WALMOT
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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.0 -
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.0 -
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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.
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http://timeontheball.net/2019/04/03/the-idealist/
A Long read about MB.
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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.0 -
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.
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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.
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I saw a good tweet yesterday.“Has anybody come down since the game yesterday?”“Yes, Huddersfield”
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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.”0 -
Liquidators appointed after Leeds United entered administration almost 12 years ago have finally dissolved the original company which owned the club - with less than £750,000 paid to unsecured creditors.
Leeds United Association Football Club Limited, the firm established when the club were formed in 1920, was formally liquidated last month after KPMG filed its last report with Companies House.
KPMG oversaw Leeds’ insolvency in 2007 and was given the job of winding up the company which entered administration following the transfer of ownership of United to a new firm, Leeds United 2007 Ltd.
The Elland Road club were declared insolvent during the reign of former chairman Ken Bates in May 2007, with total debts in excess of £30m.
During a complicated and much-criticised process, Bates agreed another takeover with KPMG and bought back the club after Leeds’ largest creditor, overshore firm Astor Investment Holdings, agreed to write off debts of more than £17m provided Bates retained control at Elland Road, despite the former Chelsea chairman stating that he had no connection to Astor.
The rules of the EFL required Leeds to pay any football debts in full but the final report filed by KPMG on February 18 revealed that of more than £18.5m of claims made by unsecured creditors, a total of £745,568 was repaid.
The document, meanwhile, declared KPMG’s “time costs” for handling the liquidation as £548,751 and said the firm had so far been paid £499,008. The total cost of the process was almost £1m.0 -
Taken from the Dundee Evening Telegraph:-
For comedian Phil Differ there was no player better than the legendary Billy Bremner.
And for anyone who disagrees, the comic is set to try to sway audiences when he performs his new show Billy Bremner and Me at the Dundee Rep this month.
Phil, the man behind the annual Hogmanay television programme Only an Excuse?, tells the tale of his childhood dream to follow in the footsteps of the former Leeds United and Scotland captain.
However, his dreams soon fade as he realises there is one thing standing in his way – his own mediocrity.
Phil said: “I think lots of people expect to see me in a ginger wig pretending to be Billy Bremner, but it’s not a play.
“It’s an illustrated lecture of his life.
“I use music, slides and stand-up to tell his story.”
Like Bremner, Phil attended Stirling’s St Modan’s High School.
It’s this that Phil thinks made his admiration of the footballer so strong.
He said: “He had been through the school about eight years before me.
“I looked up to him so much because he was the captain of Scotland.
“Beforehand, I thought footballers came from another planet.
“For a footballer who had such a successful career to come from the same area as me was hugely impactful.”
Phil said Bremner’s archetypal Scottish charm also helped make him endearing.
He said: “You didn’t get a lot of games on television back in those days. I remember watching him on TV in the late ’60s. He looked like a real Scotsman. He had ginger hair and wanted to fight everyone.”
When asked how he came to realise that his professional football dreams wouldn’t come to fruition, Phil didn’t give too much away but did say he knew his life would take a different direction when he was about 17.
He said: “I think part of me thought that reading lots of books about football and playing Subbuteo would convert into the pitch and I would turn into a footballer. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case.”
Phil insisted that although he never got the chance to play football professionally, his love for the game hasn’t waned and in some ways he enjoys it better.
He said: “Although the show is a homage to Billy Bremner, it’s also about the joy of football.
“When you realise you’re not too good at the game but enjoy it for what it is, it becomes amazing. I still play 11-a-side at the age of 62.”
Although Bremner – who died in 1997 – is no longer here to witness the tribute to his life and career, Phil insisted he still has an idea of what he would say to his hero.
He said: “I think I would tell him I wished he picked the school team. I don’t think the gym teacher liked me.
“I would like to ask him who the best player he ever played against was. George Best said that Billy was the only player he never got the better of.
“I would be worried my mouth would dry up and I would hardly be able to speak.”
Billy Bremner and Me is at the Dundee Rep on Friday March 29 at 7.30pm.0 -
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Sad day as Bill Fotherby who brought Howard Wilkinson to the club and over saw the 2nd division title and last ever 1st division title has died aged 88.
This is a really good read from Jon Howe:-
http://www.jon-howe.com/pdf_files/TSB/Fotherby.pdf
RIP Bill
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Jon Howe's offering from leeds live:-
As a football purist you might expect Marcelo Bielsa to bemoan the craft of defending as ruining the beautiful aesthetic of football.
But then, where is the art in scoring a goal if you haven’t had to overcome a battle in order to do it? Certainly, Bielsa’s teams are set up with as little attention paid to the concept of defending as is possible, without being accused of negligence, but if Leeds have largely carried the notion that attack is the best form of defence this season, then Saturday’s 1-0 win at Bristol City was when the backline finally had their day in the sun.
In a season where a lamentable run of cheaply conceded goals has hampered United’s outright domination of the division, the last week has represented a coming of age for Bielsa’s back four and a clear sign that, with a fair wind behind them, Leeds might just have what it takes to complete this task.
Seven days on from Kiko Casilla enjoying his first clean sheet in a Leeds shirt in the comprehensive battering of West Brom, there was little mention of him achieving a second at Ashton Gate. Pontus Jansson declared it a ‘statement victory’. Many had hailed the Baggies win similarly, but perhaps the talismanic Swede was more on the money, as Leeds returned back-to-back wins and added weight to the argument that they are beginning to mean business at the business end.
We should remember that the foundation for any good team is laid at the back, and folkloric jesting aside, Bielsa will be acutely aware of that, and while he took the opportunity post-game to talk up the influence Kalvin Phillips has on the side, Saturday felt like some form of redemption for Liam Cooper.
He and Jansson adeptly repelled Bristol City’s advances in a second half which fell short of an onslaught purely through their understated competence. City manager Lee Johnson bemoaned his side’s lack of quality in a game where they enjoyed more possession than most teams do against Bielsa’s sides. After conceding 53% possession to his own side’s 47%, Johnson’s playful quip that he would like to face Leeds in the play-offs felt like his version of calling for a second Brexit referendum, his argument presumably being that much can change between now and then.
But on Saturday Leeds were focused, disciplined and unwavering, with the pivotal axis of Phillips, Cooper and Jansson central to that. On his 100th appearance as captain Liam Cooper joined an elite club, something that nobody would have predicted a couple of years ago. Cooper has quietly grown in stature and has come to properly represent what being Leeds United captain really means, both on and off the pitch, bringing a sense of prestige and honour back to a role too often cheapened by lesser players and lesser figureheads. It should be remembered that Cooper was an organic choice as captain amongst the players, and in a side of big characters, that is quite an achievement.
Cooper’s improvement manifests itself in his consistency. Where once you were waiting for a stumble or a misplaced pass or a hare-brained moment (see: Cardiff away last season) you now see a model of professionalism and leadership. In the build-up to Derby County arriving at Elland Road in January, it was fitness concern Pablo Hernandez being named on the team sheet that allowed most Leeds fans to breathe a sigh of relief, but Cooper returning to the starting line-up after a six-game absence made the most telling difference on the night.
His instant setting of the tone against West Brom with the header that set Jack Harrison away, was another example of quiet authority, and in a season where several players have enjoyed an unfathomable renaissance, Cooper’s is perhaps the most heart-warming. Had he been bought in the summer for, say, £3million, as a player we had no prior knowledge of, we would be talking of him now in the £10-12million bracket based on this season’s performances, which seems inconceivable but is perfectly fair.
In terms of a defensive unit, it is only now you can say that Leeds have a settled and agreeable formation. Jansson only played one of the first six games of the season, and had Berardi not suffered two unfortunate injuries, could we imagine Jansson spending the whole season sat quietly on the bench? It seems implausible that he would not play a huge part in this most compelling of stories, but then Berardi started the season majestically.
Phillips covered admirably after Cooper’s injury at Sheffield United but the team missed his effective smothering of the opposition in midfield, and in the full back positions, Luke Ayling and Barry Douglas have battled questionable form and Gianni Alioski appears to have finally found his calling in a white shirt as an attacking left back.
However, could it be in goal that Leeds have felt the most benefit from this season’s trials of circumstance? Just as at centre half, most Leeds fans spent the summer nervously surveying our options between the sticks and sat uncomfortably with what the club chose to start the season with. Had Jamal Blackman not suffered an unfortunate season-ending injury in the Under-23s would Kiko Casilla still be putting out the cones at Real Madrid? Quite possibly.
Casilla has brought some blossoming authority to the defence and Bristol City was as convincing as he has been. His gung-ho approach to coming for crosses, free-kicks and corners naturally brings the odd blemish with it, but ask any centre half if they would rather know for certain their keeper was coming for it, and thereby accepting the odd lapse, or take the chance not knowing if he was coming or not, and it is obvious how Casilla has benefited this defence.
On the rare occasions Bristol City saw a shaft of light on Saturday, Casilla was there to shut it down, and while it is perhaps fortunate that Bailey Peacock-Farrell was withdrawn from the side before a critical error was made, it is not hard to see how Casilla has brought assurance and confidence and has successfully completed the unit. Where Bielsa had to be ruthless, he was.
With Kalvin Phillips as effective and unblemished as ever, Leeds won this game from the back and if the West Brom win was dashing and cavalier, this was dogged and professional. Which shows how this team has evolved, and shows how, at a very timely juncture, it may just have found it contains every asset a successful team needs.0 -
4 minutes ago, The 49Bus said:
So given another great performance last night, is Pablo the best midfielder we have had since Strachan?
YES.
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Bees fixture to feature on Sky Sports.
Leeds United's Sky Bet Championship fixture against Brentford on Monday 22nd April 2019 (Easter Monday) has been selected for live broadcast on Sky Sports.
The game has been pushed back and will now kick-off later than originally scheduled.
Brentford v Leeds United
Fixture date: Monday 22nd April (Easter Monday)
Fixture kick-off: 5.15pm
Venue: Griffin Park
Wonder what Sky will do when we go to the PL
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New kick-off time for Sheffield Wednesday fixture at Elland Road.
Leeds United's Sky Bet Championship fixture against Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday 13 April has been selected for live broadcast on Sky Sports.
The game has been pushed back and will now kick-off later at 5.30pm
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Leeds fined over Bolton incident
Leeds United have been fined £5,000 following the brawl against Bolton last month.
Wanderers have been hit with an £8,000 fine, while Trotter boss Phil Parkinson has been fined £3,000 and given a two-match touchline ban.
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Guillem Balague is the host of BBC Radio 5 live's Football Daily podcast on Thursdays covering European football. Here he gives his view on Leeds United manager Marcelo Bielsa.
Leeds United hiring Marcelo Bielsa was never going to be a conventional or safe option, but the signs are it might just be a choice that could return this former footballing giant to the top flight for the first time in 15 years.
Over the past week, I spent four days immersed in his world at Leeds for a documentary for BBC Radio 5 live, which will be broadcast on Thursday at 20:00 GMT. Doors were opened so we could talk to players, staff and fans, plus we were able to observe training and grab some time to talk to Bielsa himself.
One of the more unusual features our team noticed was the fireplace where players and staff can meet, talk, relax and generally chew the fat. Its true importance might be discovered if they can find someone who can actually light it. For the time being, not unlike what is happening at Leeds more widely, it is a work in progress.
All around the club the talk is of the "one-off", complicated, obsessional Argentine coach. For once, when the fans sing "one Marcelo Bielsa, there's only one Marcelo Bielsa", they are actually hitting the nail on the head.
He was head-hunted in the summer by Victor Orta, the club's director of football, after he had agreed with owner Andrea Radrizzani, during a taxi-ride, to approach Bielsa. Orta followed that with the bold step of leaving a message on the Argentine's answering machine.
Soon after they visited him at his home in Buenos Aires. Bielsa had watched five Leeds games in the 24 hours before their arrival. By the time Orta made a second visit with chief executive Angus Kinnear, neither man could believe the extent to which Bielsa had already immersed himself in all things Leeds.
The 63-year-old had received tentative approaches from both Swansea and West Ham and was thought to be planning a trip to England to discover what it would be like to coach in England. Leeds would give him the chance to find out first-hand.
He joined because of the history of the club, because it is in England - a football land where he wanted to test himself - and mostly because he received assurances from Radrizzani, Orta and Kinnear that whatever Leeds would promise, they would deliver. That was the most important thing, bearing in mind he had been given promises that were broken while at Lille and Lazio, two short-lived adventures.
It tells us much about the man. With Bielsa it is all about personal relationships and mutual trust.
By the time he signed on the dotted line it was reported he had watched every single minute that Leeds had played the previous season.
"Poor chap," tweeted one wit. "What's he done to deserve that?"
It was "spygate" that brought him to the attention of a wider public away from Elland Road, when his snooping on rivals' training in order to try to gain some advantage became public knowledge.
But that is Bielsa right now: a man doing things differently. He is unique in his detailed approach to everything to do with the game. His assistants send videos regularly by Whatsapp to the players with clips of their own performances or of the rivals they are about to face. Bielsa, who prefers his helpers to have more contact with the footballers than himself, is obsessed by opponents.
Tactical dossier presentations aside, he keeps the media at a distance, something he is perfectly content about. But he does know, and points out to head of communications James Mooney, if one of the regular journalists, like BBC Radio Leeds' Adam Pope, is not in the room.
Much was made of a story about players being made to collect litter near the ground. It was done so they could realise that the world was not made up of people living in elitist and privileged bubbles, but rather "normal" human beings who had to work very hard and frequently had to do things they would rather not.
It's all about setting high standards that will stay with the club long after he has gone. He has changed the culture of Leeds for good.
He walks the four miles from his home to the training ground. His intense walking during games and his moments of crouching down on what looks like a plastic bucket is his way of dealing with constant back pain that has not left him since his time as a player.
There are also places for the players to stay in the training ground when Bielsa decides they have to.
The attention to detail is palpable. Specific reading lights have been put in the rooms and even the positions of the light sockets have been changed because they were not perfectly straight on the walls. And then there's that fireplace, installed to try to create that homely feel.
Training sessions are as intense as they are detailed. On Wednesday it is 11 v 11, with the preferred side playing against those aiming to break into it and sometimes one of the substitutes shines and earns a place in the starting line-up.
Thursday is more detailed and concentrates on repetitions of moves, explanations of what they need to do next, then more repetitions. This is all because Bielsa realises that, on the pitch, decisions are made by the players so there has to be a certain level of independence, born of instinct and natural talent. Over time a coach can also dictate those decisions to make them part of players' DNA.
From the office people to those who look after the facilities, all want to be part of what is happening. There is a buzz at the club - they feel like participants of something special.
Will everyone at Leeds 'get it' with Bielsa?
One doubt on his arrival in England was whether a group of Championship players would understand his methodology and his way of working.
These are still early days as those at the club come to understand him deeply and to realise that his philosophy is based on how he sees life, not just football. I am not sure that has fully reached those who Bielsa is trying to influence and help. But it will.
In the simplest sense, like the very best top coaches, he makes players better.
I asked if it had been difficult to get to the hearts of the English players and he replied: "No, exactly the opposite. They have running through every part of them the ability to respond to emotional stimulus."
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola once flew to Argentina and drove for miles just to meet Bielsa, and to talk football with him. "Everyone who works with him is a better player and the teams are better," said the Spaniard. "This is why he is a special manager, and a special person. He knows the game and reads the game like few managers in the world."
His coaching methods might not be the most advanced but they are meticulously detailed. It is on the back of this obsession about his rivals that 'Spygate' had its origins.
"The truth is," he once said of himself. "I have within me the capacity to be passionate, but not just about football. If tomorrow I cannot employ that capacity for passion into football then I will place it somewhere else."
He explains so much about his romantic understanding of football and life that he has built a following of pupils and admirers that have been working with him or have learned under him, like Eduardo Berizzo, head coach of Paraguay, and former Barcelona and Argentina manager Tata Martino.
And just like Guardiola, Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino has always admired Bielsa, even though they understand football quite differently. Above all, their teams do not change much depending on who they are playing, something that is an essential rule of Bielsa's tactics.
What is his philosophy?
Expectations at Leeds are high, with everyone at the club yearning for a return to their former glory days.
Promotion to the Premier League - they are currently in third place, two points behind leaders Norwich - would be a massive achievement, especially bearing in mind a significant number of the squad are the same players who finished 13th last season. The difference is that now everyone has improved.
"I think that the expectations of the fans are legitimate ones," Bielsa says.
"We know what a fan feels about the possibility of having the team promoted. But we have the same hopes as the fans. First of all because we desire the same things as them, and second because we assume we are representing the feelings of many people and this has to increase our strength."
This is not just a one-man band. Bielsa is surrounded by assistants, all of whom sing from the same songsheet, and interns from all over the world who come to learn, and compete to get close to him.
Bielsa is under no illusions as to the task and is customarily philosophical about how he can achieve it. This is him explaining his job with Chile, but can be used in our case study: "You have to work and give it everything but also recognise certain things could be improved. Very often I will insist on something, go through it again, revise it, multiply it, look at it again and then say to myself: probably best I went to the cinema, so I can see things from a different perspective. Sometimes it is easier to sort problems out if we do something different rather than keep obsessively looking at them."
What he does know is that he will only be able to achieve what he wants from the players if he loves them. Anything else will not work. "Whoever is loved will always feel safer and have that sensation of strength that will put him in a superior position to confront the battle," he said during his time as Chile manager. "I am quite clear in my mind that one has to feel sincere love for those he leads, and if he doesn't feel it naturally, then he must learn how to feel it."
Perhaps the best description of what Bielsa is comes from the Chilean sociologist Eugenio Tironi, who said he is "an excellent reference and role model for youth because he achieves results through discipline, rigour, but most importantly through enthusiasm".
Tironi added: "He is like a character in a novel, someone who sees the world from the point of view of a game and who lives with the obsession of achieving perfection."
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Posted by Juani Jimena in Facebook group ¨Leeds Media¨ 18 January 2019.
If someone wants to write me my email is: juanignaciojimena@gmail.com
Hello from Argentina. First of all, sorry for my english is not the best, but at least is
better than bielsa´s I'm in this group two months ago.
Why im here? First, because of Bielsa. Second, because i love football, i watch
football from all around the world. I like leeds before Bielsa arrive, and even more
now.
From the first moment I realized that the fans of leeds united liked bielsa, But I feel
that after the press conference the other day, you realized who is Bielsa really.
Think about it for a moment, I'm Argentine, what do I do here?
I'm not even a fan of the Newells old boys (Bielsa's team), im a River Plate fan.
The answer is because Bielsa is much more than a football coach. It is a way of
seeing life, and I'm not exaggerating.
We have Argentines, Chileans, Bilbao fanatics, Marseille fans, watching all the
Leeds United games, and even celebrating the goals.I screamed the goals of the
leeds this year, as if they were from the river plate.
Some other coach can generate that?. It will happen to you when Bielsa leaves
Leeds United. You are going to follow him. Watching Bielsa´s team's matches,
wishing him well
Some facts : In Chile, anthropologists, sociologists, analyze the influence of Bielsa
in Chilean society. Bielsa modified the self-esteem of Chilean society. When Chile
faced Argentina or Brazil, they thought before playing that they would lose. Bielsa,
made them believe they could.
He made them believe that they were just as good as them. In fact, they beat us,
Argentina, for the first time. That trust was transferred to the entire Chilean society,
which began to trust in themselves. Not only in football. what made anthropologists
interested in the Bielsa effect on the whole society
That's Bielsa.
In 2007 there were presidential elections in Chile. In a poll conducted majority of
society wanted Bielsa as president of the nation. It is good to clarify that the
Chileans above, do not like the Argentines. That´s Bielsa.
Throughout his career Bielsa had an enemy in common. Corporations or
monopolies of the press. In Argentina clarin, in bilbao the mail, in Chile the
mercury, in england sky. Why? First, Bielsa rarely gives interviews outside of press
conferences. The mediatic corporacoines are accustomed to inviting coaches or
players to their channels. Bielsa speaks to the press only at conferences, which
means that if you are from a local radio, or from the largest media corporation, you
have the same opportunity. Clarin, in Argentina, hated that. They criticized him for
not going to his television channels for interviews, and he received them only at apress conference with local radio stations. That's bielsa, equality. Regardless if you
are an independent media, or a corporation.
He once told a Clarin journalist, one of his phrases that I liked the most : ¨The
further away I am from you, and from what you represent, the better person I am¨
Bielsa is more than a football coach. But also as a football coach is the best.
Makes a team that finished 13th in the second division of English football, per
moment play in the same way as Barcelona or Manchester City.
He made all the Leeds United fans believe that you can also play like Barcelona,
that you will play next year in the Premier League, and you are already thinking
that Leeds will play an excellent role in the premier league next year. That's bielsa.
If a Bielsa team is winning a match 2 to 0, Bielsa will not take care of the result, will
go for the third goal. Running the risk of being tied or complicate the game. He
prefers risk before speculation. And that, is not only in a football match, also in life.
In life, you have people who speculate, or you have people who risk everything for
what they believe. Bielsa, risk everything for what he believes, me too. That's why
Bielsa is more than a football coach, he is a coach of life. Enjoy it, it can last for
years or days, with him you never know. Therefore, enjoy every day.
Sorry for the length of my posting, but I wanted to tell you how I feel. In this time I
have learned a lot from Leeds, and it is a fascinating club with fans and a huge
history.
Not only will you promote the premier league, you will promote playing an
incredible football, with honesty, with risk, with ideology, with values.
Greetings, friends. From Argentina
PS: "The recovery work has five or six guidelines, the limit is reached, the offensive
football is infinite, endless, which is why it is easier to defend than to create"
"I am an obsessive of the attack, I watch videos to attack, not to defend ... to have
the ball, to have authority"
¨Success is an exception and not a continuous'
"For me, trust is a synonym of relaxation, I prefer fear, because it forces you to be
attentive"
Marcelo Bielsa.0 -
From Football 365 about MB:-
https://www.football365.com/news/marcelo-bielsa-is-a-glorious-eccentric-who-is-here-to-stay
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1 hour ago, ICTChris said:
It's been reported that the 'spy' Bielsa sent to the Derby training ground is a 20 year old intern, who is also tasked with going to pubs before future opponents games and speaking to opposition fans about their players.
What a man.
While Leeds get set for a further delay in the ongoing ‘spygate’ case, The Times have reported some additional details regarding the EFL’s investigation.
The mysterious figure at the centre of the “Spygate” scandal — a 20-year-old intern brought to Leeds United by Marcelo Bielsa, the manager — was spending 24 hours before matches conducting undercover reconnaissance in the towns and cities of the club’s forthcoming opponents before being caught outside the Derby County training ground last month. Rather than simply spying on opponents, this remarkable scouting operation represented an attempt to get under the skin of every aspect of Leeds’ Championship rivals, which, in their submissions to the EFL, the club attribute to youthful enthusiasm. Throughout the season the Leeds intern has spent time around every Championship club from Swansea City to Middlesbrough, talking to fans, drinking in pubs and consuming local media to gain an insight into how the opposition fans would react during matches, as well as attempting to observe training.
The report also again dismisses Frank Lampard’s claim that the scout had bolt cutters on him when he was stopped by police, saying he had secateurs in his car.1
The Leeds Thread
in Misc Other Fitba Chat
Posted
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.