year-old winger, has been among the success stories under Bielsa. Barring some day-trips in the cup to elite venues, Leeds have been in exile for a decade and a half, away from all the riches and international exposure of the Premier League, and yet if anything support has grown. Millions were stunned when the actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who plays Jaime Lannister in Game of Thrones, went on Jimmy Kimmel Live to promote Series 8 and talked excitedly “about a guy who magically transforms the north into this beautiful paradise . . . and his name is Bielsa”. Coster-Waldau instructed the studio audience to shout: “In Bielsa we trust.” So a Dane is a Leeds fan. Why not? Leeds have a global appeal. Adversity has not alienated many. For many, there is enhanced pride at sticking by a distressed asset. All Leeds, Aren’t We? Coster-Waldau is. Hundreds of thousands are. When the club tweeted a picture of Elland Road before kick-off on Saturday, Radebe quickly replied in an emotional salute to this “field of dreams” he graced for 11 years. It is great men and players such as Radebe and Gray, loyal Leeds servants, that stir even more love for this club, and an even deeper longing for them to return to on high. Leeds also asked where people were watching the game against Wednesday, and were inundated with locations around the world, reflecting holidaying families on half-term but also the extensive Leeds diaspora: Dublin, Vienna, North Carolina and Coney Island, and Vancouver, Oslo, Cologne and Pietermaritzburg as well as Trondheim, Inverness, Bordeaux and Georgia. Leeds have suffered much in their 100 years, so many well-known tales: cup-final shocks, managerial defections, inexplicable refereeing decisions, administrations, points deductions, supporters slain, players on trial, overspending, goldfish worth their weight in gold, the sale of Elland Road, strange owners, knocked out of the cup by a postman, play-off heartache, a season without a shirt sponsor, embarrassing tours and a redesigned badge that so angered fans they organised an online petition of protest. Over the past 15 years in particular, the Leeds story has been part circus, total chaos with only the supporters staying firm. Theirs is an everlasting love, through thick and thin, almost gruel-like thin. Supporters kept turning up to be counted. When they then dropped into League One, they were the best-attended club in the EFL and would have been 13th in the Premier League. Whatever their status, Leeds’s support has always been full-on Premier League. On reaching, against all odds, the 2008 League One play-off final against Doncaster Rovers, many Leeds fans flocked to the Doncaster ticket office when their 36,000 allocation was snapped up in hours. After 23 minutes at Wembley, the multitude in the Leeds section launched into Marching on Together, soon joined by hundreds of their number in the Doncaster section. These are fans who kept the faith, even when they kept selling talent such as Luciano Becchio, Robert Snodgrass, Bradley Johnson and Jonny Howson and that was just to Norwich City. Sam Byram, Ross McCormack and Lewis Cook also went. Players went, the support remained. More locations poured into Leeds’s official timeline on Saturday: La Manga, Florida, Toronto and Tenerife, and Ko Samui, Kathmandu, Orlando and Sydney, and Madrid, Gibraltar, Alabama and LA. Leeds was certainly on Georgia’s mind. Matthew Fitzpatrick’s Keighley-born caddy Billy Foster wore his Leeds shirt under his overalls in Augusta, a Masters-stroke. In Bielsa he trusts. After 25 managers, including caretakers, in 85 years, Leeds have raced through 18 managers in their mad, maddening past 15 years (with Neil Redfearn in charge four times) but have now found a saviour in Bielsa. That is why they were watching in Bilbao and Buenos Aires, places where Bielsa is particularly revered. The meticulous Argentinian has made Leeds believe again, brought the atmosphere back, spent little, given youngsters a chance, got them playing from the back, made light of injuries, and always adhered to his style, even when results dipped. Even when 2-1 up against Nottingham Forest with ten men and 20 minutes left, Bielsa kept his team attacking. They lost 4-2 but didn’t sacrifice their principles. It is a purist ethos that has endeared Bielsa to such stellar managers as Pep Guardiola and Mauricio Pochettino. On it went, more missives from Leeds fans tuning in from Dallas, Seattle, Shanghai and Singapore, and Tipperary, Budapest, Sao Paulo and Oklahoma, and Kuwait, Mar del Plata, Brooklyn and Tennessee. Those travelling to Elland Road from Plymouth and Pudsey and all stops inbetween swelled their average attendance to the 11th highest in England (33,868). Others informed Leeds that they were watching “on my phone whilst out for a family meal”, “between my fingers”, “from behind the sofa” and “in A&E with access to a defibrillator”. What promotion would mean, if they hold on, is loyalty rewarded for those who keep turning up at Elland Road, and for those who moved away but tune in from afar, never, ever losing their love of Leeds United.

https://www.leedsunited.com/video/110374/extended-highlights-leeds-united-1-0-sheffield-wednesday

Last five games for the top 3:- Sheffield United Millwall (H), Notts Forest (H), Hull City (A), Ipswich (H) and finish with Stoke (A). Norwich Wigan (A), Sheff Wed (H), Stoke (A), Blackburn (H) and finish with Aston Villa (A) Leeds Sheff Wed (H), Wigan (H), Brentford (A), Aston Villa (H) and Ipswich (A) Given Leeds play two of their next three games on Sky does this give Sheffield Utd an advantage or is their extra pressure on them to win to put pressure on us.

Last five games for the top 3:- Sheffield United Millwall (H), Notts Forest (H), Hull City (A), Ipswich (H) and finish with Stoke (A). Norwich Wigan (A), Sheff Wed (H), Stoke (A), Blackburn (H) and finish with Aston Villa (A) Leeds Sheff Wed (H), Wigan (H), Brentford (A), Aston Villa (H) and Ipswich (A) Norwich with a 6 point lead should win the Championship but who will be 2nd?

Bamfords two goals:- https://twitter.com/LUFC_Goals

http://timeontheball.net/2019/04/03/the-idealist/ A Long read about MB.

Leeds United made a loss of more than £4m for the year ending June 2018 after pouring money into players, salaries and scouting, their latest accounts show. Companies House released Leeds United Football Club Limited’s paperwork on Thursday morning, which also revealed a rise in overall income from £34.1m to £40.7m. Despite revenues rising, the club did post an overall loss of £4,315,797 for the year, down from a profit of £976,367 for the previous 12 months. Managing director Angus Kinnear penned the accounts’ strategic report and put the “worsened financial performance” down to investment in players, salaries and scouting. A greater loss would have been posted, had it not been for an increase in revenue from player sales, largely the sale of Chris Wood to Burnley for £15m in the summer of 2017. Aside from the headline figures, the accounts reveal player sales rose from £8.9m to £18.1m, while catering revenues rose from £3.9m to £5.2m. Kinnear revealed £1.1m of the increase in the club’s overall revenue was down to gate receipts and £900,000 due to merchandise sales. The club made £1.3m from hosting Josh Warrington’s fight with Lee Selby at Elland Road too, while the investment from San Francisco 49ers made last year amounts to £11m.

https://twitter.com/BBCLookNorth/status/1113142552532856834/video/1 https://www.gofundme.com/brendan-amp-wendy-ormsby Ex captain Brendan Ormsby had a stroke in 2013 and his wife is his carer but both are struggling.

One way to get round the FL financial fair play:- https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/47789258

Not sure why Douglas came on for Alioski at half time but Douglas made a telling contribution with his assist for Ayling's goal even when he was injured. Playing through the pain barrier until full time tell us everything about Douglas and this squad of players.

Bolton Wanderers players refuse to train for 48 hours in protest over unpaid wages. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/47775158

I saw a good tweet yesterday. “Has anybody come down since the game yesterday?” “Yes, Huddersfield”

Huddersfield Town made an operating profit of £23.2m for the year ending June 2018 after one season back in the top flight. The club had made a £21.9m loss for the previous financial year when they were promoted from the Championship. In the Premier League, turnover went from £15.8m to £125.2m, although wages increased from £21.7m to £62.6m. This season, Huddersfield are bottom of the Premier League and 16 points from safety with seven games left. In the Terriers' latest accounts the club said that the amount they owed to owner Dean Hoyle remained "broadly flat" at £49.4m. The main increase in turnover came from a rise in television and Premier League revenues, which went from £7.5m to £109.8m.

From the YEP a good piece about Carlos Corberan who has just coached the Under 23s to the PDL North league title with 2 games left:- Very few people on the coaching staff at Leeds United have covered more road miles than Carlos Corberan this season. Monday night, when the club’s Under-23s won their league title away at Colchester United, was typical: home in the early hours of the morning, back in Thorp Arch at 8.30am. Between the first team and the development squad, he has prepared for or overseen 75 games, epitomising a boot room which never sleeps. Travel is part of life in his industry but a willingness to go wherever, whenever has given Corberan an education. He holds an eclectic CV: six years with Villarreal and three as assistant manager, a stint in Saudi Arabia as number two to Raul Caneda – a confidant of Pep Guardiola’s – a brief crossing of paths with Fabio Cannavaro, a head coach’s job in Cyprus and now, in England, a place in Marcelo Bielsa’s iron circle. “I wasn’t scared about which country I moved to for work,” Corberan says. “My only focus was developing my footballing ideas and trying to be a better coach.” Corberan is 35 but has been fashioning a career in coaching for 12 years. He grew up in Valencia and joined their academy as a goalkeeper but never played higher than Spain’s third division and was never delusional about his ability. “I finished my career pretty fast,” he says, “and I was 23 when I started to feel like my future would be more in coaching than as a player.” So he took a degree in sports science and began applying for coaching badges. He and Marcos Abad, Leeds’ goalkeeping coach, are from the same breed: no major playing careers to speak of but UEFA Pro qualified and employed at a high level. Bielsa, a defender who retired in his 20s, could relate to that. Villarreal, when Corberan was first given a contract there in 2006, were embracing the monumental shift in Spanish and European football caused by Guardiola; in and out of the Champions League and the UEFA Cup with Manuel Pellegrini on the touchline. “In one period in Spain, Guardiola started a revolution,” Corberan says. “The Spanish national team started to change their model of play because Spain came from a long period where they didn’t try to control games. “From this moment there was a link between Guardiola and the Spanish national team and the style of Villarreal was in the same direction. It gave me new ideas about how you can train teams and what the best methodology is to have one style of play. It’s something that goes inside of you. It changes your mind and changes your feelings towards football.” Guardiola’s football in certain respects was an extension or a hybrid of Biesla’s, much as Bielsa dislikes the idea that he had any influence on Guardiola’s genius. Corberan says Villarreal gave him the bug for “trying to control games with the ball, trying to keep the ball all the time, trying to dominate” and Bielsa’s philosophy at a very basic level is exactly that. Corberan was new to England but not to the ethos which now dominates Thorp Arch. It was different when Leeds contacted him in 2017 to ask if he would be interested in managing their Under-23s. The club were in between managers after losing Garry Monk and their development squad was down on numbers, to the point of having 11 young professionals and no spine. Earlier this week, the Under-23s won their Professional Development League with two games to spare. In the season before Corberan’s appointment, they finished seven points adrift at the bottom of it. Corberan was not a silver bullet but he – and Leeds – has revived that squad in the space of two years. He was recommended to Leeds by a colleague who had worked with him at Villarreal but relocated to Aspire, the ultra-expensive academy in Qatar which United formed a partnership with last season but speak less about these days. “I didn’t have any doubt about (the job) because I knew the project,” Corberan says. “I knew which people would come here. “I knew Ivan Bravo (the Leeds board member who ran Aspire) and he’s someone with high experience. Victor Orta was the same. We didn’t work together before I arrived here but I knew about the experience he had in Spain. And when you’re young, when you love football, England is special. To have the possibility to come to England but at the same time work with people who you think have high value, especially at Leeds United, all the conditions were perfect.” Orta, United’s director of football, recruited busily in Corberan’s first summer, building up the head-count at Under-23 level with academy signings, the vast majority from continental Europe. Corberan and the academy took the decision that, in order to develop the players with most potential, they would use some out of position, take risks with their line-ups and suck up some poor results. In the first half of Corberan’s first season, they won three games. “When I arrived, the important thing was to create a model of how we wanted to play,” Corberan says. “The first part wasn’t about putting players in just because you needed players to play. “For example, we made decisions to play without a clear left-back or without clear centre-backs. The idea was about which players had the potential to continue in this club and grow. Our priority was not results because, if our objective was results, maybe we would take bad decisions. You’d play players without futures here just because you need to get results. The idea was to know which players deserved to be here. Sometimes you have to stop your ego because of course, as coaches, we want to win games. But I understand that my project here is more medium-term.” Leeds’ academy has always been a collective mission. These days it has almost 30 full-time staff and more than 100 in total. Orta’s better signings made a difference, Corberan’s coaching has worked (in the past eight months, Leeds’ Under-23s have lost all of eight matches) but some who have come through the academy – Jamie Shackleton, Jack Clarke, Robbie Gotts, Bailey Peacock-Farrell – were here long before either of them. The Under-23s were lacking any impetus when Corberan came in but the academy was not in disarray. “This club have always developed their academy and put players in the first team,” Corberan says. “It’s not true if I tell you that I came to a club which wasn’t working.” Last summer, Leeds opened themselves up to a bigger revolution. Bielsa flew in from Argentina and laid out, in the finest of detail, how Thorp Arch would operate on his watch. Corberan knew of Bielsa – “when you’re a coach you try to know what the key coaches in the world are doing” – but did not know him personally and the appointment was followed by the recruitment a backroom team of regular Bielsa lieutenants. Before long, Corberan was invited into it: a go-between who would contribute with the first team but continue to manage the Under-23s, alongside a second academy coach, Danny Schofield. Bielsa wanted the Under-23s to train as his senior squad did and play as his senior squad did, with many of the better prospects working with him directly. Corberan was tasked with facilitating the crossover, to very good effect. The development side, in Bielsa’s image, have run their division ragged. Bielsa has felt confident enough in them to give first-team debuts to no fewer than seven graduates. “In the Under-23s we work like one part of the first team,” Corberan says. “One of my functions is to lead the process of the training with the Under-23s and to lead their games. This connection is key because both teams are working with the same idea, the same philosophy and with as close a methodology as we can. “When I was at Villarreal, we played versus Marcelo when he was at Athletic Bilbao. I remember when he came to Spain, it was the same – a surprise and everyone wanted to know how he was working. But I think you can’t really know until you are working with him. Then all your ideas change. “Until I started working with him, I only knew the opinion of the other coaches but I couldn’t feel it. Now I think that all the coaches who talk about Marcelo being one of the best coaches in the world, I totally agree with them. “He’s someone who likes to control all the details. To be a coach, it’s one profession which is never going to stop, which is never finished. He tries to control the game and this is brilliant because I have the same idea, the same passion.” Leeds have never spoken publicly about a succession plan for Bielsa, and no-one would seek to second-guess his longevity or his intentions, but Corberan is the one coach who will be left behind when Bielsa leaves. The others come and go with the Argentinian, a package around him, and Bielsa does not tend to stick in one place for too long. It might be that Corberan, on the strength of his impact with the academy and his education under Bielsa, presents an option for continuity when the time comes. “My ambition when I arrived here was to help in the role I had,” Corberan says. “Last year, I was only focused on the Under-23s, to create a base and develop a style of play. This year, they moved me to be part of Marcelo’s staff and my only focus is to be helping him with the things he delegates to me. “My only focus is to go year by year or step by step. This is enough ambition right now, not to think about other things which might be.”

How Birmingham points deduction came about:- A line has been drawn in the sand. In being docked nine points with immediate effect, Birmingham City became the first club in the Championship to be punished under the division’s Profitability and Sustainability – or P&S – Rules for breaching spending limits. The independent commission that doled out the punishment was methodical in reaching its decision. This is an important point to make, because a refrain heard around the nine point deduction runs along these lines: that it had waited until Blues were essentially in no man’s land, neither in danger of relegation nor able to climb into the play-offs, before handing out the deduction. Almost as if the punishment were arbitrary. It’s a murky issue, in this instance. The commission acknowledged that for relegation or promotion outcomes potentially to be affected by a points deduction, it was “far from ideal” a decision was announced only in the last few weeks of the season. “It is regrettable that in this case, for a number of different reasons, it was not possible for the hearing to be held until seven months after the charge was brought,” the commission acknowledged, without explaining further. Regardless of the timing, the commission was crystal clear on one point: “There is considerable merit,” it said, “for both the EFL and all the clubs in the Championship in having clear guidelines which provide some measure of predictability as to the severity of sanction which may be imposed in the event of breach of the P&S Rules.” Weeks after the EFL referred the Blues to a disciplinary commission after finding the club had exceeded losses of £13million a season from 2015/16 to 2017/18, the board of the EFL had approved sanctioning guidelines for P&S cases. For emphasis, sanctioning guidelines for P&S cases were not agreed and put into effect by the EFL before the charge had been brought against Birmingham City. The club was a guinea pig. But, crucially, the commission that heard the EFL’s charge against the Blues had the power to ignore these guidelines, if it so desired. More on that later. Under the EFL’s guidelines a points deduction of 12 points is imposed for breaching the spending rules: which is to be reduced by reference to the amount of overspending above the upper loss threshold – i.e. £13million. The lower the amount overspent, the larger the points deduction. So, breaches of less than £2 million would see a reduction of 9 points; and breaches of £15 million or more would see no reduction. With Blues having breached the limit by a little under £10million, the 12 point starting point was reduced by five to seven. Then, Blues had a further point shaved off for admitting expeditiously the breach. How six became nine was down to the commission’s conclusion that Blues’ defence – “the club deeply regrets its breach and has taken steps to avoid a repeat” – did not “carry much weight,” based on the evidence before it. Pointing, in particular, to the more than £20million breach seen last season, the commission underlined: “Those figures, and the trend in expenditure, are adequately taken into account by the guidelines, but the conduct which gave rise to the breach, in particular the spending on new managers and players in 2017, demonstrates a deliberate disregard of the rules.” Here lies the clincher for other Championship clubs: there is no blanket punishment merely for exceeding the £39million aggregate loss threshold; it is down to an independent commission, separate from the EFL, to judge how far and how flagrantly a club has disregarded the rules, and punish accordingly. Fundamentally, the EFL’s sanctioning guidelines ultimately constituted “instructions”; but the guidelines “do not have any legal force and are not binding on the commission,” it said, “which retains its general power to impose any sanction falling within [the EFL’s] Regulation 91.2” – including expulsion from the league, at the very top of the punishment pyramid. Also among the punishments in the 13-point list of Regulation 91.2 are a financial penalty, EFL membership suspension and a transfer embargo – sanctions which the club thankfully avoided. The wider footballing world now awaits a further Championship club being punished – as is inevitable, given the profligacy of club’s desperate to return to the big time – to see if a commission will continue to be instructed by the EFL’s guidelines; or if it takes action that goes above and beyond.