The Leeds Thread

[JakeSAFC]

West Ham and Sunderland after Wood, could be put off with the asking price being set at 15 million.

Wouldnt make sense for Wood to leave a promotion chasing side to join two sides who could be relegated.

[Bully Wee Villa]

You could get a far better player for that price. You should snap their hands off.

[Glasgow Loon]

http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/sport/football/leeds-united/leeds-united-reject-derby-county-friendly-proposal-1-8336738

Common sense prevails at ER.

[sergie's no1 fan]

40 minutes ago, JakeSAFC said:

 

Wouldnt make sense for Wood to leave a promotion chasing side to join two sides who could be relegated.

 

Could quadruple his wages though (guestimation)

38 minutes ago, Bully Wee Villa said:

You could get a far better player for that price. You should snap their hands off.

Wonder if Leeds could nab Rhodes from Boro for the rest of the season as a replacement. 

[Glasgow Loon]

SUTTON UNITED 0 LEEDS UNITED 6, FA CUP 4TH ROUND, JANUARY 24, 1970

Memories of Leeds United's 6-0 win have flooded back since the teams were drawn together again in the competition's fourth round, the National League team beating AFC Wimbledon in a replay to set up a tie that could earn them an estimated £300,000.

 

Here is how they made it through...

 

 

PRE-MATCH BUILD-UP

Isthmian League side Sutton had to overcome Hillingdon in a third-round replay to secure their progress to the fourth round against perhaps the finest team in Leeds United's history. Once they did so, supporters are said to have queued for four hours to get their tickets; 14,000 attended on the day. Leeds then had the best team in England, having won their first English title the previous year. Their million-pound XI - David Harvey, Paul Reaney, Terry Cooper, Billy Bremner, Jack Charlton, Norman Hunter, Peter Lorimer, Allan Clarke, Mick Jones, Johnny Giles and Paul Madeley - featured an international player in each position. At £165,000, Allan 'Sniffer' Clarke was then Britain's most expensive player and, according to mightyleeds.co.uk, Leeds manager Don Revie said: "Our team is insured for a million pounds, and it is up to me to do all I can to see they're safe. "The security arrangements must be watertight. Sutton have been working all week to improve their ground capacity, and they've also been erecting strong barriers on the low walls which separate the pitch from a recreation ground, but as I understand them I don't like the arrangements because the seats give instant access to the pitch and so to the players. "It wants only one mug with a bottle or a brick and a player worth a quarter of a million (pounds) is out injured, possibly at the worst for life. I don't like the set-up, and I told the police I didn't."

 

 

 

 

ONE-SIDED AFFAIR

Sutton's chances lay with scoring the opening goal and defiantly defending thereafter, and while they briefly threatened when England amateur international Larry Pritchard hit the crossbar and John Faulkner saw a goal disallowed for a foul, they were unable to break through. The visitors were as clinical as they were convincing, and Clarke - recruited from Leicester the previous summer - gave his side a 15th-minute lead and scored a further three goals. Club favourite Lorimer scored the other two.

 

 

 

 

THE AFTERMATH

 

Central defender Faulkner, then 22, had nevertheless sufficiently impressed Revie for the manager to consider him a potential successor to the 34-year-old Charlton, and sign him weeks later amid competition from Arsenal and Tottenham. At the final whistle, Leeds applauded their opponents off the pitch. They eventually progressed to the final against Chelsea, where they lost 2-1 in the first final replay since 1912. Everton ended the season as English champions.

[Glasgow Loon]

Telegraph Sport Football

Why Leeds United are marching on together again


Leeds United have found a togetherness this season that has been absent for years


Rob Bagchi

20 January 2017 • 11:54am

On Jan 20 1964 and the same day 26 years later, Leeds United were top of Division Two and finished both seasons, their last two successful promotion campaigns back into the top flight, in the same place after six months of occasionally jittery front-running. Today they are third in the Championship behind one well-run and one well-financed club, neither of which Leeds have been for decades. After years of distress, decay and discord, of perilous hand-to-mouth subsistence and the bleeding of the club’s assets - ground, training complex, staff, players, always players – to foot both running costs and extraordinary expenditure on gratuitous or avoidable litigation, Leeds have at last acquired an air of genuine stability.

And to understand why we can be grateful to two Liverpool heroes. The first, Kenny Dalglish, was the man who piqued Andrea Radrizzani’s interest in Leeds United last March. During lunch Dalglish spoke warmly of a club whose potential had been starved but not quashed and the fierce ardour of their fans. Radrizzani, a global investment and sports rights entrepreneur, began to analyse Leeds and 10 months on now owns half of it.

Because tact is essential to maintain equilibrium with his equal partner, Massimo Cellino, we know neither the specifics nor extent of his clear-headed influence as a brake on his compatriot’s impulsiveness and volatility. But if we contrast Cellino’s restraint and novel inconspicuousness since negotiations began last summer with the unrelenting turbulence that preceded them, it is plain that the club is acting less impetuously and more soberly than before.
Andrea Radrizzani has bought a 50 per cent stake in Leeds this month


It would be tedious to go through the saga of the past 25 years, from the moment the chairman, Leslie Silver, who had helped rebuild the club so judiciously that they won the title in 1992, recognised that sustaining Leeds’ rise and funding the transformation of Elland Road into an all-seater stadium could not be his burden alone.

Consequently a purchaser and a return on investment were sought and since 1996 the story can be told in shorthand by a series of symbols that negate the need for the well-worn specifics: ultimately worthless share certificates, Lucas Radebe’s armband, George Graham’s overcoat, an ‘O’Leary’s Babies’ romper suit, a hubristic manager’s diary, rented goldfish, the deeds to Elland Road and Thorpe Arch, Gerald Krasner’s glasses cord, Ken Bates’ beef wellington, his glossary of abusive epithets for supporters and ‘Ken’s pens’, Simon Grayson’s supposed ‘War Chest’, transcripts of GFH’s dopey WhatsApp conversations, surveillance equipment and Cellino’s whisky, beer and fags.
GFH's David Haigh and Salem Patel talked the talk repeatedly but never walked the walk during 14 months in charge


Since the summer of 2002, when the sale of Rio Ferdinand first exposed the scale of the ruinous financial wager Peter Ridsdale and his board had made, Leeds United has been more a Wes Craven version of the old Fry and Laurie Peter and John sketches than a proper football club. Off-field machinations have overwhelmed on-field ambitions because investment and long-term planning were replaced by perpetual crisis management caused by inadequate cash-flow and debt.

Leeds have lurched hectically from one owner to the next with some interludes of pluck in 2006, defiance in 2007-08, optimism from 2009-11 and self-respect in 2014-15. Throughout, while the club’s fortunes have been hostage to the whims of sulphurous or capricious men, the saving grace has been the fans. They, particularly the large, boisterous away support, have carried the torch, mounting the resistance, celebrating their sense of exceptionalism and wholeheartedly stoking the spirit of the club.
The 'shoes off' protest against Ken Bates' ownership in 2007


There have been civil wars where some have aligned themselves with various regimes and kindled feuds on social mediaby demanding common gratitude for the latest messiah and their preposterous retinue. There has been a stench of something horribly servile throughout from that fawning minority who preached essentially that everyone should know their place and let the owners get on and do as they please. They transferred their loyalty from the institution to the individual and cried ‘traitor’ at young players who were sold while forever fluffing the people who sold them.

Yet a 15-year decline honeycombed with strife could now be at an end and this is where the other Liverpool manager comes in. “At a football club there’s a holy trinity – the players, the manager and the supporters,” Bill Shankly once said. “Directors don’t come into it. They are only there to sign the cheques.”


Those fans old enough to remember the Revie era will always honour the role of the chairman, Harry Reynolds, but he, like Silver, did not demand the limelight as a just reward. When, more recently, the three-way bond has been there – with David O’Leary and his Champions League semi-finalists, Grayson and his League One runners-up and Neil Redfearn and his promising tyros - Ridsdale, Bates and Cellino were always muscling into the shot, forever reminding us of their presence. It may have been recognition they wanted, profile or thanks - but they ruined the dynamic with their habitual intrusiveness. It is not and never will be about them. That is why the notion of a quaternity that included an owner would have been nonsense to Shankly.

It cannot be a coincidence that the quieter Cellino has been, the better Leeds have fared, but there are several things he deserves credit for which do not pardon all the wanton interference of the past but do mitigate them. The most important was his removal of GFH, whose stewardship of the club for 14 months from December 2012 was clueless and vainglorious, and second is his appointment of Garry Monk last summer to become his seventh full-time manager in 24 months. He settled on the Monk after being turned down by Bristol Rovers’ Darrell Clarke and the fear was that he would go the way of his predecessors as soon as Cellino was spooked by couple of poor results.
The quieter Massimo Cellino has been, the better Leeds have been


He had twice before appointed managers with a distinct style and a long-term strategy - Darko Milanic and Uwe Rosler - and bailed out after functional, tedious performances were matched by a paucity of victories. There were firm rumours during Monk’s second game that the owner’s trigger finger was beginning to itch and the usual suspects on Twitter, the ones who call Cellino ‘The President’ and befriend his children on Instagram, began to heap abuse on the manager. Something stopped him. Radrizzani, who is firmly behind Monk, was already negotiating his investment deal at the time and, it is understood, advocated that the manager should stay in place.

Garry Monk has been given time for his influence to make an impact Credit: Paul Cooper for The Telegraph

Leeds lost four of their first six Championship matches, a situation that generally unnerves Cellino at the start of the season. In 2014-15 he sacked Dave Hockaday after four league games, the next year Rosler after 11. But this year Leeds stuck with Monk, gave him time for his young players to understand how he wanted them to play and bed in the four loan signings - Kyle Bartley, Pablo Hernández, Hadi Sacko and Pontus Jansson - each of whom has played a vital role. Bartley, the centre-back from Swansea, is a tough but elegant captain who puts his body on the line, Sacko a slick, unpredictable winger who excites with his dribbling and Hernández a Spanish playmaker with more skill and vision than Leeds have seen in the No10 role for a generation.

Monk and his assistant Pep Clotet have blended the products of Leeds' youth system with rehabilitated once-floundering signings and their own choices

But it is Jansson, the Sweden centre-half, who has been central to Leeds’ rise. It’s very rare for a player to come along and embody the way a club’s fans feel about it, to look like the kind of player they would themselves hope to be. Billy Bremner was one, of course, David Batty, Luciano Becchio at times and now Jansson. He has improved Leeds immeasurably and it is extraordinary what a galvanising effect his competence, confidence, commitment and volubility have made to the side. Most of all he has brought a sense of enjoyment back and is venerated for his willingness to get stuck in, some thunderous swearing and tremendous heading power. Give the people a cause and someone to personify it and you’re halfway there.
Pontus Jansson has been a transformative signing for Leeds


Other signings have been important, too, particularly Luke Ayling, the right-back, who shares a house with his former Arsenal academy team-mate, Bartley. Liam Bridcutt and Eunan O’Kane have brought authority and maturity to midfield and Kemar Roofe has both the tireless drive and flair that makes defending against him a physical and mental ordeal. But Monk has also improved his inheritance, bringing on the unflappable Ronaldo Vieira, transforming Souleymane Doukara into a bullying presence, burnishing Charlie Taylor and making Chris Wood punch his weight in the box.

When the tide began to turn with three successive victories in September, no serious supporter was demanding promotion: all they wanted was some respite from the gloom. On-field coherence, momentum and a degree of entertainment would have sufficed. But it has been much better than that and the way they tore Derby to shreds in the first half of last week’s 1-0 victory has fuelled belief. Twelve of their 35 goals have come in the last 10 minutes of games and the sense of team spirit and positiveness is palpable. Contrast this with 12 months ago when Steve Evans was talking about himself in the third person and Giuseppe Bellusci was expending more energy justifying himself on Twitter than he used to defend Leeds’s goal.
Chris Wood scores Leeds' winner against Derby last week, his 14th Championship goal of the season


On Saturday evening they take on Barnsley, another of their 16 games rescheduled to be shown live on television by the middle of March, with morale soaring. Monk, a man of serious purpose, has built a team that does everything the supporter wants to see: in the words of Bremner, it puts “side before self every time”.

Back in 1988, The Hanging Sheep, Leeds’ much-missed fanzine and the one that seemed to capture the essential character of following the club perfectly, wrote: “It’s often said that no club have a divine right to be in the First Division; well, we bloody have.” Whether they get back this year or later is beside the point. By rebuilding that bond between manager, players and fans, the atmosphere at Elland Road is electric and there is a belief that something special and sustainable is happening there.

 

Good read from the Telegraph.

 

[holme]

Thanks for posting that

[Rab B Nesbit]

[Glasgow Loon]

Leeds United co-owner Massimo Cellino has avoided another tax conviction after a charge he faced in Italy was downgraded from a criminal offence. Cellino has been acquitted in the case of the yacht ‘Lucky 23’ following a change to Italian law which decriminalised his alleged wrongdoing. The 60-year-old, who has been involved in several tax evasion cases during his spell in charge of Leeds, was accused of failing to pay VAT owed on a boat imported by him from the USA. A similar case, involving a different private yacht named ‘Nelie’, saw Cellino convicted of tax evasion by a court in Cagliari in March 2014, a ruling which threatened his takeover of Leeds and led the Football League to temporarily ban him from running the club in January 2015. Last May, Cellino was found guilty of evading tax on an imported Range Rover – a case which left him facing a second Football League suspension – but he was later cleared in that case after the offence was changed to a civil offence. The Football League’s Owners and Directors Test only takes account of criminal convictions. In December 2015 legislation changes also ended a case in which Cellino was alleged to have avoided paying tax in relation to transfers involving two Cagliari players, Edgar Alvarez and Joe Bizera, while Cellino was owner of the Serie A club. Cellino, who sold 50 per cent of Leeds United to Italian businessman Andrea Radrizzani three weeks ago, is due to start an 18-month Football Association ban next Wednesday after being found guilty of sanctioning an illegal payment during Ross McCormack’s move to Fulham in 2014. He is appealing that penalty and the FA told the YEP that it is yet to decide whether his ban will be delayed until after the appeal has been heard. Cellino, meanwhile, remains at the centre of an embezzlement trial which centres on the construction of a temporary stadium for Cagliari in Sardinia in 2012.

 

 

 

Edited January 23, 2017 by Glasgow Loon

[List_of_Jericho]

What a strike from Doukarra last night. Must admit I had him written off as useless!

Important to get back on the horse with a win and a clean sheet last night. I make that 8 wins away from a play off spot

[JakeSAFC]

Doukara's goal reminded me of Dickson's for Stirling vs Arbroath. Almost identical.

Doukara is someone I'm slowly warming to. Still have a dislike as he was part of the sick note six.

[Glasgow Loon]

Monks post match interview



Phil Hay
Gary Brazil on Doukara's goal: "If you were sat there watching it, you'd just sit there and applauded it. You can recognise the quality."
Monk on Wood: "To score 20 at this point is a fantastic achievement personally. His job is to remain focused and to want more." #lufc
GM: "Chris is a team player. You can see it. He doesn’t just do goals. He commits with and without the ball. He’s committed to how we play."
Monk on Doukara's goal: "You won’t see too many cleaner or better. It was important because it gave us that bit of breathing space."
Monk: "The main thing for us was to bounce back, to show a reaction straight away. That was our biggest motivation.” #lufc

LUfC Official
@GarryMonk "We are very pleased with the win, our sixth successive clean sheet and victory at Elland Road"
@GarryMonk "We wanted to bounce back and show we are a good team, that was the most important thing"
@GarryMonk "@NFFC frustrated us in the first half, we talked and tweaked a few things at half time, we were much better after the break"
@GarryMonk "It was a fantastic goal from Souleymane, you won't see a better strike all season"
@GarryMonk "I love defending and I love attacking, we have a really good balance here within our squad"
@GarryMonk "It is another step in the right direction, credit to the players, because they deserved that tonight"

[Jimmy85]

Leeds

[Scary Bear]

Leeds

Least they aren't Man United.

[Diamond8]

Leeds

Are going up!

[Rab B Nesbit]

On 14/01/2017 at 11:35, JakeSAFC said:

What a performance last night, Monk is some man.

 

On 14/01/2017 at 11:46, Glasgow Loon said:

#lufc have won five consecutive home games without conceding a goal for the first time since October 1970 under Don Revie.

   

 

 

18 hours ago, Diamond8 said:

Leeds are going up!

 

 

If we only went by this thread Leeds haven't lost a game all season. 

[JakeSAFC]

Leeds are still going up.

[Glasgow Loon]

Well Mr Monk sure made us the laughing stock of the weekend with his poor selection policy.

Making 10 changes was to much which he admitted after the game.

Also proves the youth players arent ready to step up and why we sold Mowatt when Phillips and Grimes arent good enough is a mystery.

Roll on Wednesday night when another 10 changes will be made with hopefully the proper 1st team playing.

Edited January 30, 2017 by Glasgow Loon

[Rab B Nesbit]

1 hour ago, Glasgow Loon said:

Well Mr Monk sure made us the laughing stock of the weekend with his poor selection policy.

Making 10 changes was to much which he admitted after the game.

Also proves the youth players arent ready to step up and why we sold Mowatt when Phillips and Grimes arent good enough is a mystery.

Roll on Wednesday night when another 10 changes will be made with hopefukky the proper 1st team playing.

Fair play Loon. Hope Leeds do get up by the way it was always a big fixture on the calendar. 

[Glasgow Loon]

Confirmed on the OS:-

 

https://www.leedsunited.com/news/team-news/21562/pedraza-joins-in-loan-deal